Thanksgiving Revisited

Back in November, we went to New York. We visited three of my sisters who all live there, enjoyed spending Thanksgiving with them, and managed to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  I mentioned all this on the blog at the time, but blogger wasn't letting me post any more pictures, so I never did give you the full scoop.  Today I am finally remedying that.

First of all, I should point out that this was all Craig's idea.  If you know us at all, this probably won't surprise you.  Between the two of us, Craig is both the Big Idea Person, and also the Fun Parent.  I'm the one who just wants to stay home and keep things simple.  I'm lucky I married Craig, because without him I'd probably never do anything or go anywhere.  And I'm even luckier because not only does Craig force me to do things like this, he also has a knack for always pulling them off splendidly.  And this was no exception.

We'd arrived at my sister's house the night before, getting in really late, and getting up way too early the next morning because Ryder wouldn't sleep.  So we were exhausted from the get-go.  After helping out with some of the Thanksgiving prep, we took a train into Manhattan that afternoon.  Craig really wanted us to see Inflation Eve, where they blow all the parade balloons up.  But our plans got changed somewhat, mostly because we spent a couple hours standing around Penn Station while Craig sold his iPhone to some guy on the street (who he'd found through Craigslist), and then used that cash to buy the new iPhone.  This was a long and tedious process, but I couldn't really be too put out with him since he actually made money on the deal.  And then he was excited to take all these pictures with his new phone.

By the time that was done, I was beyond tired, and taking the subway with three kids in two strollers into the busiest part of town near the parade was a bit daunting.  Fortunately, several New Yorkers quickly saw our situation and helped haul strollers up and down stairs.  One man even wished me a Happy Thanksgiving as he hurried along his way, a random act of kindness that made me burst into tears.  (Stupid pregnancy hormones.)  Eventually we made it to Tracy's apartment, where she told me to sit down and hang out with Rachael, while Tracy, Craig, and Ian (my brother-in-law) ran out and got food for all of us from the Shake Shack.  Heaven (both the food and the sitting down).

Once we were done eating, it was apparent that the most important thing to do was to put our exhausted children to bed.  We left them at Tracy's and let her do most of the work there, and went and saw Inflation Eve, just the two of us.  That was a good decision, because it was PACKED and I was still pretty tired, too.  If we would have been pushing strollers, I think Craig would have had a mutiny on his hands.  As it was, we enjoyed seeing the balloons, and I took breaks sitting on park benches while Craig obsessively documented the whole thing.

After seeing most of the balloons, we headed to Fiorello's, where we'd heard that they served amazing chocolate mousse.  It was as good as everyone had told us, and I also drank about ten glasses of water while we were there (I guess I'd forgotten to stay hydrated, what with everything going on).  Then we took the subway (now empty, and now stroller free) to Rachael and Ian's place, where we stayed up way too late talking with them before finally going to bed.  (Why are all my sisters so fun to talk to???  It's impossible to ever go to bed at a decent hour when they're around!)

Craig and Ian got up at 4:45 the next morning and headed back towards Tracy's place, where they saved us all space to watch the parade.  Rachael and I slept a tiny bit later, and then went to Tracy's and helped her get the kids all dressed and fed before the parade.  When we found Craig and Ian, we discovered that they had done an AMAZING job of picking out a parade-watching spot for us.  There was plenty of room to sit, we were super close, and to top it all off, the weather was even pretty warm!  We only had a short wait before the fun began!

Notice that Ryder is wearing Daddy's gloves.  His hands aren't actually that big...

Most of the gang.  Rachael (and I) got chairs to sit on, and the rest were on a blanket.  Not bad, not bad...!

If you're six and four, you really can't get a better spot than this!

As Rachael snapped this picture, she commented, "Ah, yes, the two turkeys with the turkey."  Can't argue with that.

Tracy, Ian and Rachael

Kermit blocks out the sun for a moment

I know, I already posted this picture.  But it's worth repeating!

A rare smile from Bentley

Ryder enjoys hitting Daddy...

I have NO IDEA what we were talking about here.  But apparently we had strong feelings about it!

The whole family

Love Kendra's face in this shot...

... And in this one, too!

Right at the end, Ryder got bored and dumped an entire bag of goldfish crackers onto the sidewalk.  Then he proceeded to put them all back in the bag and dump them again.  I'm pretty sure he never ate any of them.  ...I hope.

And Santa!  Wow, that man was jolly!  I don't know how he had so much energy, but he was great!

So the parade was a raging success!  We had great seats, we didn't have to stand outside freezing for hours.  In fact, we weren't even freezing at all.  And we all had a great time.  And I have to give full credit for that to Craig and Ian, who were willing to get there early and save us seats and make it all happen.  Left to my own devices, I would never even have attempted such a thing!

