A Moment away from Miserable

Life in our house lately has been, in a word, miserable. My health is getting worse and worse the longer I'm pregnant, Chris has a majorly intense school load this semester (and that's with only 11 credits!) and Jane has apparently decided she no longer needs naps, which doesn't help anything.

Just because I need a little pick-me-up from one crappy week before we head into the next, I thought I'd share some of Jane's more endearing moments from the past little bit. (By the way, endearing was a vocabulary word in my class this week.)

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With all of my being way sick and in pain and Chris endlessly working on homework, we've been watching a lot of movies at our house. Needless to say, Jane is getting better at actually paying attention and catching on to a few things that happen in the movies.

Today we watched The Lion King. When Simba first meets Timone and Pumba and learns how to eat a grub, Jane repeatedly pointed at the screen and said, "Ew, gross!"

Hopefully that means she won't eat bugs.

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Jane's newest fashion statement: Dad's dirty socks.

Chris often leaves his socks lying around on the floor of whatever room he happened to be in when he decided to take them off. Jane has become quite adept at finding them and putting them on herself. She'll wear a pair of Dad's socks all day if we'd let her.

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And my personal favorite: Sacrament Meeting today.

Jane has learned how to "sing." At least, she makes very high-pitched shrieking noises either while playing the piano or when anyone else is singing. She took the opportunity at church today to show off her amazing vocals during the intermediate hymn: Master, the Tempest is Raging.

Background reminder: I am now the ward chorister, so I was on the stand conducting the music when this happened. Jane was watching me most of this time.

She was all situated on the bench, hymnbook open on her lap, "singing" at the top of her lungs. She also had her arm going full speed, conducting as well. That's funny enough by itself. But it was LOUD. Just about everyone in the chapel could hear her, and those sitting close by could see her as well. From the stand, I could see more than three rows worth of people desperately trying not to laugh--and mostly failing.

And from the stand, seeing that many people laugh and hearing my daughter take part so enthusiastically in the hymn--well, it made me laugh, too. And it's really hard to sing and laugh at the same time. I kept conducting, but I missed more than a few measures of the song while I tried desperately not to laugh.

The best part, though, was how serious she was the whole time. As far as she knew, she was only doing what you're supposed to do during a hymn: sing.