Extra-Strength Awesome

All Growed Up

2012-02-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

(I am typing this post while my almost five-month-old is in my lap alternating between watching/helping me type and trying to latch on to my nose. In other words, I'm awesome.)

My big project for the day was to de-clutter the top of our desk. But because I am just that cool, that project has evolved into me cleaning out the inside of the desk, as well as our coffee table which was used to house important files and documents before we got the desk. As I was sorting our various bits of paperwork into piles (keep, throw away, and shred) it hit me.

I'm an adult.

In every sense of the word.

Legally I've been an adult for over seven years. Physically I've probably only been an adult for about five (that's when people started guessing that my sister was younger than me. She's four years older).

Emotionally I've been an adult for maybe two years. And I've no doubt that I've regressed here and there - one step back for every two steps forward, amiright?

But as I was sorting through the mountains of paperwork in my house (whatever happened to a digital world?) I realized that I am now economically an adult too.

I have a mortgage. And a car payment. And student loan payments. And utilities - I have to pay for ALL of them. And a kid who provided a nice little tax break.

I have users manuals that I actually have to keep because I wouldn't know how to operate certain appliances without them. I have a receipt for our couch that I have to hang on to for SEVEN YEARS because that is how long RC Willey will insure it for stain protection.

Today I created a file to hold all of our retirement documents. I don't even have a job to retire from, but I still have this folder!

I also made a folder for essential documents like social security cards and birth certificates. Plus one to hold all of Jack's medical paperwork. That file is surprisingly full considering he's a very healthy five-month-old.

Another folder holds various documents for FOUR cars. And I only own two!

Don't even get me started on our income tax binder.

All this adult nonsense makes me want to do something irresponsible. But I can't. Cause I've also been an adult parentally for nearly five months. Gosh!

My point is, if you are ever wondering what it is that makes you as adultish as it is possible to be, it's when you have a filing drawer filled to the brim with all the papers that you just can't throw away. And it's a drawer that will soon turn into an entire cabinet and beyond.

Or maybe not. I'm still pretty immature.

Poop.

A Teacher's Life for Me

2012-01-25T16:24:00.001-07:00

Before I begin, let's get one thing straight: I am so glad that I get to stay home every day with my baby boy. I wouldn't have it any other way.

But I left a really awesome job to stay home with Jack. One that I like to think I was pretty good at. And out of the 180 school days in a year, I miss being a teacher on exactly 176 of them.

Of the four days that I don't miss being a teacher, two of them are happening this week. On these days all the good little girls and boys that teach elementary school in Alpine School District are participating in Parent Teacher Conferences.

The reason I dislike Parent Teacher Conferences Day is not because I disliked communicating with my students' parents. On the contrary, I felt like I had a pretty good rapport with my students' parents and our conferences were largely positive. I loved telling them about all the awesome things their kids were doing in school. Plus the PTA provided phenomenal dinners on those nights, complete with bouquets of fruit. FRUIT!

No, I didn't like Parent Teacher Conferences Day because it didn't end until eight o'clock. At night! And it's a two-day ordeal. You finally get some rest and you have to do it all again the next day. Plus teach all day both days too. It's exhausting!

But because one of us has to bring home some bacon, Lewis is making his way through his Parent Teacher Conferences as I type. Poor dear. I brought him some cupcakes to help him get through the night, cause I'm a good wife.

And I get it.

I'll Never Be a Model

2012-01-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

If there is anything that having a baby has taught me, it's this: I suck at walking.

I sort of already knew that, in so much that I am really clumsy. One need only look at the bruises that currently adorn both my shins to understand that. I've been fortunate that I haven't maimed or otherwise injured my child due to my penchant for the klutz. Yet.

But it goes beyond that. Overall, I'm just bad at walking. Maybe I missed a lesson in my toddler years or something.

I realized this last night when I was trying to put Jack to bed. We are still working on the whole self-soothe-fall-asleep-on-your-own deal. It's not going well. So most nights he falls asleep while I'm feeding him or holding him and then I will ever so carefully gather him into my arms, creep over to his room, and deposit him in his crib. Sometimes we only have to do this once. Sometimes this process repeats itself. Several times.

Last night as I was carrying him to bed, I noticed that every time I stepped with my right foot, it jiggled him. I totally step on it weird and it jostles whatever cargo is on my person. This is super awesome at two in the morning when I'm trying to put my little pip into his bed. Not.

Lewis has mentioned before that I have a somewhat heavy gait. I wasn't sure what to think of that. All I knew was that it didn't seem very feminine or wifely. But it's true! I walk like I weigh 300 pounds! And Jack's sleep (and mine, for that matter) has suffered the consequences.

I never thought that was something I needed to fix. But here we are. No wonder Jack never seems to get enough sleep.

What's the Big Deal?

2012-01-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Last night Lewis came bursting in the house with a look of excitement on his face. It was January 18th and it was finally snowing. Jack HAD to come and see. I had thought Jack's first snow would be when he was much younger, so it was actually pretty great that it waited this long to snow. Jack is old enough to notice the flakes falling and he might even think it's cool.

So everyone got bundled up and we trooped outside with our camera, ready to document this momentous occasion. It was beautiful. Fat, fluffy flakes were falling gently. They were the kind that would catch in your hair and stay there without melting immediately. The snow was accompanied by that gentle silence that blankets the world as it gracefully accumulates. Lewis and I both turned to look at Jack, confident we would see the look of wonder and amazement that was sure to be on his precious face:

He was unimpressed.

It was like he knew that the promise of four inches was bunk and that this would only produce a slight dusting and that my worry about Lewis making it to school safely this morning was all for naught cause the roads weren't slick in the least.

Clever boy.

This is Just a Tribute

2012-01-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you know this, but I've got a seriously amazing husband. Seriously. I don't think I express to him enough how so very awesome he is, so here goes - mommy-blog style.

The Top Whatever Number I Get to Before I Stop Reasons My Husband is Cooler than Yours

1. He teaches fourth grade.

I think Lewis is the merriest every month.

Not only does he teach it, but he kicks bums (mommy blog, 'member?) at teaching it. Right now his class is studying puns. Puns! Did you ever study puns in fourth grade? Nope, cause you didn't have Lewis as your teacher.

2. He provides nighttime entertainment by talking in his sleep.

Since I have such difficulty in falling asleep, Lewis nearly always goes to sleep before me. And he will often express very real concerns to me in his sleep. Like how we could go about building a bomb (his solution was to ask his sister for help since she teaches science. The science she teaches is biology, but still...). Or if I can feel his arm, since he couldn't (he had fallen asleep on top of it) (this happened last night). I just wish he talked more often in his sleep when I am up feeding Jack. That would be lots of fun.

3. He goes along with my crazy ideas.

Jack in a cloth diaper. He's skinny.

Like putting our baby in cloth diapers. Or making my own taco seasoning. It helps that most of these ideas have turned out good.

4. He has perfected the homemade pizza.

I want some right now.

We got a pizza stone for our wedding and have been trying to make pizza on it ever since. The crust was always too puffy or too caky or too soggy. The sauce was always too runny or too bland or too gross. We finally found one crust recipe we liked, but it took forever to make. Not to be deterred, Lewis kept working until he found a quick, but delicious crust recipe. Then he located a suitable sauce recipe that he tweaked to perfection. Now all we need is to make our own mozzarella cheese! (No we don't.)

5. He singled-handedly brings home the bacon so I can stay home with Jack.

His new school.

6. Speaking of bacon, he likes his cooked the same way I do (extra-extra crispy) so that's never a brunchtime conflict.

We usually eat bacon when we go to Park City.

At least he says he does.

7. We can get excited about things together and not think the other is too dorky.

Lewis at Disneyland is like Lewis in a candy shop.

Like Disneyland and Christmas and camping and Jack pooping.

8. He loves his son so much.

I love watching the two of them play. Lewis adores Jack and Jack... well, he used to just tolerate him, but he's warming up to him. In a few months, I know Jack will be following him around wherever he goes and Dad coming home from work will be the best part of his day.

9. He always puts Jack in his car seat so I don't have to.

I don't have one of Jack in his car seat, so here's just a picture I love of the two of them.

Jack HATES his car seat, in spite of our efforts to make him like it by saying, "Yay!" very enthusiastically whenever we talk about it. And I hate putting him in. Lewis is always willing to bite the bullet and put him in when we go places together.

10. He likes me. He really likes me.

I know most married couples love each other, but I'm not sure that all of them LIKE each other. But I know that Lewis likes me, and I like him. Saturday night comes around, and we are just fine sitting at home, catching up on all the movies we missed seeing in theaters the past few months cause we had Jack and cause they are all at the Redbox now. And we love it.

Ten is a nice round number, so I'm going to stop there. Plus Jack keeps trying to hit the keys and he's a crafty one, so it's getting harder and harder to stop him. I'll just end with this: I love Lewis.

Nap Trap

2012-01-13T14:18:00.000-07:00

I'm trapped on my couch right now.

We've finally been succeeding at getting Jack to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Three cheers, right? Wrong. Because he's been going to bed so early, he's also been getting up early - at about 5:30. In my last post I mentioned that as if it was a one-time thing. Well, now it's turned into a three-time thing.

Jack waking up early means Alyssa has to get up early too. And since I don't fall asleep quickly at night, and since Jack usually wakes up at some point in the middle of the night to eat, I'm not getting much sleep. Last night I fell asleep at about midnight. Then Jack woke up at to eat at 2.

I fed him, put him back in bed, and went back to my own bed. But he was still awake. So I got up, rocked him a bit until he fell asleep, put him back down and went back to my own bed. And he woke up again. Repeat process. Then repeat it again. It was now 3 o'clock and I was so desperately exhausted I finally just let him sleep on my chest. Which he did. Rubbing his head back and forth and moaning for the next two and a half hours until Lewis' alarm went off at 5:30. As soon as the alarm sounded, Jack's eyes flew open and he was ready to be up for the day.

I was a zombie.

To fix this super fun 5 AM wake-up call, I want to keep Jack up later than usual tonight. But he's a baby and babies tend to be difficult to wake up (only when you want them awake; when you want them asleep, it's a piece of cake to wake them up) so I need him to sleep as long as possible during his naps.

Like the one he is taking right now. On the couch, right next to me. He fell asleep while he was eating and I didn't want to try and put him in his crib only to have him wake right up, so I just laid him down right there. And due to the shape of our couch, I would have to climb over him to get up, possibly waking him, and I don't want to take that risk. So I'm trapped on my couch.

Which is too bad cause I really have to pee.

Creepy Sounds in the Night

2012-01-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

When you hear unusual sounds in your house in the middle of the night it can be unsettling. This is particularly true if you hear them over your child's baby monitor and when you are already worried about his well-being when he is so far away from you, they can be downright alarming.

This morning Jack and his dad woke up at about the same time. Lewis gets up at about 5:30 every day to go to school. Usually I will wake up long enough to wake him up and then I will go back to sleep because Jack has only slept through the night once (which is once more than he had when I wrote the last post) and I'm tired at 5:30 in the morning. Usually, if Jack wakes up at this time, I will feed him and put him back to sleep. And when I say usually, I mean every time until today.

Today Jack woke up and squawked. So I went to check on him. When I poked my head in, he appeared to still be sleeping, so I went back to my own bed. A few minutes later I heard a really odd sound coming through the baby monitor. I don't really know how to describe it, but it sounded creepy and it was clearly coming from my child's room.

Oh, how long our hallway seemed as I raced down it towards Jack's nursery. I was ready to lay the smack down. The crazy ax-murderer that I was sure was hunched over my baby's crib had picked the wrong mother bear to threaten.

Of course there was no crazy ax-murderer. Everything was exactly as it appeared to be the last time I looked in here, mere minutes before. But I heard the sound nonetheless so I walked to the center of the room to investigate.

In the darkness I spotted Jack's bright eyes peering up at me from his mattress. He was wide awake with his left arm curled around the crib slats, and his little hand was tapping away at one of them. This was the source of the exceedingly creepy noise.

As I picked him up, Jack gave me a huge smile. I had no problem sacrificing a few minutes sleep for my little monkey, so I took him back to my room and fed him, expecting him to fall back asleep right away. Except he didn't. Lewis got to play with him a little bit before leaving for work, though, so... yay.

And now I'm really tired. But at least there's no crazy ax-murderer in my house.

Jack and I played with Photo Booth today.

Separation Anxiety

2012-01-07T17:44:00.001-07:00

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm a worrier. I worry. I can't really help it - it's in my genes. My dear mother is also a worrier. Whenever we were to do something mildly dangerous/not at all dangerous but far from where we were living at the time, she didn't want to hear about it until after it was over because she would worry too much. It doesn't help that she has lived overseas for the majority of the time that her four older kids have been out of the house.

In any case, I worry too. I worried plenty about Lewis/my siblings/my parents/everyone else I know before I had a baby. But now that Jack is here... hoo boy.

Let's just say that it's no wonder I have more than my fair share of gray hairs at my plucky age of 25.

At his two-month appointment, Jack's doctor told me not to be in a hurry to kick him out of our room. He recommended waiting until about four months to start that process. That was fine by me. It's a heck of a lot easier to check on your infant son's breathing if he is at the foot of your bed. Plus he had yet to sleep through the night (more on that later), so having him in our room still was no burden whatsoever.

Jack turned four months yesterday. At his appointment his doctor told me to go ahead and start the moving out process, but don't force it if he wasn't ready. I smiled and nodded, confident that Jack wouldn't be ready.

He was ready.

True, it took him a while to fall asleep last night (we are trying, so far wildly unsuccessfully, to get Jack to fall asleep on his own), but once he was asleep in his own room, he was asleep for the night. He slept peacefully until after six in the morning. When he did wake up, he was as happy as a clam and just cooed in his bed until I went and got him.

And after four months of getting up at least once a night to tend to his needs (not to mention the last five months of my pregnancy when I was up several nights to pee), I finally got a good night's rest.

Jack doesn't sleep here anymore.

Oh wait, that definitely didn't happen. I worry, remember. Not only did it take me about a bajilion hours to fall asleep, I was up every so often, creeping into Jack's room to make sure all was well. There was one tense moment when he rolled over just as I put my hand on his trunk and then I ran into his door on my way out, but he didn't wake up even then.

So thanks a lot, Mom, for the awesome genes. Gosh!

Christmas and Torturing Children

2012-01-05T12:30:00.001-07:00

Well readers, 2012 is here and I'm pleased to say that after a brief hiatus to enjoy as much time as possible with the two most important men in my life, Extra-Strength Awesome is back.

Please, hold your applause until the end.

Back before Christmas 2011, Lewis and I discussed how much fun we will have when our kids are old enough to appreciate Christmas morning. Actually, mostly just I talked about how hilarious it will be when they are jumping on our bed in excitement, poking and prodding us to get us to wake up while we snicker with our eyes closed, pretend to be asleep, and then sluggishly wake up. Lewis listened to all of this with a look of incredulity on his face because, well, in the three Christmases we had so far (at the point of this conversation) shared as a pair, I had acted exactly like I described our kids would act, while Lewis pretended to stay asleep.

I love Christmas.

This past Christmas, however, I had every right to get Lewis to wake up in the wee hours of the early morn. Christmas was on a Sunday and we had church at nine AM. Between presents for three, Christmas breakfast, and getting Jack fed and presentable, we needed ample time. In your face, Lewis.

Jack slept through the beginning of Christmas.

I would share with you all about how different it will be when Jack is bigger, how I will play possum like the best of 'em, but we all know I can't keep that promise. I will be on board, though, for torturing our kids and making them wait upstairs until we're ready and calling them down one at a time, excruciatingly slowly.

They're going to hate it.

Yep. Christmas is the best.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

2011-12-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

12 dinner items

11 soupy spoonfuls

10 secret weapons

9 different cookies

8 Muppet carols

7 fresh tortillas

6 chumps surviving

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

Tonight was our Christmas feast. And it was delicious! The meal consisted of twelve different food items:

1). Cheese ball

2), 3), 4). Three kinds of crackers (Club, Ritz, and Wheat Thin)

5). Festive punch

6). Monterrey Jack potatoes

7). Butternut squash

8). Fresh pineapple

9). Oven-hot rolls

10). Stuffing

11). Spiral-cut ham

12). Cheesecake

I love Christmas Eve. Every year I flip flop on which is my favorite day of the year: Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The Eve was pretty amazing this year, so the day is really going to have to bring it.

Merry Christmas, world!

The Eleventh Day of Christmas

2011-12-23T22:38:00.001-07:00

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

11 soupy spoonfuls

10 secret weapons

9 different cookies

8 Muppet carols

7 fresh tortillas

6 chumps surviving

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

The eleventh day of Christmas was a group effort. Lewis, his mom, and I were all searching for something that would work. I thought we had it in the bag when I counted eleven ingredients on a scrumptious bag of pistachios - but I miscounted and there were only ten. Because day eleven has practically just fallen into my hands the past two years, I took it for granted that I would be able to find something that I didn't even think about it until about seven o'clock tonight.

We were helping Lewis' parents with a project, so they provided dinner for us in the form of leftover taco soup. I very carefully polished my portion off in eleven (rather large) spoonfuls. Boo-ya.

Eleven is hard!

The Tenth Day of Christmas

2011-12-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

10 secret weapons

9 different cookies

8 Muppet carols

7 fresh tortillas

6 chumps surviving

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

All of my nieces, nephews, and brothers-in-law (ten people in total) on Lewis' side will be receiving the same gift for Christmas. We made those gifts today...

And they are awesome.