There was one minor mishap afterwards.  Going back to Leah and Brian's, we (just my little family, not Tracy, Rachael or Ian) managed to get on the wrong train.  And the train we grabbed was a non-stop train to Connecticut.  Oops.  So we had to stand there for 45 minutes knowing we were going to the completely wrong state.  That was lame.  But it was also pretty hilarious.  Here we are in Stamford:

Craig said I looked sort of like one of the Beastie Boys.  Maybe if they were pregnant.  But that comment made me love this picture.

The parade had gone so well that all I could do was laugh about winding up in Connecticut.  The train that took us to the right stop came ten minutes later, and we ended up only being delayed by about twenty minutes in all.  So it wasn't a big deal-- mostly it's just something we can laugh about for the rest of our lives.

I'm glad I married someone so fun!

Lessons in Biology... And a Few Good Names.

Ryder woke up from his nap in a snuggly mood, so we spent quite a bit of time wrapped up in the electric blanket together while he sucked his thumb and I chatted with my friend.  It was a nice and cozy way to spend a very cold afternoon. 

At one point the subject of tummies came up, so he was pointing out both his tummy and mine.  I've been trying to get him to understand this whole baby-on-the-way thing, so I pointed to my tummy and asked, "Do you know why mommy's tummy is so big?" hoping I could get him to say "Baby"  (or, as he pronounces it, "Beebee").

Instead, he looked at me, smiled, and said triumphantly, "Daddy!"

Well, yes, I guess we could definitely blame Daddy for the current state of my tummy.  I think Ryder's a little young for that lesson just yet, though.

*     *     *     *     *

And I'll stop keeping you in suspense about names.  The name we've liked best for several months now (although we always point out that until he's born and we've seen him, we can change our minds at any time!) is...   Colton.

I like that name a lot.  I like how it sounds with Smith.  I like that it's not super common (any common name instantly becomes boring when you pair it with Smith), but I don't think it's weird, either.  And I like how it fits with our other kids' names.  ("Kyson" got bumped because it seemed too much like some hybrid of Ryder and Kendra; all names ending in "-ley" get bumped because they share too much in common with Bentley's name, etc, etc.  These things get so complicated!)

So that's our main bet for now-- Colton Smith.

It has a ring to it, right?*

We're not even close to deciding on a middle name yet, although ones we've been considering include Paul, Grant, William, and Wesley...  And Kendra has made the following suggestions: Strump, Looploop, and Glublub.  (She's had a few other doozies as well, but those are the only ones I remember.  I already feel bad for her future children.)




*Okay, okay, if you hate it, you can tell me.  I may or may not agree with you, but I suppose it's better to hear what I haven't thought of now, rather than after he's stuck with it...!

The Name Game

With this poor fourth child, I'm having a harder time taking the naming game seriously.  Craig and I spent weeks trying to justify why we could give him the middle name of "Danger."  (Don't worry, we finally decided that we couldn't.)  And now, my favorite-- it occurred to me that, since we already have a kid named Ryder, it would be hilarious to name this one...  are you ready?... Walker!

But we won't do that either.

But I am awfully tempted.  Walker Danger Smith.  It has a ring to it, don't you think?



And the real question.  You wanna know what we are considering?

Teach Ye the Children

Recently I keep stumbling across blog posts and conference talks addressing the issue of teaching our children the gospel.  I have to admit that it's not something I focus on very much (other than all the daily life stuff that is part of being Mormon).  And while I'm not one to feel overly guilty about my parenting (or much of anything, truth be told), I did fall asleep last night wondering if I should be doing more in this department.

And then reality smacked me upside the face this morning, as I spent ten minutes arguing with Bentley about why he needed to put on clean underwear.  (This has been our standard policy since FOREVER, by the way.  It's not like this was a new thing!)  This was followed by another ten minutes of Bentley complaining because he's not a robot.  Mind you, this wasn't about him wanting to wear a robot costume or something.  He wants to actually BE a robot.  And the fact that he can't be one (or, as he perceives it, that I won't let him), makes him angry. 

And nothing I said seemed to convince him that a) this isn't possible and b) even if it was, it would still be a terrible idea.

So that's where we are right now.  I'm busy just trying to instill a sense of hygiene and how to be a humanoid.  Hopefully teaching my children to be Christlike can be next on the agenda...

Idiosyncracies

You know how we all have those things that we do without even noticing that we do them?  Until someone points it out to you, that is, and then it makes you all self-conscious and you wish they had just left you alone with your weirdness.

