Things Lately

• Brooke was invited to a birthday party last Saturday for her friends Nolan's birthday. It was a small party, not too many kids were invited, and she got to play video games for the first time in her life. It was a Minecraft themed party. Brooke was quite concerned that Camille wouldn't be going to the party with her. She kept saying, "Please, can't Camille come to the party with me?" Those little girls. They just love each other so much and are always wanting to do everything together. It makes Mamma's heart happy.
• Camille's temper has been flaring something awful the past couple of weeks. It's like she's just trying to find reasons to fly into a rage at me. It isn't fun. Yesterday, we were getting ready to leave the house, and she said she was ready to get in the car and that she was going out to the car. I said, "Okay, awesome, go for it" as I was running into the bathroom. I closed the door, and she started yelling and crying and screaming at me. "I hate you, Mom!" "You're a bad Mom!" "I'm never gonna like you again, Mom!" Apparently, she didn't want me going to the bathroom. Apparently, she wanted me to take her out to the car. Apparently, that makes me the worst mom ever. She screamed at me for at least 10 minutes, and then pouted almost the rest of the way to our destination. Today, it was because I was doing her hair and was putting it into some cute, simple braided pigtails, and after doing the first one, she didn't want me to do the other one. But at that point, it would've been easier to just do the other pigtail than to undo the other one and do something else. Anyway, I did the other side and the same thing happened. She flew into a rage at me and yelled and screamed at me. And just 10 minutes later, when she wanted to bring a tupperware with a smoothy in it, same thing. She just seems to be looking for an excuse to hate me. It's not been easy. And I know she's only 4, and I know she'll probably grow out of it. But I still don't like it.
• Poor husband has been working such long days ever since we came back from Oregon. And I've been spending my nights after the kids are in bed reading, watching movies, going through 2018 pictures and things, yelling at the kids when they get out of bed. It's been fine. I'm more worried about Daniel than anything. He is really disliking his job. He's so ready for a change and to not have to work so darned much. 
• Jack is talking so much now. He's adding a ton of words to his vocabulary every day, and he's even starting to say short, but complete sentences: "I want my sock on." The other day when I was changing his diaper, he sneezed and then said, "Bess you." It was so cute and funny, he made me laugh.
• I started visiting Stacy Bridston last week. She's been on my ministering roll for 6 months, and I've never been to see her. I was just kind of intimidated, I guess, and shy, because I don't really know her at all. I dropped some Christmas treats at her house last month, but never got a chance to connect with her. And then since we got back from Oregon, I've been trying to find a time to go see her, but had been unsuccessful. Finally last week, I called her and then visited her and then took her dinner (she's been having severe pain in her shoulder, and unable to really do anything with it). And it was really good! I feel kind of silly for letting myself be shy about seeing her, because she's great, and it was nice to get to know her.
• Emilee Mapp, Emily Thompson and I started a preschool for our 3 little 3-4 year olds last week. We're keeping things really simple, not doing any kind of curriculum, and instead just doing activities we feel like doing and teaching whatever we want. It's only for 2 hours once a week, but it'll be nice for Camille to get out of the house and have friends to play with on a regular basis. Today we have it here at our house, and my plan is to introduce the letter 'A' and make playdough with them, but mainly I'm going to let them play together. Colton (Emily T's boy) is a little wild, so I'm kind of worried about his behavior, more than anything else. But it'll only be a couple of hours, and I'm sure it'll be fine.
• I volunteered in Brooke's class this week. Ms. Johnson didn't seem to have much for me to do, except for try and help a kid with really bad attention problems. I sat next to him almost the whole time and was basically railing on him the whole time to do his work. And he just wouldn't get it done. It was awfully frustrating for me, I can't imagine home Ms. Johnson having to deal with it all the time.
• Monday was a holiday, and, of course, Daniel was working. Brooke had school off, so in the morning, the kids and I went to Heather's house, and the kids hung out with her kids, and she and I went for a little run. It was SO windy that day, so running was tortuous. We walked quite a bit on our 3 mile run, but it was nice to get our with her. I spent the rest of the day, and much of the next day sneezing my nose right off.