Sitting in the basement on a Saturday afternoon. Lila is sleeping, Jake is power-washing some white, plastic lawn chairs that the previous owners left us. (Everything they left us needs a thorough, deep cleaning.) And I'm allowing myself to take a break and have the TV on.
Yesterday went by quickly. If I can get a lot done in the morning, I can lounge around in the afternoon (when Lila's a little more needy) and not feel so guilty about it. I dusted two thirds of the blinds in our bedroom (they are so dirty!) and then Lila got cranky so we went outside and she had fun. I parked my car in the driveway and vacuumed it out; it was a nice, sunny day. Lila liked walking around the yard, playing with the car doors, and then I put her in the driver's seat and she had a blast playing around with the buttons on the stereo and trying to put keys in the ignition.
We had lunch with Jake. Lila fell asleep just as we were pulling into the parking lot. Texted with Jess as I waited for Jake to come down. She's doing alright. I suggested the Halo baby-swaddler. She's too nervous to have Audrey sleep swaddled (she's only been using swaddle blankets), so Audrey ends up sleeping either on them or right next to them because she won't sleep laying her in co-sleeper. Lila woke up as we started eating. We laid a blanket down in the grass and ate there, had a lot of fun visiting. Lila became very shy whenever Jake's co-workers would walk by and say hi.
Got home and played around for a while before Lila's nap. I ended up falling asleep with her and we didn't get up till 4:30. Went outside and waited for Jake, also Skyped with my parents.
Stopped at True Value to pick up stuff to fix the lawn mower and then we headed to Ann and Ben Pineda's party. Ben is from Mexico, Ann is from Kalamazoo. They met in Mexico when Ann was teaching English there and got married there and have a 1-year-old son named Lucas that Lila plays with. Ann isn't a member of the church. She is super sweet and cute and goes to church weekly with Ben and seems to be interested in it. Not really sure why, but their marriage in Mexico wasn't recognized in the US, so yesterday they got married again and had a small party afterwards. It was so much fun. She hired a mariachi band from Fennville; three guitars and one accordion. They were so awesome and all the babies (toddlers, I guess) loved dancing to it. They had great Mexican food (the Garcias from the 2nd ward made it) and it was at her parents' place, which is very cool... I felt like I was in a movie. Very romantic. The food was good. Mike stopped by towards the end.
We left at around 8 or 8:30 because Lila needed to go to bed. She's been a lot better lately about falling asleep. We'll play or cuddle for a while and she'll drift off on her own very peacefully.
Jake and Mike fixed the new (to us) lawn mower fairly quickly and then started working on fixing the pump to the laundry tub in the basement. Jake thought it was clogged with sawdust from some of the construction we had going on before we moved in, and was pleasantly surprised with an easy fix: there was just a nail stuck in it. So they removed it and that was that! I'm so grateful that Jake and his brothers (well... mostly just Mike, I guess) are so handy. Saves us so much money.
Emily came over too. She made us chicken nachos that we all enjoyed. She's leaving tomorrow for Esky and will be there for the week. She heard back from Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek: she's #6 on their waiting list and seems pretty excited about that... the chances of her actually getting into the program this fall are probably pretty slim, but at the time of her application, she hadn't finished a bunch of their preferred classes, so she thinks she'd definitely be able to get in next year. I wonder if she'll get into KVCC... probably not?
She left just as Jim and Angela arrived. They had been visiting a client in jail in Battle Creek, or something. The guys hung out and fixed things for a while and Angela and I chatted. And then we all hung out in the basement... played ping pong for a while on the table that we got from the Andersons and then visited and laughed. It was so much fun hanging out like that in our house :) It made such a difference. It was really nice to laugh and joke with them all too. Jim and Angela are a great couple after all... I still don't feel very close to her or that we have very much in common (I think the language/cultural barrier has a lot to do with that), but she's a good match for Jim. We all agreed that Cassandra must spend more time with the Betzolds. The only time she's spent with any Betzolds since they started dating is the one night they had dinner with Jim and Angela. The Betzold boys definitely have a more colorful sense of humor than I'm sure Cassandra is used to... when they were with Jim and Angela, Jim explained what the origin of the word "testimony" was and then said, "So, think of that the next time you bear your testimony!" Very funny. Jim and Angela admired videos of Lila we had on Jake's iPhone. Jim thinks she's completely adorable.
