How to tell the real nerds from the posers

• Have you ever been so starved for educational stimulation that you consider reading the old textbooks that you only skimmed through (at best) during your classes?
  
• Have you ever kept textbooks from a class you didn't take?
  
• Have you ever purchased textbooks for a class you had no intention of taking just because they looked interesting?
• Have you ever begged your husband to hold onto textbooks for a class he didn't end up taking because they might be considered research for a future thesis?
• Have you ever been giddy with excitement after tracking down the complete (and old) edition of a textbook anthology you only had one section of at a used book sale?

Yeah (*cough, cough*), me neither . . . Okay, guilty of all 5. But then, I've always professed to be a nerd . . .

Gigglesaurus

G has a romper that says Gigglesaurus on it, and that is my favorite trait of the week. Not the romper, of course, the giggle. G has been giggling for quite awhile now, but recently, it requires almost no work to get him to do it. He loves to start laughing for no other reason than apparent inner joy. He also loves people, so he smiles and laughs for strangers. He did this in church last week. Despite the fact that he can get pretty loud, I let him stay in Sacrament Meeting, because, hey, he's laughing, it's cute and totally not like the sad screams that normally fill up the chapel. Plus, Jesus likes children. And I was told by some outsiders that it's not as distracting as I, an insider, think it is. Then, of course, he was fussy cause he got tired and Daddy took him in the foyer, where he apparently proceeded to make everyone in the general area laugh with his giggling antics. So it looks like I've got a class clown on my hands.

Oh, and to add to the cuteness, if we do make an effort to make him laugh, he will often get into giggling fits that go on for minutes at a time. Take this video for example. He had been laughing for a good 2 minutes before we got the camera out. We were pretty happy about this laughing fit because up to this point he tended to cry when we put him in his carrier. He's much better now.



Here's some more, even better stuff:

Why I Don't Watch Scary Movies

I've always been susceptible to the twisted workings of my own imagination. Although, like most kids, I liked reading scary books like Goosebumps, or Things That Go Bump in the Night, I did like to have the lights on going to my room in the basement afterwords. I even remember one time watching a docu-drama about crocodiles in my parents' room and being afraid to get off the bed when it was over. Now, I knew that crocodiles were not indigenous to master suites in Utah suburbs, but in my own defense, my parents did have a water bed. It was disconcerting. So, I have since avoided, for the most part, scary movies.

But I have also been disturbed by television shows, which given the gruesome and disturbing envelope-pushing that shows like CSI have encouraged, isn't surprising. This is why after I feed G in the middle of the night, get a drink downstairs, and go into my bathroom to use the facilities, I find myself thinking how freaky it would be if someone was waiting in the little room where the toilet is--to get me. Needless to say, I'm a little hesitant to open the door. Look how creepy it is, someone could lurk in there quite easily. Okay, access isn't really that easy, but it's much worse when it's pitch black, that just doesn't photograph well, so use your imagination. . . . Actually don't, since that what gives me problems. Take my word for it.

Anyway, that wasn't the point of this post. The point is, after strings of disturbing dreams lately involving running away from kidnappers, human sacrifice, and serial killers, I was quite disturbed the other day when I was taking a shower (yes, a scary place for me to begin with) and although my husband had already gone to work, the bathroom door started to open. Now, the thing about our bathroom door is that if you leave it alone, it will close on it's own, but never open. That fact aside, I was willing to accept my own explanation of a freak in-house wind, but then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Unlike many of my peripheral phantoms, this one kept moving. And it wasn't until it lept up on the ledge of the bathtub revealing itself as Guido, that my heart returned to its normal rhythm. Totally freaked me out. And he's done it several times since. Each time I have to tell myself and cross my fingers that it really is Guido. So far, he's been the only unannounced visitor, knock on wood.

*All bathroom pictures were taken by a fully-clothed photographer.

Kissable Connections

My favorite part of Little G this week is hard to get a picture of, so you'll have to make due with another picture highlighting last weeks favorite part, his eyes. Yes, I took that picture, thank you very much.



I love the little spot under G's ears where his chubby checks meet his double chin and they both connect to his wrinkly little neck. It's my favorite spot to kiss. I think I kiss G about 1000 times a day and a good 50% of those are on that spot. He's getting so big, I figure 1000 kisses a day should be enough to help me enjoy the days I have before he won't let me kiss him anymore.

Because Somewhere Someone Cares (Hi Mom)

This was my Monday, not a good day.

4:50 am - G wakes up. Not time to eat, but I am a walking mummy, so I don't feel like I can wrestle him for an hour. So I feed him.

5:25 am - Stumble downstairs to get a drink and turn off the outside light. Fall back into bed. G is still awake.

