THE SUPERHEROES' MOTHER

It's no secret that Superman and Batman are my sons. A lesser known fact is that they get their superpowers from me. For example:

Today all the kids took their sandwiches and carrots outside for a picnic. When Marcos came back in, I hugged him and he somehow transferred a wasp onto my shirt. I was collected, and told my little superhero to go get me some toilet paper. I learned from my mom how to squish a wasp in a little napkin or paper towel or what have you. It took Marcos forever to return with the remnants of the end of a roll of toilet paper. Lili took over as my toilet paper fetcher and returned quickly with an appropriate amount of toilet paper. By then, the wasp had walked across my ample belly, across my maternity shirt and on to my back. I couldn't see it and couldn't very well kill it with it crawling on my back. Lili and Ruben were rather concerned that I would get stung. I calmly brought my arms inside my shirt and turned the shirt around. Luckily, the wasp was lethargic and lazy and still creeping along as it turned up on my belly again. In a flash, and as my children watched in admiration, I killed the little pest and quickly disposed of its corpse, toilet paper and all.

Where do you think Superman and Batman get their superpowers and bravery? Let's just say the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Ka-pow!

St. Patrick's Performance, Vacuuming, & Dress-up

For St. Patrick's Day, our talented music teacher for our homeschool co-op (non other than my dear sister, Marianne) arranged for us to go and sing at the senior citizens' center. We needed to get our van worked on, so Edgar dropped the kids and me off at the post office and then he took the van. We walked from the post office to the senior citizens' center in about two minutes. We were early and none of the other performers had arrived yet. I decided to keep my energetic children outside until show time--a wise choice. Marcos was holding a wooden hatchet to be used as a prop in one of the songs and was hitting the trunk of a mature and sturdy tree. I didn't think anything of it, but a gal eating inside was not pleased. She came outside and yelled at Marcos:

"Stop beatin' on that tree! It's a livin' thang!" (I didn't spell thing wrong--she really said it with an "a".) I naturally felt like the horrible, negligent mother I am. I apologized and took the hatchet away from Marcos. Later, after we'd performed, the same lady made sure Marcos got a snack--even though he was too young to be one of the performers. So maybe she forgave us. Above, the kids were singing "Big Moon."
Here Ruben got to be the executioner and Lili was Anne Boleyn. The ax is a bigger version of what Marcos was using to abuse the livin' thang.

Ammon adores his dad and likes to do whatever Edgar does. Fortunately, that includes vacuuming.

Marcos took to calling himself Mary the other day. He wore one of Lili's dresses and her hair flower. Ammon was happy to join in. It's almost like having sisters. Ruben adamantly abstained from anything girly, but he was Buzz Lightyear--in his John Deere sweatshirt. Oh, didn't you know Buzz Lightyear is the space ranger that drives a tractor? One look at Lili's hair, and you can see why the good Lord is sending us another boy. I am very bad at hair.

My parents now have a blog, so if any in my vast readership are interested in the life of a missionary in Nauvoo, this is their address: markandcoralee.blogspot.com

Marcos's Tonsils are Still With Him!

Marcos

This week things did not go as expected. We had been dreading the Ides of March (March 15) for weeks. That was to be the day of Marcos's tonsillectomy. We were as ready as could be--Edgar was going to be off work for five days, he and our kind bishop had administered to Marcos for his operation, and my mom had put Marcos's name on the prayer roll of the temple. I had done my part by buying all kinds of juice, ice cream, popsicles, fancy straws and a special cup, pudding, and yogurt. I also bought three new movies and rented two more.

The night before his surgery, I had a hard time falling asleep. I was worried about my little guy. At midnight, he started making a lot of noise. He sleeps through the night every night, and I thought it unfortunate that he was awake on a night when he couldn't even have a drink of water. I decided to let him go back to sleep, but he kept talking.

Marcos kept saying, "Rashi (his name for Ruben), wake up!" I finally went in to find that my poor little pre-surgery patient had thrown up. He said, "I threw up, Mom. See?" I did see and I gave him a bath, changed his sheets (we've always kept all the twin-size sheets in Lili's room since she has two closets--that night as I fumbled in the dark for clean sheets, I realized how inconvenient that can be), and got him back to bed.