The Ninth Day of Christmas

2011-12-21T21:06:00.000-07:00

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

9 different cookies

8 Muppet carols

7 fresh tortillas

6 chumps surviving

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

The Geneva, the Pirouette, the Brussels (my favorite of the bunch), the Milano, the Orleans, the Lido, the Bordeaux (runner-up), the Chessmen (honorable mention), and the Lisbon.

It was eight o'clock at night, we were in Park City, and I had no idea of what to do for the ninth day of Christmas. Lewis' parents needed to stop by Walmart to get some supplies for breakfast tomorrow, so we decided to see what we could see.

There are lots of food items that come in quantities of eight or twelve or even ten. Tim Tams come in quantities of eleven (which you might already know, especially if you have followed my blog for an extended period of time). But nine? Not so much.

Thanks to my mother-in-law's keen eye, we discovered that Pepperidge Farm sells a box of cookies that includes nine different varieties.

Perfect! Thanks, Pepperidge Farm.

Another day of Christmas fulfilled in the nick of time.

The Eighth Day of Christmas

2011-12-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

8 Muppet carols

7 fresh tortillas

6 chumps surviving

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

Lewis is so sweet. He always makes sure I have my day of Christmas.

We had a plan for the eighth day, but after running around all over Utah county, we didn't get around to it. On the way home from Orem, we were listening to the soundtrack from A Muppet Christmas Carol. By the time we got home, we had listened to eleven of the songs on the CD: two instrumental, one sung by a human, and eight sung exclusively by Muppets.

Lewis had already done the math and shut off the music at strategic times during the last song to conversate with me, ensuring that we didn't get to track twelve and that I had my eighth day.

Love that guy.

Toofs

2011-12-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you the following news.

Jack is something of a... chomper. He chomps. I have been so grateful that he's a little gummy newborn with no sharp ivories poking out of his precious drooly mouth.

Due to this bitey pastime of his, I felt confident that karma would smile down on me and he would be a late bloomer in the masticatory department. I was sure the average tooth growing age of six months wouldn't even be in the question.

Instead of smiling karma, I got Murphy.

Jack is not quite three-and-a-half months of age and he is on the cusp of cutting his first teeth. You can even see them. And feel them. They're are coming.

Ah, well. And I had such high hopes that his daily soaking of the front of his onesies was just because he... well I don't know what I hoped, just not this.

Jack chews on his hands cause he hasn't figured out how to get a teething ring into his mouth every time. Also he doesn't have any teething rings.

I don't want to get bit.

The Seventh Day of Christmas

2011-12-19T23:17:00.002-07:00

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

7 fresh tortillas

6 chumps surviving

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

They may not be pretty, but they sure are tasty.

To be the trophy wife that I am, I've developed a fairly complex system of nightly dinners. Each night has a theme that alliterates with the day of the week it is. These themes change monthly. You could say that I have too much time on my hands.

For the month of December, I have been making slow cooker meals on Mondays. But I forgot to put the stuff in the slow cooker this morning, so we had to do something else. I have been wanting to make my own tortillas for a while now, but have never gotten around to it.

Tonight was the perfect opportunity.

Let me break it down for you:

Regular store-bought tortillas - good.

Uncooked store-bought tortillas - better. Since we discovered them we haven't bought the former.

Homemade tortillas - best.

It's always disappointing when a slow cooker meal day doesn't work out cause, well, I know my way around a crock pot. But tonight's fajitas with these homemade tortillas were money. The recipe I used made eight tortillas, but I only made seven.

The Sixth Day of Christmas

2011-12-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

6 chumps surviving

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

If I was still at BYU, I would take Dawn's class.

Survivor is one of our guilty pleasure shows. I want to go on it only slightly less than I'd like to be on the Amazing Race. I think that as a gimmick they should put both Lewis and me on the same season, but we will keep it a secret to everyone else on the show that we are married. CBS and Survivor are obviously all about the gimmicks, so why not?

Anyway tonight is the finale. (And don't worry, if you're a fan and you haven't seen it, I won't give anything away.) I don't really know why I'm watching - I only liked one of the six remaining players, and I don't think that person has a chance. But I'm watching it anyway. Because it's the sixth day of Christmas. And even if it wasn't... I'm hooked so it doesn't matter.

In other news, the sickness that hit the Youngs seems to be finally leaving us. Jack has definitely been sick today, but he's a trooper and hasn't been too terribly extra fussy. A little, but he's grinning and cooing at me right now, so any fussiness is forgiven. Cause srsly. He's adorable.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

2011-12-17T22:59:00.000-07:00

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

5 macaronis with cheese!

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

Monopoly for iPad is available for free today so Lewis and I both got it. Buuut it kept crashing every time we tried to play against each other over Wi-Fi. Remembering that it was on sale at Walmart, I suggested that we just go buy the board game and play that.

So we did. And after an epic, back-and-forth battle lasting a little over the length of the movie "Scrooged," I was victorious thanks to three lands on Free Parking and a well-timed trade. I ended up with a net value of $20,290, all of the hotels, and all but two of the property sets.

It was awesome.

While we are Walmart we also bought five boxes of macaroni and cheese in preparation for lunches over Christmas break and also to fulfill today's requirement.

The Fourth Day of Christmas

2011-12-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

4 extra lunch mates

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

Every Friday Jack and I go and eat lunch with Lewis at his school. Since today was the last day of school before Christmas break, we stuck around a little longer than usual to enjoy the Christmasy activities that were occurring.

But then my cold took a turn for the worse and we came home. I've been pretty much worthless since then. Thank goodness Lewis is home to take care of me now.

Anyway instead of just the three of us, we also had lunch with Lewis' team teacher and her fiance, plus two other teachers. Merriment and fully bellies were had by all.

The Third Day of Christmas

2011-12-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

3 loaves of pumpkin

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

I made three loaves of pumpkin bread tonight. I also made nineteen top-secret items for a total of thirty.

I also got a cold. Imma go to bed.

The Second Day of Christmas

2011-12-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

2 paid for dinners

And an off-limits box from Amazon!

Tonight was Lewis' school Christmas choir concert. Before the concert I grabbed some Subway subs, paid for with a gift card, to be eaten after the concert.

Dinner number one.

Lewis' mom came to the concert. When it was over she offered to take us to dinner. Not wanting to deny her time with her cutest grandchild (sorry, Lorien and Monica), we accepted.

Dinner number two.

The subs went in the fridge and the fajitas to my belly.

Hooray for two free dinners!

The First Day of Christmas

2011-12-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

An off-limits box from Amazon!

Well it's that time of year again: The twelve days of Christmas! I think I may be crazy for doing it again, but here we are.

One of my favorite things is opening packages. Whenever I come home and see a box on my doorstep I get a little thrill of excitement. I purposely bought some of Jack's Christmas presents online just so that I could open the packages when they arrived.

But then Lewis had to go and ruin it all by tacking all of my Christmas presents on to that order so that they were all eligible for free shipping.

And of course each of Jack's gifts was packaged with one of mine so I haven't been able to open any of them.

And of course since I work from the home, I've been the one to receive all of the packages. All four of them that have arrived so far (with one more on the way).

In other news we had a mid-atlantic winter snow storm today (just like the first day of Christmas 2009) and I looked for the fifteen dollar ice cream gift card (from the first day 2010) because I'm not sure we ever spent it. Connections!

Also to, are there really only twelve days until Christmas? How did that happen?

My Kid Could Beat Up Your Kid

2011-12-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

My son is insanely talented.

Not only can he roll over in one direction at a mere three months of age, he is even close to mastering the other direction. Plus he is already smart enough to identify that I am his mom and I am awesome.

Like I said, talented.

Above all that, however, Jack has some kind of sixth sense. He can always tell when he is alone in a room.

This talent is particularly applicable at nap and bedtime. We will go through our sleeping routine: Jack gets a story and a song while I rock him. As he drifts off to sleep, I will place him down in his bassinet and then go about my business. Sometimes my business keeps me in the room. More often my business takes me elsewhere in the house.

When I stay in the room, all is well. Jack sleeps peacefully. When I leave, however - Jack's sixth sense kicks in and he wakes up and calls out frantically for his mommy-dear. Usually within two minutes of me leaving.

I must say, this gift of his is severely detrimental to my ability to keep house.

Jack is asleep in this picture because someone is in the room with him taking the picture.

What's amazing to me is how deeply he falls asleep sometimes, but still manages to wake up when I leave. Sometimes he will fall asleep on my arms when I'm singing to him, deep enough that I can move him all over the place - and not gently, I might add! - without him waking up. I will even place him in his bassinet and watch him for several minutes to make sure he is really asleep. Yet he still manages to wake up as soon as I decide it's safe to leave.

In other news, Lewis and I have been quite well-rested recently. Going to bed at the same time as your three-month-old will do that to you.

Mean Mom

2011-12-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

Jack is a mama's boy.

In many ways, I love this. I adore being the only person he will calm down for when he is crabby. I cherish the fact that he will fall asleep in my arms after screaming bloody murder for anyone else who comes near him.

Other times it is a little bit trying. Sometimes it would be nice to get a break from the clinginess. Also too, I feel bad when he wails and wails with Lewis, but the calms right down for me. Jack loves his dad, but when he's upset, I am usually the only one that will do.

But with great power comes great responsibility. Since I am the one who brings comfort to his blessed little heart, any time he gets hurt it is all my fault because I didn't prevent it.

Even if I am no where near him at the time.

Jack was being a sweetie this afternoon, but I was tired and wanted a nap and he was very much awake. So I handed him off to Lewis so that I could get some shut eye. About fifteen minutes later I hear Jack being wailing and sit up to see Lewis wiping blood from his forehead. Apparently Jack, who just had his nails trimmed the other day, had scratched himself bad enough to break the skin (I still can't figure out how this happened - none of his nails were nearly sharp enough).

We of course felt the need to cut his nails right away to make sure this wouldn't happen again. This is a hard enough task when Jack is asleep. It's near impossible when he is screaming and flailing and arching his back in an all-out melt down.

Eventually we succeeded and I gathered Jack into my arms and held him close, rocking back and forth. When he's upset like that, I can normally calm him down in about thirty seconds.

Not today.

I spent the next hour rocking him, walking him, bouncing him, singing to him, rubbing his belly, and trying to feed him - a move that until today, always worked in calming him down.

Finally, frustrated, I deposited him into his father's arms with a, "You try something." Lewis looked at me like I was crazy, but took up the charge with honor, starting by changing Jack's diaper. After completing that task, the two of them settled down on the couch together. Jack still had tears flowing, but he was no longer yelling and his breathing was slowing down. He was finally relaxing after an hour of screaming.

As he calmed, Jack looked across to the other side of the couch, looked me straight in the eye, and glared like I was the worst mother in the world, making occasional sobs and moans of distress. He continued giving me this icy stare of betrayal until he fell asleep, hic-sobbing. He has been sleeping/hic-sobbing ever since.

Luckily for me, Jack lacks a significant amount of long-term memory.

But maybe his dad will now be a suitable source of comfort for the little monkey. One can only hope.

Jack's New Trick

2011-12-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

In just the past few days, Jack has learned and perfected a new trick that I had hopes he would never learn. I knew it was probably inevitable, but I had hoped I might have a little but more time before he learned to do this. Like was so much simpler without this little maneuver.

Jack has learned how to arch his back.

Technically he's been arching his back since birth, but only when you picked him up when he was asleep. He would tuck his legs under his bum, pucker up his lips, and stretch his torso, resulting in an arched back. It was adorable. His sleepy back arch meant that he would be willing to curl up right there in your arms if you let him. I loved it.

Back before his back-arching days, tantrums were much simpler.

This new back arching? Not so much.

Jack hates going into his car seat. I hate it too, but it's a necessary evil. He has discovered that if he arches his back, it's really hard for Lewis or me to buckle him in and tighten the straps.

After the great success he has had in arching his back while going in his car seat (and by great success, I mean making everyone involved annoyed, including himself), Jack has decided to apply back arching to other situations. Like when we buckle him into his bouncy chair. Or on the changing table - that's a particular fun one because he involves his legs. While we change him, he will arch his back and push off with his feet, launching his head into the barrier at the top of his changing table. He doesn't have enough power to hurt himself, just enough to make him mad. He will also usually catch his new diaper with his heel (we've learned to get the dirty diaper out of there as quickly as possible), removing it from where it needs to be.

For Lewis and me, his back arching is mostly just irritating. It makes seemingly simple tasks take longer, sure, but other than that it's not the end of the world. For Jack himself, though, it is far worse. He bumps his head on the changing table, he makes the car seat straps cut into his skin... He's actually mildly hurting himself with this little habit.

So Jack, I ask you... Why?

Gosh, iPad!

2011-11-29T11:23:00.001-07:00

Remember how a mere two months ago, I was praising the iPad for being so very awesome?

Well that was before iOS5!

Don't get me wrong, it's still awesome and I still paid zero dollars for it, but... Let me explain.

Every time I turn on my iPad/go back to the home screen, I see this adorable face staring up at me:

Darling, right? This picture could win contests, I tell you! (Shut up, I know I'm biased.)

Since the iOS5 update, however, I have become increasingly irritated many of the times that I see those big baby blues. Why, you ask? Because since the update, Safari freaking crashes all the time! And it's not just when I click on a site that may have a lot of funky add-ons or stuff like that. It'll sometimes crash when I'm in the middle of reading a stinking news article. Today it crashed TWICE during the same article! I wasn't even touching anything!

Can you tell by my overuse of the exclamation point (!) that I am seriously annoyed?!

Srsly.

And the last feeling I want to feel when gazing upon the innocent face of my beloved offspring is annoyance. It's harrowing, I say! Harrowing!

Now I get it. iOS5 was created around the iPad 2, and I just have a measly 1. But I had to get the update if I wanted my apps to continue working. Plus Apple is known for quality products that continue to have a high rate of functionality even when they are replaced by a newer generation. And most of my iPad stuff works just fine. But I use Safari a lot... And every time it crashes, I feel like kicking my iPad in the face.

At the end of the day, however, I could never be irritated by seeing that picture. I mean, just look at those squishy cheeks!

But I would appreciate it if Safari could get its act together... Just so you know, world.

And Apple, if you are reading this, you could make me feel better by giving me an iPad 2. In the spirit of Christmas and good will and all that. I'll write a good review of it, promise.

If that happens, one lucky blog reader may even inherit my current iPad. Start campaigning now!

101 Things I am Thankful for Today.

2011-11-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

Over the past week I have debated back and forth about whether or not I would write this post. On the one hand, I have a lot that I am thankful for and I should recognize some of those things. On the other, I am very lazy.

But then something happened that reminded me of how incredibly blessed I am and I should do more to recognize that. I'm not going to go into the incident, just suffice it to say that I am so grateful for all that I have. I give you permission to not read this incredibly long post, but I feel like I need to express a lot of gratitude right now.

So without further ado, 101 things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving (in no particular order, mostly just how they come to me):

1. Lewis. He is the perfect man for me. I can't imagine my life without him.

2. Jack. All he does is eat, cry, and poo but I love him more than life itself and even beyond that. He is incredible.

3. My mom. She is for reals the very best mother out there and the reason I am the person I am today.

4. My dad. He can beat up your dad.

5. My sister. She is an amazing example of faith, courage, and unconditional love.

6. My brothers. They make me laugh. I know that anyone who hurt me would get a swift kick in the rear from all three of them.

7. Lewis' parents. I am so glad that they are Jack's grandparents.

8. My siblings-in-law. I feel like I can just hang out with any of them. They're good people. I just need more on my side.

9. My grandparents. They're cool.

10. My aunts. More like extra older sisters.

11. My uncles and cousins. Can't imagine the Hirschi Olympics without them. The Madsen ones are pretty stinking awesome too.

12. My nieces and nephews. I especially appreciate how good they are with Jack.

13. Pumpkin pie. I know I said that this is in no particular order, but I think this deserves a place right after my family, know what I mean?

14. My iPad

15. Facebook. I keep up with so many people because of that site.

16. Skype. I love that Jack and I can talk to my parents in freaking Uruguay.

17. Google. What up.

18. Pinterest. This site has inspired me to be a cooler person.

19. My blog.

20. Books. What else would I do all day with only soaps on the TV?

21. To Kill a Mockingbird. This book will always have a special place in my heart.

22. My sewing machine. I finally feel like I have a talent that I am developing.

23. My bed.

24. Our cars.

25. Our home. I feel particularly blessed about this what with the economy being what it is.

26. Public education.

27. Higher education.

28. My bachelor's degree.

29. My teaching certificate.

30. Lewis' job.

31. The fact that Lewis makes enough so that I can stay home with Jack.

32. Pacifiers.

33. Rocking chairs.

34. Car seats. I love knowing that Jack is safe in the car.

35. Cloth diapers.

36. My blender.

37. Christmas.

38. Footie pajamas on babies.

39. American Fork Hospital and all the nurses and doctors that took care of Jack and me during labor, delivery, and recovery.

40. My OBs who made sure I had a healthy pregnancy.

41. The pediatrician.

42. Walmart and their price matching policy.

43. A high efficiency washing machine.

44. Our camera.

45. The fact that my mom asked me to send a picture of Jack every day so I take a picture of Jack every day.

46. My former students.

47. College football.

48. BYU and the mighty Cougars.

49. The Holy War (that's this Saturday, right?)

50. Contact lenses.

51. My KitchenAid.

52. Bountiful Baskets.

53. Disneyland.

54. Reese's Fast Break - best candy bar ever.

55. My talents. I'm still trying to figure out what they are, but I appreciate the ones I have and I am working on developing more.