I have a bunch, apparently.  It wasn't until I was in middle school and people made fun of me that I realized that I never walked.  Instead, my modus operandi was to skip.  EVERYWHERE.  It was like I was incapable of walking!  And if you're an avid skipper, trying to learn to walk like a normal human being when you're in the throes of middle school and hip development and all that fun stuff.  It's really difficult.  Everyone goes through an awkward phase, but I'm pretty sure that mine was even made even more awkward than most as I tried to keep my pace to an even shuffle without bursting out into my usual joyous (but shameful) skipping.  {Shudder.}


It took a mission companion (who didn't particularly like me) asking me accusingly if I "always made noise" every time I swallowed before I realized that I did indeed do just that!  I guess that could be kind of annoying, especially during companionship prayer time.  But in this case, I don't seem to have any control over it, so I refuse to apologize.  There aren't any other ways to swallow, are there???  I blame my overly large tonsils.  And then hope no one else is being grossed out by me.

Some guy once pointed out that when I eat ice cream, I stick my tongue out.  Who knew?  I never paid any attention.  He thought it was sexy, though, so I never bothered to try and break myself of that habit.  (I've also never asked Craig what he thought of it, mostly because if he did think it was creepy, I'd have a whole new thing to try to not do, and who needs that kind of stress when you're simply trying to enjoy a bowl of ice cream???)

Anyway, with this sore ankle, I've noticed yet another one: apparently, whenever I sit down, I do so by tucking one foot (almost always my right foot) under me and then sitting on that foot.  I have no idea why I do this, or when it started.  I hope it doesn't look as weird as it sounds, now that I'm describing it.  (And does it look even worse when I'm at church in a dress??  Yeeks!)

But I can tell you, that when you sit down on a wooden chair onto your sore ankle, IT REALLY HURTS.  And when you do it several times in one day, you begin to question your own intelligence in a big way.

Apparently, it has taken a sprained ankle for me to see how weird I am.



So what weird thing do you do?  I can't be the only one...   Can I?

But other than that, it was a good day...

99% of Saturday was a really good day.

I got a good night's rest and the kids let us sleep until a decent hour.  I got to go to my friend's daughter's baptism and then met Craig and all the kids at the pool* where they'd just begun swimming lessons (well, just Bentley and Kendra, not Ryder).  And then I worked on cutting out fabric for this project (my job is to cut the fabric, all the rest will be left to more capable hands, lest you wonder whose blog you're reading!) while Craig worked on putting our downstairs back together. 

I should explain about the downstairs: After getting the TV, Craig decided it needed to be mounted on the wall.  This made sense, since sitting on that flimsy plastic stand it came with seemed like an invitation to the kids to just knock it down and break it.  But since we were doing that, it also made sense to just get rid of the TV stand we had-- it was just a cheap thing we'd bought at Wal-Mart and it was already missing one cupboard door and looked pretty shabby.  So the domino effect here also meant we needed to find new places for all the stuff that had been stored in the old TV stand.  Craig got to be in charge of all of that, and he did a great job.  The TV is now mounted on the wall, complete with Craig's old stereo speakers, all our DVDs have been moved to the book shelf next to the TV, all CD cases are in storage.  And while he was at it, he moved the couch back to its proper place (it had been shoved aside to make room for the Christmas tree), vacuumed everywhere, and patched and repainted the holes in the wall from the first attempt at mounting the TV. 

So he worked hard.  While I measured and cut fabric.  And then watched him work hard.  And pointed out pine needles that the vacuum had missed.  (I'm helpful like that!)

Then it was dinner, get the kids to bed, and all that usual stuff.

And then it was time to sit and enjoy our TV!  And as Craig put in a DVD (Moneyball-- I like that movie), I came down the stairs, thinking about being helpful by moving the love sac.  And as I looked at it wondering if it was too heavy for me to move, I completely missed the bottom step, and came crashing down on my foot which twisted to one side making a horrid POP-ping noise.  And I crash-landed on my hands and knees.

And then I burst into tears because my ankle hurt so bad.

(And just for the record, I didn't cry AT ALL when Kendra and Ryder were born, so this isn't just me being a wimp.)

I sat sobbing while Craig got me some frozen peas for it, and then cried a few more tears while he got a bucket of ice water ready.

Lots of icing and elevating and wrapping ensued, while we watched Moneyball.  And I learned that if you're going to sprain your ankle, you should probably not drink an entire bottle of water first, because standing up numerous times to get to the bathroom kind of sucks.  I woke up the next morning, realized that it hurt to sit with my foot resting on the floor, and decided there was no way I could make it to church.  So I spent the entire day in bed or on the couch while Craig did everything for me and the kids.  He was so nice about it, too-- he suggested we should do this once a month so everyone would appreciate how hard I work normally.

And apparently all that rest WORKED!  Because my ankle is doing MUCH better already today.  It's still sore and swollen, but I can hobble around without too much difficulty, and sitting upright is just fine now.  I think it will only take a few more days of babying it before I'm back to good again.

So in the scheme of things, I lucked out-- it can't be a bad sprain if it's healing this fast, and I'm mostly thankful that I didn't land on my stomach and hurt the baby or something.

So overall I'm thankful.  But feel free to wish me a speedy recovery anyway!




*6+ years of living here, and that was the FIRST time I'd made it to the Freedom Aquatics Center!  How did I miss out all these years?

