Kyra Moon

All in all, it was a pretty good day. Jack had an appointment and I was able to tell the doctor what a wonderful baby he is. John was cute and not too disruptive there except when he wanted to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep. Both boys had shots and John didn't even cry (he didn't cry for his blood draw a few months ago either!), and Jack reacted how I expected -- cried some at the doctor's and cried for several minutes today any time I touched his leg. I don't blame him. Anyway, lunch and laundry and naps went pretty smoothly, and before too long it was time to pick up Jim. I have been planning to walk to pick him up sometime but I still felt like today would be a tiny bit too warm for me to really enjoy walking up the really steep hill with a stroller and a baby carrier, so I drove again. Instead of going straight home, we went to a nearby park with his friend and played for about an hour. Then we walked back to the car and strapped everyone back in. When I turned the ke...

Yesterday morning I went to city hall to get Jack's birth certificate. When the lady at the desk asked for my ID, I reached into my purse and pulled my wallet out to show her my driver's license. A thought suddenly popped into my mind. "You're going to leave your wallet here." Or, more precisely, "If you don't put your wallet back in your purse right now, you're going to leave it here." No I won't, I thought. I'll be careful! It's on my mind now so I'll pay extra attention to it! Besides, there's no point putting it back since I'll just have to pay with a credit card that'll I have to put back in my wallet and then back in the purse. While I waited for the certificate, I took Jack out of the stroller since he was fussing and walked around with him, keeping an eye on my wallet and purse on the desk the whole time. When I went back to the desk to move the stroller out of the way for another man, they told me th...

So far, it had been a pretty good Saturday. I no longer had any signs of the stomach bug that had kept me up all Thursday night throwing up and rendered me mostly useless Friday while Kevin was in New York. Jim seemed to be mostly over his cold. We were able to find everything we wanted at Aldi for the first time in a few weeks, finished the laundry in a timely manner, and got some good naps in for most of us. Now it was about 3 o' clock, and we had the rest of the day planned: go to a nearby splash pad for a little while, take baths, eat dinner, and then go on a tour to see and play the Yale carillon. We all piled into the car and headed to the closest splash pad. The parking lot was full, and there were tons of people on the field and the playground, but the splash pad was off. "That's weird," we thought. The sign had said it was open beginning Memorial Day, and this hot, sunny day seemed like a really good day to have it on, but no luck. Oh well. We knew of oth...

(posted on Facebook too) Eli, eli, lama sabachthani Over the past few years, I've come across several stories about those whose prayers have been met with silence. Mother Teresa's long struggle with spiritual darkness was re-visited as her canonization approached. Michael McLean spoke openly about his decade-long faith crisis. Professors, motivational speakers, and many others have described similar journeys through darkness, despite countless prayers and tears begging for some kind of reassurance. "In me ye shall have peace," the Savior promised (John 16:33), but what if that peace doesn't come when it's needed? What then? One of my favorite tellings of the Adam and Eve story describes a scene shortly after they have left the Garden of Eden. Adam prays, and prays, and prays, desperate for guidance from the God he once knew well -- and instead Satan shows up. Adam had already repented of partaking of the fruit, and forgiveness had already been granted. He and ...

Every night after reading scriptures, we recite a few verses from memory. The one we always choose first is "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25) Over the past few years, I've learned more about just how big a fall from heaven that was, and it's been overwhelming. In the past, I've generally thought of sin as an isolated, individual event, as are its effects. Sin might hurt you and the people closest to you, but that would be the end of it. A little bit of repenting would fix things up just fine. But for whatever reason, I see things differently now. Selfishness is always at the heart of evil, but it can be perpetuated a variety of ways, and sometimes it is taught as much as it is chosen. People do have agency, but it is often hampered by a variety of environmental and cultural factors. Although a terrible person occasionally has a wonderful upbringing, most people who choose wickedness seem to slide into it in one way...

Today, I visited the school Jim is mostly likely going to go to if the odds work out in our favor. I felt pretty reassured by my visit -- it seems like a cute place with reasonable policies (a whole half hour for recess after a half hour lunch, for example). As we saw the halls filled with 100th day of school pictures and Dr. Seuss birthday decorations and Valentines and shamrocks, I got really, really excited about him going there. (If the lottery works out :D) This whole process has given me lots of flashbacks from my kindergarten days. As far as I can remember, it was just 180 days of nonstop fun with my energetic teacher, Mrs. Cooley. As I recall snippets about Thanksgiving plays and Valentine teas and chicks in incubators, I think, "Oh, I hope my kids get to do this fun stuff too!" My kindergarten picture. Still not sure where it falls on the spectrum between darling and creepy doll.  Although I can't remember all the specifics (I couldn't say, for exam...

For all you history buffs out there, today marks 160 years since Almanzo Wilder was born. Since we just finished reading Farmer Boy  we thought this was another day worth commemorating. We never got around to drawing horses to celebrate, but we can do that tomorrow. As I've mentioned before, it's certainly been enlightening reading the Little House books this winter. We just started On the Banks of Plum Creek  and right there in chapter 1 they find out they have to live in a dugout. They live in the dirt! Poor Caroline! In thinking about it, though, I think we have life way harder nowadays. Here are some examples: They never ran out of their favorite crackers. They never had to flip the circuit breaker when it tripped thanks to running two appliances at the same time. They never went 3 days with a broken water heater during a snowstorm. They never had electric baseboard heaters in a state where you pay roughly 22 cents per kWh for electricity. They never felt gui...