6:10 am - G is still awake, but crying now. So, time for diaper change.

6:55 am - G still awake. Daddy's turn!

7:10 am - Daddy puts G down and takes a shower. Baby still awake..

7:13 am - Bring baby into bed with me. Finally goes to sleep!

7:50 am - G wakes up. Food time.

8:15 am - Dose off.

9:10 am - Pick up crying baby. Where's my happy morning boy? This doesn't bode well for the day.

Total sleep=5 1/2 hours

9:30 am - Clean out Guido's food bowl cause the ants came in the night. Feed Guido. 3/4 cup dry food, to keep the ants away (knock on wood). Clean up pee in Guido's cage. He has trouble since he was catheterized.

9:36 am - Wrestle antibiotics into Guido. 3rd time's the charm. And no scratches!

9:40 am - Breakfast! No milk, so toast and o.j.

9:47 am - Pick up crying baby. Diaper and outfit change.

9:56 am - Wash out changing pad in sink.

9:59 am - Check email and blogs holding G, hoping he will go to sleep.

10:15 am - Went for pacifier, played with mirror.

10:20 am - Watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother on the iPod. Sure enough, G fell asleep.

10:40 am - Put G down. First nap of the day: shower, load of laundry, clean out laundry room, unload dishwasher, hand wash dishes, clean up countertops.

11:33 am - Crying baby, phone rings.

11:35 am - Pick up crying baby. Food time.

12:00 pm - Daddy's home to grab some things and eat lunch.

12:20 pm - Daddy leaves.

12:30 pm - Lunch. Leftover stuffed green peppers.

12:37 pm - Clean poopy diaper.

12:45 pm - Mini-bath and outfit #2.

12:55 pm - Run errands. Take back Redbox video. Grocery shopping at Albertsons. Spent $20.90, saved $14.

2:02 pm - Back home. Unload groceries, take care of Guido, put away dishes, load dishwasher.

2:09 pm - Pick up fussy baby. Take clothes out of washer.

2:14 pm - Put down baby on play mat with the hopes of hanging up laundry.

2:15 pm - Pick up crying baby.

2:40 pm - Get baby to sleep. Settle down for nap.

2:45 pm - Feed baby.

3:15 pm - Sleep!

5:10 pm - Wake up to crying baby. Change diaper. G pees on outfit. Time for a real bath. Normally, G loves baths and they are a great way to calm him down. Not so much this time.

5:30 pm - Calm baby down. Outfit #3=diaper. G starts crying again.

5:33 pm - Hang up laundry to dry.

5:45 pm - Start dinner.

5:48 pm - Stop to feed baby.

6:20 pm - Eat dinner, burritos. Change poopy diaper.

6:40 pm - Take out trash, change diaper pail.

6:55 pm - Play time!

7:15 pm - Pack

7:35 pm - Load car to meet Daddy at hotel.

8:00 pm - Leave to hotel.

8:20 pm - Arrive at hotel.

8:35 pm - Get key to room.

8:45 pm - Food time.

9:10 pm - Change diaper.

10:30 pm - G finally goes to sleep. So do I.

Happy Birthday

So, in honor of my birthday, I thought I'd post 25 things that I've done or experienced in the quarter of a century I've been alive that I wanted to or was interested in doing/experiencing that I didn't think I'd actually get to do. But I have! Go me!

1. Graduated from college (cum laude, no less, wasn't expecting that).
2. Survived for 2 weeks on my own in a foreign country.
3. Ate an entire meal with my hands.
4. Got a job without insider help.
5. Learned a new trade entirely on the job.
6. Got to try my dream calling - Relief Society teacher.
7. Did a study abroad.
8. Competed in multiple beauty pageants.
9. Took the LSAT.
10. Married my dream man.
11. Had a successful pregnancy.
12. Learned how to cook.
13. Learned to like cooking.
14. Made a quilt.
15. Made a vintage dress.
16. Performed in the Tabernacle.
17. Made a Thanksgiving dinner entirely from scratch.
18. Started a website.
19. Bought a car.
20. Bought a house.
21. Moved to a different state.
22. Got the lead in a play.
23. Appeared in a movie.
24. Had a baby naturally.
25. Went to therapy.

I also changed my hair. Here are the before and after shots.

Old Blue Eyes

We've been working for the past week on sleeping, so I've spent a lot of time looking at the Little Guy's eyes. And I must say, he got a pretty good return on the genetic lottery. He got my shape, big and almondy, and his Daddy's color, beautiful blue.