I called the hospital--they had said Marcos had to be healthy for two weeks before his surgery. The nurse I talked to said they would probably still do the surgery since Marcos didn't have a fever and since he wouldn't have anything in his stomach. I couldn't sleep and an hour later, Marcos called for me. Throughout he was very upbeat and seemed to feel fine. I'd told him to call me and not Ruben. As our deepest sleeper, Ruben wasn't Marcos's best option in the night. Marcos had thrown up again. New pajamas. New sheets. No bath this time. A half hour later, another cheerful "Mom, I need you," brought me to Marcos. New pajamas. New sheets. Again, no bath. This time, a brilliant idea--a little bowl to throw up in for Marcos to sleep with. He used the bowl for his last little episode at 2:00 am. I hadn't slept and why hadn't I thought of the bowl in the first place?

I called the hospital again. The nurse still thought they'd probably do the surgery, but wanted me to call back at 6:00 when the surgery nurse would be there. I didn't sleep too well until 6:00 when I got to talk to Twila (gotta love her name), the surgery nurse. She said they would not do the surgery. "But we're all ready...the other nurse said we could...my husband's off work...we're having a baby soon." Twila was unmoved. "If he vomited during surgery, it could be fatal." Oh. Never mind, Twila. We'll reschedule. Our new date to dread is April 12. Edgar will have to take the day off work, but we'll still have the new movies, the straws, and the fancy cup (I cleverly put them away) and the ice cream and juice will make it until then if I keep them hidden.

The day after his surgery was supposed to be, Marcos got up and said, "Mom, did I get my tonsils out?" Not yet, sweetie. When you get them out, you'll know it.

For my parents: here's a picture of the St. Patrick's Day snowstorm you missed yesterday. I think we got 8 inches of nice, wet, mud-inviting snow!

A New Goal

My new goal is to blog weekly while my parents are on their 18-month mission to Nauvoo, Illinois. That's a lofty goal for one as inconsistent and bad at blogging as I. We'll see how it goes...

Farewell to my sweet parents! I took this picture of them right before they went to the MTC, or Empty Sea, as my children are sure it is called. I have had the hardest time explaining about acronyms. They are sure Grandma and Grandpa are in the Empty Sea. "Why is the sea empty, Mom? Aren't there any fish in it?" Ruben prays that they can do a good job and the day after we said good-bye to them, Marcos wondered if Grandma and Grandpa were still on a mission. Yes, after all this time, they still are.

CELEBRATION WITH THE COBIANS: Things are not in very good order here. Blogger and I do not get along. I have a terrible combination I'm dealing with--my great ignorance of technology, my picture files that are as big as Russia (and I have no idea how to make them smaller), and a very slow internet connection. These pictures are not in chronological order, but all of them happened within the last week or so. Above are Josefina (Edgar's mom) and all her grandchildren (and Edgar). You may notice that we are a little heavy on boys on this side of the family (and Edgar and I are only contributing to the problem by expecting our fourth boy). There are 13 grandchildren and 9 of them are boys. Below is Abuelita with her four granddaughters. We celebrated Abuelita's birthday and Liliana's together. None of these sweet girls has a sister, but they all have at least one brother.

Tia Olivia (pictured) and Tio Sergio gave Lili a new bike for her birthday. Liliana was thrilled and our weather has been gorgeous--allowing for some lovely riding time.CELEBRATION WITH THE DAHLS: Our kids are so lucky (and so are their parents) to have a lot of members of our large families nearby. We always have two birthday parties: a Cobian one and a Dahl one. Two days before Lili's big day, we had the Dahl party. Isaiah drew these great pictures for Lili. We also had an extra Dahl celebration. Almost all of us were in Utah for the weekend (to celebrate our new niece's blessing in church) and we got together for dinner at Sizzler (Lili's choice) for a birthday dinner. I wanted to post more pictures here, but it takes far too long. Among others, Tabor, Katie, and sweet girls were there:

This table was a little rowdy as you can see. Lili had shyly told me she wanted me to tell the waitress it was her birthday. When I told the waitress, she said, "That's great," but there was no special ritual with clapping and singing. Marianne got us all singing happy birthday, though, and there were 24 of us present--we made quite a spectacle for Liliana's big day.

Edgar carved Liliana a lovely wooden box for her birthday. His woodworking hobby is my favorite so far. He made me a similar box for Christmas. Edgar is constantly surprising me with his many talents and with his desire to try anything he thinks might be interesting. If he looks a little tired in this picture, it's because he is. The poor man's been working a lot and he had just gotten home from his 16-hour day when I took this picture.

The day after Lili's birthday, we celebrated another great occasion--the blessing and arrival of our newest niece, Azure.

She's so delicate and lovely. It makes me so excited to have a newborn again. If I look like I've gained 60 pounds in this pregnancy, well, that's because I have.

The day of Azure's blessing was gorgeous and sunny. The kids mostly played outside and got very muddy. Marcos and his cousin Savannah are very good playmates. As always, Marcos insisted on being the mom and Savannah had to be the dad. I like to think he wants to be the mom because of the great role model he has. I make motherhood look like a blast!

