Wacko Jacko

Over the past week or so, Jack has become involved in all sorts of shenanigans.  I can't leave this child alone for a second without him getting into something or going somewhere he is not supposed to be.

Yesterday, for instance, I witnessed him express guilt for the first time ever.  I spend half my life chasing him away from the cords behind the TV.  My greatest desire is to get an enormous entertainment center that would house all of the various electronic equipment surrounding our television.  Plus a new DVD player cause ours broke.  In the meantime, I am making do with our Ikea coffee table and large barriers built up around the TV to keep Jack out.  He's a wily one, though, and has somehow figured out how to navigate around and through these barriers to get to the wires he so loves to chew.  I will find him back there after turning away for hardly any time at all.

So back to yesterday.  I needed to go upstairs to rotate the laundry.  Jack seemed to be deeply engrossed in slobbering over a particular toy so I decided not to bother him and left him there.  I was gone maybe two  minutes - maybe - and when I got back to the living room, guess where he was.  That's right - crawling right back to behind the TV.  As soon as I saw him, I said his name, he jumped, and backed out of there lickety-split.  He knew he got caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.  Little stinker.

Jack loves to play a game called Uzu on our iPads.  It's this program with multicolored particles that move differently depending on how many fingers you use to touch it.  Jack likes it because it responds directly to him.  As he was playing it the other day, I noticed him bend down so his face was on the screen.  Thinking he was licking it - he licks everything - I quickly pulled him away so I could wipe the saliva off the screen.  Except there wasn't any!  I let Jack go back to playing, but I watched him more closely this time.  When he bent his head down again, I discovered that he was using his nose to either watch the particles more closely, or to use his nose as another point of contact.  He's so clever.

Notice the mess behind him.

Jack tried grass and dirt for the first time today.  We were playing on a blanket outside and he shinnied himself over to the edge and grabbed himself a fistful before I could say boo.  Our lawn was just recently aerated, so there were plenty of Jack-sized clumps of dirt for him to grab on to.

Every night before bed, Lewis gives Jack a bath in his baby bathtub on the kitchen counter.  We usually remember to clear the area of dishes and open food containers in case Jack splashes/pees.  The bath came with this handy little net thing for Jack to lie down in while he is bathed.  Of course, now that Jack has finally decided to embrace the whole sitting up thing, to ask him to lie down in the bath would be a ridiculous proposition.  So Lewis lets him sit up and Jack reaches out of the bath and grabs anything that he can.  Yesterday this attitude of grabitude involved a small pile of seasoned rice, spilled during dinner.  Lewis thought he was just touching the countertop, so he did not stop him before he brought two fistfuls of rice into the tub to be bathed with him.

I could go on and on about the adventures Jack gets himself involved in... but then I wouldn't have anything to write about the next time the urge to blog strikes.

iDictated

Louis has been waiting patiently for nearly 5 years to get an iPhone of its very own. Last night his dreams came true and he got an iPhone 4S of his very own. Of course, I got one too. As soon as we discovered its voice dictation software, Louis challenged me to dictate an entire blog posts through that software. He also said that I shouldn't correct it afterwards, so we could see just how accurate it really is.

I was a little hesitant to do this. I like things to be correct: words to be spelled correctly, punctuation to be accurate, et cetera et cetera. This may be why I am a teacher.

But then I discovered that it spells Louis's name the more common way,
which is not the way that he spells it. This made me LOL, so I decided to take his challenge. I'm pretty impressed. It did a good job.

Except, of course, the spelling of Louises name. Love you, sweetie!

Cascading Tissues

I've had a touch of a head cold over the past few days.  It's nothing serious, so don't worry your little selves for my sake.  Mostly it has just required me to keep a box of tissues close at hand to keep my poor chapped nose clean.

The past couple of days have been blessed with positively lovely weather.  Nothing was going to keep me indoors on a day like today, so the three of us have taken several walks outside to visit with the neighbors and to play on the nearby swings.  Since the weather is so supreme, Lewis and I both decided to wear summery clothes.  I was delighted this morning to discover that a pair of pre-pregnancy capris fit my legs and derrière like a glove.  No frumptastic clothes for me this summer, no siree!  Well, some of my clothes won't be frumptastic anyway.

