Hello, terrible twos . . .

I was wondering how/if the terrible twos would manifest themselves with Heidi. Overall she is a very sweet and joyful child, but sometimes if she doesn't get what she wants she can throw wild temper tantrums. I think they're much worse than any tantrums Kevin has ever had. I've gotten pretty good at knowing whether she's crying or throwing a fit, and I've quickly stopped bothering to console her when she's throwing a tantrum. I generally ignore her or put her in her bed until she has calmed down, because sometimes even looking at her is enough to prolong the tantrum another five minutes, and honestly if you try to touch her you're liable to get your face scratched. Oh, the drama! I'm not going to put up with that!

I do laugh sometimes, though.

We went in to check on the kids and Kevin was not in his bed. This is where we found him:

When I went to girl's camp, they tended to dedicate one or two mornings to sort of trying to teach us how to survive in the wild. One of the activities we would usually do was orienteering. This generally involved Brother Fowers handing out compasses that were tied to lanyards so you could put them around your neck, followed by a lecture and then some strange test in which we were supposed to find stuff that would tell us how to find the next stuff and then the next stuff and then the last thing. The only thing that ever stuck in the lecture about how to use the compass was Brother Fowers saying, "DON'T SWING MY COMPASS!" which, by the way, was very tempting since the compass was conveniently attached to a cord and was a nice weight for gently swinging. I generally succeeded in making myself not swing the compass, but I was always completely bewildered when it came to using the thing. It didn't take too long before I had decided that I just couldn't figure out how to use a compass and I would never get it.

I am taking a course about field methods in Geology. We are renting fancy Brunton compasses from the Geology department and we received an introduction to using the compasses on Friday.

I tried to have an open mind. I was determined that this would be the time I would learn to use a compass. And yet my subconscious still told me it was too hard and I had flashbacks to confusedly following the rest of my group at girl's camp and feeling like everyone understood it except for me. Sometimes I felt like I understood, and then all of a sudden Dr. Stewart would do something that to me seemed completely unrelated to what he just told us to do. And that annoying bubble in the bulls-eye level was moving in circles around the edge instead of going inside the center circle like it was supposed to. So I asked for help. I know, imagine that. But when you're paying for your education you have to learn to ask when you don't get it or else you will get behind really quickly. And then you will hate it and be miserable. Believe me, I've been going to college for seven years, so I know from experience.

We were sent out to the rock garden to practice. I felt bewildered. But I asked. And lo and behold, I can use a compass. My measurements are making sense and are fairly accurate.

Yay!! I can use a compass!!

Yesterday was cold, but the day before that Kevin was freaking out because he was so hyper, so I knew we had to get outside anyway. We went for a walk and I let Kevin explore as much as he wanted. He grabbed a plastic wagon from the playground and brought it with him, putting berries and sticks and flowers in it as we walked. We went slow because he stopped so much, so we didn't get to the Dean Dome, which was where he had wanted to go. He was sad that we couldn't keep going, but I could tell that he was getting cold, so we started walking home anyway. A memory flashed in my mind of a cold recess when I was in first grade. I was with several other girls and my teacher, and we all pulled our hands into our sleeves and then held hands so that we had our hands inside each other's sleeves so we could keep each other warm. I felt so pleased that my teacher was holding my hand inside her coat sleeve, and I still remember how soft and kind her hand felt. I took Kevin's cold hand in pulled our hands inside my sweater sleeve the way my teacher had done. Kevin looked at me gratefully. His eyes were happy and sweet. When we got inside of our building he said he wanted me to hold his hand inside my sweater again. I remembered how I felt holding my teacher's hand, and it felt good to be the grown-up helping the child this time.

I am not really one to make New Year's resolutions. If you're going to make a goal, I figure you should start working on it right away instead of waiting for a new year to start before you tackle it. But this year I've been thinking about some things that I want to accomplish, so I've decided to make a few goals for this year:

• Read Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
• Sew a little bit every week
• Read twelve books for fun (one per month)--those who know me well will probably be shocked that I even need to make this goal, but I am having a hard time doing much recreational reading these days and I want to make more time for it
• Read most of each month's Ensign

I think these are pretty measurable goals. There were a lot of things I wanted to add to my list, but I knew I wouldn't make much headway if I made too many goals. I think it's interesting that my goals are largely to spend more time on my hobbies.

Ryan's parents visit (November)

Ryan's parents came and visited us in November and now I am finally getting around to blogging about it. Here are some of the fun things we did:

Ryan's parents stayed the night at our house for the first couple of nights. We didn't have enough room in our car to take them anywhere, but we did go walk around UNC campus for a while and Kevin showed them some of his favorite places (the Dean Dome, the swimming pool, the fountains at the business school, and various sticks and berries that he thought were interesting). Then they moved everything over to Jared and Kristi's house because they had room in their van to take Ann and James to church on Sunday.

On Saturday we went and walked around Duke Gardens, which is always nice. The gardens still looked nice even though it was November. (Ryan gets credit for all the pictures. I always forget to take pictures.)

Cool lily pads

Cousins

After Duke Gardens we decided to go see the gristmill. The first thing Kevin did was turn off the gristmill. I don't know how he does it, but he always knows how to turn things on and off on the first try.

Sunday was church and we went over after naps for dinner.

Monday we went to Old Chapel Hill Road Park. The playground equipment is pretty unique. It has spinning seats, a rope climbing structure, a merry-go-round (different from the ones they had in old playgrounds that could crush kids), a climbing dome, swings, and a little bus. Jared and Ryan probably had as much fun as the kids. I think we forgot the camera that day.

Tuesday we went to Marbles Museum. Ryan wasn't able to come because he was teaching, but everyone helped me with the kids and we had a good time. The kids got tired and we left early to go home and have naps, but everyone else stayed later.

Wednesday we played at Jared and Kristi's house for a while and then went to Bennitt Farm (one of the places where the Confederates surrendered in the Civil War). The buildings are replicas because the originals burned down, but they still have the original chimney. Then we went back to Jared and Kristi's house and played some more and had lunch. After that we had to go home and get the kids down for naps, so we had to say goodbye to Ryan's parents. They went home on Thursday. We don't get to see our families very much because we live so far away, so we always love to have them visit and we miss them when they leave.

potty learning together

Ever since the potty training fiasco of last summer I've mainly been leaving Kevin alone about using the toilet. If I change his diaper and he's dry, I ask if he wants to go potty, and a good portion of the time he happily tries. Number 2 is still an almost hopeless case, which is quite depressing, but at least we're seeing a little progress overall. He usually uses the potty before he goes to bed at night and sometimes he goes during the day. So maybe he will be able to go on his mission without me after all. I just feel really reluctant to put any pressure on him because last time it backfired and it took months for him to even be willing to sit on the toilet again.

Heidi, on the other hand, is extremely interested in learning to use the toilet. She wants to sit on the toilet every time she has her diaper changed (no "catches" yet, but it's nice that she's interested!), and I have to wrestle her into her diapers with one leg over her tummy to get them on her. She also knows that Kevin gets marshmallows if he uses the toilet, so she always demands one after trying. I'm happy to let her sit and try if she wants, but despite her interest I don't think she's ready for potty training. I figure she can go if she wants to, but I'm not going to do anything in particular to push things. It would be really awesome if both kids would be potty trained this year, though. I certainly appreciate that Heidi's interest has put some pressure on Kevin to get going. : )