56. The blinds in our bedroom. Jack could look at them for hours.

57. Checking the mail.

58. Painted toenails.

59. Having Lewis point out different constellations at night and different types of clouds during the day.

60. Adoption.

61. Being warm when I sleep.

62. The seat heaters in my car.

63. Tunak.

64. Yellowstone.

65. Camping.

66. S'mores.

67. Crunching leaves. I will go out of my way to step on one.

68. Hiking in the mountains.

69. Running. I wish I could do it more often. There's nothing like a good run in crisp air.

70. Having different seasons. Summer is my favorite by far, but I love stuff about all four.

71. Summer vacation.

72. Online banking.

73. Getting up early enough to see the sunrise.

74. Playing catch with a football or frisbee.

75. Running barefoot in the grass.

76. Driving up to Park City in early autumn when all the trees are different colors.

77. Seeing Christmas trees in people's windows.

78. Pandora radio - especially the Lullaby and Polar Express stations.

79. Jack's smile.

80. Toothpaste. I love brushing my teeth.

81. The fact that I can meet my baby's needs.

82. Having photographs to decorate my home.

83. Watching Lewis play with Jack.

84. Weekends.

85. Having enough - even when it's barely enough.

86. Flowers. I love flowers.

87. The fact that there are still things for me to aspire to, and there always will be.

88. My memories - good and bad.

89. Hindsight.

90. My many friends who have supported me over the years. I would give a shout out to specific ones, but there are lots. Sorry guys.

91. Our ward.

92. My visiting teacher.

93. The fact that my marriage is eternal.

94. The gospel.

95. Being able to take the Sacrament each week.

96. The Temple and the blessings I have received there.

97. That I live among lots of temples that I can attend regularly (perhaps in theory).

98. The law of tithing. So very many blessings have come from us living that.

99. Having a living prophet and modern revelation.

100. The scriptures and the fact that I can read them each day.

101. My Savior, Jesus Christ, and His atoning sacrifice.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Future Tight End

2011-11-21T20:49:00.002-07:00

When we first found out that Jack was on his way, I naturally started thinking about what he would look like. Would he get my monkey feet? What about Lewis' pointy nose (which I love)? Would his hair be curly? What color eyes will he end up with?

Eventually my thoughts turned to his stature. See, I have a... unique body. My torso is quite short. Like whoa. But I'm also 5'7'', which is on the taller end of average. This is due to my legs being ridiculous in length. Allow me to illustrate: My husband has a good five or six inches on me and our legs are the same length (mine might actually be a little bit longer).

While Lewis has legs of an average length, his torso is quite the opposite of mine: long. This provides for an abundance of stature possibilities for our spawn (okay, maybe not an abundance, but whatevs). I felt confident that Jack would end up outfitted with either long legs or a long torso; no way he would end up with a double whammy of both. That would be just silly. How would he fit in any of his clothes?

Guess what he ended up with. No, really. Guess.

Our little booger is in the 97th percentile for height. If he keeps growing at this rate, he will end up at 6'2" or 3". I see an athletic scholarship in his future, so long as he moves beyond that 50th percentile for weight; this would be ideal cause college is expensive and we are public educators.

Jack fit into the little bath attachment thing here for about a day. Good thing he doesn't seem to mind having freezing legs.

I was reading some random blog about some random six month old. The child in question was being touted as super long at a whopping 25.5 inches. Jack is half an inch shorter than that and he is only two months old.

Ahem.

On top of his lengthiness, Jack wears cloth diapers. We love 'em, but they do add another inch or so to his torso length. And when his wardrobe consists mostly of onesies, you can imagine the trouble this might cause.

So what does this all mean? It means I am really grateful for all of my loved ones who gifted us baby clothing in a plethora of different sizes. I am beyond relieved that my child will not go naked this winter just because he decided to add four-and-a-half-plus inches to his head-to-toe measurement in two months flat. Because it's obviously his fault.

This is a 12 month onesie. The only area where it doesn't really fit is the head hole cause his head is just in the 25th percentile. We've concluded that he has adult proportions.

No wonder he's so fussy. You would be too if you grew nearly five inches in two months.

Question.

2011-11-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

Baby clothes are adorable, that's for sure. Jack looks darling in anything we put him in. But I have a bone to pick with the greater baby clothing industry:

Why all the pastels?

When did that become a thing? Babies don't even like pastels. You put two objects in front of a newborn, one pastel, the other a bright color, and they will fixate on the brighter colored object every time!

Also too, all of my favorites of Jack's clothes are of the non-pastel variety. I think he looks even more adorable in non-pastels. Don't get me wrong - he's cute in pastels too. I just like normal colored clothing better.

My favorite of Jack's jammies. If they still fit, I would still make him wear them, even though Halloween is over. He looks good in black.

Part of that may have to do with my third and most important point about wondering why pastels are a thing.

The poop.

Babies poop and they poop a lot. Diapers are not always able to hold poop in. When diapers fail at this their most important function, do you know where the poop goes?

Well, everywhere, but since clothes are often the closest thing to the diapers, the poop usually starts there.

Now if your baby is wearing, say, dark gray and forest green, this is not a problem. Treat the clothes and wash them of course, but you don't have to worry about a noticeable stain.

Poop is not a problem in this outfit.

But if it's something like baby blue and duckling yellow, well... Let's just hope you don't mind adding splotchy mustard yellow to that color pallet.

White? Okay. That's bleach-able. But not even a good scrubbing and an overnight soak in Oxyclean will remove a most stubborn poop stain from those darling pastel pants.

Thank GOODNESS the poop came out of his blessing outfit.

Oh well. At least baby clothes are cheap.

New Habits

2011-11-14T13:14:00.001-07:00

Yesterday during church I found myself steadily rocking back and forth, back and forth trying to keep my sleeping baby in that condition. And then I remembered that Lewis was holding him. There was nothing for me to rock.

Not five minutes later I found myself doing it again.

Then today after Jack fell asleep I went about cleaning the kitchen. Jack made a noise like something had startled him and he was shortly going to wake up. To prevent this I started tiptoeing around, loading the dishwasher as quietly as I could before I remembered that Jack was in his room sleeping and the noise I heard was through the baby monitor.

I might need to get more sleep myself.

Requisite Post

2011-11-11T22:52:00.004-07:00

As a mommy blogger, I feel compelled to share with you the adorable things my son does. And hoo boy, today was a doozy.

I've been trying to get him to look at himself in the mirror for WEEKS but he'll have none of it. Today he finally caught his own eye and just spent a good time grinning toothlessly at himself. It was beyond darling. Just sos you know, I get to spend all day long with the cutest thing to walk this earth. Okay maybe not walk just yet, but when he finally achieves ambulation baby seals, sneezing pandas, and lol cats alike better look out.

As proof please examine the following:

Amiright?

Mommy blogger duty: fulfilled.

Favorite Store No More

2011-11-09T09:41:00.001-07:00

I generally consider myself to be a reasonable and forgiving person. I'm all about giving second chances.

But blow your second chance and... ho buddy, watch out.

Kohl's used to be my favorite store. They frequently have good deals and they do a lot to get you back into their store, again and again (I'm looking at you, Kohl's Cash).

Due to two recent incidents, however, I am disinclined to shop there any more.

Incident Number 1:

We received a set of onesies for Jack that happened to come from Kohl's. I really liked the onesies, but they were newborn size and he outgrew newborn clothes in about a week, so we decided to exchange them for a bigger size. So Lewis, Jack, and I all head to Kohl's to make the exchange. We go and find a set of onesies in the size we want and Lewis takes them to customer service to make an exchange while I shop.

The representative at customer service tells Lewis that he has to pay more money because the onesies we were exchanging were from last season. Normally this would be understandable, except for the part where this season's onesies and last season's onesies were identical.

But the computer said that there was a price difference so Lewis had to pay the difference. Naturally Lewis asked to speak to a manager.

The manager came out and immediately started treating Lewis like a hostile customer. If you've met Lewis, you know that he doesn't know how to be hostile. This was ridiculous. Neither the customer service representative nor the manager could find any difference between the two sets of onesies (except for the size), but Lewis still had to pay the difference because that's what the computer said and there was nothing they could do about it. (Yeah, right. There's always something you can do.)

Frustrated, Lewis paid the difference (we couldn't just take the wrong sized onesies home - they would have no use!) and went to find me. He recounted the story and I immediately put back the $60 boots I was about to buy and we walked out. We were planning on spending real money that day, but because of a $7 difference in two sets of identical onesies, we left with nothing. Except the onesies.

When we got home Lewis sent off a message to the corporate customer service office. They responded apologetically and assured us that we would hear back from that location within the week.

It's been over a month and we've heard zilch.

Incident Number 2:

A few weeks after the first incident occurred, I was willing to forgive the larger company that is Kohl's (see, I said I was forgiving) and just avoid the American Fork location, since they never responded like they were supposed to. Plus Lewis and I both got gift cards to Kohl's for our birthdays (they were given before Incident Number 1) that needed spending. Over Fall Break we were going to be in the greater Provo/Orem area anyway, so we decided to go and spend our cards at the Orem location.

Unsuccessfully. The boots I was going to buy before didn't end up looking that good on me (chicken legs) and I was unimpressed with their clothing selection (this is bad news - post-baby me needs new clothes). Lewis was going to get new jeans, but the ones he wanted were not on sale and they're kind of pricey. I had been wanting a bread machine for a long time and Lewis has finally caught on to the idea of frequent fresh bread, so we decided to pool our gift cards and get that. They didn't have any in-store, though so we went online.

We read through the reviews of each of their bread machines and selected one that had good reviews and a decent price. Bam. Ordered. This was October 21st.

On October 23rd, I received an email that said our bread machine was ready to be shipped. Included in the email was the requisite information for tracking my package. It also said that the bread machine would arrive between October 27th and November 2nd.

Knowing that often packages will arrive before their designated window, I casually checked the tracking the next day. The UPS website said that a shipping label had been created but the package had not yet arrived at their facility. No big deal, it was still early.

So I checked again the next day. No change. Same thing the next day and the next and the next all the way to yesterday (November 8th). By this point I was really annoyed that I didn't have my bread maker at my house and fresh bread in my belly.

Also in the email there was a link to follow the shipping from Kohl's website as well. I had glanced at that a few times to be informed that the package had shipped. That's all it said. Nothing more specific.

So Kohl's Customer Service received another email from the Youngs. I heard back from them not too much later. They informed me that UPS made a mistake (not them, but UPS - way to own up to stuff, Kohl's. Even if it was UPS, you're at fault too cause I bought the product from you.) and because of that they were unable to reship my bread machine. They would return my money/gift cards, and if I still wanted the bread machine, I would have to reorder it.

I was livid. First of all, why can't Kohl's reorder my item, why do I have to? I ordered it, so obviously I want it. Fix the mistake and then reprocess the order! Second of all, if there was a problem with my order, why was I the one to contact Kohl's and not the other way around? If they figured out the problem so quickly, it's obviously been there a while and they should have contacted me as soon as there was a problem.

And of course, since we used gift cards, we can't just go buy a bread machine somewhere else. Or I suppose we could, but the money that was spent on the gift cards was already given to Kohl's so I'm not going to let those gift cards go unused. I'm so freaking irritated. And of course, we have to wait to get our money back (4-8 days to get a new gift card and 14-30 to get the excess returned) so I can't even just reorder the bread machine immediately because we don't just have enough money for it lying around.

In a world of Web 2.0 and social networking, Kohl's should know better than to let stuff like this happen. When anyone can get online and tell a story, companies need to make sure that they are telling good stories about them.

Kohl's wants us to "Expect great things." Well I did. And I didn't get them.

Sorry, Kohl's. I'm out.

Weird Thing and Awesome Thing

2011-11-05T19:27:00.000-06:00

As a stay-at-home mom, I don't get out much. I therefore have to amuse myself with the little things that happen during my day, which may come at the expense of others. I find this to be a healthy exercise. I have no doubt that my mind would degenerate rapidly if I was only amused by the goings on of my adorable two-month-old. He's darling and does cute stuff, sure. But still. If I'm ever to make it back to the classroom, I need my mind to stay sharp.

This is my justification for laughing at the following two incidents: One weird and one awesome.

The Weird:

Jack and I were chilling on the couch downstairs when I heard someone open the gate to our backyard. At first I thought it was Lewis (it was about time for him to get home) but why would he come in the back? I heard whoever it was jiggle the doorknob and, finding it locked, knock rather aggressively on the door. In the back of my mind I was still thinking it had to be Lewis because, really, who else could it be? There is no one I know who would try to come to my house through the back door. Luckily I had enough smarts to open the blinds before opening the door because it was most definitely a stranger. As I opened the blinds I gave this young hoodlum (I just assumed he was a hoodlum because he entered my yard through its closed gate but I suppose he could be an upstanding young man. It's fifty-fifty.) an odd look and said, "Um, can I help you?" He, rather quickly, seemed to ascertain that I was not who he thought I was going to be, offered a look of surprised, and hurried his little behind off my property.

Since this incident I've considered two possible explanations for why this occurred. Number 1: This young gentleman was a close enough friend of our house's former occupants that he could visit them from their back yard. The reason he hasn't been back since they moved out is because he was off filling the world with do-goodery.

Number 2: He got the wrong house because they all look the same and there isn't a house number in the back.

The world will never know which it is.

The Awesome:

Lewis had a long week. It was Halloween, Jack's been keeping us up later than usual, and he's coming down with a cold. As such he's pretty exhausted by the time Friday rolls around. It was a little after 9 PM last night when I was trying to get Jack to fall asleep. Lewis was lying in bed while I rocked and sang to our little toot and managed to fall asleep before Jack did. Unfortunately we had not yet said our family prayer, nor had Lewis taken out his contacts. Knowing that he would regret the latter (and hopefully the former), I shook Lewis awake after I put Jack down in his bed. It was Lewis' turn to say the prayer and he technically did, but the prayer consisted of asking for Jack to be blessed and thanking for our house. After he finished, he climbed back into bed only to be annoyed by me again, telling him to go take out his contact lenses. He grudgingly complied and that was that.

Until this morning. While Jack and I were downstairs, I heard Lewis call me from upstairs and ask why his contacts were not in their case. Instead of putting them inside, in his half-awake state, he somehow managed to place them on the side of his case where I'm sure they dried right out.

Between that and his prayer, I'm still giggling.

Maybe I'm too easily amused.

A Post About Poop

2011-11-03T17:49:00.000-06:00

I officially dub this week to be poopy.

My dear son Jack, who has not had a blowout in nearly a MONTH, decided to have two - two - major ones this week.

The first went straight up his front. Not his back, his front. I didn't even know that was possible. I guess you learn something new every day as a parent.

The second one went not only up his front, but down his legs too. It then travelled into his hands and onto his feet as he wailed and flailed while I cleaned him up. The most impressive part was the amount I cleaned out of his belly button.

Did I mention that these were the only two poo diapers he's had in the past three days? And I thought I would be excited when his digestive tract matured and he stopped having so many poopy diapers...

The House that All the Kids Hate

2011-10-31T12:56:00.000-06:00

Obvious statement of the day: It's Halloween! I miss being a teacher lots on Halloween. Many teachers may dislike the day and for good reason - the students all act like they have bees in their head, there's no instructional value to the day, etc. But I love it! It's a day when you're allowed to just have fun with your class.

I was just introduced to the elementary school Halloween parade a mere two years ago. In the plethora of elementary schools that I went to, none of them partook in this tradition. Which is a real bummer cause it's a ton o' fun. The parade is one of the biggest things that I miss. Luckily, since my dear esposo is an elementary school teacher too, I still got to participate mostly because he wanted to show off Jack (and who can blame him?), and also cause our costumes went together (we're the Rubbles). So Jack and I headed out the door this morning all decked out in our Halloween finest. At Lewis' school we saw some fabulous costumes. My favorite was one of Lewis' kids. This girl with gorgeous flowing curly black hair dressed as Troy Polamalu - genius. There was also a kid dressed as Jake Heaps with a bench attached to his bum. Ouch.

None of the above is the point of this post, however. It's just the precursor, the inciting incident, the exposition. The point is that Lewis' school is not the only place I had to go today. I also had to go to Walmart. And since Jack does not like being packed up into his car seat ONE BIT, it made sense to go to Walmart while I was already out. Also too, Walmart could not be more on the way when traveling from Lewis' school to our home. Basically it in no way made sense for me to take a second trip.

So after the parade I loaded Jack into the car and headed on over. Still in my costume.

To understand why this is such a big deal, you have to first understand something about me. I am not morally opposed to wearing a costume while you're are just out and about on Halloween. If that's your game, go for it. But it's not my thing. I'm too self-conscious or something. I could maybe - maybe - do it if I was in a group of people all headed to the store at ten AM on Halloween. But I wouldn't like it.

I would definitely do it if I had a child that was wearing his or her costume with me and we were part of a matched set. And this was technically the case, but Jack was bundled up under his car seat cover thing so that only his face showed. Plus his costume consists of a onesie, diaper, and a strip of fabric pinned across his shoulder so it hardly counts.

But there I was in any case in all my Halloween glory. I zipped my sweater over the top of my costume, but it was still pretty obvious that I was a 25-year-old, essentially alone woman dressed up to celebrate. If nothing else the fact that I was wearing flip-flops in 40 degree weather was enough to give it away.

I'm sure no one really noticed or even cared, especially since I had an adorable little toot in my cart snoozing away, but unfortunately that kind of thing doesn't matter when you're self-conscious like me. I suppose that being a mom now I'll just have to stop giving a darn about potentially embarrassing situations cause if there's anything I know about kids...