Unfortunately, these confidence-boosting capris do not contain readily accessible pockets for storing the requisite tissues for my nasal maintenance.  The only pockets adorning these pants were buttoned shut and it was mighty inconvenient to unbutton them just for a tissue that I would probably need a split-second after I put it in my pocket anyway.  So every time I left the house today (and a few times in between), I would tuck whatever tissue I had with me in the waistband of my pants.

And then I would promptly forget about it.  Each and every time.

Until a few minutes ago when I went to the restroom.  And had to retrieve about a half-dozen snotty tissues from my bathroom floor after they cascaded from my pants.

I should really work on the whole remembering thing.

A Call to Action

Everyday at 9 AM I watch the Price is Right with my mom in Uruguay and my sister in Texas.  I've always been a big fan of the show and I am delighted that, as a SAHM, I get to watch it so frequently.  I do miss Bob, but I think Drew is doing a fine job as his replacement, better than anyone expected.



If you've ever seen TPIR, you know that their target demographic is the elderly.  The breaks between pricing games are filled with commercials for AARP, power chairs, guaranteed-acceptance life insurance, and no-hassle cellular telephone plans.

And these commercials are awful.  Plus I'm pretty I saw many of the same commercials during TPIR eight years ago when I was still in high school.  There is one commercial in particular that we all loathe.  It's for Hover Round, one of the many brands of power chairs that AARP members could own at little to no cost to them.  It features a rotund gentleman lounging in his Hover Round, singing an incredibly irritating song about how Hover Round takes him where he wants to go.  My mom always makes sure her TV is on mute during the commercial breaks because of how much she hates that song.  She gets very angry indeed if she forgets.  There was a day last week where they didn't show that commercial at all during the entire show.  Undulations of joy were expressed around the Western Hemisphere.  But our elation was short-lived because the next day they played it twice.

Naturally I feel bad that I have such hatred in my heart for that man.  He's old (obviously) and disabled.  He probably got hurt in the war or something and that's why he can't use his legs.  All he wants to do is visit the Grand Canyon and he is just mocked for it!  Mocked!

But then I hear his song again and all my guilt is washed away.

My point is this: the commercials during TPIR suck.  They are worse than local commercials and local commercials are like squeezing lemon juice into a paper cut.  Therefore I feel it is my duty as a decent human being to call the elderly to action.

Old people!  Stop settling for these two dollar budget, decade old (or more, who can say?) commercials!  The ability to translate creative ideas into a fifteen or thirty second format has come a long way since you first started watching TV and we as consumers shoulno longer stand for such poor workmanship!  Do not be tempted by the deck of large print playing cards or magnifying lens offered if you call about their products - that is playing right into their hands and telling them that you approve of their work!  Instead call and say you will buy one of their power chairs or life insurance policies if they will put an effort into pursuing your business!  You've seen the Super Bowl; tell them you will only accept commercials of that caliber - any less and you will not be sending them your business!

You are the future!

CSI: Lehi

It's been well established that I am something of a paranoid mother.  So when I find some unexplained blood, my worriful imagination runs wild.

As I was feeding Jack before his afternoon nap, I noticed a little spot of blood on the washcloth I was using to keep him from making a mess.  Figuring it was just a stain from when I had to staunch the flow of blood from his finger due to a mom-inflicted wound a while back, I thought nothing of it and continued our nap time routine.

When he was in bed (and sleeping soundly, thankyouverymuch!), I went downstairs to get dinner ready to go in the Crock Pot.  The first step was to brown some ground turkey, so I stuck the turkey in a skillet and turned on the burner.  Figuring I had a few minutes for the pan to get hot, I nipped into the bathroom to, well, use it.

While in there I noticed another spot of blood, this time on my shirt.  So I lifted my shirt so I could examine Jack's eating area.  I discovered a streak of blood across my ribs and three sizable spots on my bra.  I did not, however, find a source for the blood on my person.  This could only mean one thing.

I hightailed it out of the bathroom, up the stairs, and into the nursery.  Luckily I had my wits about me enough to remember that Jack has gotten several nosebleeds recently, on account of him being sick.  He's recovered from the sickness, but his nose was still the first thing I checked.  The nasal examination was inconclusive.  If it bled at all, it had stopped and there were no telltale upper lip streaks to confirm.

Here's where we get to a dilemma.  The nasal examination was nonintrusive: I could do it without waking him up.  Jack has never been a good napper, and he's been an especially poor one this week.  Should I continue my investigation or just drop it until he woke up?