I could get lost in those eyes. Sometimes he looks at me and I feel like he has a very wise soul. Other times I just feel overwhelmed at my responsibility to raise this sweet boy. He has very expressive eyes, and they are usually smiling. But sometimes, they look a little freaked out. Like here:


So, G has been trying to sleep on a schedule. But as sweet as he is, he is also very stubborn. And heaven help you if you're trying to put him to sleep when he doesn't want to. He is very good at fighting sleep. It's the only time I've ever heard him scream. But it's comforting to know that sleep always wins. Always. It just sometimes takes a good long while and both parents and several hours to do so. Not so most days, but when it rains, it pours, if you know what I mean. We're still working on the sleeping through the night thing, too. He can get 5 hours at a time, but has yet to do more than that.

Checkups

Here is the update on Guido. We got him back Tuesday night. He is doing great. His blood work came back normal. Now we just have to try to change his diet, and keep an eye on him.

I did ask when he was at the vet's office how much he weighs because he's a big cat and I've been curious. Turns out, he's 16 lbs. 7 oz.

Little G had his 2 month checkup yesterday (yes I know he's not 2 months anymore, but with the move and insurance switch we do what we can) and the pediatrician was impressed by his good natured-ness. He's doing great on his development and even though he got his first round of immunizations, he was still pretty happy today. His specks are 16 lbs. 12 oz. 26 1/2 inches long. 97% in both height and weight.

So this is quite a milestone. It's the first time G has been bigger than Guido, and the last time they will be the same size. So I took pictures.

I call this series man vs. wild.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

My husband doesn't get a lot of air time on this blog, but I thought I'd share his thoughts on what happened the other day, then I'll say my feelings and you can proceed to talk me down.

"How to Ensure Your Neighbors Never Mow Their Lawn Again

Yesterday afternoon, we received our first "welcome" to the neighborhood in the form of an anonymous letter. Here's what it said:

'Welcome to Texas! Hope the move went well and you have started to settle in and find this an area that you would like to raise your family.

Don't know how you did it in UTAH, but around here we cut our lawns, weed eat and edge. Your neighbors would appreciate you doing the same!

If you need help doing so let someone know. If you chose to use a lawn service instead of doing it yourself, have at it, there are plenty around.

But, please help keep this neighborhood nice and pretty for use all!

Thanks'

So.......we have some passive aggressive neighbors.

First I feel like I need to defend my position. We've lived in the house for 1 month and 5 days, and in that time we've mowed the lawn once. In all honesty, I should have mowed the lawn last week, but because it was the Fourth of July, the lawn didn't look very long or scraggly, I decided to put it off for another week. The grass still isn't very long, it has just started to seed, though, and now definitely needs to be cut. Yesterday, as we were going on a walk and I had not yet seen the letter, I was talking about my plan to clean up the yard this weekend, including mowing the lawn, trimming, and weeding the front garden.

Now that I've defended myself, it's time to start complaining.

Two major things are wrong with this. I don't mind the idea that someone is asking me to mow my lawn. That is totally an okay thing to do with your neighbors. But 1 - Doing it anonymously so that I can't respond in any way, and 2 - insulting my home state and putting them in some kind of self-righteous position, Really bugs me.

Number 1 - I can't respond. This is my biggest problem with this note. If it were and aggressive not like this, and it had an actual salutation, I could actually go up to the person, and say that their aggressive approach is not effective, but I could still appologize for the lawn being too long. However, not knowing who the person was, I have no way to communicate my feelings about the situation, and the way I see it, I only have one way of communication, and that is...mowing my lawn. So, if I want to show disapproval of the note, I can communicate that by: Not Mowing My Lawn. If I do mow my lawn, that could be taken as an affirmative response to the note, and the notewriter can then smile to their self-righteous little selves, feeling that they've converted me from my heathen Utah ways to their correct and proper Texas ways. Neither of those are good options.

Number 2 - Insulting my home state. This is where the letter really came off as self-righteous. That one little sentence was absolutely unnecessary. If they had simply said, "we try to keep the neighborhood clean by mowing, trimming, and weed-eating our yards", I would have thought, "Okay, I can help with that." But an attack on my home state really brings the note to a personal level.

As a third annoyance, but not nearly as offensive as the other two, the note comes in the guise of a "welcome" note. NO ONE(!) in the neighborhood has stopped by to say "Hi" to us in any way. The only neighbors that I've talked to are the people two houses down that go to church with us (who I met at church, and are, in fact, from Utah) and the father-in-law of my next door neighbors, who doesn't even live at the house, and who I ran into while mowing the lawn the first time. These "friendly Texans" who take such good care of their lawns and who are such better people than we lowly Utahns, have really shown us what it means to be a neighbor in Texas. Thanks.