Anyway the whole reason I was at Walmart was to get candy for trick or treaters. I know. I'm that person, the one who doesn't buy Halloween candy until the day of. But you've got to understand something. I've purchased an overabundance of candy for each of the past three Halloweens in anticipation of all the little darlings that would flock to my front door now that I lived among people with children again. And I got the good stuff too! Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Milky Ways, Twix - you name it. But in all three of the past Halloweens combined, I think our door has been knocked upon a total of twice.

Here is where I am something of an oxymoron. I'm incredibly enthusiastic about holidays to the point where I even packed a Halloween-themed lunch for my husband today. My adult husband. And yet I can't even get up the courage to openly wear my costume to Walmart.

My point is, though, that when you are that enthusiastic and excited about something, it can be a bit of a disappointment when your expectations are crushed. So up until this morning I hadn't bought Halloween candy.

Yesterday when I realized I hadn't done that yet, I tentatively allowed my trick-or-treaters expectations to elevate. We live in a complex of townhomes - house after house after house. There are no stairs to ascend to get to our front door. And we finally live in a ward where the primary is actually larger than the nursery. These are ideal circumstances for Halloween candy distributing success!

(Wow I really sound like a creeper.)

So the trip to Walmart was essential. Except on Halloween day, they are out of all of the good stuff. No Reese's. No Milky Ways. No Twix. Just plain, old, leave in the bottom of you pillowcase until next Halloween, generic.

Great. I just set us up to be that house. You know the house. The one that everyone learns to skip cause trick-or-treating time is precious. You have to maximize your good candy profits by hitting only the very best homes with your sweet tooth solicitations. We're the house that will earn a black mark this year because it's not common knowledge that we have crappy candy and so trick or treaters will still knock on our door and then come away in grumpy spirits because we wasted their time with our generic treats. Our house will be the reason why there will be so many ticked off pirates, zombie skate-boarders, and Egyptian princesses in our neighborhood tonight. My hopes is that they are all still to young to think to egg my garage.

Just wait til next year, neighborhood kids. Next year I will be prepared. Next year I'm going to have mind-blowingly good candy in my trick-or-treat cauldron. But you won't get any cause you blacklisted my house already. So poo-poo on you.

No Just Waits or Can't Waits

2011-10-27T12:38:00.000-06:00

Just a heads up, this post may be a little, erm, sentimental. Proceed at your own risk.

A couple of months ago, not long before Jack was born, I came across this op ed (yes, I read BlogHer. Judge not). The piece talks about "Just Waits" and "Can't Waits" and how useless those phrases are.

I have to say, I completely agree. I've always been bugged when people give me parenting advice that starts with "Just wait." "Just wait until Jack starts this then he will x, y, and z." Yeah, maybe. And maybe not. Maybe Jack will terrorize my house when he starts walking. Maybe he will yank all my clothes off their hangers. Maybe he will put his sticky hands all over my sewing machine. And maybe he won't. Either way, it will be fine and I'll figure it out and deal with it as best as I can. If all the Just Waits I've heard actually come to pass, I will believe my son is possessed.

Point is, I don't mind parenting advice - heaven knows I need it. I do mind Just Waits.

But it's the second half of her article that really touched me in my heart. Enough so that I shared it with Lewis and we have made an effort to kick unproductive Can't Waits to the curb. If all we do is look forward to when Jack can crawl or when Jack can feed himself or when Jack can do any number of things that he can't do right now, we're going to miss out on Jack and how great he is right now.

An example: Jack is a fussy baby. He's got reflux and likes to spend the hours of 6-8 in the PM screaming. Lately that period is closer to 5-9 PM with some minimal breaks in between, usually just when he is eating. It can be very trying.

Lewis sets a good example for pleasantness. Jack doesn't care.

With these evenings spent trying to console an inconsolable infant it would be really easy for us to say, "I can't wait until he's past this fussy period." But we're not going to do that. Know why? Because of all the other precious little things that happen during this same period. Like Jack wanting to be cuddled and held. Or the cute little awkward smiles he gives when he wakes up in the morning because he's still trying to figure out how to control all his muscles. Or watching him concentrate SO HARD on getting his fist in his mouth only to miss and punch himself in the face. And when Jack moves out of this fussy period, which I know will happen soon, he won't have those things. He'll be more alert and curious about stuff other than us. He won't have any difficulty smiling. He'll know how to put his fist directly in his mouth. And those things will be darling too. And I plan to enjoy them when they happen. But for now, I'm enjoying what he's doing now.

Even when I was in the last few weeks of my pregnancy and I was uncomfortable and humongous, Lewis wouldn't let me Can't Wait my way out of it. Those were the last few weeks we had as just us, no baby to take care of. If I spent all my time dwelling on the Can't Waits (which I may have done more than I should have), I would miss out on enjoying my last little bit of time with just Lewis.

Now I know what you're thinking. This is a little extreme. And you're probably right. There's nothing wrong with a Can't Wait here and there. Can't Waits are a natural thing to think and say. And I will often think Can't Wait in my head - but when I do, I will stop and remember all the things that I am enjoying now. It's helped me to appreciate my little baby and all that he is capable of each new day so much more. Because oh my heck. He's changing so quickly. Am I excited for him to be able to do all these new things? Sure. Can I wait? Absolutely.

How could you not enjoy this?

If you look in the article, there are a few acceptable Just Waits and Can't Waits, while still retaining this mindset of relishing in the preciousness of each moment with your child. I won't rehash them all for you. Suffice it to say that right now, I can't wait for Jack to wake up.

The Times I Want to be Asleep

2011-10-25T11:04:00.001-06:00

When Jack wakes up in the middle of the night to eat, rare is the time that he's not absolutely delightful. He coos, he makes faces, he eats happily. He also sometimes does not go back to sleep very easily.

Such was the case early Sunday morning at about 3:15 He had already woken up to eat twice before (he usually only wakes up to eat twice total), so I had not gotten much sleep by that point. After feeding him (which took about fifteen minutes), I held him and rocked him and tried to get him to fall back asleep. No dice. He didn't even drift off in my arms only to wake up when I laid him back down as is his usual M.O. Jack was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the whole time.

Had it been a few hours later I would have loved to have stayed up and made faces at him and played with him, as he was clearly in the mood for. But it was nearing 4 AM and I was dog tired.

After struggling with Jack for half an hour (until it actually was 4 AM) I decided Lewis needed a turn. I shook Lewis awake and presented him with his son. Lewis barely acknowledged that Jack was now with him so I placed Lewis' hands on Jack's back so he wouldn't roll off his chest and put our large body pillow on the edge of the bed for extra security.

Satisfied that Lewis could now share in my lack of sleep and positive that Jack would shortly start wiggling and kicking his dad so he'd have to wake up all the way, I lied down to finally get some sleep. As I did, I rolled over on my side to check on Jack since Lewis still didn't seem very awake. Jack was resting peacefully with his eyes shut. Seriously?!

Just as I started to close my eyes I saw Jack open his ever so slightly, look straight at me, and smirk.

A few hours later Lewis woke up confused as to why he had a baby on his chest. He didn't remember anything.

To be fair, Jack made up for it tonight. He slept from 10:30 to 4:00, then again from 4:30 to 8:00. All that sleep was delightful.

Fun at the Zoo

2011-10-21T21:24:00.000-06:00

Since it's fall break, we decided to go to the zoo along with everyone else in Utah who couldn't afford to go to Disneyland. We went with Lewis' sister and her three kids - 5, 2, and six hours older than Jack.

Going to the zoo with two six-week-olds is challenging, mostly because they need to eat frequently. I was able to pump enough milk to tide Jack over for as long as it took him to finish the bottle and then he was rip-roarin' for more. Luckily the area with the tigers was pretty secluded... At least until 90% of the zoo patrons decided to follow me in there.

Getting ready to feed a hungry, fussy, and exceedingly wiggly baby can be difficult in and of itself when modesty is not an issue. Trying to do all that when your baby keeps kicking the nursing cover off of what it is supposed to be covering is, well, stressful. Luckily the rest of our group decided to follow me in there and Lewis stood on one side of me and Monica - a much more experienced modest nurser - sat on the other feeding Jack's twin cousin keeping me pretty well shielded.

Even better, Monica's five- and two-year-old were able to provide some entertainment. First, the five-year-old informed me that Jack was "eating milk that he gets from your boob." Then the two-year-old, who is apparently fascinated by breast feeding, kept trying to peek at Jack eating. The best time was when I had already handed Jack over to Lewis for burping and she tried to see the baby under my nursing cover while I was putting everything away. After screeching at her to not peek, she informed me of her intentions and I was able to point out Jack's true location.

All in all it was a fabulous trip. The kids were all well-behaved and we got to see lots of fun animals as well as some top-quality people watching. But I will forever laugh at the interactions I had with those two cute kids while I fed my little fussy monkey at the zoo.

Validating My Paranoia

2011-10-18T14:19:00.003-06:00

DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this post is to express how my over-exaggerated paranoia has been validated.

A few months ago I decided it would be prudent for me to develop some more momly and homemakerish talents since that was what I was shortly to become. I'm already a fairly decent cook so I chose to go in the direction of sewing. For my first sewing project, I elected to make bumpers and a dust ruffle for my soon to arrive son's crib.

I worked for hours on this project, through an aching pregnant body and broken threads and pricked fingers. When all was said and done, I was quite pleased with the finished project. So pleased, in fact, that I decided to tackle another sewing project: our Halloween costumes - Don't worry. I'm sure I will brag about their cuteness when they are ~~started~~ done.

Since his crib is in his nursery and his food which he desires in the middle of the night is in my room, Jack has not slept for an extended period in his crib (other than the nap he is taking as I type this - first time in the crib for longer than five minutes). The issue which is the subject of this post, therefore, has not become a real issue yet.

It's the bumpers. The cute little green and brown bumpers that so well match the color and monkey theme of his nursery. It's not that I don't like them. I'm quite proud of them. No, it's that parental paranoia that keeps cropping up as a theme throughout my blog of late. What if he rolls over into one of them and suffocates?!

The cute little green and brown bumpers that so well match the color and monkey theme of Jack's nursery. You can't see the brown part, but it's there.

This is something that I think about every time we go into his nursery so I can change him. He's in cloth pocket diapers (love!) so after he's changed it's a bit of a longer process to deal with the soiled diaper than if he was in disposables. I have to flush the liner down the toilet, then separate and put the diaper and insert into a plastic bin in the laundry room. It is a task that doesn't take long to complete, but it is made easier with the use of two hands. Ergo Jack goes in the crib while the process is completed. And I always tell him not to move (as if he could yet) because I don't want him to roll into the bumpers and suffocate. Because I think about that. Every time.

Of course I'm conflicted. The bumpers are for safety, right? Which is why I haven't yet made the decision to remove him from his crib. But if he rolled into just the crib slats, how bad could he get hurt, really?

Today I read an article that pushed me over the edge and made me decide that the bumpers must go. The cute little green and brown bumpers that so well match the color and monkey theme of his nursery that my fat pregnant butt slaved over must go. For those of you too lazy to click on the link and get informed, let me explain: The American Academy of Pediatrics revised their SIDS guidelines to say that bumpers should be removed from cribs.

At least I still have the dust ruffle.

Just call me an oracle for the AAP. No, don't. I don't want to get sued.

But still! My paranoia was just validated by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This does not bode well for my future paranoias, but I'll take it if it means a safer Jack.

And I am bummed about losing the bumpers that I freaking made, but now I'll have some extra fabric that I'm sure I can put to good use.

Baby Motivator

2011-10-14T11:35:00.000-06:00

Problem 1:

I have been thinking about getting my hair cut for a while. I'm a mom now, so obviously I need a super-short mom haircut, right? No, but seriously. I don't really know how to "do" hair, and usually shorter hair, like at or just above my shoulders looks better when it's undid.

Plus I have an infant who has not yet discovered his hands so they therefore open and close at random. This lovely little child spends much of his time in my arms where my long hair is in constant reach. Multiple times a day I can be seen gently trying to pry his hands open to release my hair.

Last time I cut my hair it was long enough to donate but still be the length I wanted when I cut it, and I'd like to donate it again. It's not quite that long now, but this morning I received some extra motivation to cut it sooner.

Problem 2:

Jack is a pretty good sleeper. We've gotten into the routine of me feeding him between the hours of nine and ten, then putting him down to sleep. He'll sleep until about one or two, wake up, eat, and go back to sleep. Sometimes, however, he doesn't sleep very soundly when I put him down again so I'll pick him up and rock him and try to get him into a deeper sleep.

One night, early in our relationship, I discovered that he'll go right to sleep if I lay down with him on my chest. A few nights later, I discovered that it's really easy for me to go to sleep like that too. Plus having a sleeping infant on your chest is delightful. He's even doing that very thing right now, and I love it.

But I'm also a paranoid parent and research shows that kids who sleep in the same bed as their parents have I higher risk of SIDS. Not to mention that I certainly don't want Jack sleeping in our bed to become a habit. So I've been trying to wean him off of falling asleep like that. Mostly this just takes more time for me.

I've been doing well the past few nights. I've still consistently ended up having him fall asleep on my chest, but it's been later each night, so he spends less time in our bed. This morning, however, I received some extra motivation to kick him out of our bed sooner.

Solution:

This morning when I gave up and brought Jack to bed with me, just as I was laying him down on my chest, he spat up all over my hair. Short of a shower (which was not an option since Lewis had to get up soon and get in the shower himself), spit up is not easy to clean out of hair.

If my hair had been cut already, the spit up would have just gotten on my shirt - easy to change.

If I had stopped bringing Jack into bed with me, the spit up would have gotten in his bassinet - easy to clean. Or maybe he wouldn't have spit up at all since it seemed to be the movement that did it.

Jack is such a good son. He knows just what he needs to do to help his mother get stuff done. Also he started smiling this week so he made sure I still think he's cute even when he spits up all over me.

Making Adjustments

2011-10-10T13:05:00.000-06:00

Even the most casual followers of my life will be able to divine that it has recently changed in a dramatic fashion. Yes, I am obviously talking about going from renters to homeowners.

This has been a major adjustment. Before we bought this house, Lewis and I had only lived in upper-level apartments. When you live in the same situation for nearly three years you tend to form certain habits. In this case, we got into the routine of stepping lightly around our apartments to avoid disturbing the tenets in the units below.

Now we have a house. Our house has two stories and the only occupants of each is us. Sometimes I forget this and still find myself stepping overly carefully or cringing when I drop something on the floor. Sometimes I also go so far as to chastise Lewis for not taking care when he steps. Do we want the people underneath us to hate us? And then I remember that there is no one underneath us. My bad.

Our new digs.

Of course we did buy a town home, so there are people to the side of us. Luckily, only one side. This requires a different level of care. The volume on the TV stays low, we avoid using our blender early in the morning, etc. But then there was Jack. Jack cries ~~sometimes~~ often. And when he cries, he wails. The kid is not quiet. There is no way that our next door neighbors have not heard him.

They moved out last week. I choose to believe that this is because they were living in a tiny house with two full-sized adults, three rambunctious boys, and two large and barky dogs and NOT because they were driven crazy by the seemingly traumatized infant next door. Time will tell when new people move in.

What the One Month?

2011-10-06T16:26:00.000-06:00

Two months ago today I was over 36 weeks pregnant and more than ready to be done. My month long journey of ridiculously frequent contractions was just beginning and I could not wait to meet my darling little parasite. Time dragged on and after the longest month of my life I finally gave birth to my precious little Jack.

And now I'm confused. There is supposed to be just about the same amount of space between August 6th and September 6th as their is between September 6th and October 6th. Yet the former went by at a snail's pace while the latter seemed to have gone just shy of the speed of light. How exactly can that be?

My baby, my little Jack "Fuss Bucket" Young, is already one month old. Whoever it was that gave him permission to grow and change as quickly as he has needs to receive a firm talking-to.

Day 1

Month 1

To be fair, some changes are welcome. For example, I haven't been peed on in quite some time, knock on wood. Also, we now bathe him in a tub which he likes much more than the sponge baths of before. We're still working on getting him to enjoy the goings-on of after the bath, namely lotioning and dressing.

See how happy he is in the bath?

I guess I should just embrace it. Time is going to keep going and he's going to keep getting bigger. As long as he keeps cuddling with me, like he is doing RIGHT NOW, I might be okay with it (that being said, I can foresee problems when he gets to be a teenager), and I'll do my best to enjoy watching him grow and learn. I will admit that I am enjoying the occasional smile that crosses his face and might be intentional.

Some have speculated that he is smiling in this picture.

Setting the Record Straight

2011-09-30T16:57:00.001-06:00

If you recall, I admitted several weeks ago that Extra-Strength Awesome is now a mommy blog. Due to this new and exciting change, I feel like I should blog about the things mommies typically blog about in regards to their newborn child. However, thanks to my insufferable need to be honest (just ask Lewis whenever he's telling an embellished story how insufferable it is), my account of Jack and his personality may be a little different than those on other mommy blogs. But you may note that I will touch on the same topics.

Jack is adorable. This is true of pretty much all babies, but is particularly true of mine. The fact of the matter is that I made one dang cute kid, abundant baby zits and all. (He just wanted to match his mommy and her hormone changing-induced acne. Sooooo sweet!)

Exhibit A

Jack did not start sleeping through the night since day one as seems to be the case for an inordinate amount of mommy bloggers, nor has he slept through the night even once. Now to be fair to the little monkey, he is probably capable of sleeping through the night. But he was born to a hypersensitive, paranoid mother with not one but TWO degrees in mommyhood (Marriage, Family, and Human Development and Elementary Education) who unfortunately knows more than is useful about how kids grow. The reason he has never slept through the night is because I won't let him go longer than four hours between meals and frequent is the night that I wake HIM up rather than the other way around. DEAL WITH IT.

