Updates on the California Watts Folk

We’ve hit the 6-month mark of our California adventure! We’re enjoying low utilities, beautiful weather, less poisonous spiders, birds singing all the day long, and blossoming flowers. We’ve visited the Redwoods of Henry Cowell State Park, Pier 39 in San Francisco, Myrtle Beach, and the Children’s Discovery Museum. Oh, and the Googleplex, which was mostly sorta interesting.

There’s lots more to see, and we’ll get there--eventually! Right now we spend most of our Saturdays recuperating from the week. That’s what raising three young humans will do to you.

How’s Clayton doing?
Clayton is happy working on his mini-team of the Google Translate team. The sheer size of Google presents programmers with quite the learning curve, so he has spent most of the recent months learning, learning, learning. But he likes learning and being a part of it all. (I also want to add that out of the four other people on his mini-team, three are women! Including his boss! So cool.)

When at home, Clayton is either playing with our children or working on his latest nerdy project--in this case, the robot I bought for his birthday! As in, first I searched for robots online, then searched for robots for people who aren’t newbies, then finally gave up and told him, “Hey, I’m buying you a robot for your birthday, surprise! You get to pick it out.” So he bought a robot that came in pieces, and lots of LOTS of little wires, and put it together. It’s very programmable, with lots of features to add, so he’ll be tinkering with this little guy for a long time. His love of rockets is also still going strong and we watch the SpaceX launches online whenever we can.

Just call me Wires

How’s Shauna doing?
Well, I’m loving the weather and our yard, which tempts the girls outside at least every other day and they’ll play for hours (when they’re not cranky and fighting over everything).

Clayton and I are working on a schedule that will allow me to work on writing my story at least a couple times a week, if not more. We bought Scrivener, a program just for writers, and not only has it stoked my creative fire, it’s showed me that I’m barely halfway done with my book. (Yikes!) I mean, I have scenes I still need to write, but I have lots more I need to figure out too. I’m hoping to make progress with our new schedule, which relies on me staying on top of dinner all by myself each day...not my strong point, but at least I’m greatly motivated!

Then there’s my health. I’m tired, I don’t eat healthy often enough, and I’m not exercising. Going on walks and runs is something else we’re trying to incorporate into our lives. Exercising is my miracle juice, boosting both my energy and my appetite. We’ll make it happen!

How’s Ariana doing?

We received a letter confirming Ariana’s school for Transitional Kindergarten in the fall! It’s a school ten minutes away, and she’ll be doing half-day in the mornings. Her new schedule is gonna rock my mornings. I’ve been preparing mentally for these mornings for a while now, but putting all that prep into practice is gonna take time. I still remember needing an alarm clock for school when I was in elementary. (Translation: not a morning person.)

But she is SO excited. She’s excited for friends and she’s excited to learn. She’s still not in preschool, which I regret only because she just longs for that social learning and interaction. Academically, Ari’s doing great--she’s reading! One of my favorite times of the day is helping her through a book after Levi and Brielle go down for naps. She even brought a few books with her during one of our trips for a Walmart grocery pickup. She reads the backs of cereal boxes, the names of episodes on her shows, and the brand names of random items on our dinner table. She loves words and has tried her hand at spelling too. (She’s a good sport whenever she’s written a bunch of words and then neither she nor I can decipher them later.)

Ariana likes to help me make dinner, clean, put away laundry, or any odd thing she thinks she can do. She loves to play with her brother Levi, and has that typical love-hate sibling relationship with Brielle. She loves making up stories and songs. She also loves artsy things, like painting or molding play-doh. She’s a good eater and awesome sleeper. She still loves to play chase or hide-and-seek, and is very competitive.

The biggest thing we’re working on is helping her through tantrums, which are all-consuming and almost always strike if she’s past her hungry or tired tolerance levels. We know those triggers and try to avoid them, but it isn’t always possible. They’ve been hard to get through, but as she’s getting older, they are gradually getting better and she’s able to pull herself out of them a little bit faster.

How’s Brielle doing?