I'm not giving up on the neighborhood. I still love it, and I feel like it's a great place to be. There's just one bad egg, which you'll get in any neighborhood. Just, if you've ever considered writing a note like that, please, Please, PLEASE! keep it impersonal, make sure you sign your name so that they have a way to respond, and if it's someone new to the neighborhood, consider talking to them in person, welcoming them sincerely to the neighborhood before you go about trying to convert them to your ways."

That was a lot of words, so here's a cute picture to break it up.

Anyway, I dealt with this kind of thing as an RA in college, and from my experience, these kinds of notes stem from feelings of superiority, entitlement and fear. Johnny covered superiority, but obviously the anonymity covers entitlement and fear as well. My first reaction to this letter, was who do these people think they are. For all they know we have a little girl with leukemia and we moved to Texas to be close to a specialist and we've spent all our income and savings on medical expenses and we spend our time with our dying child instead of unimportant things like mowing the lawn.

My second thought is, I'm pretty sure 99% of our neighbors would consider themselves Christians, and what does the Bible tell us? When you have a problem with your brother, you go and talk to your brother first. Nothing resolves issues quite as fast as walking a mile in someone else's shoes. What is a neighborhood, but a giant family? And thanks to one anonymous person, my relationship in this new family will be slightly tainted, even though we are ignoring this letter.

Pet Hospital

So, while we were getting ready to head to the cousins on Saturday, we noticed that Guido was sick. He was lethargic, and anyone who's seen Guido knows enough to see how serious that is. He was also meowing a lot, something he normally doesn't do. We didn't put him in his room when we left because we didn't worry about him destroying the furniture while we were gone, and we hoped that he would be alright until we got back.

Well, when we got back, he had eaten a little and drunken some water, but he had also thrown up a few times by his litter box and in my sewing room. We moved his cage and food out into the kitchen for the night to see if that would help him.

Sunday morning came and he could only walk a few steps at a time before he had to lay down. We carried him over to his litter box, but he walked away, so we left him by his food and water and went to church. When we came home, he had gone to his litter box, but he still couldn't walk very far. After much debate, we decided not to wait until Monday to take him to the vet. The DH took him to the Emergency Vet. They said he was in critical condition because he had a block somewhere in his urinary tract and his bladder was huge. He went into surgery and DH came home. We picked him up the next morning and took him to a regular vet. He still had an IV in his paw and a catheter. He hadn't eaten, so they were planning on giving him appetite enhancing drugs. He stayed at the vets overnight, and the soonest we can pick him up will be tonight, but we'll have to see how he's doing.

Guido's not very old, somewhere around 4, but now he has to be on a special diet to reduce whichever of the two possible blockages it was. I hope it's not wet food because he has refused to eat wet food in the past. Get well soon, Guido. I know you'll be back to normal soon. But I still won't let you claw the furniture when you come home. So don't get any ideas.

Happy Birthday America!

I love Independence Day. It is my 4th favorite holiday, but it's a close contender for 3rd. I was expecting to be a little stressed because we had things to do and Friday was productive, but not very restful. But no, we ended up having a great day!

We ate breakfast with the ward. They had tacos with the pancakes, eggs, and fruit, just in case you weren't sure we were in Texas. I would never have had tacos for breakfast, but I found myself wanting seconds. Go figure.

Then we went to my cousin's house. I was worried we wouldn't be able to find it, but we didn't have any problems. And we had tons of fun there. Really yummy food, games, and kids running around = fun apparently. We also went swimming. I haven't been swimming for years due to the fact that I don't really like water or water sports, and playing around in a pool is not my idea of fun. But I have been told it's the only way to survive Texas summers, especially for the first few years. So we packed up the swim gear and went. We even bought swimming diapers for G. He wasn't sure what to make of everything, but I think he ended up enjoying himself.

So happy birthday America! I'm glad we could celebrate you by doing American things--eating, talking, lounging, and forcing our children to try new things. I even made pies. And what's more American the pies? Well, me. And I'm glad we have all the freedoms we do in this country. It'd be hard to raise a kid somewhere where I knew he wouldn't be able to do what he wants and what he's good at when he grows up. So thank you to the original freedom fighters, and thank you to everyone in the military helping us fight for freedom now.

My Hands Upon My Head I Place

Not only is that song tons of fun to sing with kids, but it highlights my favorite G part this week, the hands. Not only are they ridiculously small (I don't know how they make them that small), but his little joints are just lines and his fingers plump out on either side. His knuckles are just dimples in his puggy hand. The lines on his palm are deep enough to catch pieces of lint in, but he normally gets them caught in between his fingers. I'm not sure why he always seems to have lint between his fingers since he doesn't open his fingers very often. Or why the lint is always blue. But I love that he likes to grab things, especially my fingers, and especially when he's eating. I'm in love, but you already knew that.



Pics of the house to come after we clean up this weekend.