Put a lid on it

New Years Eve was full of experiences.

We went early to my parents to celebrate with my brother, Daniel and his kids and to save my mom and dad from the 9 grandchildren they had had at their house the night before!

This is what it looked like when we got here for New Year's Eve day... don't worry, I did all her dishes for her, but my mom is amazing and the kids were able to have so much fun with each other!

That's right, my parents had the 9 older grandchildren over for a night and boy did they have a great time. When I dropped them off the night before (Wednesday night) I stayed for a bit to help out and play a game with most of the kids.

We played Imaginiff and it was quite the experience with all the kids, but the moments that stuck out to me the most was watching Jman care for and watch over Sister. It was so amazing to watch his gifts unfold in front of me and he helped her through the anxiety of playing a game.

OK, so back to New Year's Eve. I made Thai coconut sticky rice for everyone because I found Mangos on sale. Plus we ate snacked and played games, of course!

We left my parents at 4:00, but Sister stayed back to play more with the cousins and we arranged for Kirsten to bring her home later.

Lindsey got to our house about 4:45 and we were off for the second portion of our evening—eating out with friends and checking out the lights at The Riverwoods.

It's become our tradition to come to dinner at La Jolla Gardens on New Year's Eve

It was REALLY cold

I love that the blue light makes it look like we have glitter on our faces... GLITTER!

Marc said this just looked like a snowman behind us...

Of course we had fun and I even tried something new, mushroom bisque. It was actually quite good, but I think I just got to much of it... a little mushroom goes a long way.

After dinner we all came back to our house to play games and stuff our faces with junk food! All our kids actually stayed up quite late and Baby was the only one who didn't make it to midnight. I even brought out the big pan and spoon to bang at the stroke of midnight outside just in case the neighbors were missing out on the celebration...

Yesterday we were able to say goodbye to my brother, Daniel and his family before they left for home this morning.

It's always hard to say goodbye.

Today was interesting.

I woke up early to take Baby to a primary activity for our ward (Primary is for children ages 18 mos. to 11 years old). It was a fun little breakfast to meet their new teachers for the new year. Sister wasn't coming because she's sick, which was OK with me because I figured it would be easier for me to be one-on-one with Baby.

It's a good thing it was just me and Baby because Baby turned out to be more than a handful.

You know, I really do wish I could say that I have a hold on this whole Fragile X thing... but I have no idea what I am doing, really.

I think I know.

I'll feel confident for a bit.

Then it happens.

The moment I realize I have not done enough to help my children out, to get them through transitions, to help them brave the change.

I'll save you all the details of her new teacher trying to do, what I thought to be, the right thing and others who care for Baby trying to make things better. I was trying all I could do, but it was all just a whirlwind of screaming, pulling, hitting, kicking, wiggling, running, slapping and pushing... and I was on the receiving end of all of that.

I left the activity, needless to say, a little early.

I felt like a horrible failure.

The Primary Presidency had tried to get in contact with me and meet with me several times and it just never panned out or I would get busy and forget to call back.

It was all my fault.

There was so much I should have done as Baby's advocate and parent.

I hadn't done any of it.

For some reason I thought that just meeting her new teachers would be preparation enough... what was I thinking?!

I came home and told Marc of my failure and tried not to cry, then quickly put a lid on my feelings of failure and went to meet DoctorsH for pictures up the canyon.

Pictures were great and I had fun socializing with them, but the whole time I was thinking of what a failure I was and that I wasn't doing all I needed to do for my kids...

I came home to switch places with Marc so that he could go back up the canyon and snowshoe with DoctorsH.

I started an early dinner that could cook in the oven and I started on a huge task of preparing picture schedules and stories for church and thinking of ways I could make it all a success.

I spent the entire rest of the day doing this, other than the short time I was able to visit with DoctorsH when they dropped by to bring us a Christmas present of home-canned pickles and homemade raspberry jam! Mmm!

Later this evening when I was trying to get kids to bed and finish up picture schedules and laminating and cutting, Sister decided she wanted bread and orange jam for her bedtime snack. Baby saw this an decided it was also a great idea so she turned to me and said, "bread." I got the slice of bread out for her and I started to put on the orange jam. She told me, "no" and ran to the Christmas gift bag we had been given and pointed to the homemade raspberry jam and said, "red."

I was so excited that she not only remembered our friends' gifts, but also that she remembered that it was the flavor she wanted.

I got a slice of bread out and spread the raspberry jam and started to hand it to her and she said, "put a lid on it." I proceeded to put the lid on the jam and she again said, "put a lid on it." She repeated this a few more times until I realized after her pointing to the bag of bread that she wanted me to put another slice of bread on top... like a lid.

I've spent all day on picture schedules hoping to help her with tomorrow knowing it might not even work, but she reminded me that all our work helps eventually.

She's 6 years old and she's already telling her mother to "put a lid on it!"

Ha!

I'm glad I've taught her what's important.