Brielle is going through those phases that always accompany the early years of humanhood. When she’s cranky, she seems to torture everyone, especially her siblings. But when she’s happy, she’s content doing almost anything--playing with toys by herself, playing with Ari, playing with Levi, playing outside, sitting on the couch listening to Mommy’s soundtrack music, or just jamming to her favorite song on the toy piano. She’s a pretty good eater, albeit still has moments where she doesn’t want to eat just...because. She takes good naps most days. Although, because of those naps, she hits her tired hour way after Ariana does. Sometimes Brielle will still be awake an hour after we put them to bed, just singing quietly to herself, while Ariana is completely out.

Brielle has her own personality and says the funniest things at the funniest moments. However, she’s still very much in mimic mode. Sometimes she imitates Ariana down to her exact words and actions. It’s funny when she tries to imitate Ariana’s reading and mumbles in her own little language. I think it bugged Ari at first, but now she’s gotten used to it, and I as a parent have tried hard to make them both feel loved. Brielle loves playing with Levi, but isn’t afraid to take advantage of her being bigger than him. Most of the time that they’re in the same room together, and he starts crying, it’s because Brielle took something or pushed him. But she does love him, and tries to comfort him when he’s crying (when she’s not the one who caused it).

In fact, Brielle is our little sweetheart right now--the one who always runs up to Daddy when he comes home, and Mommy when she appears from a nap, with big hugs. Ariana does this too, but not nearly as often, because she’s a four-year-old who’s too big for such displays. ;) Brielle is less techie than Ari was at this age, and the few times she showed interest in the tablet or the controller for Netflix, she just got frustrated and gave up.

The biggest thing we’re working on with Brielle is potty training; she did really good for a while at going Number 1 in the potty, but her Number 2 was so bad, and I was so tired and not emotionally ready to deal with it, that I backtracked and put her in pull-ups too often. Now we’re back at square one. I’m planning on letting her run around in the backyard with no undies sometime until she finally dumps her load in the potty. Crossing my fingers that it’ll work!

How’s Levi doing?

Levi is just a happy guy. It’s SO easy to make him smile and laugh. Whenever he’s feeling a little tired, or sick, or simply clingy, then I’ll give him a pacifier and just hold him in my lap, and it’s the best feeling ever. He loves his Daddy and sisters. His favorite things to do are run around pushing his walker thing, play outside, and crawl like a madman towards his favorite forbidden places if they’ve been left open (the bathroom, the stairs).

Levi has eczema, and it was pretty bad before the pediatrician prescribed a stronger form of hydrocortisone. It’s especially bad along his legs. Curiously enough, Brielle has it in patches on her legs too, and I don’t remember noticing them when she was younger. But the hydrocortisone works wonders and we’re going to buy a daily cream to keep it under control. Besides that, he’s in great shape. He was taking one long nap from 1:00-4:00 for a while, but if anything compromises his sleep or he gets sick, he goes back to napping at 11:00 and takes two naps for the day. He sleeps great at night.

He’s walking! So, I originally wrote this post a week ago. At the time, he could walk, but it wasn’t his preferred mode of moving around. He’d try to walk really fast and, well, you can’t run before you walk. But he’s gotten it down now and is starting to walk everywhere, much to the delight of his sisters. Levi also communicates really well. He gestures to what he wants to eat or when he wants his sippy cup, and is very clear in letting me know when he’s tired or still hungry. He pays close attention to my expressions whenever he does something that he suspects is either good or naughty.

The biggest thing we’re working on with Levi is FOOD. He’s really picky. Again, when I first wrote this post, he was absolutely refusing to eat bread--would spit it out as soon as it touched his lips. Since then, I’ve successfully fed bread to him twice by coating the little chunks in peanut butter and jam! Hurray! He really likes jam. We’re trying to wean him off baby food, especially because his appetite is rapidly growing. I feel like some mornings I spend the whole time just feeding him!

Chilaxin'

It’s the life
Overall we’re a bit on the tired side, which is something we’re working to improve. We need to change our routines anyway to be ready for Ariana’s school in the fall. But we’re enjoying the weather and our family. We’re enjoying meeting new people, including people from other backgrounds and cultures, and also people who have come from lower cost-of-living states and share with us this interesting predicament of living in a beautiful place far from family where no one can afford to buy a house. Even with some adjusting that still needs to happen, we’re happy to be here.

