April 1st 2008 Newsletter

Hello Dear Family!
Long time no write, huh? We hope you are all doing well and surviving the extended winter weather many of us are experiencing. Hugh is nearing the end of tax season (two weeks to go) and has been working long hours for the last couple of months. We all feel it when Hugh is gone so much. Even Alyssa has commented that she hates tax season. Hugh works really late on Friday nights (rolling in about midnight) and then has to prepare his Gospel Doctrine lesson most of the day Saturday every other week. He never complains, but he sure does look beat whenever he’s at home (or maybe that’s just the effect we have on him?)
The five oldest kids were supposed to have the first of their spring soccer season games tonight, but since there is a decent amount of snow on the ground again, the games have been cancelled. I have to admit that is a relief, even though I am glad that the kids are healthy and want to play soccer. It makes our evenings crazy when I am trying to figure out how to get two or three kids to games at various times and in various locations, as well as making sure they are all fed and the younger ones have something to do (other than whine and fuss) while we shuttle older kids around and try to watch them play. It’s all good, it’s just that sometimes there’s too much going on to really enjoy it.
We really enjoy having the Wrights live close to us. Until the recent snows squelched things, James had been taking their two older and our four older kids over to the neighborhood park for early morning workouts. He works them hard but he makes it fun, and the kids welcome the challenge. James has also worked with the kids some on learning to play baseball, which our kids have never really done beyond one or two seasons of T-ball when they were very small. Kristen and James have been transporting the kids to and from school a lot of the time, which has really helped me a lot. We will have some juggling to do when James’ work schedule and the seven kids’ (five Wilkins and two Wrights) sports seasons are in full swing, but we won’t worry about that until we have to. It has been so fun for me to watch our kids enjoy each other, as well as for the adults to get to know each other’s children better. The kids always look forward to sleepovers and days off together.
Steven has had some fun opportunities in the last month or so. He participated in a math competition at the University of Utah and enjoyed the day, as well as the weekly after-school classes for the six weeks prior to the competition. He was also able to “job-shadow” Hugh. Hugh showed Steven around the Church Office Building and Steven at least got an idea of what his dad does all day. Steven was wishing his Uncle Derek would move here so he could tag along with him and learn about his bio-medical engineering job. I love to watch Steven with Emily – if she is fussing and I ignore her, Steven will pick her up. He often brings her straight to me, but sometimes if I tell him I just can’t get her right then, he will hold her so she can watch me until I’m ready to get her. Steven often gets what he asks for because he is reasonable and negotiates so pleasantly.
Daniel has such a cute (I would get in big trouble if he knew I used that word to describe him) sense of humor. The other day after I watched him jumping around while brushing his teeth using some new, very minty toothpaste, he said, “Is this jalapeňo-flavored toothpaste?!” And this morning, he complained about pain in his eyes. As I was asking him questions about it, he offered, “I think I know the problem. I think I just need more electronics time.” Daniel has mentioned that he would like to be in some kind of drama class or production, though he emphasized that he does not sing or dance. He is also quite the writer, which is apparent when the kids play Balderdash, a game in which players try to make up the most plausible definitions to obscure words in order to get other players to vote for theirs as the authentic one. Daniel slammed his own finger in the door as he was trying to get away from Steven to avoid retribution for his taunting. It cut his finger deeply enough that he could have had stitches, but we just kept it well-bandaged for a week or two, and it seems to be healing okay. Hopefully he learned a lesson about not bugging his siblings!
Julia and the other three oldest kids have been Sudoku maniacs lately. These guys seem to just zoom through them. Julia recently finished reading the Harry Potter books again and is looking for another series to dive into. Julia especially has really gotten into softball with her cousin Jamie and Uncle James, and (with James’ coaching) is getting pretty good. I half-heartedly offered to sign her up for softball, and since she didn’t jump at it, I’m just going to leave it at that. (I’m not too excited to start softball before soccer is even finished, especially since the season would go halfway through July...) Julia excels in music, and sometimes I think I should push her a little harder to practice the violin.
