Caffeine-free October

As of September 30, I'm going caffeine-free for a month. I've been having trouble sleeping lately and have had an almost constant headache for a while now. Last Thursday I woke up with the idea that maybe cutting out caffeine might help. I don't drink tons of caffeinated drinks, but probably more than I should. I really like Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper. They're kind of my treat for when I get everyone down for a nap in the afternoon. Some people like chocolate, I like Diet Coke. But I am interested to see if laying off has any noticeable effect in my life. I'll try it for a month and if it doesn't work, I'm going back. For now my treat will have to be Fresca or Diet Squirt or Caffeine-Free Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper. 4 days down, 27 to go.

Labor Day

While trying to get Ruth and Lily to pick up their mess, had this conversation:
Me: Today's a Holiday called Labor Day.
Ruth: Really? Why is it a holiday?
Lily: It's a holiday? Yea!! (launches into song)
Me: It's all about celebrating the fact that you can work. So why don't you get to work and pick up all your toys.
(Amazingly enough that worked)
Ruth: OK

Later,
Ruth: Mom, I want to check the mail.
John: No mail today. It's a holiday.
Ruth: But if it is a holiday about work, then why isn't the mail man working?
Me: Oh, if you work everyday, then you get to celebrate by not working, but if you don't work like you, then you get to celebrate by working.
Ruth: (wheels spinning) Oh
Lily: It's a holiday!! Yay!! (Dances and twirls away)
Ruth chewed on that for a while. John and I laughed and I think she actually was more helpful then usual. I love creative explanations. They are my favorite.

Weekend Off

Last Thursday John and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. That means I've been married to John for over 1/3 of my life. Crazy!!

We celebrated by dropping our kids off at my parents (who are saints for watching them for us) and drove up to Salt Lake for a wild weekend of capitalizing on our kid-free status. Here's some of the fun things we did:

• We went to the temple and did some sealings.
• We ate out about 2 meals a day, and played a fun dice game called Farkle while we ate. (I love eating out!!)
• We went swimming at 10 o'clock at night. (I tried my new board shorts that I bought to go over my swim suit and I loved them!!)
• We spent a whole day having a board game-athon to see who would be champion of the world (or at least the weekend). I won but I just squeaked by. I think John was thrown off by the lack of interruptions by kids. He's used to playing under very different circumstances. See John's blog for more details.
• We screened the Joseph Smith movie. I know, we're slow but we didn't want to go and take all the kids and have it be too scary. Verdict: Ok for Kate, Mary and Emma; Too much for Ruth, Lily and Adam.
• We went on a tour of the Humanitarian Center. Awesome!! It made me want to make lots of quilts and other kits that they hand out from there.
• We walked around Temple Square.
• I got a hair cut. John watched and I'm hoping he can keep it trimmed up.
• I exercised in the hotel workout room.
• We basked in the silence.
• We didn't watch any kid's shows.

It was really fun to have a weekend off and get to have some good quality time with John. He's great and I love him. "Of all the fish I've ever caught, he's my favorite." (The kids were good for my parents. They got to run through the sprinklers every day, watch about 50 shows on ROKU, eat tons of food and play all they wanted to with their dog, Chloe. A good vacation for everyone all around.)

My Favorite Recent Mother-Daughter Conversations

Conversation #1
Ruth: Ya know Mom, some people don't know very much.
Me: Really?
Ruth: Yea, like babies don't know anything.
Me: That's true.
Ruth: And some people don't have very good minds.
Me: What do you mean?
Ruth: Some people just don't think very much.
Me: Uh-huh
Ruth: But, me, I'm thinking all the time. I'm thinking when people are talking to me, and when I'm listening to music and when I'm playing. All the time.
Me (in my head): I bet you are. I consider myself warned.

Conversation #2
I was in the kitchen cooking dinner.
Kate came into the kitchen.
Kate: What are you making for dinner?
Me: I'm making spaghetti.
(Long pause, raised eyebrows)
Kate: I didn't know you knew how to cook spaghetti.
Me: Well, I do. I know how to cook lots of things.
(Yes, this is how pathetic my cooking life has become. I guess I'll have to work on that.)
Kate: Oh. (Backing out of the kitchen fast. She's a smart girl.)