Ah ha!

SPAM! 

I did everything Jen suggested, and tried leaving comments and they still weren't getting to me.  I even added Craig's email address to the list, and HE would get my practice comments, but I wouldn't!  We finally figured out that they were all getting sent straight to spam!  Apparently I never check my spam box-- there were so many non-spam items in there!  People I'd friended on facebook who I figured they'd just ignored me, ALL of your comments, and so much more!  Reading through it, I felt so loved! 

And I also felt bad that I'd been ignoring so many people!  Stupid spam filter.  I don't even know how I did that or if gmail was just being overly helpful.  (Makes me think of this video, actually...)

So, yeah, I think I'm back to getting comments again.  But just in case, I'll keep having them sent to Craig also-- he's very good about forwarding them back to me (although he said his job is to also protect me from any mean comments, so I guess you'd better stay nice!).

Whew.  I'm glad to have that taken care of.  It was driving me nuts.

User Error

All right, apparently I suck at this. 

I'm STILL not getting emails notifying me when you leave comments!!!

I just figured no one was bothering to comment at all, and sort of kicking myself for changing things around.  And then I was messing with the settings on my blog, and noticed the tab for comments "awaiting moderation" and realized there were about six comments just sitting there waiting for me to notice them!

How am I this dumb?  And why is it that I still cannot for the life of me figure out how to make it so that I get that stupid email notification!?!?!?

Who knows how to fix this?  Please tell me!  You just want to email me or call me, though, since comments seem to not be my thing...

Love at Home

I'm going to brag for just a bit.

My kids were SO GOOD yesterday!  I think a lot of it was the switch to morning church (hallelujah!!!), but they all sat quietly through sacrament meeting.  Even Ryder didn't have to be taken out!  And this with us not providing snacks for them!  (That was on purpose, actually-- I'd warned them that with morning church I no longer felt that they would need snacks, so they'd better eat a good breakfast.  And they did!)  After church, we ate lunch together (um, except Craig, the lone person fasting), and then Ryder and I took naps while Craig played with Bentley and Kendra.  And he reported that they had an absolutely delightful time, playing Go Fish, having a talent show, and playing pictionary!

Seriously, it was like roses were blooming beneath our feet or something!

We certainly have good times in our home, but entire days like this are a bit on the rare side, so I want to document that they are possible!  Even for us.  Especially for us, I guess.

I wish I could put my finger on what it was that made this happen so then I could keep repeating it.  I doubt it's any one thing or that it's that simple.  But gosh darn it, I'll keep trying to recreate this bliss for the rest of my life, if I have to!

We really can have a happy home!

Christmas Surprises

Christmas was wonderful.  Singing Christmas songs continually brought tears to my eyes and I enjoyed a wonderful spirit the entire season (blame it on the hormones, but in this case, they were nice tears).  But I'm not going to bore you with all the spiritual stuff because I want to tell you about a couple of the super great presents we got!!!  I'm shallow like that.

Some weeks ago, my Mom and Craig got to talking and decided to get my blog posts all bound up in a book for me.  It was a perfect project for the two of them: Craig did all the work, and my Mom paid for it all and they were both very happy.  Unfortunately, when the finished product came, I saw that we had a box addressed to Craig with no indication of who it was from, and figured it was probably a present FOR Craig and opened it up, intending to wrap it for him and put it under the tree.  In my defense, I told this plan to Craig and he agreed it was a good idea, so it's not like I was being devious or anything.  If Craig would have looked more closely at the box, he would have seen the return address and realized what it was and stopped me.  But he didn't.  And I ended up opening my big surprise about 6 days before Christmas.

Craig was so unhappy!  He'd worked so hard and was so sad that my big surprise was ruined.  The second I had the box opened, he realized his mistake and snatched it out of my hands.  He wouldn't tell me anything about it and hid it away, threatening that I would never see it again.  He had a few days to stew over it all, so that was when he came up with his revenge. He was bound and determined to surprise me one way or another!

He was sneaky about it, too.  He put a present under the tree with this adorable tag:

To: Alanna
From:
Director, Patrice Bentley
Executive Producer, Rex Bentley
Artistic Direction, Craig Smith
 and
Award Winning Author, Alanna Smith

But inside, rather than my blog book, was some book about spies (this was not a coincidence, Craig pointed out) along with a sonnet he'd written (I love sonnets, and he'd put it in iambic pentameter and everything!) about how because I'd ruined my surprise by peaking, I would have to work to get my book.  Then it suggested that I check out the filing cabinet drawers. 

In the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, I found a present, but this one was way too small to be my book.  As I unwrapped it, I quickly discovered that it had been wrapped several times.  Actually, probably at least twenty times.  Most of those layers were done with wrapping paper, but occasionally he'd gotten creative and used yarn, A/C unit tape, cloth & safety pins, and even a plastic bag.  It took me forever to finally get down to the folded up note which contained my next clue: this time I had to go to the crawl space.

