Field trip chaperone

Conley didn’t realize that I was chaperoning an upcoming field trip to the New Mexico Philharmonic at Pope Joy. After school the day before, I asked him if he was excited for the field trip, and he said no. Then I told him I was coming. He turned and smiled and said, “Really? You are? Cool!” It was so sweet and sincere. He really was happy and it made me so happy. It was a moment I just never wanted to forget. There are so many things that are great about him, but one of them is that he only says things he really really means. He never says things to make you happy or whatever. He’s just totally authentic. So when he says something like that it means a lot.

Funny saying

What even do you know this person about?

She smiles at me

I’m sitting at Eloise’s gymnastics class, just watching her while I listen to a book. She is so sweet. She consistently cares more that I’m there than that other people are there or who else is there. She loves seeing me at school or when I volunteer for field trips. She always runs up to me and hugs me. During gymnastics, she’ll make eye contact and smiles so big. She’s so sweet. Fills my heart.

Eloise loves me and I don’t deserve it

She does so many things that are just so precious. I don’t know what I did to deserve all of her deep love, but I’m trying to soak it all in and appreciate it. Maybe it won’t last, but then again, maybe it will! Here are a few specific things. I lay by here at night and read to her. I read something scriptural or from a Christian children’s book and then also a novel. Right now we’re reading Anne of Green Gables and both of us giggle a few times each night. Anne is just so funny! Anyway, Eloise just smiles at me and puts her arms around me and kisses me and wants me to lay by her after I read. She always wants me to read more than I do. And sometimes after we turn the light off and we’re snuggling, I’ll open my eyes and look at her and she’ll do the same to me and smile so sweetly. She tells me she loves me a lot and today she said I was the best mama.

she wants to go with me on nearly every errand I run. She comes with me to play prelude every single week. She’ll cry if I leave without her. She stayed an hour and 15 minutes after church with me today because I had to rehearsals. She had the opportunity to leave twice, but she wanted to stay with me. when I drop her off at school, she squeezes me so tight and kisses me, and then when she walks through the gate, she sometimes wakes her hand in the air toward me even if she’s facing the other direction. And then she stops right before she rounds the corner and puts her hands in heart shapes. And I do it back.

Yesterday she and Conley and I made a lemon tart together. It was delicious and they were so cute and helpful. For some reason, they love zesting and juicing lemons.

Giving Conley the benefit of the doubt is always the right choice

100% of the time. When I have the foresight to give Conley the benefit of the doubt, what ends up being true always exceeds whatever hypothetical intentions I awarded him. 

He asks me to snuggle with him every single night. It's so so so sweet. He always talks to me. And always holds up the blanket until I lay down next to him; then he covers me up with it. It's so amazingly sweet. He can be crusty toward me all day, argumentative (his age and brain lend itself to that right now), push back, and then just turn into the gooest little muffin at bedtime. He tells me his sweet and sour, lets me pray for him. Lets me read scriptures to him and tell him stories, sing to him. The other night he asked me for a story, and I actually am not great at telling stories. They are usually short and lame and when I finish, the kids say something like, "Is that it?" But anyway he really wanted one so I told him about that time that Paul and I went hiking at the Menaul trailhead and saw a tarantula and Paul lost his mind like a little boy. And Conley wanted another, so I told him about jumping of the railroad bridge into a deep creek below and how fun that was, also with Paul.

Anyway. He's a good boy. It is always a mistake (because I am honestly always wrong) when I assume the worst in his intentions, actions, etc. I attach meaning to his actions, because he is different from me and handles things a lot quieter, more realistically, more logically, and sometimes insensitively. But that doesn't mean he is being mean or spiteful. He is often just thinking, deciding, analyzing. And sometimes he is just being a kid and getting distracted anyway! I pray for patience to remember this and apply it!

Unicorn horns have all the magic

 Eloise has been kind of loud lately. She reminds me of myself, and how adults used to tell me all the time as a kid to be quiet, settle down, lower my voice, etc. I don't necessarily want to be telling her that all the time. But sometimes it's a little loud for me. She is also full of emotions. She is pretty good at negotiating and reasoning with though. She is obedient and helpful. She acts promptly. I did say to Joseph that when she's a pre-teen and starts acting more emotionally or passionately, we'll need to remind ourselves that she was this way just personality wise, since she was six. Or maybe even before.