Jack does not nurse like a champ. One of the reasons for this is because I don't even know what that is supposed to mean. I do know that however he nurses, it's certainly not of championship calibre. For starters, the little poop bucket flat out refused to eat a calorie until he was twelve hours old. And then he only started breast feeding because our nurse at the hospital tricked him into it with a syringe full of formula. To date he still won't eat without a nursing shield (use your imagination) and he seems to have a personal problem with my right side. Srsly, when he's fussy, as he is every night before bed, he will not eat from that side no matter how hungry he is. It's like that side did something to deeply and personally offend him. Subsequently I produce weird and am lopsided. Thanks, kid. And I thought milk was milk.

Jack cries. A lot. Often to the point where I cry. Especially if it's late at night/quite early in the morning. I mean in general he's a pretty chill baby, but
he's still a baby. And all babies cry. A lot. So whatevs. It's cool.

We are a happy family!

And yet... No matter what he does, I'm just crazy about the little stink bug. Which is strange cause if anyone else in the world put me through the stress this little one does, I would... Well, not like them very much. But I just love Jack to pieces. I love him even when he's screaming/refusing to eat/not sleeping/pooping on me, anything.

Cause I'm his mommy, darn it. And this is my blog.

Size Doesn't Matter

2011-09-29T19:13:00.000-06:00

When I was a little girl I was smart enough to determine that there would be mountains of laundry in my future. I was actively aware of the fact that my mom did a lot of laundry and that when I had a family of my own, that would become my fate. I just never thought it would be so soon.

Since we've been married, I've been the primary laundry-doer. This is something I'm okay with. I'm not perfect at it (re: I've been known to leave a load in the dryer for longer than may be necessary, procrastinating the inevitable: folding) but I've gotten it done. With just Lewis and me, I've been able to get by doing two, maybe three loads a week. No biggie.

I figured that after Jack was born my laundry would increase, but not that much. I mean he's little, right? How much laundry could he produce?

Hoo boy.

It's my bad, really. I forgot to factor in burp cloths that he spits up on, clothes of his he's peed/pooped on, clothes of mine he's peed/pooped on (I typically don't wait to launder those), extra layers to keep him warm, teeny socks and mittens that get stuck in the washer, towels we lay out on the floor to change his diaper on in the middle of the night when we're too lazy to walk down the hall to his changing table that he subsequently pees/poops on, clothes that I've leaked through because my child likes to eat a lot and I therefore produce a lot... etc.

Not to mention the fact that now that his umbilical cord has come all the way off, we're starting him on cloth diapers that I will now have to launder as well.

MOUNTAINS I SAY!

Today's haul. Please not that my darling spouse and adorable child are sleeping on some of it and there's even more on the other side of the basket.

In conclusion, I am really glad we did not have Jack when we were living at Wymount and subject to a coin operated laundromat. How people with kids there can stand it, I know not.

Life's Little Miracles

2011-09-26T16:39:00.000-06:00

Over the past few weeks (since about a week and a half before Jack was born until yesterday) we have been very much blessed to have my mom stay with us. She cooked, she cleaned, and she took care of Jack when I needed to take care of myself (shower, eat, etc.). It was a HUGE blessing to have her and my little brother here (he was really helpful too) and I was super bummed when she had to leave. I've really been missing her and her absence is noticeable. Case in point: I didn't shower until 1:00 this afternoon and lunch wasn't eaten until about 45 minutes ago (it's 4:10 now).

Because she had to leave yesterday, we decided to bless Jack then. It was a large family event; I believe we had 37 people total in our little house yesterday. There were lots of opportunities for stuff to go wrong. Luckily almost everything when right.

When Jack was born, he was super chill. Lewis and I thought we had scored an easy ride. He didn't cry very much and would just cuddle with us when he was awake and not eating. It was awesome. Little did we know, this was merely jaundice-induced lethargy. Jack struggle quite a bit with getting his bilirubin levels down. When they finally did start going down, the fussiness came up. Swell.

To be fair to our adorable wee one, he's typically awesome at night. Most nights I have to wake him up to feed him (I won't let him go more than four hours between meals) and then he'll go right back to sleep. I'm tired, but my sleep hasn't suffered as much as it could.

During the day, though, this kid eats A LOT. He cluster feeds happily in the morning, eats leisurely throughout the early afternoon around napping, then cluster feeds fussily in the evening (often with loud crying and refusing to eat even though it's clearly what he wants. It's like he's saying, "I'm so hungry I can't even eat!").

And then there was Saturday. He was fussy and wanting to eat ALL. DAY. LONG. I was frustrated. He was angry. No ones was getting any sleep. Of course this was the day my extended family was to come down from Idaho to meet him. We had planned to go out to dinner with everyone to celebrate my birthday. Jack was not doing well by the time we were ready to go. This did not bode well for his blessing day. We had nearly 40 people coming over to meet this kid and the forecast was predicting a gloomy time. (For the record, Jack fell asleep on the way to the restaurant and slept through all of dinner.)

Sunday morning dawned quite early. I was still tired from the day before, but since church is at 9 AM, I was up by 6, getting Jack fed, extra milk pumped, the house straightened, and both of us dressed. (Again, having my mom here was a blessing - the house was in pretty darn good shape thanks to her.)

As I mentioned, church was at 9. Something you much know about my child is this: he always wants to be eating at 9. Always. Incredibly worried was I. Lewis and I left for church at 8:45. Jack was asleep. The blessing was at about 9:10. Jack slept through it. We all came back home at 10:15. Jack was still asleep.

YES!

He woke up pleasant when we got home and I handed him and a bottle to his Great Grandma. He ate happily and stayed awake and pleasant for pictures. Then he finished his bottle with his Great Granny. Then he pooped all over his nice blessing clothes, but luckily NOT on the very nice wool blanket his Grandma Young made him. Phew.

After that he went back to sleep and allowed everyone to pass him back and forth and drool all over his cuteness.

Let me tell you what: this was all a miracle. He was an absolute angel. Later he screamed for quite a good little while, both at his grandparents' house for dinner and the picking it back up when we got home. But when it mattered, when there were 37 people there to see him, he was a peach. Thank you for that Jack.

And thank you for finally napping today so that I could write this blog and remember that you are an amazing little baby.

The iPad = Perfect Tool for Nursing Mothers

2011-09-19T16:42:00.000-06:00

I'm typing this blog with one hand. I do a lot of things one-handed these days. This is because I have a child whose favorite thing to do is to eat. And since his food comes exclusively from me, I spend a lot of time with one arm curled under his little self holding him up. So yes. Lots of one-handedness.

A year and a half ago when we won our iPads, I was pretty excited. I mean the iPad is a really cool thing. But now... oh goodness, what did women do while nursing before they existed? Die of boredom?

See cause you only need one hand to work an iPad. I can play games. I can read books. I can watch shows. I can listen to music. I can surf the internet. All with just one hand. Or sometimes even no hands!

But that's not all! The iPad sits nicely on my lap. It doesn't get hot or make weird sounds when it's trying to load something. It doesn't have to be attached to any cords. Plus it has a battery that will last for ten or more hours.

Yesterday I tried to read a paperback book while Jack was eating. It sucked. I had to hold the book there the whole time and any time my hair fell in my face or I had an itch I had to stop reading, put the book down carefully so I wouldn't lose my place, take care of whatever the problem was, pick the book back up, drop the book and lose my place, spend an annoying amount of time flipping through the book with one hand trying to relocate where I was, finally find my spot, read one sentence, and repeat the whole process because my hair was back in my place. Reading was exhausting! Who needs all that?

But with the iPad... Well, I like the iPad. Makes the zillion hours a day Jack spends eating lots less boring.

My Hips Lied

2011-09-16T14:50:00.000-06:00

I had a really easy pregnancy. Morning sickness was tolerable (and in the evening, so it didn't effect my job), I only threw up a grand total of three times, and it was gone as soon as I entered the second trimester. I didn't get any stretch marks. I never retained much water, just maybe a little bit towards the end - at least my wedding ring seemed a little tight and my right ankle was a little less defined. I gained weight, obviously, but it all seemed to stay in the womb area. Yes, the lack of space in my super-short torso made it rather uncomfortable for the last few months (every time I went to the doctor in the last month they would remark on how low my baby was. If that's the case then why did his bum never seem to leave my ribs?), but it was no big deal.

When we got down to it, I felt confident that I would recover from this adorable little parasite invading my body relatively unscathed.

Jack was born a week and a half ago. In that time, my tummy has been steadily shrinking to the point where I thought I might be able to squeeze my newly little self into a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans.

And I was right! My stomach did not get in the way at all!

My hips, on the other hand...

It would appear that my hips are now significantly wider than they were a few short months ago. Like, the actual bones.

Now there is a little bit of fat stored on my hips. But it's a muffin top's worth, really. And I'm pretty sure it was there before Jack was, so... yeah. Looks like I'll be in pajama bottoms, basketball shorts, and maternity pants until at least the next paycheck.

The funny thing is, I'm none too chuffed about it. Sure I was a little irritated that not only do I have a little more junk in my trunk, but my trunk is now shaped differently..., but then I looked at this:

Worth it.

The Birth of Jack

2011-09-13T14:24:00.000-06:00

As I type this, my baby is four minutes away from being one week old. In some ways, I still can't believe he's here and not still in my belly. In others, it feels like he's been with us for ever. But that could just be the sleepless nights talking.

I woke up early Tuesday morning and noticed some unusual pains. Now it's important to remember that I had been having contractions for a whole month by this point so I was an old pro at not getting my hopes up about anything. But this was different. So at 3:44 I woke Lewis up to tell him what I thought and that I was going to get in the shower to see if that slowed things down. The pains were coming about every two minutes.

As I showered, Lewis pulled out his computer to write some hurried sub plans in case he wasn't going to make it to school that day. I found that the shower did nothing to slow down the pains and they kept coming at the same pace. I'm using the term "pain" here loosely. Yes, it hurt, but not very much. Again, no hopes were to be gotten up by me.

As I was getting dressed after my shower I pulled out my last pair of clean underwear. Shoot. I can't come home from the hospital and have no clean underwear! So I put a load of laundry in the washer. Lewis thought I was nuts. Our washer takes about an hour to do a load so I told a mildly annoyed Lewis that if I was still contracting by the time the washer was done, then we could go to the hospital. I couldn't leave wet clothes in the washer for so long, after all. The contractions were still coming every two minutes and were maybe slightly more painful.

I decided to go wake up my mom (she's staying with us and is heaven sent) to tell her that things might be happening. She seemed thoroughly uninterested. Whatevs. It's only her first grandson and all.

The contractions continued and while I was finishing packing my bad I found myself getting tentatively more excited. Could this actually be it? I was already almost a week overdue and was scheduled to be induced on Thursday. I knew I would love it if my body would do it on its own.

The washer finished and I rotated the laundry to the dryer. Then I agreed to let Lewis take me to the hospital, convinced they were going to send us right back home. I could still easily talk through the contractions after all. As we hauled everything downstairs, Mom came out of her room to ask how frequent the contractions were. When I told her two minutes she flipped. I suppose that would have been useful information. I told her to not worry, we would call from the hospital if they let us stay.

On the way there, I called Lewis' mom to tell her what was going on. She laughed and told me that Monica (Lewis' sister) was just getting an epidural. Her baby wasn't due for two more weeks, so thank goodness he decided to come the same day as Jack and not before - I would have been so mad. This was just awesome, though.

At the hospital a nurse checked me and declared I was 4+ centimeters dilated. We would be staying. Hallelujah. The contractions were getting markedly more painful, although they were still only two minutes apart. In the delivery room they hooked me up to an IV and put monitors on my belly to keep track of Jack's heartbeat and my contractions. Jack was very fond of kicking them out of place. They told me I could have an epidural right then and there but I declined - for the time being. Another nurse came in as I was giving my response and said that it's a good thing I didn't want one then because the anesthesiologist had just been called in to a c-section.

Now the epidural was a tricky subject for me. I spent much of my pregnancy tentatively determined to not have one, but also knowing that I am a total wuss when it comes to pain. It wasn't some moral or philosophical reason that I didn't want to get one - I just wanted to see if I could do it without one. I wanted to try hypno birthing, but we couldn't afford the classes, so I really was not well prepared to do this natural. My reasoning for ending up getting the epidural is this: the first labor a woman goes through is supposed to be the longest. If I am ever to do it without pain meds, why not do it on a shorter labor?

While we waited for the anesthesiologist, my doctor came in an offered to break my water. I decided we should wait until after the epidural because I'd heard labor gets worse after the water breaks. My contractions were still two minutes apart but were hurting like crazy. Poor Lewis was having his fingers squished during each one. At some point during all this my mom showed up. We listened to Bill Cosby talk about labor and delivery on her iPod. Good times. At some other point Lewis' mom also showed up, with the announcement that Monica had given birth to a healthy baby boy.

After I had gotten the epidural (bliss) and my doctor had broken my water, there was nothing to do but wait. I was hooked up to about a million things:

-The IV to keep my hydrated
-The fetal heartbeat monitor around my middle
-An internal contraction monitor
-The epidural
-A catheter
-Some kind of fluid that was flushing out my uterus (there was meconium in the water and this was to clean it out)
-A blood pressure cuff that went off every three minutes

When they broke my water (10:00) they checked my progress. I was at a 5. Crap, crap, crap. This was going to take forever! My nurse (Judy - she was amazing) told me if I felt the urge to push then I should let her know. She described it as feeling like "the biggest bowel movement you've ever had." Awesome. Yeah, I'll call you back in a million hours.

Not too long after she left I felt something that might have been the urge to push (looking back, I'm positive it was). But I thought for sure that I was mistaken cause, you know. I'd never done this before. Judy came in and out occasionally. Once after watching my contractions on the monitor for a few minutes (they were still two minutes apart) she said I was in "active, active labor."

This is me in active labor. On my iPad. Facebooking and chatting. I'm awesome.

Finally at around 11:30 she checked my progress again. Instead of a number I heard her say, "Oh there's the head" and announce that we would begin pushing soon, after she had spoken with my doctor. She came back at noon and we began.

Pushing sucked. I think the epidural was wearing off, cause it hurt pretty bad. Mostly, though, it was just so tiring. I always wondered what the ice chips were for. Now I know. They were heaven.

With the help of Lewis, Mom, Lewis' mom, and Judy I pushed for about an hour and a half. Actually Judy left a couple of times to page the doctor and other stuff and we pushed without her. That was cool that she let us do that. My doctor arrived for the last half hour of it or so (okay, I have no idea how long he was there). He was pulled out of a meeting to come and was delighted about that fact. Shortly after him came a respiratory specialist and a NICU nurse, because of the meconium. They'd have to make sure Jack didn't have any meconium in his mouth and nose right quick when he was born.

And then all of the sudden, he was here. He came out all at once; once his head was finally all the way out, the rest of him just followed. The doctor flipped him around and clamped the cord in no time flat and let Lewis cut it. Then Jack was whisked off and soon he was crying loud and healthy. He was perfect. Soon he stopped crying, but the rest of us continued. I was so grateful to have him here.

You'd be screaming too.

Jack weighed in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces. He was measured to be 20 1/2 inches long, although the nurses joked that he'd probably be shorter once his cone head went away (I don't know if this is the case - his length hasn't been measured since, but he seems really long, everyone says so). After stubbornly refusing to eat for the first twelve hours of his life he now wants to do little else (except pee: see previous post). Seriously, he's already back up to his birth weight and most babies don't make it back to that until their two week doctor's appointment.

Don't you just want to cuddle him?

Srsly.

He's a heartbreaker. Just look at that hair!

As for me, I feel fantastic. There was an abundance of soreness for the first several days, but that's mostly gone. I'm so grateful we finally have our little baby with us. Lewis is the best dad ever, srsly. And we both just love him to pieces. Even when he's a stinker and doesn't fall asleep when I want him to. Like at 4 am. But he's just so cute, I forgive him every time.

I love my Jack.

My boys.

What Jack has Peed on

2011-09-12T22:51:00.002-06:00

1 hospital gown.
3 pairs of my pants... All in one day.
1 of my shirts.
1 of Daddy's shirts.
Grams.
1 towel.
1 pillowcase.
1 bed sheet/matress cover.
1 duvet cover.
1 bilibed... Twice.
2 onesies.
Countless receiving blankets.
And 2 pairs of pajamas... Tonight.

We're all still waiting to be pooped on, but I'm sure that's coming.

You Can't Spell Parent without a Little Paranoia.

2011-09-09T19:07:00.001-06:00

So on Jack's second night at the hospital the nurses decided to check his bilirubin early since he was looking a little yellow. Usually they don't do this until the day you discharge, but it was a good thing they did because his levels were indeed high. He spent that night and the next day (until we left) under their lights to get all the jaundice out. That super sucked because he's adorable and we wanted to cuddle him, but they only brought him in to eat. They tested his levels again that morning and it had gone down, so when they told us we still had to have him on lights at home, we were confident that he'd kick the issue in no time flat.

Under the lights at the hospital

They told us about this new-fangled bilirubin blanket that we could use instead of the big, bulky lights. He just had to be wrapped up in the blanket at all times and we could still hold him and everything. This sounded great! We were thrilled at the idea. And then the guy from the company that rents them showed up at our door. With a bed. Darn.

So Jack has to stay in the bed all the time unless he's eating (which he has been doing a LOT). Last night before going to sleep, Lewis and I were trying to decided where was the best place to put his bed. This was the start of a very long night...

