NICU reunions

This has been yet another one of those weeks where we get to the end of the week and I don't entirely remember what happened during the week.

I do remember that this has been the week of the "nap-killer" (an ill-timed poopy diaper that either drastically delays naptime or puts it off all together): three days in a row Oliver fought me. Yesterday, he took a very short nap in the car and then refused to nap again.

Wednesday, the kids had some friends come over. I think they mostly obsessed about Pokémon cards (which, yes, they have finally discovered. Unfortunately. But I have to remind myself that I'd rather Andrew obsessed about something that requires him to interact with other kids than with video games). That was fun, but then we were late for Andrew's soccer game b/c of taking the kids home, and Dan couldn't come because his lab ran until 6. I've decided I don't much enjoy solo soccer games--Oliver makes it too hard to watch much of the game. I am very grateful that we have one week left of soccer.

Yesterday, I took the kids down to St. George for the NICU reunion that they put on every year at Staheli farms. We rode a hay wagon, selected a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, rode on a very rattly train, jumped on one of those pillow trampolines, had snacks, and saw some of the doctors who cared for Oliver during those first stressful weeks. He, of course, has zero recollection of that.

I think the kids had fun. I was a little stressed at the end because none of the kids wanted to do the same thing and I was having a hard time keeping track of all of them at once. (Okay, I think "stress" might have been a theme for last week. I have a deadline looming on Wednesday, but things should calm down a bit after that).

So yes, they had fun. And then I hid myself in a writing cave for the afternoon and Dan played with the kids.

I took Andrew and Evelyn for walks this week (separately) and realized I need to do that more: somehow, when they're walking and they don't have other distractions, they talk. A lot.

Evelyn told me: "Mommy, I don't like princesses anymore. Well, unless they have guns and stuff like that."

Andrew and I talked about marriage (his assigned topic for his talk this morning), which led to conversations about dating. I told him it was often a good idea to date in groups at first. He thought seriously about this, and then said, "so like you ask the girl you like and she asks her friends and you ask your friends?" Yeah, kind of like that. "And so, after you date for a while then you get more intense. That's when you start going on more and more expensive dates and to fancy restaurants and things like that, right?"

I thought it was cute that his idea of dating escalated to "expensive dates." I did tell him that money wasn't required. Dating is about getting to know people, and making friends. So then we talked about friends in school and he made some very smart observations, like how having friends means being nice and sometimes doing things your friends want to do even if you don't want to do it very much.

The walks were a good reminder that, as difficult as they can be sometimes, they really are good kids.

I like them a lot anyway.