Inside the crawl space was a huge box.  Which contained a smaller box.  And then several more smaller boxes (I think 5 or 6, all told).  And then another 20 or so layers of wrapping.  It took me so long to unwrap all these that I had to go to the bathroom before I was done!  The next clue was a bit more obtuse: it informed me that my present was NOT in Craig's car.  I wasn't sure what do with that information.  I tried looking in my car, and got nothing.  So I opened up the trunk of Craig's car and found a present with the words, "This is not your book.  Surprise!"

Upon opening this gift (only one layer of wrapping paper), I discovered a framed portrait from our wedding!  We'd been talking about getting one ever since the big day seven-and-a-half years ago and just never gotten around to it, so this made me burst into happy tears.  What a lovely thing to finally own!  There was also a note that told me to look in Craig's dresser, which was where my book was hiding.

So I ended up being surprised after all.  AND I have a big fat book of all my blog posts from 2011 and 2012.  This probably makes me the biggest narcissist in the world, but I really do enjoy reading my old blog posts, so I'm excited to have them in a more tangible format.  Just those two years took up 300 pages, so I guess that even after five years of blogging, I still have a lot to say!  And Craig promises that we can get the other years published some other day.  (Birthday present for me, Mom?)

So those were my two big presents.  We also got an awesome TV finally (flat-screen, HD, all that stuff)-- we'd never actually bought a TV, but had been on our 5th free one, so this was a big deal for us.  (Lots of thanks to my wonderful in-laws for their generosity!!!)  But this was definitely more of a present for Craig, the film snob, than for me, who is still quite happy watching movies on VHS. 

In any case, we were both very happy with our Christmas presents.

And now, I can start deleting pictures off the blog posts and making room for new ones!  So if you want to take one last look at all the pictures from 2011 and 2012 (but honestly, you probably don't), get cracking because they're disappearing soon!  And be prepared for an onslaught of new pictures!!!

Small Change

Hey, all!  So I just wanted to explain one minor change I've made to this blog.  A while ago when (I think?) google bought out blogger, it somehow changed so that I didn't get any email notification when people left comments!  This means that I have, occasionally, been known to sit reloading my own blog in case there were comments that I wasn't seeing.  Which is a little on the pathetic side, I have to admit. 

So in order to not do that, I've given myself the power to moderate comments.  Which is totally unnecessary, because none of you has ever left comments that needed any censoring on my part.  You guys are great commenters! 

But hopefully this way I can get back to receiving an email if someone leaves a comment, rather than having to hit the re-load button.  Then I won't have to feel so lame, which would be nice.



Soon up-- the full report on Christmas!

Someone is Lying to Me

You know how those parenting magazines are always telling you to let your toddler help you out around the house?  "Little kids love to help out!" they'll gush, followed up by some testimonial of how some parent rewards their child for doing these chores and everyone is just so happy and pleased with the whole situation.

It's not that they're wrong-- Ryder LOVES to help me fold laundry.  If your definition of "help me fold" is "jump on everything and/or throw it on the floor."  He also loves to help me empty the dishwasher.  This usually just means he hands everything to me.  That wouldn't be too much of a problem except the first thing he grabs are usually the knives.  Or anything made of glass.  So it makes emptying the dishwasher feel like an Olympic race against disaster.  On the plus side, I can get the dishwasher emptied in about three minutes flat.  Possibly less, if I washed a lot of knives that time around.

That isn't the real problem, though.  The real problem is Ryder's perpetually snotty nose.  Which was rounded off nicely this week with a nasty cough.  And since toddlers pretty much love nothing more than rubbing at their snotty noses with their hands (and then wiping those hands anywhere that suits their fancy), the absolute last thing I want is him touching my clean dishes!

So I tend to not be very good about letting Ryder help me.

One of my many failings as a parent for which I am unapologetic. 

And now, I need to go try and wash snot off my throw pillows.

Ryder Talking

Ryder has lots to say.  But most of it isn't in any language that I can understand.  Right before his 2-year check up, Craig and I tried to count all his words.  And we couldn't make it to ten.  (His doctor has recommended he be evaluated for speech therapy.  My plan is to get around to that some time after Christmas...  Mostly I'm just hoping that by then Ryder will have blossomed into a talking fool and I won't have to bother at all.)

The funny thing is, for all that he doesn't say, the words he can say keep changing!  He used to just say, "Yah!"  (He sort of sounded German, actually.  Or possibly Russian?  Except with more joyous enthusiasm than I picture emanating from either of those cultures...)  Then it morphed into "Yep!" (still enthusiastic).  And now it's turned into "Yesh!"  So can I count those as three words?  My favorite was the other morning when I gave him his morning bottle of warm milk and tucked him back into his crib for a few more minutes of sleepy time.  I kissed his forehead, whispered, "I love you, Ryder," and he heartily responded, "Ah, yesh!"