Um, I'm paranoid.  OF COURSE I was going to finish searching for the source of the blood.  So I picked up his arm as gently as I could, but of course it woke him up and now he is crying in bed because I left him there after finishing looking for the blood and only rocking him for a little bit.

Oh, and I didn't find any blood on him.

After leaving him in his crib, I began to walk down to my bathroom, intent to do a more thorough examination of myself to completely rule myself out as a source for the blood.  But as I walked past the stairs the pungent smell of burning ground turkey reached my nostrils.  I'm pretty sure I didn't actually touch any of the stairs as I sprinted down the kitchen, just in time to salvage the majority of the turkey from char.

Anything to make my day more interesting, I suppose...

UPDATE: the blood definitely belongs to Jack. I went to rescue him from the dungeon that is his crib and found it streaked all over his sheet. The part of him that his bleeding, however, is unclear. I failed to find a drop of blood anywhere on him, even after completely stripping him.

It's a Metaphor!

Not everybody knows this, but Lewis and I really like each other.  I say not everyone know this because some people in our neighborhood might think we hate each other based on the way we tend to argue sometimes on our walk home from church.  These arguments tend to be loud.  And also fake.  I cannot stress enough how fake they are.  We have a lot of fun fake fighting, but it might be time to stop doing that in public.

My point is, we are each other's fan.  I'm over the moon for Lewis and I know he's just as crazy about me.  We probably have a little too much fun together, especially with the pranking and the tickling and the fake fighting, but it's a heck of a lot better than many alternatives.

Last night Lewis and I were talking (just talking, not arguing) about past relationships.  He told me about a time he and a former significant other were on vacation together.  As they were driving back home, his lady-friend was giving him the silent treatment, for reasons unknown to Lewis.  Come to find out, when they went shopping just before heading home, Lewis did not purchase for her an item than she really wanted but gave him the go around about how great was her desire for said item.  Or something like that.

Their relationship did not work out.

Fast forward to 2008 and Lewis and I are on our honeymoon (we went on a cruise to Mexico).  One day on the boat, as we were enjoying our lunch, I was not talking to Lewis.  Once he realized this he started to stress out thinking that this was turning out to be just like his former relationship.  He wracked his brain trying to figure out what he had possibly done to earn the silent treatment and what he could do to fix it.  A week into our marriage and we were already having such problems!

Meanwhile I was throughly enjoying my pizza, French fries, and fruit juice (we ate real healthy on this trip) in silence, even occasionally swiping some of Lewis' food because I could.

Determined to enjoy effective communication between us, Lewis started grilling me about what he could have possibly done to elicit such treatment.  Through the powers of pantomime and limited sign language (I know the whole alphabet!) I was finally able to communicate the issue at hand by getting him to say my name three times.

He had jinxed me.

And then promptly forgot about it.

I've never had so much fun being jinxed.

Last night we determined that this was a metaphor for how awesome our relationship is compared to those from the past.  Former lover gives him the silent treatment as punishment for not buying her something she didn't actually tell him she wanted him to buy.  Current lover gives him the silent treatment because those are the rules of jinx and they are unflinchingly rigid.

I love us.

In Ensenada, Mexico, where they sell the best churros I've ever had.

Springing Forward

I love Daylight Savings time.  I know that many of you upon reading that will go, "Blech!  Daylight Savings is the worst!"  But I still love it.

I know that the length of the day remains the same in Daylight Savings.  But that one hour shift makes all the difference.

I love the sun.  So very much.  A night owl I am not - which is interesting when you consider that I suffered from insomnia for several years.  I like to get up early in the morning and I like to play all day and bask in the wonderful, wonderful sun.

And in Daylight Savings, the sun is still up later in the day and night than it otherwise would be.  With Daylight Savings, I am not wasting as much precious sun time by sleeping in a bit or taking my time to get up and at 'em.

And then there is camping.  We Youngs love to camp.  In the summer - ideal camping conditions - sunrise is around the six o'clock hour.  Without Daylight Savings, that sucker is rising around five.  I don't know how many of you camp, but when you do it is really hard to do two things.  1. Go to bed at a reasonable hour.  2. Stay asleep after the sun gets up.  Lack of sleep leads to sluggish minds.  And you really want your wits about you when you're camping.  There could be bears about.