Anyway, she is still just my delight on a daily basis. I love seeing her, being with her, holding her, watching her. I love her little face and soft cheeks. Her lisp and her sincerity. Her big blue eyes and how excitable she is. 

We read this beautiful "Magical Unicorn Society" book that Gail gave her for her birthday sometimes at night. We read it tonight and there was a story about one kind of unicorn that has to live in cold temps or else its horn will melt. She stopped me and said, "Yes and if their horns melt, they will die." And I asked her why. She said, "Because that is where all their magical powers are kept." She gave more description. She still pronounces her r's as w's. So when she is really serious about something, which she was tonight as she described unicorns, it's just to die for watching her lips and cheeks and hearing her talk so seriously and importantly.

We kept reading and she interrupted again, saying that Unicorn Day was sometime soon. I asked when, and she said, "I don't know. Something like April 9th." We asked Siri on my watch, and sure enough it was April 9th. I asked what she wanted to do, and she said, "Hopefully find a unicorn."

Gosh it was so cute. I love her little heart and brain and mind. The things she thinks and wants and finds fascinating. 

Halloween with my sick girl

By the end of the night, laying next to her in bed, I felt so charged up, like supercharged with just metallic love and adoration for her. I felt like without even knowing it, she had this buzziness around her, this energy that just froze me, made me want to stay as still as I could and just watch her and feel it and soak her in. Singing "Baby Mine" to her caught my breath. She'd asked me to sing her a song. She held onto her two identical glow stick necklaces, one from a neighbor--one of the six houses we went Trick or Treating at, since she had fevered earlier and wasn't 100%--and one from the Trunk or Treat. She was so thrilled to see them light up. I gave her a bath; she thought it was cold. She loved the warm water coming out of the faucet when I turned it back on. She lost her first tooth last week (she kept her mouth closed and like hum-talked when I picked her up until I asked her if she lost her tooth and she couldn't help but smile) and brushing her little baby teeth was just so cute and magical. 

Laying next to her in her bed under her light pink comforter, all cozy, warm, and clean, i just looked at her perfectly soft and clear skin and tiny freckles on her nose. Her full lips and baby nose. She still looks like a baby if you look at her in the right angle and with the right eyes. 

She let me hold her during my Fed Jur class, probably for half of it. The other half she put her head on the table and held onto my arm. I picked her up early from school because she'd had a fever. I was so glad I got to her quickly and wasn't in the middle of class. I would have left, but still. There was also some freaky threat security stuff going on at Onate as soon as I picked her up, and I'm so glad I had her with me. There have been lots of mass shootings in the last week, so I'm on edge, thinking when's our turn. I'm keeping her home tomorrow and maybe the rest of the week? 

She was so sad to not go to Cameron and Christina's and trick or treat and have dinner with everyone like we do every year. She cried and cried before we left for class. In her tears she said she still wanted to wear her costume to my class. So we put on her pirate costume she'd picked out at Costco a few months ago. I thought it was just so cute and childlike--the insistence of wearing a costume on Halloween even though she was sick. When we walked into class, the teachers said something about "someone came in with a costume" and she immediately turned to me and wanted to be picked up, she was so embarrassed. It was so cute. There were those store sugar cookies I love and they gave some to us. She ate most of one. And I ate two:).

After class, I tried to appease her about not going to Christina's. I said we could get wanton soup at Szchezwan and trick or treat in the house, and she couldn't keep a big smile off her face. So that was the deal. Once we'd eaten, though, she said she wanted to go to a few houses. So we decided to. Before leaving, she wrote "Hallawen Trik or Tret" in a notebook and gave it to me with a pen and said to keep track of the number of houses we went to. We went to six. She was so cute. It was 48 degrees. She had a sweater under her tight pirate costume, so she was warm...and restricted...but didn't complain. She said Trick or Treat and got a few handfuls of candy and was totally content to come home and take a bath. She asked me to turn up the heater. She put on jammies and then said they were itchy becasue of the kind of string in one of the stripes, so we changed into another pair. She put on a diaper and then said that wasn't comfortable, so she changed into panties. We read the kids Bible and Betsy and Tacy and I sang her a song and then snuggled her. I knew I was going to stay in there until she fell asleep. I did. She just fills my heart with love. She always has. Every day of her life, she's brought me so much joy.

I think I can transfer my energy of wanting a baby and not getting one bc Joseph feels it will complicate our future into love for her and Conley, focus on them, energy toward them, time with them. My time is already so limited and I want every minute I have with them to count.