Lewis: What if I get up to go to the bathroom and I step on him?

Me: It's a bright blue light. I'm pretty sure you'll see him first.

After hemming and hawing over it, we finally decided to put the bed in the corner between our dresser and the bathroom. On the dresser was a somewhat large but quite stable stack of picture frames. It is not there anymore because what if they, which have been up there for months, suddenly decided to tip over?

For the first half hour, either Lewis or I would jump up every couple of minutes to make sure the blanket wasn't blocking the fan or the cord and plug were out of Jack's reach or the blanket wasn't covering his face or he was warm enough or any combination of those. Or just Lewis would get up and I would call out something for him to check, which of course is what he had gotten up to check in the first place. It was like a weird dance.

Because he's on the lights, I have to make sure to feed him frequently (every two to three hours) even if he doesn't wake up hungry. This would invariable start the whole process of checking and double-checking all over again.

At some point in the night, each of us took a turn trying to sleep on the floor next to his bed just in case his pacifier fell out of his mouth and he started getting fussy. This was not planned by either of us, nor did either tell the other of their decision to do that.

Right before one of the times I fed him, I checked and he had a clean, dry diaper. He ate (not for very long, he had just eaten like twenty minutes before) and I saw the line on his diaper turned blue to indicate he was wet (he has to wear disposable diapers right now because they cover less skin than his cloth diapers). Shortly after I handed him to Lewis to change, Lewis started frantically saying, "Help! Help! Help!" I was confused of course - it was just a diaper. Then I looked at the vast amount of poop this tiny child had produced. Holy Hera. It was a miracle it had all stayed in the diaper.

Jack on the bed at home

Some time around five am I saw - I saw! - a huge spider glowing with blue light crawling across the ceiling towards my baby. This was unacceptable so I insisted Lewis wake up to go after what turned out to be the smoke detector.

Through it all Jack was a total champ, never letting our crazy paranoia get to him or prevent him from sleeping. All but one of the times I fed him he was still asleep when I got up. He is definitely more rested than either Lewis or me, but it's okay. He needed the extra help after the day we had today. But that's another story...

He is still on the lights today, much to our dismay. But he'll be tested again tomorrow and - fingers crossed - all will be well and we can get this nefarious, cuddle-hating contraption out of here.

Really?

2011-08-30T12:08:00.000-06:00

My mom and brother are currently staying with us to help take care of Jack these first few weeks (if he ever arrives, that is). It's been a surprising boost to my self-esteem having them around, particularly Joseph...

This morning after I woke up I stumbled down the stairs at about 8:30. Due to the nature of my current size, I had just thrown on what I deemed to be most comfortable, namely a pair of Lewis' basketball shorts and one of his t-shirts. My hair was all kinds of ratty, I hadn't showered, I hadn't even put in my contacts.

I had one thing on my mind: breakfast.

As I walked towards the kitchen, I passed my eleven-year-old brother playing on his iPod. He looked up at me and said, "Pretty!"

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked.

"You look really pretty today."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Um, thank you."

Now if you know Joseph, you know that he has not quite figured out sarcasm. He can use it, he just can't use it without it being obvious. That doesn't mean I believe he genuinely thought I was pretty right then, just that he was sincerely trying to be nice.

Aww.

Why You Gotta Be So Mean?

2011-08-29T12:02:00.000-06:00

My son hates me.

First, some background. When I found out I was pregnant, the due date was quickly calculated to be September 1st. Since this is right at the beginning of the new school year/daycare for newborns is insanely expensive/I don't want someone else to raise my child, Lewis and I decided that I was to become a stay-at-home mom.

For the past year, Lewis and I have been enjoying double insurance benefits. He has been a dependent on my insurance and I have been a dependent on his. Mostly that means we haven't had to pay any co-pays whenever we've had to go to the doctor. With me being pregnant and all, this has saved us some of the green. When I decided I was going to quit my job at the end of the school year, I got in touch with the benefits office to find out when my insurance benefits would run out.

August 31st.

One day before Jack is due.

Perfect.

Oh and by the way, your deductible is going to go up 150% this year.

Starting September 1st.

Excellent.

What timing!

My doctors will not induce first-time mothers before one week after their due date. This is a practice that I am in favor of. I think there are far too many unnecessary inductions which can be detrimental to a newborn's well-being. Still, an early induction would be mighty tempting for me because of this whole insurance kerfuffle.

We explained this situation to one of my doctors and he said that they would strip my membranes at 38 weeks and see if that helped. Also that a good indicator of when you'll go into labor (early or late) is when your mother and sisters typically went into labor.

My mom has five kids, my sister has one. Their labors went (in order): late, early, late, late, early, early. Three earlys, three lates.

Fantastic.

Today is Monday, August 29th. To be out of the hospital by midnight on the 31st, I pretty much need to have my baby now - and don't get me started on the snafu that would be if we started out our hospital stay on double insurance and ended on single. It's complicated.

Now back to why my son hates me. Since I learned of the scheduling conflict between my due date and insurance termination, I've been casually hopeful that he would arrive early. But I figured he would come when he comes, no big deal. But then he decided to get my hopes up.

At my 36 weeks appointment the doctor declared Jack to be engaged in a head-down position and my cervix to be dilated 1.5 centimeters, 60% effaced. I know women can walk around for weeks like that, so I didn't get too chuffed. But then the contractions started.

I was elated. I would be meeting my son soon! They weren't painful contractions yet, but my mom had just told me that that was how they started out for her. And there sure were a lot of them! How could this be anything but the real thing.

After almost of week of this, I wanted to cry. Each night I would go to bed expecting to wake up in joyous pain, ready to speed off to the hospital. Each morning I would wake up disappointed to have made it through the night. And still the contractions continued.

My 37 week appointment arrived and I was ready for the doctor to tell me my cervix was all kinds of dilated. I mean, those contractions had to have been doing something, right?

1-2 cms. 60-70% effaced. Gross.

And still the irregular, frequent, painless contractions continued. They told me they would strip my membranes at my next appointment and that that would hopefully get things going. I was convinced that would do the trick since I was obviously teetering on the edge, right? Plus I was sure to have progressed because these contractions were still going.

Right?

Almost 2 cms. 70% effaced. It's okay. This membrane stripping thing is bound to work.

Right?

Nope. Today was my 39 week appointment. Obviously my child is just in the business of getting my hopes all kinds of up and then not committing to anything. Even when I finally accepted that my uterus just seems to like contracting and that he would come when he comes, it decided to give me a movie's worth of quite painful contractions reigniting my hope all over again.

Today the doctor declared me to be a solid 2 cms and nearly 80% effaced. Yippee skippee. The membrane stripping thing from yester-week was useless. Oh but don't worry, if I do make it to my induction appointment on the eighth, my cervix is right where it ought to be! Wa-hoo.

So like I said, my son hates me. He just gets my hopes up and up only to bring them crashing down over and over. Because it's obviously his fault.

In other news, if you are in the business of praying and wouldn't mind sending one on my behalf, I would appreciate it. That whole insurance thing has got me on edge.

Stay-at-Home Mommydom: Day 1

2011-08-23T14:51:00.000-06:00

Today marks my first official day as a stay-at-home mom. But Alyssa, you say, you are not yet a mother! Too true, my friends. Too true. However:

1. I will be. Any day now. (Seriously kid, feel free to come whenever.)

2. Today is the first day of school and IF I worked outside the home, my summer vacation would be over and I'd be back on the job. But I don't anymore, so I'm home. Staying home that is. To be a mom.

See?

In any case, I've got to say that this gig is pretty simple. True, I did wake up early (to the tune of 5:30 - yuck), but that was because I am a good wife and made my dear spouse BOTH breakfast AND lunch. In the future I plan for it to just be lunch (provided there is cooperation from the baby), but it's a special day for Mr. Young, what with it being the first day of school and all. And my banana pancakes are pretty incredible, letmetellyouwhat.

It's a weird thing not having a job. I got my first job the summer I was 14. I was a park attendant at our local pool. Sort of like a junior lifeguard, just not certified to save anyone. Thank goodness no one drowned in front of me (don't worry, there were real lifeguards there too). I'm 24 now. I've been employed in one form or another for the greater part of the last ten years. Ten years! That's almost half my life.

It's also a weird thing not going to school. Since they let me into kindergarten when I was four-almost-five I've been spending this time of year getting ready/starting school of some form for the last TWENTY years. More, if you count Joy School. And I'm a nerd so of course I always got excited about starting school. Why it took me so long to figure out I wanted to be a teacher, the world will never know.

Boy-oh-boy, Jack, you'd better get here soon. Being alone with my thoughts all day does not look like it's going to be a good thing.

Okay, let's get this train of thought back on track, shall we? As you may have gleaned from the title and/or introductory paragraph, I have embarked on a new journey as a stay-at-home mom. What does that mean for my blog? Well... since my son is sure to be adorable... and I'll have more time on my hands for this sort of thing... And I'm of the opinion that I am funny, dang it... I'm sure I'll want to tell you all about it...

That's right.

Extra-Strength Awesome is about to become...

A mommy blog.

Dun-dun-dun!

Don't worry. I won't leave anything out.

Best. Day. Ever.

2011-03-11T16:37:00.003-07:00

So you want to hear about the best day ever? Okay, okay I'll tell you.

6:00 - Wake up, wake Lewis up, then go back to sleep for an hour because I can!

7:00 - Wake up for real, eat Pop Tarts for breakfast. This isn't an unusual thing for me, but I love them and it happened.

9:00 - Pick up my class from the playground. Like seven students were absent - a whole third of the class. What the what? Too bad for them; I've got a great day plan

ned.

9:10 - I ordered some boxes of Girl Scout cookies a few weeks ago from a fourth grader and she delivered them today. As I was filling out the check, her mom told her to, "Tell her." I looked up and the scout said to me, very shyly, "Since I brought you Girl Scout cookies, will you let me be in your class next year?" Aww... Too bad I won't be teaching next year. Warm fuzzy moment, though.

9:30 - Spelling test. My student who consistently gets really low scores got her first 100%. Ya-hoo!

9:45 - Science. We made baking soda cannons. Take a little bit of baking soda, fold it up in a toilet paper square, pour some vinegar into a test tube, wedge the TP into the tube, cork it, and shake shake shake. The vinegar dissolves the toilet paper and reacts with the baking soda to create carbon dioxide which builds up until it pops the cork off. Awesome.

10:15 - My Art Moms came to teach art. They normally come on Wednesdays, but they couldn't this week at that time so they came now. I spent the hour correcting tests and chatting with one of the moms. She brought her baby and I got to hold him. He's adorable.

11:55 - Lunch. I buy school lunch on Fridays and the cafeteria was serving their horrible-for-you mozzarella breadsticks, which I love. I decided to eat with my students and that was fun because they love me.

12:45 - I get an hour of prep time every two weeks when my class is at computers. Today I got that hour. Glorious.

1:45 - I go to pick up my students from computers. As they are lining up outside the computer lab, a pair of rather tall young men in BYU athletics shirts saunter past. I smile politely then do a double take. My jaw drops. One of my students, the biggest BYU fan in my class (second only to me) says, just as I realize it, "That's Jake Heaps!" And it was indeed. Plus Kyle Van Noy. They had gone into a classroom, but came back out upon hearing my student's shriek of delight. I walked over nervously with the student and say hello.

1:55 - Five minutes before recess. My entire class his huddled around the window because we see that Jake and Kyle have gone outside, during the younger grades' recess. My students are scrambling around, trying to find things for them to sign. I let them go outside early. They run outside and immediately swarm Jake Heaps. I go outside too (hey! It's a beautiful day!), but I hang back. I'm a grown woman. I had to set an example of maturity for my class. Right? Right?

Yeah, right. My students saw how I reacted when saw them in the hallway. And how I'm a humongo BYU/football/BYU football fan. And how I said I wish I had had my camera with me so I could get a picture. About half of my class tells Jake Heaps about their teacher who is "such a fan," and then run over to get me and drag me over to him. I talk to the teacher with whom they came. She said they came to teach the sixth graders PE and that they would be coming again and that she could get them to teach my class too in a few weeks. Sa-weet. Then she takes a picture of Jake and me with my phone.

2:30 - Reading. My class is quietly doing their reading assignments, and I'm looking longingly outside at the beautiful day (the football players had left by now). So I really quick make up a math facts kick ball game and we go out and play it for the rest of the afternoon.

Yeah. I love my job. Sorry students who were absent today. You missed out.

Surprise Fire

2011-03-03T17:04:00.002-07:00

In science right now, we are studying physical and chemical changes. Today we did a lab to introduce a lot of the concepts we will be talking about, as well as to review lab safety procedures. Like a good little teacher, I decided it prudent to test out the lab prior to the students coming in to make sure it, you know, worked.

This experiment is called, "Surprise Fire." If you mix these two chemicals together (potassium permanganate and glycerine) they are supposed to react and spontaneously combust. Key word: supposed.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get into the room where the chemicals are stored until about 15 minutes before school started. I wasn't worried, though, because the reaction was supposed to occur within 20-60 seconds. So I donned my safety goggles, poured out a silver dollar size pile of potassium permanganate, dabbled in a bit of glycerine, and waited. And waited. Nothing happened.

Another teacher came by to ask me a question. I went to talk to her while keeping the corner of my eye on the table where the chemicals were sitting. Nothing happened.

The vice principal came in to see how I was doing and if I needed any help with anything. I told him I was fine unless he knew how to make a couple of dangerous chemicals react with each other and catch on fire. Meanwhile, another teacher from my team came by. Apparently she had also had trouble with this lab when she did it. It also would not combust while for her, so she tried to wipe it up with a paper towel, giving it up as a bad job. Her students were disappointed (this was during class), but whatevs. But then! The paper towel caught on fire! And she dropped it on the ground.

So now all three of us were at a loss. We didn't know what to do. We didn't want to just throw it out, cause what if it caught fire in the trash can. Joe (the VP) tried to wipe it up with a damp paper towel, thinking maybe the friction would get things going. No luck. By now the bell has long since rung and I am supposed to have picked up my students from outside. But I didn't want to just leave it there. What if it burned down my classroom?!

Deciding that since it had been almost twenty minutes since I had started this experiment, I deemed it allowable to get my class. A couple of students were waiting outside my door, hoping to go in before everyone else showed up. I told them, rather forcefully, to "Wait. There." and "Do NOT go in the classroom." Then I hightailed it to the outside and get the rest of my kids.

When we got back to my door, I gave them the following instructions: "When I open this door, you are to go straight to your desks, pull out your journals, and start writing. Do NOT touch ANYTHING."

Of course none of them listened to me and they all immediately gathered 'round the back table where the experiment was set up. No respect. How a pie tin containing a small pile of wet purpleish flakes attracts some much attention from 10-year-olds, I'll never know. I successfully shooed some of them away and then sat down to tackle the problem at hand.

I figured the best problem would be to get the chemicals to react so that I didn't have to worry about it catching on fire in the garbage. This is an elementary school. There's lots of paper in there. Poking it with a wet paper towel didn't work, but I certainly didn't want to prod it with a dry one. What if my hand caught fire?!

Well, hows about a half wet half dry paper towel? I carefully scooped up a bit of the mixture with the towel, dropped it on the tin, and hightailed it out of there. Well, to the other side of the classroom, anyway. Then... it happened. The towel started smoking and then - BAM - a two-inch flame licked it's way up the towel. Sure, it wasn't the foot-high flame the lab book promised me, but it was fire! The chemicals reacted!

Like to smartie that I am, I decided to go ahead with the lab as planned. The main point was about safety, right? I could still teach that, right? Right.

So I set it all up to the T. I thought that maybe I was too generous with the glycerine and that it overwhelmed the potassium permanganate or something. The set up was absolutely perfect. But... nothing happened. My students were all disappointed, of course. Most of them caught the tail end of the paper towel burning earlier and were ready for more action. While they all sat there staring at the boring pile of non-combusting chemicals, I explained what was supposed to happen and why.

Then I said, "Now. We will be doing a lot of experiments throughout this unit. Some of them are dangerous. So you must follow the procedure EXACTLY. If I see ANY of you doing ANYthing that is not in your lab book, you will not do ANY more labs in my classroom. Ever. EVER. That being said, I am going to do something that would be an absolute no no if any of you were to do it. But I can. Because I'm the teacher." And I picked up a pencil and poked the chemicals with the eraser.

They started smoking. And then they caught fire. The class all cheered and then gagged cause it was stinky. I sent them all to fill out their lab sheets, cleaned up the ashes, and we were done.

Whew.

The Farmer in the Dell

2011-02-06T21:03:00.003-07:00

Towards the end of Super Bowl XLV, we started developing punny headlines ESPN would come up with to tell the sports world who was victorious. None of them were very good, but hey this isn't our day job. Directly following the Super Bowl, we were highly disappointed to see "Packers Win Super Bowl XLV" as the breakingest news story. Epic fail on the pun front.

A few minutes later, however, I have ESPN another chance and checked again. The headline? "Cheese Stands Alone." Excellent. Andrew conjectured that someone came up with that one shortly following Green Bay's 1996 victory, and the sports writing world was anxious for another W so that they could use that gem. Little did they know it would take FIFTEEN YEARS before they could finally unpack that headline.

Anyway, all this talk of ridiculously cheesy (ha! I'm good at the puns too!) sporting headlines is a cover. That's not what this blog post is about. This blog post is to formally announce to the interweb that

I'm pregnant.