Daylight Savings can save you from bears.

When I was a kid my siblings and I were sometimes allowed to stay outside and play until sunset.  Without Daylight Savings, we would have been inside a lot sooner.  A whole hour sooner even!  Without Daylight Savings, we probably would have rebelled and ignored our mother's directive to get our hides inside at sunset because we felt it was just too soon.  This inevitably would have led us down the wayward path of miscreant behavior and eventually drugs.

Yep.  Daylight Savings can save you from drugs.

My parents live in Uruguay, one of approximately 70 countries that celebrates Daylight Savings.  Except they are also in the Souther Hemisphere, so they fell back last night instead of springing forward.  That means that they went from being five hours ahead of me to just three.  This means they have better opportunities to bond with their grandson over the Skype.  Daylight Savings, you've done it again!

Daylight Savings brings people closer together.

Daylight Savings can also potentially provide a set of twins with a freaking awesome story.  Say the mom went into labor on the night that Daylight Savings ends.  And she gave birth to Twin A at, say, 2:55 AM.  But then we repeat the two o'clock hour and Twin B is born at 2:15 AM.  Twin A is technically older, but on paper it looks like Twin B is older!  Wouldn't that be an amazing story to tell?!


Daylight Savings creates magic.


My point is this: Daylight Savings is just best.  Think about the dark, drug-filled, magic-free lives we would all live without it.  No wait, you can't.  You've already been eaten by a bear.

Kiss Me, I'm Old

Yesterday I was driving around town behind this Jeep.  When we stopped at a stoplight I saw the driver (a man), turn to the passenger (a women), whip off his sunglasses, and start kissing her.

I chuckled a little to myself and reminisced about when I was unwed and my boyfriend and I at whatever time would engage in such activities.  We were so twitter-pated that we couldn't bear to not be kissing at any moment that kissing while stopped at a stoplight was a thing.

Lewis as my boyfriend was no exception.  Man oh man, we loved the kissing.  When I think about that time in my life it seems so... so...

Exhausting.

How did we do it?  Don't get me wrong, I love me some kissing, especially when it comes to Lewis, but how on earth did we do it?  Lewis and I dated for nine months before we got married.  Nine months!  If you've ever been pregnant, you know that that is a long time.  And I know that we kissed lots throughout that time.  How did we kiss so frequently for such a long period of time?  Do people who date even longer than nine months kiss like that the whole time?  How do they not drop dead?

I hope it works out for that couple.  I really do.  And I hope that four years from now they will see a couple in a car in front of them kissing at a stop light and I hope they feel the same wave of nostalgia and exhaustion that I did yesterday.  Bless them.  Bless all the single college kids and teenagers who are so thrilled about their relationship status that stoplight kissing is simply a given.  Bless their precious little hearts.

Eager to Please

Jack is such a good little boy.  Since he was born we've developed quite the relationship.  Gone are the days where he didn't listen to me.  He is now very obedient.

When I asked to him to please slow down because he was growing far too quickly, he listened.  It was very sweet of him, but I meant it only as wishful thinking.

At his four month well-baby doctor's appointment, Jack was 13 pounds, 10 ounces - 25th percentile.  He was already pretty skinny back then.

Today he had his six month check.  He weighed in at 14 pounds, 11 ounces.  Yes, he gained a pound and an ounce.  That's all.  He is now in the 10th percentile for weight.

Jack, dearie, I am so glad that you have established yourself as a baby who will listen to me.  But even though I am enjoying you as my little squish, I hereby give you permission to let this one go.

In other news, um, Jack is six months old.  How did this happen?  I'm pretty sure the first six months of my pregnancy with him did not go by this quickly.  Is someone messing with time?  I think someone is messing with time.

Rill Still

Lewis and I have not been to the movie theater since September 5th - the day before Jack was born. All the movies we missed over the last six months have been slowly making their ways into our local Red Box machines, so we have been renting them one at a time to make up for what we missed.

After watching The Green Lantern a few weeks back and Real Steel tonight, one thing was made clear to us.

We didn't miss much.

I shouldn't complain though. I saw into my future the other day as a family in front of me at the Red Box was debating which movie to select - Alvin and the Chipmunks : Chipwrecked, or Mr. Popper's Penguins.

Yay kids.