My parents gave Ammon this adorable sweater and hat. This picture was taken just moments before Ammon dove face-first into the mud. Luckily, the mud washed out of his new duds. Speaking of Ammon, all he wants to do lately is go, go, go! He insists on wearing his coat and often his shoes in order to be able to go at any moment. He and Marcos have been trying to be the Lone Ranger (we've been watching Lone Ranger movies that my parents lent us). Here both boys are wearing hats they inherited from their Uncle Tabor.

Finally, here's a picture for my parents of one of the gorgeous moonrises they missed this week. I love a full moon, and it looks so pretty coming up over the snow-peaked mountain. Most of my posts will not be so lengthy--we've just had a lot to celebrate lately.

All Gussied Up

Edgar's sister Elsa got married last week and we finally got some family pictures taken with our new edition--who is none too new. He's already one, big as can be, and loves photo shoots about as much as his old man. Poor Lili's dress was supposed to be lilac-colored, but there was a mistake made somewhere along the line and the little girls' dresses came to us in pink--5 days before the wedding and from China. There was no time to send them back. Her dress was also about a foot too long. Thanks to a lot of help from my sister Marianne (okay, she finally just did it for me after I had to take out what I had done), I was able to hem it. The website from China advertised "Too many colors! Too many sizes!" Unfortunately, that proved all too true.

I also had a tricky run-in with a dress from China (different company). We hosted a foreign-exchange dress in lilac for a little over a week. It was a nice enough dress, but it didn't fit me. I e-mailed the company (there was no customer service phone number) and explained that I couldn't even get the dress zipped up. I had measured myself and was confident that I'd ordered the right size. They sent back an e-mail which said, in essence "prove it." I had to provide a picture of Edgar trying to zip the dress up on me. He had to hold a tape measure, showing that the dress was too small--not that I was too big. After that, they agreed to consider a return. I wasn't sure I'd have time to exchange the dress (it took 20+ days to arrive from China) and the shipping was costly, so I tried to sell the dress on ebay. I took a lovely picture of it on a hanger, but the hanger didn't do it justice. I tried copying the model's picture from their website, but it would only allow me to copy the bottom right hand corner. So I called Marianne (which is what anyone with that skinny sister in the neighborhood would do--she bails me out regularly and particularly when it comes to foreign formal wear) and asked her to pose for a picture. She's a good sport and was willing to do it. When she came over, I put the dress down on the counter. I didn't realize I had spilled oil there that morning when I had made pancakes. Marianne quickly noticed the dress was stained. Would anyone want to buy a stained lilac dress? I was distraught. We went ahead with the pictures--we were able to zip the dress up on slender Marianne. After she went home I noticed some of Edgar's orange soap that he uses to get grease off his mechanic's hands. Would that work on filmy foreign fabric? What did I have to lose? Lo and behold! It took that oil right out, leaving no evidence of my dirty counter! I confidently posted the dress on ebay. I had the option of inviting my facebook friends to view it. I chose not to--forgive me if you would have wanted that lovely gown. Days went by and then a week and nobody was remotely interested in my too-small evening wear. I decided to send it back to China. The company had kindly offered to pay up to half the price of the dress for it to be altered. I asked them to keep the dress and to give me what they would have to alter it. They surprised me by refunding the full cost of the dress and the cost of shipping it back to them on that slow boat. Actually, I speak too soon, They have said they will give me a refund, but I haven't seen it yet. In any case, it was fun to learn a little bit about Chinese culture by having that dress stay with us for a little while. She seemed to enjoy American culture as well, and she picked up English very quickly.

And now, lest you think Edgar doesn't ever smile, I captured him doing this when he didn't realize anyone was watching. Here he is with his brothers Sergio and Osvaldo:


Doesn't that smile look good on him?

Feliz Dia de Las Madres

While I was looking for a Mother's Day card for my mother-in-law today, I saw one that said, "You're not my mom, you're my wife." I didn't read the inside, but I thought it could aptly say, "So why are you the one buying my mom a Mother's Day card?"

Tomorrow is Liliana's ballet recital. I was going to buy tickets for it tonight. I called Edgar to see if he thought his mom would like to come with us. Now, since we're going to town anyway, we had thought Edgar would take me to dinner for Mother's Day--his idea :). Well, I called Edgar.

"Do you think your mom would like to go with us tomorrow?"

"Oh yeah. I think she really would. Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah." Why wouldn't it be? "It might be long. There will be a lot of little girls dancing to a lot of little songs."

