Siena's first week as a first grader has gone pretty well.  Her favorite things are school lunch and... well, that's pretty much all she can talk about for the first half an hour home from school.  I love that she's a foodie first grader in a non-hipster way.

Recess is her second-favorite thing.  She came home from school the second day and told us that she proposed to a group of budding inventors (a.k.a. her classmates) during recess that they build a machine.  This is to be an extraordinary cleaning machine, as they have poured over the details for 4 lunch recesses now.  I was proud of her initiative from the second I heard about this machine idea, but the day she brought home a "blueprint", my heart swelled.  Since then, her classmates fellow scientists have brought her needed supplies.  For example, in the picture above you will see, alongside her blueprint, a diamond, a bobby pin, a few Q-tips, and a bag of grass.  I have asked her to label the parts of the drawing so everyone is clear, but she told me that it's really easy to know what things are just by looking at them.  :)  For the "dummies" out there, here are the names and uses for the parts, starting with the bottom left corner going clockwise: stairs up to the trash bin so responsible students can walk up to throw away their own lunch trash, a monitor for something science-y, three chairs for the trash supervisors to observe the lunchroom from above, a grabber used to pick up trash from irresponsible students, a time clock, and a slide (which I will explain in a moment.)  The center of the machine (which is on wheels, by the way) houses the control panel with which supervisors can push cool buttons.  It also contains a small bagging area where the grabber puts the irresponsible students' trash.  After that trash is bagged, it slides down the slide into a final trash resting place.

I know, I know... my child is a shining star in a sea of sickly, boring 1st graders.  We really need to get her into a science protégé group. (I wonder if I still have Bill Nye's phone number....)

Well, our Homestead has been a bit drama-free for a while.  No news is good news, right?  However, it makes for a very boring blog entry.

But I'll persevere and see if I can juicy things up a bit to excite the reader and myself, which probably happen to be synonymous.


Chapter One:  July

We've had quite a busy schedule, but how THAT happened escapes me since I can barely remember leaving the house. Let's see, first there was a new calling for me with the Young Women organization of our church; Juan also got a new calling in the Elder's Quorum Presidency, which has (thankfully) not been as rigorous as they all warned us it would be.  Subsequent to my new calling, I got to go to Girls Camp two weeks later for four days, which was a welcome break from Mamahood at that moment in my life.  It did, however, remind me that I should be grateful for the stage of life my littles are in right now.  I definitely can do without the attitude and laziness and self-centeredness and cattiness and... I digress.

We had a few weddings, a few ripe tomatoes, and a few birthday celebrations in July.  I guess I'll elaborate on two of those events:

Grandpa Wood turned 80 (see previous post) on the same day that Juan turned 30.  Since I was at Girls Camp that day, I promised Juan we would celebrate a week later.  The day after their birthdays was Grandpa's big surprise birthday party.  It was such a success!  First of all, he didn't do an about-face the second he got there so that alone provided a "Phew!" from all of us.  Secondly, it was a chance to reunite him with all his living siblings which was really quite a special thing for all of us.  (I did get a chance to follow-up from my last blog-post and record a conversation I had between his brother Harold and him.  If I can maneuver my way around technology, I'll post the recording.)

Juan's birthday celebration was held the next weekend and the kids and I took him camping.  It was the first time we had all been camping in a tent and in complete wilderness.  No, no.... I take that back, there was a fire pit already made when we finally chose a spot.  Regardless, we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere even though we were in the Uintah's behind Rock Canyon and could see Provo from a lookout not 15 minutes away from our campsite.  It did take quite a while to get there as we were probably not driving on a passenger vehicle-approved road.  It was such a fun night, despite the millions of attempts Ezra made at taking his life in the fire.  We had a cake and sang to Papi while the embers died down.  The idea of sleeping in sleeping bags in the tent was too exciting for the girls so we all decided to turn in early.

Well, that didn't last long.

Ezra became hyper.

Hyper is actually an understatement.  He wouldn't even sit still for a moment.  Eventually Juan and I decided to let him run himself weary through the tent while the girls drifted off to sleep, but even that didn't work.  After about an hour I held him close and realized that he had a fever.  We monitored it for a while and when it didn't improve, we stripped his clothes off.  By that time, it was pitch-black outside except the moonlight, so we didn't want to even attempt driving back since the road got really narrow in some parts.  I was worried as was Juan and we were in a predicament.  And the night just got worse. Ez started having fibral seizures (short and choppy seizures that come from a rapid rise in body temperature.)  He had had two before so I knew what they were and I knew that they are not too serious if they only last a few seconds.  He had a total of six seizures all night and since he wasn't sleeping at all, I was starting to think we were going to have to hike out.  Morning finally came and we packed up, skipped our planned hike, ate breakfast in the car, and hauled outta there.  Gratefully, with medicine and a nice, long nap Ez was fine by noon and we didn't have to worry any more.  "Happy Birthday dear Papi...."


Chapter Two: August.

Oh, the stitches! I have to tell about the stitches.

Ezra's just got BAD LUCK.

Long story-short: Ez fell down our flight of miserable, no-good, metal-fringed stairs that are at an awkward angle so no safety gate can fit.  I Hate. Those. Stairs.  I was at the bottom with my back turned to him when I heard a thump, bump, bump, thump...  I was there by the time he reached the bottom stair but it was not soon enough.  His head started gushing blood and I new he needed stitches.  Tender Mercy #1 of the month: Sierra happened to be visiting us that day and she was able to drive us to the InstaCare and watch the girls while I stayed with Ez.  The doc took quite a while to decide on whether to just use glue or to attempt stitches (turns out he has a tremor in his hand.  Such a sad thing for anyone in his profession.)  After Sierra bought some Benadryl for us at a pharmacy a few blocks away, we administered it to Ezra and waited.  And waited.  And still no sign of sleepiness.  Once the nurse started swaddling Ezra it was like World War 3 broke out.  He screamed harder and louder than when he initially fell down.  That boy does NOT like to be swaddled.  But the screaming and struggling just helped our cause in wearing him out and after the nightmare of numbing him up was over, he was lulled away into Dreamland.  Two and half hours later from our first moments with the doc, Ez had three stitches and two to go.  As his mother, I can say that I was extremely nervous with the overall outcome.  The last two didn't get done in time and Ez had woken up and started writhing in pain again.  I started crying and couldn't find the strength to pin him down for the rest, but the nurse helping was able to for me while the doc numbed him up again.  It was a horrible experience we hope not to repeat. Now poor Ez has a big scar we douse with Vitamin E cream daily.  Juan says it's a mark of manliness.  I say it's a mark of a negligent mother.