Ah, yes, of course you love me, mommy!  I love the confidence.

Of course he can say Mommy and Daddy, although he likes to call me other things that I don't really understand, like I think he calls me Abba sometimes or something.  "Rara" can refer to Kendra or Bentley and I think possibly himself, too.  He also says doggy, although that sounds suspiciously like Daddy...  And seeing pretty much any grown man makes him miss Daddy and start yelling for him.  That, or else he has really bad vision, because he thinks pretty much every male cast member of Glee looks like Daddy...  Despite this limited vocabulary, he manages to express a lot.  My favorite is when he'll walk into a room, raise his hands up questioningly and wonder, "Daddeee...?"  It gets the message across just as well as a "Where is" would have!  He even would sing a song that consisted of crooning, "Momma, Dadda, Dadda, Momma."  And it was really sweet.

Just recently he added his first adjective to his vocabulary, and that word is: cool.

And it only applies to cars.  And only certain cars, at that.  He will empty my diaper bag searching for "Coo coo cars" and the ones that don't meet this criteria get tossed aside.

So now the Momma Dadda song has been replaced by a Coo Coo Car song.

Naturally.

He's also recently started adding "f" sounds to the ends of words.  So "car" has become "carf," which-- when you can't say "r's," just sounds like "cough."  And "no" has become "nofe."  I have no idea why.

I guess he's just figuring things out in that head of his.  Some day I'll hear all about it, I'm sure!  But in the meantime, I'm glad we have such cool cool cars for him to play with!

That Whole Pants Thing

I didn't hear about the feminist call to arms until CJane blogged about it.  And I will admit right here and now that I never bothered to read the original blog posts that got it all started.  Because I already knew that I wasn't interested in wearing pants to church-- partly because skirts are a LOT more comfortable in my pregnant state, but mostly because I don't think it's appropriate to stage a protest at church.  I go to church to worship.  And I go to see my friends and to do the things I'm asked to do-- teach lessons, herd children around, provide a musical number, or whatever.  I go so that I can strengthen my own testimony.  And partake of the sacrament and renew my covenants.

The way our church is run, wherein we believe that our leaders are called by God, I'm not sure that it's ever appropriate to stage a protest.  But if you do have problems with the church (and these problems don't mean that you simply stop going), I guess a more appropriate outlet would be to write to the leaders or something.  Wearing pants one Sunday is such a localized thing, I can't see how it would really accomplish anything.

So I didn't really agree with the pants protest (and admittedly, maybe reading the actual sources would have changed my mind, but I kind of doubt it).  And in light of Friday's tragedy, worrying about a Sunday dress code seemed beyond silly to me.  There are so many more serious problems in our world that we should be working to address than the issue of what we wear to church (especially in a church where the official statement on dress and grooming doesn't mention anything as specific as whether or not women should wear pants).

But I will admit that I really enjoyed reading many of the other blog posts that sprung up-- the discussion that this protest generated was fascinating to me, and a lot of posts really spoke to me.  So if you've been following the pants protest, here are my favorite contributions to the dialogue:

Heather, at Women in the Scriptures, wrote about how she would be wearing a skirt, but wouldn't be bothered by others wearing pants.  She then talked about how she had learned not to "shelve" issues she had, but rather to think of putting them on a stair, and she would strive to climb to that point where she had reached understanding.  Beautiful.  I sometimes worry that I'm a little too good at putting things on the shelf and forgetting about them.  Using issues to find things to study and pray about and ultimately strengthen your testimony is a much better way of dealing with the questions we will all inevitably have about religion.

Jessie, at Bloggity-Blog, had my favorite list of points both for and against the pants thing.  I pretty much agreed with everything she said.  And she's funny, too, so bonus points for that!

And then Brandon went and summed up all the feelings about Book of Mormon Girl that I hadn't bothered to acknowledge to myself and in the same blog post, linked the single best explanation of Mormon Feminism that I have EVER read.  Honestly, it blew me away.  If you only click on one link in this whole post, choose that last one.  I think I need to read it again, it was so rich in doctrine.


So, yeah, to sum up: I didn't particularly agree with Pants Day, but I did enjoy the discussion it engendered. 

(See what I did there?)

Visiting Santa

For the second year now, our ward Christmas party didn't include Santa coming. Last year I understood how it didn't mesh with the theme of "Breakfast in Jerusalem" very well. But I have no idea why he wasn't here this time-- we have a guy with a great Santa suit who LOVES being Santa, so for crying out loud why are we not making good use of this??? (And for anyone out there arguing that we ought to be focusing on Jesus, I say that there's plenty of room in a kid's heart for ALL of that magic. And a Bah Humbug to you for even suggesting it!)