My faithful vacuum helpers

The loves of my life, hypnotized

Musings on Little Humans and Their Eating Preferences

I am a notoriously picky, boring eater. People with a passion for food find my case most tragic. Yet, while I’m not the most proactive in choking down healthy stuff that I don’t like, I was always determined not to let my children suffer the same fate. With a husband who could happily eat a meal made entirely of vegetables, I knew my kids had a chance.

We figured little humans developed their eating styles the same way they develop everything else: with a mixture of their own innate uniqueness, and their environment. So we’d do our part in exposing them to all sorts of stuff. Of course, this only works if they have a parent to emulate who eats all this stuff, so that’s where Daddy comes in.

Fast forward to three children later, and I can tell you that when it comes to food, the “innate uniqueness” of these little people is just laughing at us--all the time. You think you have their favorite foods figured out, and then one day it changes for no reason. Top that off with childhood quirks like rebelling against a certain food just for kicks and giggles, and feeding kids becomes an endeavor both hilarious and depressing.

Oh, they ate sandwich meat yesterday with no problem? Well, today it’s their worst nightmare.

Every child likes Macaroni and Cheese? Well, this child does--as a squishy plaything! Now it’s all over her clothes AND she still needs something else to eat.

Bananas will enchant your child long enough for you to start buying more of them, and then she’ll want nothing to do with them.

Those are just a tiny few of the crazy examples out there. But hey, at least this craziness helps stimulate creative approaches to tricking and bribing your children. I mean, all in the name of healthy eating, right?

Let’s get a kick out of my kids’ eating habits thus far:

Ariana:

• HATED baby food
• Didn’t like french fries, rice, or potatoes at first, but would eat pasta
• Likes most fruits and veggies
• Likes desserts and candy, but not chocolate chip cookies
• Loves breads and rolls
• Kinda likes peanut butter and jam; prefers Mayo and turkey meat

Brielle:

• Didn’t like baby food
• Didn’t like pasta at first, but would eat french fries, potatoes, and rice
• Loves fruit, likes most veggies
• Loves everything sweet--all the yum-yums
• HATES hot dogs and sandwich meat
• Hates any type of bread unless it has peanut butter and jam on it

Levi:

• LOVED baby food
• Likes french fries, potatoes, and rice, and pasta sometimes
• HATES bread, and anything soft and crumbly. (Even cake almost.)
• Loves fruit, kinda likes the few veggies he can eat right now
• Hates peanut butter, loves jam

This looks and feels suspiciously like bread...

Ugh, it was! Kind of. What did I just eat??

In other words, what kids do and don't eat comes from a crazy conglomeration of their personal preferences, toddler quirks, and what they see the grown-ups eat. As long as my kids are bouncing off the walls by day and sleeping well at night, I'm happy.

Mother, Queen of the Realm

I was talking with my mom on the phone when something popped out of me that, while an exaggeration, carried truth I hadn’t considered before: “Sometimes I feel that by the time my kids are all in school, my life will be over. I won’t be young anymore.”

Now, I do know life’s not over after the age of 35. I think these thoughts came from a place of feeling stuck. With college and my 20’s in the past, and my days of having babies not far behind them, I keep feeling like the next big step in life should be coming. Anytime now.

Truth is, that step is already here, as a stay-at-home mom of little ones. It just feels, sometimes, like that step didn’t take me far enough.

Being the good mom that she is, my mom gave advice and sent some quotes. Like:

“The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests.” ~Author Unknown

Thinking of myself as Mother, Queen of My Realm of Tiny Watts Humans, does lift my spirits. Let’s take a look at my realm:

My realm is theirs.

My realm belongs to my little subjects. While I can squeeze more hobbies into my life, and exercise after the rainy season to boost my zombified energy, my time is still theirs--keeping them alive, playing, loving, teaching, correcting behaviors, comforting, and just being there. It’s all for them.

My realm is a paradox. 

If I could choose to do anything with my life, I’d stay at home with my little ones. I’d choose it again and again. I’m especially grateful I can make that choice, for not all can.

At the same time, my breaks from the kids are always refreshing. My sanity is often obliterated by the time Clayton gets home, and after a “welcome home” kiss and hug, I’m off to hide in my room before I have to make dinner. It would be amazing if I could have just two hours of kid-free time each day.