Girls Night Out--Payne Style

Tonight was Girls Night Out (or in, as the case may be). John took Adam to the fathers and sons campout, so we had to take advantage. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but finally I figured something out.

First, my mom came down and we went shopping. I took the girls to the dollar store and let each one pick out something. I paired them up in partners and drilled them that they were only getting one thing, or nothing if they threw a fit. It went as well as can be expected. Nobody threw fits and we made it out of the store after only about a half an hour (I think it helped that I told them I was only walking through the aisles once and once I reached the last one, if you hadn't decided, you weren't getting anything). It probably would have been much worse without my mom, but it worked out ok. I think the girls had fun. Maybe what they picked is telling: Kate- sunglasses, Mary-a glass birthstone plaque, Emma-a teddy bear, Ruth- a foil balloon all covered in flowers and butterflies, and Lily-a package of Lays Stax.

Next, after a couple brief stops where I ran in and my mom stayed with the girls in the car, we went to Wendys and the girls got to pick one thing for the main entree at dinner. Then we came home and supplemented with chips.

And we topped off the night by having popcorn mixed with M&Ms, a Payne family tradition, and watching the classic chick flick, Anne of Green Gables. The girls are finally old enough to truly appreciate it and it has been fun to watch it together. Their favorite part so far seems to be when Anne finds the mouse in the pudding. Big hit!! I do love my girls!!

Tara: Ireland's Royal Board Game

I always wanted a game named after me. When I found this at Barnes and Noble tonight, I just couldn't pass it up. Who could? Especially when it was on clearance for 50% off. Perfect!!

How many steps you got?

The kids' reward this week for doing their chores everyday was pedometers for everyone. Here's the background. The last DMBA health challenge was a walking one. You had to walk so many steps a day, and to measure this, John and I wore pedometers all day every day. Some how we ended up with an extra one, and so the older girls started taking turns wearing this one and seeing how many steps they could get in a day.

One day I saw Mary jumping from foot to foot in the back room. "What are you doing?" I asked. She said, "I'm trying to get to a 1000 steps." Whatever, I thought.

Another day I found Emma sitting on the side of our bed, bouncing up and down. Again I asked, "What are you doing?" She lifted up her shirt, pointed to the pedometer and said, "I'm trying to get more steps." Whatever makes them happy I guess.

So I picked up a pedometer for everyone at the dollar store and when I handed them out on Friday, you would have thought that I was the greatest mom ever. We spent an hour outside of the kids running around frantically, then stopping and comparing how many steps they had on their pedometers. Ruth, Lily and Adam ran up to me about every five seconds, pointed to their pedometers and asked, "How many do I have now mom?" It was pretty hilarious.

Adam, especially, got the routine down. For the rest of the weekend, he has been coming up to everyone, lifting his shirt and when they ask, "How many steps you got?" he answers enthusiastically, "Eight!" It's always eight, but he seems happy.

I never realized pedometers could be so much fun. I'm tempted to send the kids outside and say, "Don't come back in until you have 3000 steps." Sounds like fun to me.

Summer Fun

Emma's primary teacher told us that when they asked if the kids were doing anything fun or going anywhere this summer, Emma sadly said, "We're not going anywhere or doing anything." I laughed. That was just Payne kid code for, "We aren't going to Buffalo this summer and nothing else counts for anything." We do love Buffalo and we often drive out there, about once every two years. Last year we went for most of the summer. But Buffalo is not in the cards this summer. John can only take the drive about every two years and all our extra money went elsewhere this year.

So I sat the girls down the day they got out of school and asked what they wanted to do. We ended up making a schedule of sorts for the summer. I know that I always want to do a lot in the summer but if I don't plan it than we just sit around all summer. So our schedule goes like this:
Movie Monday (Scera movie tickets)
Library Craft Tuesday
Wii Wednesday
Movie Thursday (Scera movie tickets)
Outdoor Fun Friday
State Park Saturday
Each morning the girls have a different room to clean, and if they get it done, eat breakfast, and get dressed then they get to do the fun thing for the day. It has worked pretty well so far, but we're only two weeks in and the first week was soccer camp.