Yep, it's true. Lewis and I have reproduced. We weren't going to announce it for another week, but Lewis made the executive decision that Super Bowl Sunday is a much better holiday for this sort of announcement than is Valentine's Day. Of course, I had to agree. So.... yeah. I am with child. It's due September 1st, it looks like a sea horse, and we call it Ahab. And now you know.

How've You Been, 2010?

2010-12-31T15:36:00.025-07:00

So! It's New Years Eve. Like many others, I have spent the day so far baking for our partay tonight, carefully selecting a resolution for 2011 (actually it was easy - I barely thought about it at all), and reflecting on the last year.

I will go more in depth on the latter here now.

2010 was a great year. Although, to be honest, I don't know if I've ever had an entire bad year. That would be sad. I'm sorry if you are someone who has an entire bad year.

ANYWAY, 2010. Yeah. Twas joyous.

January: It was cold. Lewis and I both started the final semester of our respective undergraduate degrees. Lewis began his student teaching experience in a fifth grade class with only sixteen students. Lucky.

Later in the month, we snowshoed up to the Y. I'd never snowshoed before, but I really enjoyed it.

February: Still cold.

March: Lewis finished up student teaching in a third grade class with lots more than sixteen students. We took a frigid trip to Idaho to paint my brother's room in my parents soon-to-be home. (And when I say frigid, I mean frigid. Their heater didn't work. I'm still cold just thinking about it.)

My mom and dad moved back to the states from Kenya. I went to a Michael Buble concert with my mom and aunts, which involved a white knuckle drive in some slippery, snowy weather. My first concert ever. (I know, right?) I was also offered an internship teaching fifth grade next year. Boo-yes.

April: Lewis and I teamed up for the Innovative Instruction competition hosted by the McKay School of Education at BYU. Although we were not selected as winners by the judges, we did win the People's Choice Award.

Lewis took over for a teacher on maternity leave. We both graduated from BYU - walked and everything!

May: Having graduated with a degree in human development, it was quite the challenge to head right back to school the next week so that I could finish up my post-baccalaureate teaching certification. The weather finally warmed up to the point where we could wear shorts and roll down the car windows (cause our air conditioner sucks) and then it snowed again. Poo.

June: Lewis was offered a job teaching fourth grade in Saratoga Springs.

Since my job is in Orem, we decided to move somewhere closer to the freeway so Lewie wouldn't have to commute so far. We found a lovely little condo in Pleasant Grove.

In honor of summer and how we love it so, Lewis and I took a morning to hike up Y mountain and back down the other side. I stepped in a creek and soaked my socks. It was hot and we got scratched. I loved every second of it.

We also spent some time in Park City and Salt Lake. We went to the Children's Museum and the Church History Museum and had awesome Thai food at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

Lewis and I both attended Alpine School District's Summer Institute, learning how to be grood teachers.

July: We officially moved and discovered that we hate moving! Yuck.

Fourth of July weekend was lovely. I kind of enjoyed that the fourth was on a Sunday. That meant we celebrated three days instead of just one. We watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks on Saturday, enjoyed reflecting on our freedoms on Sunday, got sunburned at the parade, baked patriotic goodies, overate at a barbecue, and oo'd and ah'd at Streetium of Fire on Monday. Word.

A few days after Independence Day, I participated in a girls retreat with my sister-in-law and co up in Park City. Those ladies know how to party, letmetellyouwhat.

With my mom just up north in Idaho, we went up there to visit a lot. In our Toyota 4runner that is lovely indeed, but as I mentioned before, rather stinky in the department of air conditioning. Twas worth it, however.

July also brought Steve Jobs into our lives. That's the name of the 2005 Subaru Legacy we purchased quite literally the day we got back from an Idaho trip. I was to the point that I would take anything with AC. But I'm glad we got Stevie. I love him.

Also in July (busy month, right?), I quit the job I've had for the last four years. It was a bittersweet, but mostly just sweet egress. I'm on to bigger and better things and that includes a salary.

The end of July was the annual Hirschi Family Reunion! It's an epic event, every year. I would tell you more about it, but unless you're an actual Hirschi (by blood or by marriage), you just wouldn't understand.

August: I believe the reunion spilled over into August, but even if it didn't, don't tell me. Immediately following the reunion Lewis and I were invited to go kayaking with some uncles, aunts, and cousins. I'd never been before and I sucked at it and I got a right nasty burn, but I loved it. So very much.

Lewis and I took a day trip to Island Park to visit the site of his family's old cabin. It's beautiful up there.

The fourth was my dear mum's birthday and she celebrated by getting hit by a drunk driver with my sister. Yay! Other than that, I think it was a good day. The wreck happened at the end of it, so it only ruined ice cream.

A couple of days after her big day, Lew and I went camping in Yellowstone for our second anniversary I was most unfortunately sick, but Lewis takes good care of me, even in a tent. Yellowstone was gorgeous as always and I got to enjoy parts of the park I'd never seen before, as well as the world's best fudgsicles. I'm eager to go again, but hopefully healthy this time.

On our actual anniversary, the sixteenth, I was in meetings all day in preparation for the upcoming school year (yay), but we did have a kick-a dinner which included a decadent white chocolate cheesecake.

And then the school year commenced! I was blessed with the very best class in the world, no joke. I don't know what I'm going to do next year. No way my students then will be able to compete.

September: School, school, school, school, school, school, school. My school held their annual Fall Festival (a seriously big deal) to raise funds. I participated by getting dunked by my students in the dunk tank and driving kids crazily around on a golf cart. Lewis came to support me and ended up driving a golf cart too, which he adored. Also, he turned 27. Yay Lewis!

My dad came to visit from Iraq this month. The whole family (minus my brother-in-law, Benjamin - he had to do responsible things) went bumper boating. It was cold and wet and my water shooter didn't work properly, but I loved it.

October: My family came back down from ID to help me celebrate my 24th birthday (and my niece's 4th) on conference weekend. The next weekend, Lewis and I went up to Idaho for Evie's costume birthday party. Lewis and I went as Peanuts ghosts/Lucy and Charlie Brown which is what we were for Halloween last year, yes, but with the school year of crazy, we dealt with it.

Later that month we were introduced to a funny little thing called time off for Fall Break. It is a glorious thing that I recommend to all. We honored it by driving to Disneyland with Lewis' (almost) entire family. What followed was an epic adventure of rides, crowds, and being hit on the head by cast members in costume.

Of course we finished the month of by attending the Halloween party of all Halloween party hosted by one Luke Lewis. We went as Indiana Jones and Elsa Schneider.

November: For his birthday, I gave Lewis two tickets to the BYU/Colorado State football game in Fort Collins. We spent a weekend this month on a road trip for the game, spending two nights in Rawlins, Wyoming at a delightful Hampton Inn. The game was fantastic (we won) and the trip was wonderful.

November means Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving means pumpkin pie. We spent it in Idaho with my mom. She lovingly prepared a pie for me to enjoy when we arrived before the actual holiday, but my nemesis, the dog, got to it first. Luckily my mom is a pie maniac and there was plenty of pie left for the feast, although I was forbidden from touching any until then.

December: Christmas! Need I say more? I love the whole month of December.

For his birthday, my class Skyped my dad and sang to him. A few weeks later, he visited my class and told them all about Iraq and what he does there and presented us with a flag that he flew over his base in Iraq after we sang to him. So cool, right?

Just like Thanksgiving (having my family close by is a rare thing), we went up to Idaho for Christmas. I was (am) so grateful that neither Lewis nor I had to work over Christmas break (like the last two years) and could spend the whole time relaxing. Up in Idaho we took family pictures, enjoyed delicious foods at two Christmas feasts, sang carols at the nursing home, and participated in adventurous silly string and Nerf wars. Plus the ENTIRE family was there. All ten of us. It was absolutely thrilling.

And now it's New Years Eve. Whew. We made it through 2010. We'll be going out for sushi later tonight, and then attending a shindig with the Francises to ring in 2011. I made key lime bars, toffee crunch muffins, and a cheesy jalopeno bean dip and I have it on good authority that the other party snacks will be just as scrumptious. Can you go wrong with starting the new year like that? I think not!

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

2010-12-24T20:14:00.003-07:00

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

12 logic puzzles

11 picture poses

10 avocado halves

9 picture outfits

8 cookie batches

7 kids a-screaming

6 Cougars scoring

5 pretty things!

4 lifeguard games

3 days of school

2 loads of wash

And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card!

Whew! I did it! The twelve day of Christmas are over and now I can really enjoy my Christmas vacation - not that I wasn't before.

Anyway, twelve logic puzzles. I got this logic puzzle app, which I love, and I completed my twelfth puzzle tonight. Actually, while I clicked on the app specifically so that I could count how many puzzles I had done so far just to see if I was close to twelve, I found that the one I was already working on was the twelfth. Life just works out that way sometimes, I suppose. Or maybe it was just a happy coincidence.

Either way, merry Christmas!

The Eleventh Day of Christmas

2010-12-23T18:17:00.004-07:00

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

11 photo poses
10 avocado halves
9 picture outfits
8 cookie batches
7 kids a-screaming
6 Cougars scoring
5 pretty things!
4 lifeguard games
3 days of school
2 loads of wash
And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Today we took our family pictures to which I alluded on the ninth day. These photos included eleven different poses (this is probably not exactly the right order):

1. Whole family
2. Andrew
3. Lewis and me
4. Cassie, Ben, and Evie
5. Evie
6. Joseph
7. Mom and Dad
8. Daniel
9. Just boys
10. Just girls
11. Whole family

You should be excited to see our family pictures when we get them. I know I am. We're funny people. The photographer thought so, anyway.

I'm pretty proud that I didn't have to scramble for the eleventh day and then thank my lucky stars that Tim Tams come in packs of eleven like last year. I even had more than one thing for the eleventh day, but this one works so I went with it.

Actually, this whole twelve days have been pretty easy. The biggest stretch was yesterday with the avocado halves, and Lewis pointed out that I could have done something about the ten people now in my parents' house, since Daniel arrived yesterday. Ah, well.

Anyway, tomorrow is Christmas Eve and the twelfth day... Here's hoping I didn't just jinx myself and that I can find something for day numero doce.

The Tenth Day of Christmas

2010-12-22T18:20:00.004-07:00

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

10 avocado halves
9 picture outfits
8 cookie batches
7 kids a-screaming
6 Cougars scoring
5 pretty things!
4 lifeguard games
3 days of school
2 loads of wash
And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Today for dinner, we decided to put together and appetizer buffet. Lewis and I decided to make some guacamole, which turned out amazing if I do say so myself. Other appetizers include a cheese ball, some pot stickers... And I don't know if there's anything else.

Anyway, we used five avocados for the guacamole and I cut each one in half and the sliced the halves individually. All ten of them. What.

It is the YOA, after all.

The Ninth Day of Christmas

2010-12-21T22:07:00.004-07:00

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

9 picture outfits
8 cookie batches
7 kids a-screaming
6 Cougars scoring
5 pretty things!
4 lifeguard games
3 days of school
2 loads of wash
And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Today my mom, sister, and I all went shopping for things for our family to wear for our family pictures that we will be taking later this week. It was a long and painful process, not because of the company or the task at hand, but because we spent far too long just looking for a sweater/nice shirt for my youngest brother. In the end, we decided to just not include him in the pictures. Just kidding.

Anyway, the nine is because I had a hand in picking out the outfits for nine of the ten people involved in the photo. Al l but my sister.

Hoo-rah, nine.

The Eighth Day of Christmas

2010-12-20T21:55:00.004-07:00

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

8 cookie batches
7 kids a-screaming
6 Cougars scoring
5 pretty things!
4 lifeguard games
3 days of school
2 loads of wash
And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Today, for the eighth day of Christmas, I made eight batches of cookies. Don't be so impressed. They were all from pre-made dough. I was just helping out mi madre and I ended up making eight batches of various cookies.

I also made a giant peanut butter blossom cookie with the giant Hershey kiss I received from one of my students. It just seemed like the logical thing to do.

I will include a picture of the epic cookie as well as fix the formatting of this post tomorrow. I'm on my iPad now and I can't do all that here. And my parents' dog is sleeping in the room with the computer, so there ain't no way I'm going in there to do it now. Deal with it.

Update: Facebook's mobile upload is being stupid, so I can't get a photo of the epic cookie onto the interweb without trying really hard so... maybe I'll post one later. Enjoy this other picture for now.

The Seventh Day of Christmas

2010-12-19T19:48:00.002-07:00

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

7 kids a-screaming

6 scoring Cougars

5 pretty things!

4 lifeguard games

3 days of school

2 loads of wash

And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

We were in the nursery at church today. Lewis and I work in the younger nursery, which is usually quite a bit smaller than the older one. I guess it was still smaller today, but it was much bigger than usual. We had seven kids. Two left after just a few minutes because they couldn't stop crying (although one came back later and did pretty well) and one had to have her dad stay in the whole time.

Out of the other four, two did great, no problem at all; one did pretty okay, but got upset each of the three times he sat in the doll stroller and ended up on the floor, stuck in it's frame because it collapsed (that's right - three times); and the other one was okay until right at the end when he decided to miss his parents more.

I have dried tears, drool, and boogers on my blouse. But no blood! I call that a success.

The Sixth Day of Christmas

2010-12-18T19:10:00.003-07:00

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

6 scoring Cougars

5 pretty things!

4 lifeguard games

3 days of school

2 loads of wash

And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Today at noon, my boys in blue kicked off the 2010 NCAA football bowl season for everyone in the Who Cares Bowl - sorry - New Mexico Bowl against UTEP. I tried to be disappointed in our bowl selection, but the fact of the matter is that we're a six and six team in spite of how well we've played in the last seven games. I'm thanking my lucky stars that my Cougs made it to a bowl at all.

Plus we totally pwned UTEP, so... yeah.

I was hoping that BYU would score six touchdowns in the game so that I could use that or my sixth day. But... they scored seven. No complaints, though. I found a way to make it work.

Six different people are responsible for our 52 total points in this game (seven, if you count our QB, Jake Heaps, but I don't because it's the sixth day and he makes seven - I can't seem to get away from that number today):

1. Bryan Kariya, on a 4 yard run.

2. Luke Ashworth, on a 9 yard pass from Jake Heaps (we'll say Jake assisted, like in basketball)

3. Cody Hoffman had three, count 'em, three TDs (31, 3, and 29 yard passes, respectively - that kid is money)

4. JJ Di Luigi, on a 2 yard run.

5. Joshua Quezada, on an 8 yard run.

6. And of course, Mitch Payne kicked a field goal and all those PATs as well.

On the radio after, Greg Wrubell mentioned that the Cougs broke several school and individual football records, including most TD passes by a freshman QB (was 13 [Ty Detmer, as a redshirt freshman], is now 15 [Jake Heaps]), and most career points (was 333 [Owen Pochman] is not 334 [Mitch Payne]). We were hoping that the 333 point record was held by Matt Payne, Mitch's older brother. I could just imagine the ribbing that would come from that.

Anyway, it was a great game. Makes me really excited for the next season, although sad too because there's no more BYU football to watch this year. But then again, there is a lot of other football to watch, what with this being the first bowl game of the post-season and all.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

2010-12-17T17:25:00.003-07:00

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

5 pretty things!

4 lifeguard games

3 days of school

2 loads of wash

And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Today was the last day of school for 2010. Ergo, I was showered with gifts by my students and fellow teachers. I feel like I could classify five of them as "pretty." Five pretty things.

The gifts I got included,

* A pair of earrings and necklace (made by the mother of one of my students)

* Gourmet hot chocolate in a mug

* A bath set with bubble, salts, lotion, and bath petals

* A plant that I am afraid of killing over the break, so I will take it to my father-in-law until January - he's good at plants.

* A Santa ornament

* A lovely cookbook

* Homemade fudge

* Homemade toffee

* Truffles

* Belgian chocolate covered cookies

* Homemade jam (berry plum)

* Fresh honey

And even more. I just don't feel like typing/remembering it all. Especially since Lewis got just as much if not more from his students, so basically... we're pretty spoiled.

And now it's Christmas break! I cannot put into words how happy this makes me feel. I don't have to work! I don't have to do ANYTHING! It's Christmas break!

The Fourth Day of Christmas

2010-12-16T17:36:00.004-07:00

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

4 lifeguard games

3 days of school

2 loads of wash

And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Today is Thursday, and we have P.E. on Thursdays. (Just Thursdays, you ask? Yup. Bummer, right?) Since it's the second to last day of school for the year 2010, I let them play an old favorite, "Sharks and Lifeguards." In this game, you have x number of sharks and x number of lifeguards. Everyone else sits on the floor with their legs under a parachute, shaking it. The shark trolls under the parachute, snagging unsuspecting swimmers (everyone else), by pulling them under the 'chute by their ankles. If you get pulled under, you become a shark yourself.

The lifeguards are their to save the swimmers from certain doom. If a swimmer feels a tug, they raise their hand and call for help. The lifeguard, if s/he can get there in time, will pull the swimmer back up.

The sharks always win.

Favorite moment from today: I wanted to increase the odds for my poor little swimmers and lifeguards, so we started out the last game with three lifeguards and just one shark. The lifeguards distributed themselves evenly around the parachute circle, waiting for the shark to make her move. She did it at exactly the right time, lying in wait until the lifeguards relaxed and then BAM! The smallest girl in my class was gone in the blink of an eye. It was amazing. You probably had to be there.

Anyway, great game for great kids. Especially since we have P.E. towards the end of the day so I didn't have to try and calm them back down again after.

The Third Day of Christmas

2010-12-15T08:28:00.005-07:00

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

3 days of school

2 loads of wash

And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

(I had to blog this this morning, because if I waited until tonight, there would only be two days of school left.)