I’m often torn between speeding up their abilities so they can do more on their own, and wanting to encase them in their cute ages forever like a snow globe.

My realm is precious.

The three subjects in my realm communicate with cute sounds, cute words, and cute actions. They love laughing and playing with the Queen and King, to whom they have given their complete trust. They go about their day with all the innocence of a butterfly clinging to a flower under a golden sunset.

Little fingers grasp mine, little bums squeeze onto my lap. My day is filled with little voices, little teardrops, and the tickling of little feet of little people with big hearts. All they need is love and care, and my subjects will grow and thrive.

My realm will not last.

This is how Brielle smiles for pictures

Though I yearn for that time when most of my children are in school, I also strive to treasure those precious moments. I hold my baby Levi close and breathe him in every day, for the time will come when I will no longer remember him as a baby.

I snuggle my sweet two-year-old Brielle, for someday I won’t remember her at this adorable stage. I hug my four-year-old Ariana and listen to her songs and stories, for I won’t always remember her as a toddler--and I’ve already forgotten what she was like when she was Levi’s and Brielle’s ages.

Now is the time to soak in their adorable spirits, sweet innocence, and never-ending love.

It’s a time to remind myself that I’m Mother, Queen of My Realm of Tiny Watts Humans. Or simply Mommy, as I’m known to my subjects.

Thirty, Nerdy, and Striving

I AM THIRTY.

I’m grateful to be thirty. I am alive, and whole. I have a home, food, and warmth. I have loved ones.

But I sure don’t like saying I’m thirty. It looks even worse as “30.” Ugh.

When I was a teenager, I remember the adults saying they didn’t feel their age. Moms and Dads didn’t feel middle-aged as those years came upon them. Grandmas and Grandpas didn’t feel like the seniors they were. I couldn’t possibly comprehend what they meant, but I always believed them. And I was a little afraid of being in their positions because it sounded kinda crazy.

I tell ya, thirty is the magical mark when you start to understand. I don’t feel like I’ve been alive for three decades. I’m still the same me from those earlier years, just wrapped in more layers of experience. That’s really all that being thirty means: you’ve just been adulting for a while, congratulations!

Haha Mom, you're 30!

I was excited for my twenties. The twenties would be these exciting years where I’d be young, fresh, and carving my own path. Of course, even young adulting is still adulting; I wasn’t handed a free ticket to life. But I’m super grateful for my upbringing, which gave me a great chance at working hard and seeking opportunities.

And I loved my twenties. I mean, they can pretty much be summed up by college, marriage, and having babies, but they were more than that. I tried new things, learned new things. I screwed up and have regrets. I forged new relationships. I got to know myself and found my groove. Then babies came and I had to find myself all over again.

Now my twenties are forever in the past, locked away in memory.

So how’s life as a thirty-year-old parent? Well, most of my relaxing, creative, and thinking time comes in the two-and-half hours after the kids go to sleep. I write, or Clayton and I play games or watch movies together. Or we read and watch things about space. Yes, lots of outer space stuff around here. We also binge-watch Les Miserables in its movie and concert forms every other year. Sometimes those few evening hours are not enough for me to recharge, and by the end of the week, I’m a bit spent. Saturdays are for sleeping.

Looking ahead--but not too far ahead because that’s where the forties lurk, and oh man, can’t even go there right now--my goals are to help our kids thrive, to write a book someday, to go on more runs after the rain’s moved on, and to get enough rest during the week that we can go exploring on the weekends.

In the meantime, I’m just a thirty-year-old drawing pictures of chalk rainbows on the driveway, sculpting princesses with weird-looking eyes out of modeling clay, and shaking my hips to Disney songs. The kids keep me young.

I’m glad to be thirty. Maybe not . . . 30 . . . yet. ;) But life is good.

A Tale of Two Sisters

At first, having two kids close together might feel like a curse. I’d heard the stories of young siblings playing with each other, had even witnessed it myself (and EXPERIENCED it myself with my bro), but my two girls . . . they just didn’t have that spark yet. Unless we’re talking about the kind of spark that sets off the fuse to a stick of dynamite.

It makes sense. You get one still-developing little human, driven by needs and wants, in the same vicinity as an even younger still-developing little human with needs and wants, and well, you have a bunch of needs and wants that don’t get along.

