Kendra-isms

For those of you who haven't been around her much recently, Kendra talks a lot now. Mostly she's really good at repeating whatever Bentley or I say-- especially my directions to her as I dress her-- Stand up! Now this arm! etc.-- but she's got a few phrases that have morphed into sayings truly unique to her which I enjoy hearing.

"Behold." It sort of sounds like she's practicing to be a King James Bible angel, but what she's actually asking is to be picked up (and held). Behold.

"Ticky." This is a double-edged sword. What she's saying is, "tricky" but what she means is, "I need help." This came about because whenever she had a hard time doing something I would try to console her by admitting that whatever she was doing was very tricky to do. Now it's just a plea for help.

"Bucky Dames & Kena Wee." This is what she calls her brother and herself. She's really into middle names all of a sudden. I don't really know why. (Just for the record, her brother's name is Bentley, not Bucky. And her middle name is Lee, not Wee. Although I guess Wee could have been kind of cool. Or perhaps Wii?)

"Oookay..." I really wish I could convey the tone of her voice when she says this, because that's what makes it funny. Let's just say that she sounds very resigned to her fate. But she says it this way all the time, even when she's getting her way. And it always makes me laugh.

"'Pie." This means "up high," and is loudly proclaimed whenever the road we are on is an overpass. Somehow the 'uh' has gotten left out...

"Miss Chu!" This is what I got in response to me telling her I had missed her.

"Ah wuzz you, mommy." That one's not too hard to figure out. And yes, it does melt my heart, even when she says it at two in the morning as I'm rocking her to sleep because she has a bad cold and is miserable.

"Uppy-down" (or sometimes "Upsy-down") Upside-down. She loves to have me or Daddy hold her this way, but once we start she never wants us to stop, so you should only begin this game if you're feeling particularly energetic.


There's tons I'm not remembering right this minute, but you get the idea.

Tribute

Craig's grandmother, Mary Dalton-- Grandmere to us-- passed away on Tuesday. She was 91, so while we are sad and miss her, we are mostly glad that we got to have her in our lives for so long. I certainly can't claim to have known Grandmere very intimately; I think I can count on one hand the times when we were able to visit her. But she was a lovely lady. Despite the health problems she faced later in her life, namely dysphonia and vision loss, she still managed to spend time with and be involved with her family.

I wanted to share some of the photos we have of her here as a way of expressing my condolences to her daughters, my fabulous mother-in-law Donna, and her wonderful sister Lynda.

At my wedding, the first time that I met Grandmere

Mary with her grandsons and great-grandchildren, in South Carolina for Christmas 2006

With her two daughters and sons-in-law, Tom & Donna and Lynda & Greg

The whole family

Extended family (I could try to guess at names, but I think I'd get too many of them mixed up)

Lynda and Mary

Watching the great-grandchildren open presents Christmas morning, 2006

Holding Bentley at 3 months

Still buddies now that Bentley is two

And I have to include this one since Kendra is finally on the scene!

May you rest in peace, Grandmere. We love you and miss you.

Cold

I always assume that that first cold day means the next three or four months will be exactly that temperature or colder, and I hunker down and begin wearing strange combinations of socks, slippers, and a fuzzy bathrobe over my pajamas, just hoping to survive until spring. Plenty of people, especially Craig, don't understand this attitude at all. Craig will point out all the fun things about winter-- snow days, hot cocoa, building a fire-- and try to cheer me up. And while I do enjoy those things, it never seems worth all the cold to me.

I think Craig is starting to understand me better, though. Several times recently, as I cuddled up to him in a desperate attempt to steal some body heat, he's pointed out that the tip of my nose is cold. This seems to surprise him.

"How can your nose be cold?!?!" he asks.

And I respond with, "ALL of me is cold! This is why I hate winter so much!"

Seriously. I'm not sure if I just have poor circulation or if I somehow missed out on the warm-blooded aspect of being human or what. But it is a fact: I get cold all over way too easily. And for those of you who aren't afflicted with this problem, let me just assure you that if you spent three months with most of your body cold, you'd hate it, too. I'm a summer person, through and through.

But, having said all that, I have to admit that it's always a happy and welcome surprise when the weather warms up for a few days, even though winter has hardly even started yet. We had one of those lovely days this last Sunday. The morning started out really foggy, which is unusual around here, but by the time we left church, it was in the mid-seventies outside, and we drove home with the windows rolled down.

It was heaven.

Quote for a Monday

Let me just say that I am tired. Bentley refused to take a nap yesterday, which means I didn't get to take a nap either. And then for reasons that are completely unfathomable to me, I kept waking up every hour last night. EVERY FREAKING HOUR. One of those reasons was when Bentley came into the room at 3:30 because he lost his binky. And that was pretty annoying. But the rest of those wake-ups I can only blame on my body forgetting how to delve into REM sleep or something... And naturally, the kids woke up super early this morning, too.

So when I'm this tired, there isn't a whole lot I can do except admit to myself that I'm a complete grump and hope that maybe honesty will allow the situation to be humorous and help me move on a bit from the grumpiness.

Anyway, here's a quote that makes me laugh. It's from the TV show The Simpsons, which is perhaps one of the most brilliant cartoons ever to be animated:

"I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun!"

