New photos and videos from Law School Graduation here.

So, this new stage has got me stumped. What do you do when your child wants to be independent, but is always overstepping the boundary? I can’t trust Andrew to be out of my sight for more than a few minutes.

Let me give you a few examples: going past the limits of where they can go in the front yard when I’m not there, sneaking a bag of candy and hiding and eating it, playing with water in the bathroom, stealing my piece of candy off the counter (after I had let them eat like five pieces each). And I have to repeat simple requests at least three times and resort to a harsher voice for something as simple as please come to the table for dinner.

Am I being overly demanding here? Maybe these are petty issues, but having to correct them all the time and basically threated them with punishment for every. little. thing. makes me feel like I am mad at them all day. I want to let them play outside or even upstairs by themselves, since they play together well, but every time I do, something gets eaten or broken or overly messy or overly dangerous.

Yesterday we had a great day, but I worked hard to keep them doing structured activities, and therefore dedicated all my time to keeping them in my sight and happy. I didn’t get anything else done. I need some time for other things…and I’m not even talking about some time for myself. I need some time for things the whole family needs like time to make dinner, or time to plan a grocery list, or time to set a doctor appointment.

I’ll stop the rambling now, but I really would appreciate any input. Especially from anyone who has been there, done that.

I’m not really one to get really sappy on this blog, but can I just tell you how lately I’ve been really loving being a mother. I can’t say that I’ve always love loved it. I think I’ve had my ups and downs with it, and have mostly averaged around liking it.

Having just Andrew was a new experience, and I struggled with a lot of things new mothers go through: being lonely during the day, learning to live with interrupted sleep, figuring out how to be productive when no one puts a deadline on anything you do. At the same time, I could still do a lot of adult things like grocery or clothes shopping, browsing any section of the library that is not the kids section, and working around the house without a “helper.”

With only 18 months between Andrew and the girls, suddenly I had three that were all practically babies and I hadn’t yet experienced little kids. There are a lot of positive things about an 18 month spacing between kids though, so overall it worked out really well. I had a little bit of a stressful time, when the girls were about a year, and I wasn’t really liking motherhood. It had a lot to do with having been cooped up inside all that winter, and I just felt tired of fulfilling demands all the time. Then the weather changed and I rediscovered how cute and sweet they all were. I loved taking them to a park and watching them all play while I relaxed in the shade. I learned to enjoy doing kid things with them, rather than trying to force them to do mom things.

About that time Scott and I started talking about having another baby. We had to time it so we wouldn’t have the baby during the months of May through August of last year, since we would be away from home. I kinda wanted to try for having a baby for before May, but in the end we decided to wait and time it for after August. All that year, I was enjoying being with the kids, taking them places and later teaching them a bit more formally.

Finally, we had Miles, and his birth was exactly how I wanted it, and I felt like I’d been wanting a new baby for so long. I’m enjoying him so much, and I’ve been trying to soak up the goodness of every little stage he goes through. Andrew, Zana and Elira love him so much too. They are always giving him hugs, asking to hold him, and helping calm him if he’s upset. We love Miles and he’s our little buddy.

I feel like having four kids has put us in a new category. I’ve mentioned to some people that before we seemed almost like the average American family that tries to have only two kids, but then we accidentally had twins and ended up with three. Since we made a conscious decision to have four, I feel like it puts us in a different category. Plus they are all pretty little. In most families I know with four or more kids, the oldest is at least 7, while Andrew is still only 4.

Even with four little kids, we love to get out and do fun activities. We love to go to the library, to the park, and even on a few errands. Miles is our little tag-along guy, while the “big” kids run around trying everything. I love being with them, I love teaching them, and planning our day around what they are doing. They make Scott and me laugh all the time, and they can be so sweet and loving.

Ever since we started having kids, I’ve known that it was a choice we made for me not to work, but I’ve always felt a little defensive about it. Like I have to explain why I’m not taking advantage of my education or something, and I’ve always kinda missed that I’m not a career woman, and I was always wanting to do something related to engineering on the side. Now, just recently, I realized that I really do have the best job in the world. It’s so much fun, so challenging, so entertaining, and I get to work with people I love so much. It’s all I really want to do.

The kids had trucked a bunch of toys into the  dining room for a “campout” and were eating snacks on the floor…specifically, they were eating the M&M’s out of trail mixes (hence the trail mix remains on the floor), fruit snacks, and drinking Capri Suns, all of which are special treats from having rotated out our 72-hour kit food supply. Also, they had spilled dry pasta all over the floor.

So, my question to you is, what is the correct parental response to finding the above situation?

• a. Get mad and explain that they know the snacks they normally get and shouldn’t take advantage of me sleeping.
• b. Just skip the lecture and clean it up with their help, because it was my fault for taking a nap. (In my defense they were in Andrew’s room when I fell asleep. I usually only let myself doze off if I can hear them and will be awoken by any suspicious noises.)
• c. Not let them eat any more of the special treats as punishment for getting them out by themselves.

So far, I’ve opted for just taking a picture and writing a blog post…probably not the strongest option. Better get to cleaning it or something.

Every General Conference that happens in April we rotate out the food that is in our emergency supply kits for our car. We usually keep a few days worth of instant soup, granola bars, tuna packets and other things that’ll keep in there until the next April.

So I had the kids emergency supply food bags set up so they could get the food out and put the new food in. Although, all this was supposed to happen under my supervision.

As is usually the case, Andrew got up this morning before everyone else and started helping himself to breakfast downstairs. He saw the emergency kits and I’m sure he was just overjoyed at the thought of all the snacks they would get to eat today. Then he found something even better: packets of instant oatmeal.

Not knowing what he was doing he opened his instant oatmeal, and added tap water (the preferred method of preparation by all…except mommy), only to discover that it was a hot chocolate mix. He had accidentally opened a hot chocolate packet. He thought it was a really funny trick…and we didn’t even plan any April Fools jokes this year.