Y Zzzs?

The last few weeks G has had trouble getting to sleep. He missed his afternoon naps two days in a row. Which led to this while he was playing:no, Mom, I'm not tired . . . (He never usually does this, by the way, and he just waited there until I got the camera. Then once I took the picture, he popped back up again.)

He's fine once he gets there, but between his new skills and teething, he's had some trouble. Consequently, I have had some trouble with my sanity. So the other day when things started catching up and 2 1/2 hours into the afternoon nap all was still silent upstairs, I went to check things out. Here's what I found.
The sweet boy was still asleep, and very soundly. Normally opening the door is enough to wake him. Here you can see his little bum in the air.
Otto is sleeping too. Obviously, I couldn't wake up this sweetness, so I let him finish on his own. It didn't take long, either.

Happy Birthday

Guess who had a birthday?
Yes, that's right. And since birthday's are a big deal to me, I set out to make it a good one. After all, it's not every day your husband turns [add appropriate, yet flattering age here].

We went to a Brazilian restaurant for dinner. One that promised to be more authentic then the disappointing versions we had been to in the past. It certainly lived up to it's hype, and since there was a store attached, Johnny came home with a stash of stuff.He's on diet Guarana now that he's old. I don't like cake normally, but it was a birthday, and this recipe is delicious.
I didn't put candles on it because [insert fire hazard joke of your choice].
In addition to his food stash, he had quite a stack of presents.
Including his traditional sweater, this time an argyle.
Which G enjoyed helping unwrap. He did a much better job than at Christmas.
I deem the day a success because the next day I got an email that said, "It was quite possibly my best birthday ever." In addition to other things, of course. And who put this together?
That's right G, it was me.

Hair Cut!

Even though G doesn't have much hair, the hair he had was getting so long it was hanging over his ears, curling up strangely, and giving him some wicked bed head, so we decided it was time for a hair cut. Thanks to other toys we have for him that vibrate, he seemed to really enjoy the clippers.
But he was very curious, which made it difficult to get at his hairs.
He was also very distracted, which made it difficult to get him to sit still.
His least favorite part was the back of his head.
This is a lock of hair we cut off. As you can see he really does have hair, or rather, he did.

Fun with Friends

So my friend came to visit. Unfortunately, she picked the worst time-during the only cold spell yet this winter. The weather was actually worse than in Salt Lake City. It was bitterly cold and extremely windy, as G is pointing out.
So the first day she was here we went to the GINORMOUS mall by our house. Here we are browsing the books.The next day, we went to the 6th Floor Museum, site of the assassination of JFK. Seen here:
Disclaimer, these pictures were not taken that day. It was so cold that day as we walked/ran from the car to the museum G started crying and would not calm down until he thawed thoroughly, which took quite a bit of time. Poor cold boy.
I learned a lot in this museum. I didn't know much about JFK's presidency or his assassination before, just enough to pass the AP US History test in high school, but I left the museum with as many questions as factoids. The whole situation still has unanswered questions, and technology what it was, there is little hope of answers, unfortunately. But for you conspiracy theorists out there, it took three attempts before this next picture would upload to my blog . . .
The helpfully labeled "grassy knoll" slowed down traffic as we tried to get on the freeway. Everyone wants pictures.

That day we also went to the Dallas City Library which had originals of a Shakespeare Folio and the Declaration of Independence. How have I not known about this before? It was a great library. I wish I had more time to browse around there, but with a fussy baby and the threat of eminent cold, we couldn't stay too long.

The next day (the date the above pictures were taken) was by far the warmest of the three. We went back downtown to this museum which is now my favorite building in Dallas. It is the Old Red Courthouse and is currently the Dallas Museum.

Any of you who have seen my bridals will not have a hard time imagining why this is my favorite building. They were taken here, at the City and County Building in Salt Lake. The architecture is very similar.In the Dallas Museum I learned about the history of Dallas. And though I did learn a few things, my favorite thing was still the stairs. Though G did enjoy playing in the children's section.
So despite the cold we had a great time.

And we ate really yummy food thanks to some perusal of cook books and a quick trip to the grocery store. This is Pumpkin Black Bean Soup, with yams instead of pumpkin since there's a shortage and all.


G found a way to stay entertained while we ate.
So you're welcome back any time, K. And G loved spending time with you. (As did I.)

It's a Small World

I was at church the other week (like I am every week, Mom) waiting afterwards for Johnny to finish his calling. He is the financial clerk and counts tithing after our block of meetings. We could take two cars, but it's just as easy to keep G happy in the lobby as it would be at home. Plus then I get to hear the other ward's sacrament meeting, and it's usually pretty good.

Anyway, it was the first week of the year and I was helping G walk around the foyer, when someone brought their little boy out of the chapel. Happens all the time, so I didn't pay any attention until he said my name. Turns out he was one of my first FHE brothers in college. Man, those were good times. But it totally surprised me that he would remember my name since I wasn't very outspoken or well-known in that ward. The whole experience made me think of two things:

1) It will be very interesting to see myself through other people's eyes in the afterlife. I have had a pretty severe inferiority complex most of my life. In high school I was always surprised when people knew my name. And in college I was known to say that I was not the main character in my own life for several years. I think it will interesting to see where I fall in the character lineup of other people's stories.