-Homer Simpson

Gotta love it.

Here's to Monday!



(By the way, don't worry-- I don't actually have a gun. Good thing, too!)

Social Evolution

I read a book review in the National Review a few weeks ago that got me thinking. The book was about the many men in our society who refuse to grow up and take responsibility for their lives (and no, I can't remember what the title of this book was), but that's not actually what I want to write about here. The review briefly mentioned how men and women's roles within the family changed with the industrial revolution. Not to draw too much attention to my own ignorance here, but this was something I'd never thought about before. Usually we hear so much about how women's roles changed with WWII and with the feminist revolution and the impact that this has had on the family. But we rarely hear about men's changing roles, and we hear even less about how men have changed our families.

So let's look at this for a moment: before the industrial revolution, when the majority of families farmed to survive, they would have functioned completely differently. Men would have been with their families all day long, just like the women. Sure, they would go out into the fields to labor, but the sons would be out there laboring with their fathers as soon as they were old enough. And everyone would share most of their meals together-- not just dinner! So daughters would be with their mothers and sons with their fathers, all learning their trade side by side. So parenting was truly both parents' job. (Not that it isn't still, but in Mormon culture it certainly falls on the Mom's shoulders for most of the day. In the rest of the world, it mostly goes to the daycare workers, a fact which I can't even think about for too long because it makes me so worried for the coming generations, which is why I've never blogged about it.)

How different would our world be if both parents spent all day long with their children?

It's so weird, because I definitely have no desire to go back to that time period (I'm a big fan of our day and age, where even a major famine doesn't lead to starvation-- at least in America-- and I also happen to like things like indoor plumbing), but I think we also need to acknowledge that there are things humanity lost without even noticing, and perhaps we need to give these things a little more thought. And losing both parents' involvement in their children's lives, one after the other, is perhaps the most tragic loss we've experienced. I don't know how or when we can ever recover from this.

Standards

The other day, Bentley and I had the following discussion:

Bentley: Captain Hammer* is kind of a wimp.
Me: Yeah? How come Captain Hammer is a wimp?
Bentley: Because he starts crying over a little tiny bruise.
Me: Yeah, that's pretty wimpy of him. What about Dr. Horrible? Is he a wimp?
Bentley: No, Dr. Horrible's not a wimp.
Me: Yeah. He's pretty tough, huh. What about Daddy? Is he tough like Dr. Horrible?
Bentley: Yeah, Daddy's pretty tough. (Pause as Bentley thinks.) Except, Daddy's kind of a wimp with peanut butter...

Apparently in Bentley's mind Allergies = Wimpiness.

Who knew?



*Captain Hammer is Dr. Horrible's arch nemesis, for those of you still unfamiliar with Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.

And a few more Halloween pictures, too...

We took these pictures right before we left to go trick-or-treating. The kids were kind of excited...

(For comparison's sake, I'm slipping in this picture of Bentley from 2007-- I like that my kids have the exact same "excited" face...)

Looking a bit more normal just for a split second...

I love Kendra with her tongue sticking out. Totally love it.

Posing for Church Magazines

Bentley recently discovered that there are pictures in the Book of Mormon! This made it infinitely more interesting to him than it had ever been before, and led to what might possibly be my favorite pictures EVER. Let me warn you in advance: these are ridiculous and cheesy, and that's why I think they're funny. And, of course, why I have to share them with you:

Doesn't this look posed for the Ensign or something? If only it were backlit, and possibly the bed looked neater, it would be PERFECT. Okay, okay, and no t-shirts, either. They ought to be in their Sunday best. But STILL!!!
(Just for the record, the bed was made, but the pillows got tossed around, so it looks messier than it actually was...)

Totally engrossed. So righteous. Eat your heart out, Seriously, So Blessed!

He liked the story of Samuel the Lamanite.

And how's this for looking like a completely whacked-out religious zealot?!?! We were dying laughing. Guess Bentley's ready to serve a mission and call the masses to repentance!

I expect photographers from the Church News to be knocking on our door any day now.

Health

I can't swallow pills. At all. When I was in the hospital after Bentley's c-section, the nurses used to watch in fascination and horror as I would chew up my narcotics (percocet-- good stuff!) every four hours. It was gross, but worth it.

But, as you can imagine, I usually try to avoid medication whenever possible, because it's just not worth the taste. Or sometimes I'll even request the liquid version of things, which usually gets me weird looks at the pharmacy (one time the pharmacist was about to give me an infant dropper until she noticed the birthdate on the medication and realized the antibiotics were for me, not for Kendra). And, for obvious reasons, I've never been big on taking vitamins or any of that "healthy" stuff, because they usually make me want to throw up, which doesn't make me feel very healthy. But recently I discovered these:

And they're wonderful. I heart gummy vitamins.

Sneaky Sister, Part II

Apparently it wasn't just Bentley's new toys that were worth investigating during his nap time. Kendra also liked his Halloween costume:

This picture is my favorite. I love that devious little grin.

This happened a while ago. You can tell because the hat is still in one piece! I guess Kendra's costume is all figured out for next year!