Anyway. This left us trying to find our own way to get the kids to visit Santa. Which is tough since I despise the local mall and don't want to pay a fortune for a portrait there.  Fortunately, just like last year, a good friend came through for me! This time it was Sarah, who told me that they had a lovely Santa set-up at the Merrifield Nursery nearby AND it was free AND, she said, the Santa was AWESOME. And she was right. We had to wait a little while to see the Big Guy, but that was because he sat and chatted with the kids for a good ten minutes before they bothered to snap any pictures. And it's a good thing he did, because that time breaking the ice was the only reason that Bentley and Ryder were willing to step foot near him.

He was a real pro, though.  When Kendra announced that she wanted a horse for Christmas (!!!), he looked at her seriously and asked if we had a barn for a horse.  She told him it could stay in the house or possibly our shed, but he insisted that those weren't very good options for a horse.  Thank you, Santa.  He smiled at Bentley's suggestion that what Ryder needed was something to put in his mouth that would make him be able to talk.  And when he asked if the kids were getting along and I gave them the sideways glance, he told them that it made Mommy, Santa, and God sad when they were fighting.  They nodded seriously and promised to do better.

All of you in Manassas-- go check out Merrifield Nursery (off of Wellington Road)!  It's definitely worth the wait!

One of My Favorite Pictures

I'm working on sorting out the storage capacities of this blog. I deleted a few albums off my Picassa web account (now I just have to hope that our computer somehow gets destroyed, since they're only saved in one place), so for now I have a little more space. Enough to share this gem from the Thanksgiving Day parade:

Whether you like Sponge Bob or hate him, this is a totally creepy picture.  It looks like he's about to eat Kendra and me.

Which is kind of what makes it awesome.



Ten days until Christmas, and Craig and I just finished our shopping yesterday-- that extra week of November really helped us out!  I can't remember a time when we were so on top of things!

Merry merry Christmas, everyone!  (To be repeated in every blog post until the joyous day!)

Too True

Rebecca Smylie is one of several people who I have never met, but whose blog I follow.  I hope that doesn't make me creepy.  (One of my sisters knows her.  And a friend.  And I did a guest post on the blog she and a few other people used to write for called The Apron Stage.  So I feel like I ought to know her...  I'm not sure if that makes me more or less creepy, though...)  (Also, if by any chance you want to be creepy like me, her blog is linked on my sidebar over there on the left.)  Anyway, she just had her third child, and wrote the following on her blog:

"A couple of days after we brought him home I had this moment where I did a mental check to make sure I knew where all of my kids were. Jane in the bedroom. Adelaide in the living room. Levi Little in his chair. I felt my mind split in three directions and knew I would forever be that much more divided. I can actually feel my mind working slower. So there’s more love in our life, but also I’m dumber. (Come to think of it, that makes a lot of sense.)"


I love that paragraph.  A lot.  It sums up my life so perfectly: So much love.  But not a lot of brain power left over.

Every so often I'll pick up my master's thesis and flip through it.  This act invariably causes me to think to myself, "Wow, I used to know a lot of big words!"  Oh, well.  I'll re-learn them all some day...

Oof, Part II

As I was cleaning the house yesterday, I felt grumpy and stressed.  This isn't terribly unusual-- trying to get the house clean for a set time usually makes me a little grumpy and stressed.  But this felt more extreme than usual.  I mean, I was really annoyed with my life and feeling hard-done-by and way too busy and all that woe-is-me stuff.  It wasn't pretty. 

And then it hit me-- my week had looked like this:

Last Friday, I cleaned house in preparation for my in-laws coming (to celebrate Ryder's birthday).

Then the next day, Saturday, I did more cleaning and a deeper cleaning because my parents were coming.

And then Monday and Wednesday night I cleaned the house because I was hosting preschool the next day (and which required quite a bit of cleaning after the kids left).

And then I was back at it on Friday again, this time because my in-laws were coming to babysit so Craig and I could attend the temple.

And not that I enjoy living in squalor or anything, but that is a HECK of a lot of cleaning for me.  No wonder I was feeling like my life was hard (despite the birthday parties and date nights)!

So right now, I'm looking at the huge disaster of toys that exploded all over the downstairs and smiling to myself because today I do NOT CARE ONE BIT about that mess.  To heck with it all-- I'm going to do some blogging!

Oof.

Sorry I'm having a hard time blogging right now.  I find very few things more annoying than a private blog that never updates, so if you keep checking here and finding nothing new, I really do apologize.  Things have been-- and will continue to be-- a little insane around here.  This is my month to teach Kendra's preschool, and then add to that the usual business of taking care of three kids and getting us all to the various doctor/midwife appointments and all the church stuff I've got going on, and I'm feeling just a little bit stressed. 