2) I was reminded of the etiquette book from the 50's that I bought at a library book sale. A lot of the advice in it is fun to laugh at, but some still applies, especially the section on meeting people who you haven't seen in awhile, or people outside of their normal context. I have to say, my FHE brother did better than most people, but it is still difficult running into people that I recognize, but not being able to remember a name or how I know them. My book recommends saying your name when you run into someone and mentioning how you know them, if you know. I think I might resolve to be better about doing this, and being fearless about asking people their name and how I know them if I can't remember. I know it's acceptable in our culture, but I still feel like it's rude. I much prefer the re-introduce yourself strategy.

FAQs

I thought I'd take this opportunity to answer some questions you might have been asking yourself.

1) Why haven't you posted anything for a week, you did so good there at the first of the year?

Well, this last week I had a dear friend come and stay with me. Yes, it was the person pictured above. We romped around Dallas and had too much fun to bother about blogging or anything like that. But don't worry, pics and stories will be posted soon.

2) Have you heard anything about Johnny's work and possibly moving?

Like me in this picture, we are still waiting. However, the grapevine has had its ear to the ground and we have found out from it the possible location for one of the six people waiting to hear about moving to plants. That person was not us, however, from that information Johnny was able to put together the locations of the other five people, ending up with the large possibility that we will be in Illinois like we want. Now we can just hope that if this grapevine is to be believed, we will be one of the first people to get the official tap on the shoulder.
But no news yet.

3) Why doesn't G know sign language?

Well, in order to fully answer this question, there are a couple of things you have to know about G first. G lives by the philosophy that "life imitates art" not the other way around. And in this motto, of course, G = art. Which means, G is not a mimicker. He does get really tickled when we mimic him, which we do often. But normally what happens is that he will think and process something new until he has it down, then just start doing it. For instance, he didn't do a lot of the pre-crawling activities that many babies do like rocking around on all fours, he just started crawling when he was ready. And he can crawl normally, by the way, he just prefers his method. He also practices a lot. We learned this coming back from Salt Lake when he was falling asleep on the plane. He was waving with one hand, and working on his pinching grasp with the other. It was ridiculously cute. Now he has started pointing at things, and you can really see his brain working when you repeat the names of the things he is pointing to. So, while he doesn't sign anything now, I'm sure he will when he gets it all figured out in his little brain. In the mean time, he uses things like tilting his head to communicate. (I'll try to post pictures of that as well.)

Happy New Year

Me and G just wanted to wish you a happy new year.

Reaching Equilibrium

G has now reached equilibrium. He has been alive for equal amounts of time inside and outside the womb. To celebrate this, we got for him a new friend. We call him Otto von Sea Otter, and he has helped G sleep better because although he is not as warm as the cat, he doesn't bite, scratch, or run away and is equally as soft. Thus making him ideal to snuggle up with. He is also a great marker of time, so look for monthly updates with Otto.
9 Month Stats:
G: 28 inches, 24 lbs.
Otto: 30 inches, 8 oz.

Dear Hair

We have lived together continuously for 25 years now. The first five were a wonderful honeymoon where we were both able to close our eyes to the idiosyncrasies of the other. But after all this time, I must honestly admit to you that I don't understand you at all.

I know that your need for independence, your desire to "do whatever you want" steams from childhood horror stories of being stabbed with scissors while cutting your bangs, mediocre hair cuts, and homemade hack jobs. Not to mention the "growing out" period we would both like to destroy all record of. But though I can trace your past, you continue to confuse and frustrate me in the present. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to your decisions to look good. If I knew who you were trying to impress, I could help us both out. But alas, feeble attempts at communication are too new to bring out any soul-rending secrets.

So I fear that I will continue to wonder why you fly away despite any humidity reading, why sometimes you will straighten and sometimes you won't, why some days for no reason at all you reveal effortless natural beauty.

But fear not, I will continue to live with you. I think we've both invested too much time in this working relationship to throw it all away with one fell swoop of a razor. Just please, work with me from time to time. Let's make this grow into something lovely.

Love,
Me

Crawling

Since G conveniently waited to crawl until we were the only ones to corral him, here are some videos. As you may notice, he has a unique crawling style. This has not slowed him up in the least.

Christmas!

This is what we woke up to Christmas morning. If you look close, you can see our tree.

G is sporting his new Christmas pjs. Yes we cheated and opened them early. Here he is saying that he wants to get on with it.

So we let him get into his stocking.

He really like the clementine.

Opening presents . . .

Enjoying the stash . . .

Then we let him try his clementine. Don't worry, he ended up liking it.

Then there was lots of play time.

Then we feasted on Christmas ham and potatoes. Thanks to Johnny's work we will be eating ham for the next week at least. Anyone know any good ham recipes?

Well, Merry Christmas to all. We sure had a good one.

Christmas Eve

We went to my grandma's house for Christmas Eve. You may notice my lighter choice of clothing. That was because of the beautifulness of yesterday. It was until we left and it was snowing that I felt myself slightly underdressed. Luckily my grandma had the fire going and it was toasty warm.

We got her a lovely bouquet from my parents for Christmas. Not only was it lovely and Christmasy, but it smelled really good.

She didn't want to be in the picture, but I'm sneaky.

We played Upwords--it was a tough game too, you really do need to start with a 5-letter word, sung Christmas carols and watched the snow. G was tired, but when Grandma reached out and took his hands he walked over to her lap.

And after a 2 hour car ride, we came home to this. Sadly, this picture doesn't show how awesome the topiaries looked topped with snow.

So a kind of white Christmas for us.