"Oh." He wasn't sure if he should go on. "I thought you wanted my mom to come to dinner with us."

"Oh. Um. No. Do you want her to?"

He knew it was a loaded question. "Well, I know she would like to."

What could I say? A date with my husband and mother-in-law isn't quite the Mother's Day gift I was envisioning. A date with my husband who wanted his mom to be there too wasn't really what I had in mind either.

We were planning to have someone in Edgar's family babysit for us while we went on the date. It turns out they're mostly busy getting ready for a niece and nephew's First Communion on Saturday and our last-minute plea for a babysitter is ill-timed.

"We could ask my mom to babysit," he offered. He hadn't asked her out yet. "We'd have to bring Ammon with us."

Edgar's mom has a bad back and can't lift our overly-chubby (though adorable) baby. I've been on "dates" before with a baby. We take turns walking around and dancing with the baby and eating our food--cold. We don't get a chance to talk much or hold hands or anything. It's almost as fun as dating a mother-in-law.

In a moment of generosity, I said, "You know. It is Mother's Day. Why don't you take your mom to dinner and I'll take the kids to McDonald's and Wal-mart?" I know, either one would be bad enough, but I'm looking for martyr status here, so I threw both of them in.

He was smart enough to put up a fight and say he had wanted to take me. I made him promise to take me another time and he finally called his mom and acted like his plan all along was for just the two of them to enjoy a Mother's Day meal. He gave me a big hug and said, "She sounds really excited."

Ruben, who has been begging to go to Wal-mart (we don't get out much) gave me one of his big hugs and said, "I love you, Mom!"

As I looked at his dirty little glasses, his hair stiff with dried sweat, and his sunburned cheeks, I wondered what kind of woman would someday snatch him from me. I hope she's the kind of girl that will let him take me to dinner for Mother's Day--especially if I'm alone like Edgar's mom. Tonight I feel generous. I might not even file this experience away to bring up in the future when it could be advantageous . . . Time will tell. In the meantime, I'll remind myself that my dear mother-in-law has still cooked and washed socks for my husband for twice as long as I have. Happy Mother's Day!

Liliana's Birthday and Baptism

I don't know why this is underlined and different-colored. I know what you're thinking, dear reader: Why does Poor Olivia pretend to be a blogger? Well, it only gets worse. I am posting pictures of Liliana's eighth birthday. When I think of her tiny beginnings, I'm filled with gratitude for the progress she's made and that she's mine.

That's my swollen hand and my sick little Lili. These are pictures of pictures--I can't figure out our scanner and Edgar's at work. See, I told you it would get worse.
She was dangerously small--2 lbs., 1 oz. and 14 inches long.

Now she's a big girl who knows how to read scriptures! Lili with Grandma and Grandpa Dahl and the scriptures they gave her for her 8th birthday.This is how we usually do Lili's hair. She wanted to decorate her own birthday cake. She did a great job. It was easier to let her do that since I knew I would get to do her party cake all by myself. I'm a little psycho about cakes, which is a dumb thing to be into since they are very, very temporary.

Cousin Desi did Lili's hair. Isn't that something? She is so talented! This is the birthday cake for the party. I spent about six hours on it. And where's that cake I put so much into now? You don't want to know. Wouldn't it be better to be into sewing or painting or something that lasts? Even learning a few hair-dressing skills would do more for us than cake-decorating.

Since I did spend so much time on the cake, perhaps it deserves a little more press:

Here are the guests (and lovely assistants) of the party. It was a hat/hygiene kit party. Desi helped the girls decorate little straw hats, Jessica Ballard helped them assemble hygiene kits (in lieu of gifts, we asked girls to bring things for hygiene kits), and Liberty served food to everyone. It was the easiest birthday party we've had. It helps that my daughter and her friends are getting older--and that I have such helpful helpers.
With such a winning smile, who needs a wish?

Baptism Day--Deseret did Lili's hair again. Edgar's family wanted to know who did it. I kept trying to tell them it was me. "No, Olivia, really, who did it?" They know me.
All the fam--the boys got new sweaters for the occasion.

Lili in her new baptism dress.

Edgar, Liliana, and Abuelita--Lili got baptized in the same dress I was baptized in--my mom made it for me.
My parents with Lili.

My grandma Jaynes, Edgar, Lili and me.

Morgan, Liliana, and Carolina. We had dinner at the church after the baptism.

Lili's friends gave her new pajamas and a Pillow Pet. (I keep calling it a Pet Pillow much to Lili's consternation.) That night when I tucked her in, she said, "Now I'm really a member of the Church!" She's not faking it anymore.