As I wrote last time, Michael won the third grade spelling bee, and since then ended up coming in third place in the regional spelling bee. Since studying homophones, one of Michael’s favorite things to do is to try to see if he can outsmart me by asking me to spell a word which has two or three different spellings. Much to his satisfaction, he has caught me a few times. He enjoys using his calculator to figure out square roots for different numbers. Michael will be eight years old in just a couple of days, and will be baptized next weekend (since General Conference will be this weekend.)
Alyssa still struggles with going to school and dance lessons, but she is improving. Once I finally decided she was just manipulating me, I have taken a forceful approach in making her go to school – literally wrestling her into the neighbor’s car on carpool days (thank goodness I have a supportive neighbor), letting her cry at the curb while I lock myself in the van so she can’t get back in, and even giving completely serious threats of spanking (which we have never done.) The first couple of times this happened, I worried that she would hate me when she came home from school, but she has been just fine, even happy she went. She has also made great strides in getting her room clean nearly every day (sometimes those Little Debbie treats work magic!) Alyssa seems to get headaches quite often for a child, and I sometimes wonder whether she just likes the medication (or the attention?) so I have told her she may have Tylenol no more than twice a week.
My little sugar and spice Natalie seems to need more attention, so on the pediatrician’s recommendation, I have tried to institute a “special time” with her each day. We set a timer for 10-15 minutes and do something she wants to – read, play a game, work on a puzzle, paint her fingernails, whatever. We don’t always get to it, but she really seems to like it and suggests we do something beyond our morning reading nearly every day. She is cute, enough that when she recently announced with enthusiasm, “Mom, I have a REALLY BIG IDEA! Let’s get out all the boxes of toys at the same time!” I was tempted to say yes just because it was so cute until I thought about what a really big, bad mess I would find myself cleaning up. Matthew picks on Natalie more than anyone else, and he really is rough with her. Other times, like when the older kids are all at school, they get along fairly well. I just have to smile at those times, like when I find the two of them sitting in Matthew’s crib, covered with blankets and books and “reading” together.
It is fun that Matthew (at least tries) to say just about everything now. Even though he is more verbal now, he is still in the habit of throwing fits when he doesn’t get what he wants or when we take too long giving him what he wants. Just yesterday, he threw his toy cell phone because I was too slow in helping him to get his shoes off, and it landed behind the washer, where it will not be retrieved until we move out of this house. And then today, he was on the floor throwing a fit and threw something heavy up in the air, not anticipating that it would come right back down in his face. As you might imagine, he gave himself a painful and immediate punishment (which was somewhat amusing to the rest of us.) Matthew goes over to Emily at least a couple times a day, pretends to “eat” her, and says “de-ish-us!” (delicious) He recently started “vacuuming” with the toy lawnmower just the way Michael used to.
Emily, now eight months old, just cut her first tooth. I with great restraint held off giving her baby food fruits, trying to get her to take rice with vegetables so that she wouldn’t have the sweet tooth the rest of us do. But I succumbed in my desperation to buy time to attend to other kids and household duties, and I’ve ruined her with graham crackers and low sugar cookies and pretzels. Emily is not the easy-going baby she was the first 3-4 months of her life. She usually wants me to hold her, and when I do set her down she cries so suddenly and with such intensity that you would think I just stomped on her and walked away. She is just barely getting the crawling thing figured out, and is very clumsy and inefficient but so precious to watch. The kids like to get her hair wet and slick it into a Mohawk, and it stays that way even through her naps. Emily claps and waves sometimes and makes adorable baby sounds. She is round and cute.
I am still trudging along with some projects at the charter school, and am kind of at a standstill until I get approval/feedback from the administration. I seem to forever have more to do than I can possibly get done, so hopefully I am devoting my time and efforts to the things that really matter. We are grateful for our health and our abundant blessings. We hope you are doing well.
Love,
Ann, Hugh, Steven, Daniel, Julia, Michael, Alyssa, Natalie, Matthew, & Emily