But the real killer is that I have used up all my storage space, so blogger won't let me put up any more pictures.  After asking my facebook peeps what to do about that, I have some good ideas of how I can remedy the situation, but they all take a certain amount of time that I just don't have right now. So all those pictures I'm dying to show you of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?  Including an AWESOME one of Sponge Bob hovering above Kendra and I in a completely creepy manner?  On the back burner for now.  Hopefully around Christmas break I'll get it all sorted out (probably with some help from Craig). 

I'm not saying I won't be posting anything until then-- like I could keep my mouth shut for that long!-- I'm just saying the things I want to write about are just no fun without their accompanying pictures.

Bear with me-- it will all get worked out eventually!

The Decision

Last week, Craig and I finally made our decision and hired a midwife.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this.  As of today, I am 25 weeks pregnant, and I have spent most of that time worrying about how best to bring this baby into the world.  After three really lousy hospital experiences (all of which were bad for very different reasons), I'm calling a "three strikes, you're out" and throwing in the towel on hospitals.  I am planning to have a home birth. 

Now, I realize that lots of people think that people who give birth at home are crazy.  I understand that line of thinking because up until Kendra's accidental home birth, I totally agreed with it.  People would ask if I was going to have her at home and I would laugh at them and remind them that I wasn't insane.  Until she was born at home.  And I realized that that was the best experience (and BY FAR the easiest labor) I've had.  And until Ryder's birth was so awful.  And then I started to wonder if I wasn't the crazy one for even considering going back to a hospital when it just wasn't what I wanted for my baby's birth.

I started reading more and more about labor and birth.  I started reading birth blogs by other LDS women who felt strongly that Heavenly Father cared about how His children were born.  And it made me feel that it was in my baby's (and my) best interest to do everything I could to ensure that my care provider was someone I trusted, which, as I've said before, was impossible with the way my insurance works right now.  The more I learned and thought about all this, the greater my desire for a planned home birth became.  There are so many aspects of a hospital birth that I don't want and so many things about a birth that I do want.  And while the hospital tours here all emphasize that they want everything to go the way you want it to go, the reality is that this rarely happens, and you have to fight for it every step of the way-- a lot of the things they do happen before you even realize what's going on, you're just so busy being relieved that labor is over.  (I know of plenty of people who have had wonderful experiences in hospitals birthing their babies, so I don't mean this in ANY WAY to be critical of you if that's how it's worked for you-- this is all solely based on my own rather anecdotal BAD experiences.  So please don't take this as a criticism of people who are happy to go to the hospital!  Honestly, I sort of wish I could have that experience-- my life would be easier and this all would have been a lot cheaper had they worked out that way!)

But I need to fight for the labor I want.

And what I want is to labor as peacefully as possible, without people poking needles into my arms and wrists, smearing goop on my swollen tummy which then makes the hospital gown stick to me like some slimy, cheap sheet, and feels absolutely awful, only to further the uncomfortableness by strapping things around that same swollen stomach and yelling at me if I move.  I don't want some stranger that I just met that day sticking their fingers up inside me and then threatening me with procedures I don't want or need if I haven't dilated enough to satisfy them.

When it comes time to push, I don't want people screaming at me that I'm doing it wrong, that I shouldn't be doing it yet, that I have to lay down on my back, or anything else for that matter.  I want someone to encourage me and tell me I'm doing great.  I want someone to tell me that we can see his head and then to bask with me in what a miracle this all is that I am pushing a living human being out into the world to take his first breath.

And then, when that moment comes, I want to be handed my baby all naked and wiggly the moment he is born.  I don't want him washed, poked, prodded, and wrapped up before I even get to see him and hold him.  I want them to wait a bit before cutting the cord so he can get that last little bit of cord blood that might be beneficial to him.  I want to skip the Hep-A vaccine, since he won't be at risk for that anywhere that I will be taking him.  (We'll do it later, when he's a little older and his immune system has had some time to mature.  I'm not anti-vaccinations, I'm just pro-waiting on vaccinations.)  I don't want his eyes smeared with ointment to protect him from chlamydia, because it turns out that I don't have-- have NEVER had-- any STDs (one of the many perks to following the rules of my church, it turns out!)-- I want my baby to be able to look around and see his mommy and daddy this first hour of his life.  I used to be grossed out by the idea of being handed a baby still covered in amniotic fluid, vernix, and who-knows-what-else, but I've done it enough times now to understand that I'm pretty gross by the end of labor, too.  So who cares if we're a bit messy together?  We'll both get baths in a bit, and that will be just fine.

I want to be in my home where I feel safe and secure and loved.  I want my other children close by, not separated from me for several scary days while they try to process this new addition to the family without their mommy nearby to help.  I want them to meet their baby brother right away and also feel the specialness of new life.

I understand things don't always go as planned.  Maybe something will happen that will force me back to the hospital for the good of my baby.  Maybe my midwife will turn out to be as mean as the doctors.  But I am trying to do everything within my power to make this into the experience I dream it can be.  And for now, that's everything I can do.