So, I'm pretty sure it will never be as fun as Buffalo, but I think the girls are having an all right summer. Here's to summer fun!!

Ruth's Quote of the Day

Today Kate, Mary, Emma, and Ruth all started BYU soccer camp. John took the older girls in the morning and I took Emma and Ruth in the afternoon. When they were picking up their shirts, Ruth, as usual, struck up a conversation with the t-shirt gal. At some point the lady asked how many brothers and sisters Emma and Ruth had. Ruth said, "I have one brother and (big pause) I don't even know how many sisters." Emma didn't seem to know either. The ladies laughed and I told them 4 other sisters, but apparantly too many.

Reading With the Kids

I used to read to the kids every night before I sent them to bed. We read all the Junie B. Jones books, and the Magic Treehouse Books, and the ABC Mysteries. The kids loved it and so did I. But it just kept getting harder and harder. The books that I wanted to read to the older kids were too long for the little ones and the picture books for the little ones were a little too simple for my older kids. For a while I tried reading some for each level, a couple of picture books for the little kids, and a chapter of a longer book for the older ones. I still liked reading to the kids but this method took soooo long and by the end I was always yelling at someone to stop screaming or grabbing my head or something or I was desparately trying to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep. I felt like it defeated the purpose of feel good read-aloud time. It was too hard, so I just stopped.

But I missed it. I missed talking to the kids about the books and discussing the stories. I felt like I hardly ever read to the little kids (I read a ton to Kate and Mary when they were little, I couldn't think of anything else to do). And I missed keeping up on the different series for kids that was easy to do when I was reading them for bedtime.

So I started little again. I began reading to Ruth, Lily, and Adam before naptime. But instead of reading to them all together, I read a short story to them individually, while they lay in their beds. I let them choose, and if they chose a chapter book, I would only read one chapter. I remembered how much I really enjoyed reading to the kids when they weren't being so crazy. And I felt that maybe it was offsetting some of the times when I was frustrated and got upset with them for being crazy during the day. Hopefully, it gave them something good to remember me for.

And then when our baby Hope died, I realized I needed to spend a little more quality time with each of the kids. But I also realized that it would have to be something that I enjoy or it wouldn't last. I love to read. So I asked Kate, Mary, and Emma if they'd like me to read them books at night. I told them that they could pick whatever book they wanted, but that I was only reading a chapter a night. They seemed surprised, but they each wanted to do it. They chose books and we started doing it.

I just go around each night and read each of the kids a story or chapter as they are laying in their beds. It still takes a long time, but the kids aren't being crazy (usually) and I'm moving around so I hardly ever fall asleep. And I think that sometimes it actually helps the little kids to fall asleep, because they listen to their own story and then to the story of the sibling they share a room with. And with Kate, Mary and Emma, I've been able to read some books that I've wanted to read and just haven't found the time for. Finally, it has also given us a few minutes each night for them to talk to me if they want to. I also started reading a story from The Friend (in place of their regular stories) on Sundays and we've had some great gospel discussions.

I have to be honest and say that I only average about 3-4 times a week of doing this. Other nights I have things I have to go to, or sometimes I'm just too tired. But overall I've felt really good about the whole experience. I still kind of miss the fun of being able to discuss a story with the whole family (I've got some great stories about things the kids have said while reading stories as a family) but I'll have to give that up for now. It has also reminded me how adaptive you have to be as a parent. What works one time may not work the next month or the next year. You just have to enjoy whatever it is while it works, and be willing to change when it doesn't.

One funny new development is that Kate has decided she wants to read me excerpts from things she's reading. That's fun too. And nice (but I can't promise I won't fall asleep).

Well, I'm finally finishing some of the books I've been reading them and I can't wait to see what they choose next.