It’s maddening for a parent, particularly when the 4-year-old has strong social needs and you’re the only person around deemed a worthy playmate. You try to get her--or even make her at times--play with the 2-year-old, but the result is the 4-year-old on a power trip and the 2-year-old recognizing someone else she can rebel against.

In our temporary housing in Palo Alto, with that tiny little playspace, there was no escape for anyone. My poor emotional world-flipped-upside-down girls couldn’t stand each other. I could count on one hand how many times they played with each other during that entire month. Thank the techies for Netflix.

Then we moved again, and they fought some more.

BUT THEN.

It happened a week ago. We kicked off last week by deciding that, yes, we would enroll Ariana in TK (transitional kindergarten, for kids with birthdays between Sept. 1 - Dec. something). I was skeptical because the closest school that has TK in our district is 10 minutes away, which would leave me with two 20-minute trips five days a week. And there’s not even a guarantee that she’ll be placed at that school.

But TK is free, it’d be super good for her, she’s aching for social interaction and daily learning and the preschool out here is like a bajillion bucks per month (for TWO days a week even!) so she’s not in preschool, so on and so forth, so we decided to give it a try.

This set in motion a rush to print paperwork and fill it out, fill it out online again and print that out, get her to a dentist and pediatrician asap, and get to the homeschool to register her. Her chance at being placed at the school 10 minutes away is first come first served, so a desire to hurry made it all stressful. The process was ridiculous and inefficient, and going to any medical person with all three kids in tow is also stressful for me, and I had to do it two days in a row.

ANYWAY. During that insane week, something magical happened.

Ariana and Brielle played . . . together. For hours. All day. They didn’t ask to watch a show once. They hardly cried or hit, and half the time they did, they somehow worked it out. For hours, I say! I was stunned. Grateful beyond belief, yes, but stunned. Now imagine my shock when they did it again the next day, and the next and the next. There’s still been the hard moments of course, like Ariana just wanting Brielle’s toy oh so badly, or like Brielle hitting Ari when she’s frustrated. But those moments no longer dominate their playtime.

When they play, Ariana is oblivious of me. On the last day of the school madness, Daddy stayed home while I left to register her at school, and she barely acknowledged me because she was playing with Brielle. That’s not the typical sobbing girl who usually hates when Mommy leaves her behind.

They play with their food together . . .

Observe.

They play first thing in the morning together while I slowly wake up and put my clothes on in peace. I tell Brielle she can play one more time before naptime, and Ariana wants to make sure, “Can she play with me one more time?” Then she and Brielle say goodnight every time before Brielle takes her nap.

And while Brielle’s napping, Ariana sets her sights on me the entire time: “Mommy, come play with me!” and I go, “Good grief, where’s Brielle?”

This epic playing between them has changed my life. Oh, and that’s not even counting all the playing they do with Levi. I love the love!

Finding Home Amidst the Change

You can learn a lot about yourself after a big move. It’s the kind of change that shakes life up, throws you out of your comfort zone. You might turn to coping methods like binge-playing a mindless mobile phone game or downing chocolate oranges. You wish you could just sleep it off, or plug in headphones and Spotify your way to tranquility.

And it’s a whole new ballgame with young ones.

Life after Move #1

Levi, of course, was largely unaffected. As long as he has his family, his bed, food, and a decent floor, he’s a happy baby. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all be as easily satisfied as a little baby? He even learned to army crawl while we were in Palo Alto. (Google provided temporary housing for us during the month of November.)

The girls had a harder time. Young as they are, they don’t have many coping methods for such a drastic change in their lives--other than beating each other up in their limited playspace or demanding comfort from their mom at all times. Since their mom was sleep-deprived and stressed, she couldn’t always be present for them in the way they needed her to be. That led to a lot of meltdowns for everyone.

Clayton was also largely unaffected, as he was away starting his dream job at Google. And because he’s always been the calm yin to my ruffled yang. His biggest challenge was probably dealing with all of us crazy girls.

And yet, there is magic in a family who loves one another. I still remember the morning I woke to a feeling of peace, rather than the dread I had been facing each day. It was easier to respond with patience and love. I dished out far more hugs and cuddles and it was good for my soul. We played and laughed.