They didn't leave till after midnight. Mike stayed even longer, past 1am. We talked about some concerns he has about Cassandra; things he'd like to be "resolved" before they're engaged. He wants to see that she's committed to him. One thing that bothered him is that this past week, she went running with her classmate Kevin. (Cassandra is training for a marathon.) Mike has met Kevin and thinks he's a really nice guy, isn't "threatened" by him at all. But he doesn't think it's "appropriate" that she's spending "leisure time" with a member of the opposite sex. Jake and I don't think it's a big deal, really. Today we had a long, and kind of heated, discussion with him about it. I asked him if he thinks it's possible that he's more sensitive to this because of his experience with Kalina, and he got all fired up and said, "No! I need to make sure that she understands that when we're married, she cannot have relationships with other guys. I deserve complete emotional fidelity and commitment. I assumed that Kalina would be okay, but I am not going to assume this with Cassandra. etc, etc." Uh, it's pretty obvious that he does have trust/betrayal issues! And it's definitely to be expected, after all that he went through! I think he has a really different perception of what happened with Kalina than the one Jake and I have. I think Mike, at the time that he was dating Kalina, saw a ton of red flags, but thought that they were somewhat normal? And he didn't come to family for advice. At one point in the conversation, he was talking about Kalina and how he'd never had that kind of talk with her, and I said that if he would've talked to us about it, we would've warned him. Anyway, we agreed that if it's important to him to make this clarifications with Cassandra, he should definitely do it... but to be very careful that he doesn't come across as controlling. I asked him again if he really didn't think it was possible that he's even a little more sensitive than most people because he was cheated on. He said no, that "most" people probably have these concerns... and I disagreed and said that probably only people who have been betrayed have these concerns. I don't recall ever having a conversation like that with Jake, where we had to talk about what was appropriate or what wasn't with members of the opposite sex, and I pointed that out to Mike. I then encouraged Mike to share with Cassandra that this (complete fidelity within marriage: emotional, physical, spiritual) should be expected in any marriage, but that because of what he went through, he is more sensitive to it... in the past, Cassandra has told him that she recognizes that he will have scars from his divorce, and that she wants to help alleviate pain and suffering from that experience. I think it will help it all together. And then I suggested to not start the conversation by bringing up the Kevin thing (which he was going to do), but rather to start by talking about fidelity in marriage, its importance, and then use the Kevin thing as an example, if needed. Jake and I trust each other a lot. Completely. He's spent time with women alone before (old friends) and I have spent time with other men before (old friends). Only once or twice in the time we've been married, but we trust each other enough that it's not really a big deal. He's also concerned about Cassandra's ability to "leave [her] father and [her] mother and...cleave unto [her husband.]" I can see where he's coming from on that one. Cassandra came into town this morning and they've spent the day together... he's supposed to be coming over later after she leaves to hang out with her sisters.
Jake and I woke up earlier than Lila did today, too early. But we were able to get out and drive around looking for some neighborhood garage sales we found on Craigslist. I'm not exactly sure what we were looking for (it was Jake's idea), but he wanted to. We spent an hour doing that and didn't find one good garage sale. It was okay though. We had a pretty decent time visiting and joking in the car, even though Lila was pretty cranky about driving around. We went to Lowe's and spent a long time picking out two hanging baskets for the front porch--a present for me for Mother's Day. :) Perfect.
Came home, Lila took a nap. I started this entry. It's now 8:27pm. Jake and I watched the latest Office episode. Lila woke up and we went to Menard's and bought a dehumidifier and a over-the-range microwave! My dad's paying for the microwave, which is really generous and sweet of him. I was losing steam pretty quickly while we were at Menard's, so Jake decided to boost me up and suggested we go out for a Mother's Day dinner :) We decided on Buffalo Wild Wings. We split 18 chicken wings (there were 2 left over) and some fries. Lila did ok! She happily walked around most of the time, which was fine because the place was pretty slow. She also enjoyed some of the food with us. Tasted ranch dressing and the BBQ sauce. Oh, and we've also discovered that she likes meat a lot! Last night at Ann's party, Lila grabbed a piece of pork right off of Jake's plate and put it in her mouth! She did that several times. And at BWW, she ate 3-4 bites of chicken happily! She gagged a bit as she was trying to swallow them, but she was happy about it. She didn't touch a French fry though, and those used to be her favorite.
Came home. Jake hung up my baskets on the porch and they look lovely. And then he started installing the microwave, but only got halfway through before it was bathtime/bedtime for Lila. I laid with Lila as she fell asleep and I drifted off to sleep too for a while. Jake went to Meijer for some groceries. And now he's back trying to figure out the microwave.
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