Like sooo many things in life, there were pros and cons every step of the way--things to squeal about, and things to grumble about. Our temporary situation meant we couldn’t settle down, or adjust, or begin to accept a new home. At the same time, it was . . . temporary! Our struggles there would not last forever.

Life after Move #2

And indeed, they did not. We were incredibly blessed and fortunate to find the place that we did in north San Jose. A house with carpet, lots of space, and a decent backyard covered in shade that will be most heavenly in the warmer months. It’s been very well taken care of by the owners and previous tenants. My sense of comfort went way up. We moved Levi to his own room (for his playpen fit nowhere but our room in Palo Alto), and soon he was back to only waking once at night. I returned to my normal tired self, rather than my wild, sleep-deprived beast of fury.

Even with the bigger space, the second move to the house was still another change for the kids. Levi was in baby heaven with carpet and toys stretching as far as his eye could see, but the girls shrank right back into super mama-attached mode. Only this time, I was happier. I could be there for them right from the beginning. The love and gratitude I felt from our growing bond was amazing. So many precious moments, so many times I wanted to shout to the world how much I love being a mom.

There’s still the down days, of course. I’m still hit with emotional whiplash. I might get out of bed not fully awake, and then the heaviness will pull me down the rest of the day, confining me to half-sleep on the couch for longer than I’d like. But we are so happy to be here.

Life in California

Adjusting to California in general has been part of the challenge. I mean, I’m from a small family of four, and from a small town in a valley more overrun with desert weeds and dust than people. That is not the case here. I’m often overwhelmed and stressed when I’m out and about--from all the people, from the crowded streets, from the freeways and highways with badly designed merge lanes and exit lanes. I am frequently plagued with anxiety when I drive around here, and grumble bitterly when it takes forever to find a parking spot or even make it through the darn parking lot. The drivers here are on par with the less-than-exemplary courtesy and abilities of Utah drivers. Only because there’s so many more here, it’s a lot worse.

We haven’t had much time to focus on sightseeing, but I know I have to get over my travel anxieties in order for us to go anywhere. That’s after we’ve set money aside to pay for anything in the first place.

When they're not in their cars, I will say, the people here have been so nice. So many have held their doors open for us, or stopped to let us by in a doorway, or just been generally helpful. Someone even stopped by the other night to let us know our car’s lights were still on. I’ve met several other moms with kids, and hope to do more with them after the holidays.

And of course . . . there’s the weather. The glorious, wonderful weather. The lows here are the highs in Utah. Until recently, it’s been above 60 degrees and mostly sunny. It’s much colder in the shade or after the sun goes down, but even then, it’s a far cry from the below freezing that I’ve been accustomed to for this time of year. No wonder everyone wants to live here. :)

Ready, set...

Go!

Settling into our new home

Right from the beginning, I was so overwhelmed with how much unpacking lay before me. The settling-in process would have to happen in between the usual making meals, cleaning up meals, changing diapers, doing laundry, and keeping the kids alive. The need to clean more than just the kitchen table was also always lurking.

I tried so hard not to be stressed about it. There was no pressure at all: I could unpack at a snail’s pace and be fine. The trouble was, I’m a slightly OCDish person, and the longer I went from room to room dodging boxes, or searching boxes in vain for some specific thing, the faster I started losing my mind.

But we’ve now reached a point where most of the important stuff is unpacked. While my head has been telling me for a while that all is well, it’s my emotions that are finally on board with the idea. The girls have, I kid you not, reached that blissful time when having two kids close together pays off. They don’t just go more than five minutes without hitting or yelling at the other, they play together. Ariana gives Brielle a hug and kiss before her naptime.

Something else that happened is my desire to go out to eat went way down. In Provo, we did that quite a bit--it was yummy, it was energy-saving, and the restaurants were never that far. But here, everything is a bit of a drive away--and super expensive. No Denny’s here that offers free kids meals at dinnertime.

The result is I want to cook and plan more. I still don’t like cooking, don't you worry, but my motivation has totally changed. It’s been great.

Ari's feet have grown

We are happy. I’m able to relax a bit more, breathe deeply, and feel . . . home. Though I still drown my occasional woes in chocolate oranges. 'Tis the season!