We have just three more days of school. Three days and then we're free. Free for two whole weeks. No lesson plans to write, no papers to grade, no kids to yell at... Just unadulterated freedom. I mean, I love my job and I love my students, but... Let's just say that Christmas break comes at exactly the right time. Towards the end of the break, I'm sure I will be missing my kids like crazy (they are the best students in the universe, no joke), but for now: THREE DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT!!!

The Second Day of Christmas

2010-12-14T17:26:00.004-07:00

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

2 loads of wash

And a fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

You may be thinking, Alyssa - you do at least two loads of laundry every Tuesday! What's the big deal that makes it Twelve Days worthy? Well let me tell you what the big deal is. The next time it is Laundry Day, I will be on Christmas Vacation 2010!!!! WOOO! I've spent the last two Christmas breaks working full time. I am BEYOND delighted to spend all of Christmas break relaxing and spending time with family. PLUS, Lewis doesn't have to work either. What, what!

Although, to tell the truth, I will probably (definitely) have to do the laundry again before we leave for Idaho next week. Unless I want to travel with dirty clothes that is. (Hmm...) But still. Today is the official Laundry Day, so it counts. Finding numbered things for twelve days is hard.

Only ten days to go!

The First Day of Christmas

2010-12-13T19:07:00.006-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again - the twelve days of Christmas. I've got to be honest: I might not make it all twelve this year, and I am CERTAINLY (probably) not going to find numbered things like I did last year. I am a first year teacher, after all. I'm busy.

Anyway, the first day of Christmas is bit of a bummer. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

A broken into elementary school

Yep. My school was broken into last night. I won't go into detail (it just makes me feel icky), but it was definitely not a fun thing with which to be greeted this morning. I mean, even though my own classroom was not broken into, the whole idea of some creeps pawing through my workplace is just gross.

Not to mention the fact that these thieves were stealing from children. At Christmas. I mean come on. Who does that?

Gah, I can't allow that to be my first day! Not from my true love!

Okay, how about this. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

A fifteen-dollar ice cream gift card

Even with the break in bummer, school wasn't all bad! We had a gift exchange at collaboration today and I ended up with a giant Symphony bar and a $15 certificate to Baskin Robbins. (There was a $10 limit, so props to whoever managed to snag this beauty and was willing to donate it to the cause. I'm just glad I ended up with it.)

The certificate does have a stipulation, however: All fifteen clams must be spent in one visit. So... who's up for some ice cream?

Yeah. That's a better first day than the break in.

Germs, Germs, Germs

2010-12-05T21:09:00.002-07:00

I recently discovered that being a schoolteacher has made me a total germaphobe. I guess it all started back when I did my first cohort. Yep. I'll blame my mentor teacher from that practicum. She was pregnant and therefore freaked out about all kinds of potential germs for her baby. (Ironically, as I discovered when she got a substitute, she did not regularly wipe down her kidney table. The sub and I cleaned it off for her and the used Clorox wipes were gross.)

Anyway, she gave me all sorts of advice for keeping the germs off. Don't touch students' pencils, don't give hugs, and above all else, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. Hand sanitizer was an absolute must at the start of the school year.

Now don't get me wrong. My students are very clean. Consciously, I am not really worried about getting any germs from them. But unconsciously? Well that's a different story. Unconsciously my old mentor teacher's fears got into my head. Especially since I hate, hate, hate getting sick. And it doesn't help that I am currently nursing my second cold in less than a month.

But now the germaphobia has spread into other things. I wince at touching the handrails to stairs. I hesitate at grasping public door handles to enter a building. I don't even like to unwrap my silverware from their napkin at restaurants because then I have nowhere to put the knife and fork but on the table. And don't even get me started on shopping! (Read: I'm going to start talking about shopping now.)

If you know me at all, you'll know I'm not a big shopper. I don't dress very stylishly because I don't like spending money and cute clothes are expensive (lame, I know). I like to look nice, but shopping is just so much work! And now germs have ruined even what little appreciation I had for buying new clothes. People touch those things! They put them on their germy bodies! Yuck!

Shoes are the worst. Feet are just gross. I know must shoe places provide little booties so that people can at least have some semblance of cleanliness. But a) those things are little, rip easily, and don't stay up, b) not everyone uses them, and c) people who just wear their own socks might have sweaty socks.

I think I just prefer to shop online. And then if what I order doesn't fit, I'm too lazy to send it back so whatevs.

Ahh, who am I kidding? I'll just have to suppress my wild, germy imagination and go get clothing when I need clothing. I'm slowly becoming a more snappy dresser anyway. Just ask my husband and the kick-a coat he boat me last night.

After all, I still go into buildings even when I think the doorknob is gross.

And in the end, even with all my clean habits (I love me some hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes), I'm still nursing my second cold in less than a month.

The Fifth Grade Revolutionary War

2010-11-16T19:47:00.004-07:00

You may not know this (I didn't until a few years ago, but that's just because I lived overseas for some of my elementary education, but I'm told that this is common knowledge for most people - wow that was a long explanation for incidental information), but fifth graders get to study American history. I say "get to" because let's face it - we've got some pretty darn good history in this here country.

In my fifth grade class this week, we are studying the Revolutionary War. As an introduction to that, I did something a little different today than I would normally do for social studies. We had a lesson on the lead up to the war that sort of lasted all day long. Now don't go thinking we forgot about math and reading and all those other important things. This lesson went really well around all that.

It is a lesson called "The King's M&Ms." The main objective of this lesson was to learn about taxation without representation. For classroom management purposes, I have a mug of popsicle sticks in my class, and each popsicle stick has the name of one of my students on it. This is a great tool for random selection. I used the popsicle sticks to select five students for this lesson. Two kids would represent tax collectors, two would be members of the British Parliament, and one would be King George III. Incidentally, all the names I drew from the sticks ended up being girls. Several boys were unhappy about this, but they could not deny the randomness of the popsicle sticks.

All the remaining citizens became colonists. Each colonist was given a small bag of M&Ms. Throughout the day, the King could ring the bell three times. When she did that, the members of Parliament would select a card from a stack I prepared beforehand and the tax collectors would collect an M&M from each colonist who met the criteria on the card. The cards said ridiculous things like "All wearing jeans," or "All with blonde hair." If anyone had a question about whether or not that had to pay up an M&M, I deferred to the King. After the tax collectors got M&Ms from everyone who owed candy based on the selected card, they would divvy them up. 50% of the revenue went to the king, 30% to the Parliament, and 20% to the tax collectors.

The first few times King George rang the bell, the students would pay up their M&Ms without a problem. Sure, some of them would complain, but they would pay in any case. Slowly, however, some small rebellions began.

I noticed one boy grinning at me suspiciously. When I asked him what was going on, he whispered to me, "I stole the bell. Don't tell." The King didn't know how to call for a taxation without the bell, so instead she promised two M&Ms if whoever stole it returned it right away. That was enough for the bell-snatcher (the bell got stolen several more times, but the King and Parliament always found a creative way to call for taxes).

Several other students tried to bribe the King, Parliament, and tax collectors so they wouldn't have to pay. This only worked some times.

Other students began talking about ways they could rebel, making references to their knowledge of the Boston Tea Party and the Revolutionary War.

After a while, we started running low on cards (tax cards as we called them), so I let the king and the parliament write out a few more. They wrote out several specifically targeting people they knew were involved in revolution talks. This squashed those ideas, but only briefly.

By lunch, two of the colonists had successfully bribed the King into letting them work as slaves rather than pay taxes. This let them be involved in the government's plans for how to tax the people the best. The government faction decided to meet back in the classroom after they ate to work out how to best prevent any revolutions from starting.

Unfortunately, the beginning part of lunch recess was deemed an inside day, so the government faction was met with three-quarters of the colonists when they entered the classroom. They chose to defect to the library because of the sheer numbers of the colonists. The colonists took this as a victory and tried to rally and form a plan. This became a challenge for the handful of kids who felt passionately about the need for a revolution as many of their fellow colonists were apathetic about the idea. Once the front office told everyone it would be an outside day after all, many colonists decided they would rather play football or four square than play a revolt.

The few colonists that did stay, however, brainstormed a variety of ideas for rebelling/overthrowing the Brits. One girl had the idea (from the book her literature circle is reading, in fact!) to have all the rebels sign a Round Robin. This is a petition that everyone signs in a circle so that nobody's name is on top so you can't tell who started it. This would have been a fantastic idea were it not for the fact that the government sent spies to find out who was organizing the revolution.

The spies took this information back and the government quickly began making tax plans that would target the rebel leaders.

The rebels, on the other hand and to their credit, decided that the best way to escape the taxation was to challenge the King and members of Parliament to a game of either four square or chess, winner take all. This would have been a brilliant plan... had the government been willing to accept.

When class started back up again after lunch recess, the taxation began again and with a vengeance. Several colonists decided straight up to just not pay. This caused the government to put them in jail (a spot on the floor where they had to sit and complete their assignments. They could only move from that spot if invited by a member of the government or by me). The tax collectors and parliament members gave the jailbirds several chances to be freed, if they would simply pay double or triple taxes.

At this point, what with all the taxation going on, many students started getting upset. They came to me complaining that the whole thing was unfair. My response? "Exactly. It is supposed to be unfair because it was unfair for the colonists. That's what made them rebel and start the Revolutionary War." (There was a point that I stopped everyone and reminded them that this was all pretend and to not get too emotionally involved. They're just little guys, after all.)

I don't know when it happened, exactly, but I discovered that one of my tax collectors started sympathizing with the colonists and began to play a role as a double agent. This just added another level of authenticity to the simulation.

At the end of the day, I had everyone pass in their M&Ms (what few they had left), re-divvied them up so that each table got the same amount, and allowed the kids to munch on them while we debriefed the simulation. Each of the students had a worksheet where they were to be writing down their feelings about what was going on throughout the day. Several students spoke up about how unfair they felt that it was. We connected these feelings to how the colonists felt when they were being taxed without representation. We discussed what taxes are and what they are used for - and how they were being abused by the King of England and Parliament in the 1700s. We touched briefly on the Boston Tea Party and how that was such a significant act of rebellion.

The worksheet included a few other questions that I gave the students time to fill in. I asked the students who represented government officials to answer the questions from the colonists' point of view - and was surprised and rather touched by the level of their empathy towards the colonists. They had fun collecting taxes, but they were aware of the toll it took on their classmates.

The last question on the worksheet was a deep one and I was impressed with the sensitivity and sympathy with which my students answered it: Would you be willing to go to war over this issue? Why or why not? All of my students said that yes, they would be willing to go to war over it, but with the caveat that they would be safe or, more commonly, that their family would be safe. This segued into a discussion about what risk is and what makes something worth the risk. The kids connected this back to their ideas of challenging the government to four-square or chess. Each side had to genuinely believe that they had a shot at winning for the risk to be worth it (probably the biggest reason why the government peeps rejected the proposition). On top of that, the colonists had to be positive that what they were fighting for was worth the risk of all-out war.

This was a really cool activity. True, it was not the most fun for a lot of my students. I'm pretty sure many of them full-on hated the simulation because of the injustice of it all (here's looking at you, colonists). But boy-oh-boy, it was effective. My students didn't just read about the Revolutionary War. They got a taste of what the actual colonists felt that incited the revolution. There are things I would change if I taught it again (I'm already making plans for next year's simulation - fingers crossed I'll be teaching fifth grade again), but the outcome of the lesson as is was exactly what I was hoping for.

Plus in the end, all the kids got to eat M&Ms. I've found that nothing brings divided 10- and 11-year-olds back together into a team better than candy.

I'm in Love with a Boy

2010-10-31T20:45:00.009-06:00

Three years ago today, I was dating a guy. Not the guy I married, but a guy. At the time I probably wouldn't have admitted it, but now I can fully and without embarrassment admit that he was a rebound. From another guy.

Anywho, back to three years ago today. A friend of my roommate's had invited us all to his Halloween party which, to hear my roommate tell it, was going to be legendary. And epic. And overall not one to be missed.

That wasn't enough to convince my boyfriend, who had to do something I had heard my professors talking about once... homework I think it's called. Whatevs. I was cool with it. I'd go without him.

Unconsciously I was very much not cool with it, as was evident by my over-zealous (for me) effort to put together a super awesome Little Red Riding Hood outfit. I even put on lipstick. Lipstick, people! This was a big deal.

We went to the party which was legendary and epic and not one to be missed. Especially so since I met this new guy, who was dressed as a Village People-esque Fireman, and who gave me the attention that I was missing from my homework-doing boyfriend of the time. And also other-party attending boyfriend. After finishing his homework, he apparently went to a different party, one that was being thrown by some girls in his ward. Oh no you didn't.

(In hindsight, I'm sure the other party was perfectly innocent. But come on, dude. The whole relationship was a rebound. You can't do such things. They upset the fragile balance.)

So this attention thing was nice. And in my passive aggressive awesomer-than-thou state, it was just what the doctor ordered to turn a happenstance meeting into something great. Plus since he was clearly dividing his time between me and my roommates (see picture), it was all allowed. Right? Right.

Halloween 2007

Two years ago today, my dear husband and I had been married for a few months. This legendary and epic and not one to be missed Halloween celebration was going down again. We went as the classic Atari game of Pong, which in my humble opinion did not get as much credit as it deserved. It was excellent. But we didn't care; we were newlyweds and crazy about each other.

Halloween 2008

One year ago today we three-peated our tradition. The venue was unusual - the regular locale was unavailable - but the party elements were all present. Me and this guy with the unfailing attention presented a double-whammy with our costumes: We went as Peanuts ghosts AND Charlie Brown and Lucy (under the ghost sheets). We were still newlyweds and still crazy about each other. Life was good.

Yesterday we enjoyed out fourth Halloween party together. We've been married for over two years and are still considered newlyweds by many. Not to be cheesy (read: cheesy part coming next), but it feels like we've been married only like a week and yet we've known each other forevah all at the same time. (Yeccch. That was hard to get out.) This year we went as Indiana Jones and Elsa Schneider. (From Last Crusade. The Nazi chick.) A lot has changed over the past three years, and not just for us but for the plethora of people involved in making the annual Halloween fiesta legendary and epic and not one to be missed. I am eternally grateful (Yuck. Cheesy pun.) that I did not miss it. Cause I'm crazy about this guy who gave me attention. And continues to give me attention every day. In fact, I love him.

Halloween 2010

The moral of the story? Find a girl you like and pay attention to her. It worked for me, anyway!

A special thank you goes out to Luke for hosting the party in question, Mary for making me go, and Becca for being a part of our couch pictures and making the initial attention okay. And to Lewis cause he's just great. I'm crazy about you, dude.

So Pretty Much My Students are the Bomb Dot Com

2010-09-02T21:22:00.004-06:00

As you are probably not aware, social studies is not a tested subject in the elementary grades. Because of that, it often gets forgotten or overlooked by teachers. Math matters. Science matters. Heaven knows reading and writing matter. But social studies? Eh.

Personally I feel strongly about the importance of social studies. That's where you learn how to live in this lil world of ours. It provides a lot of the 'social' learning in school, if you will. Through social studies, kids learn how to be citizens of, well, life. It's pertinent, mmmkay?

But the fact remains that it is not tested and there's barely enough time to cover the stuff that is. I mean, school's been in session for a week and I'm already behind (ssh, don't tell). So what do you do? Integration, integration, integration. Anywhere you can integrate social studies into the curriculum, you do. Need to teach geometry? Use Native American tribal art. Looking for a quality book for a guided reading group? Historical fiction comes in all reading levels. Trying to develop class rules at the start of the year? Create class rights and responsibilities, just like old pros known as our Founding Fathers did.

I started the year with the goal of integration already in mind. I was very fortunate to be placed on a team of teachers who all make a concerted effort to integrate socials studies into the other subjects. As the school year began, I felt reasonably prepared to integrate social studies.

I was less prepared, however, for a class that accepted my integration efforts so easily and smoothly. I've been explicit with them about how we're studying American history and government this year so we are going to base a lot of things off of that. And my students, my fabulous, phenomenal, fifth graders not only accepted that as a way of life (of class?), but they welcomed it, embraced it, and improved upon it.

In an effort to make my class a democratic one, I've encouraged a lot of class discussion and even debate on various things throughout class. I feel like I've been successful with this. My students have responded well. One even pointed out that what we were doing was
Iike what the founding fathers did and what our lawmakers do all the time (albeit perhaps more civilly). Point one for integration.

Earlier this week, my students asked if they could hold elections for a class representative. I told them I would think about it. And then they just wore me down with their incessant and remarkably fantastic arguments about why they should hold these elections. So I told them everyone who was interested in running for the position could submit to me a report detailing what they would do as class representative and I would pick two students to run (we'll vote for a new representative each month).

In the reports I was expecting things like, "I should be class representative because I'm awesome and it I was we would have recess all day and parties [this is a very pro party class] and so you should pick me.". What I got were well thought out reports, full of reasonable and really quite good ideas for improving our class.

It was incredibly hard to pick the students to run for the position. Each of the reports submitted was quality. I only selected the students I did because they both had ideas that I'd like to see implemented at the beginning of the year. The next step was for each of them to give a speech convincing their peers to vote for them.

Again I had just average expectations. Again, they were exceeded. I wish, I wish I could post the videos I took of their speeches. They were so good. One girl gave a speech about how we are a team and used a really great football analogy to illustrate her point. The other wrote a big long poem about her ideas, read from a Santa's list-length scroll. Awesome. Just awesome.

Two other students sacrificed their recess to make a voting booth so that everyone could cast their ballots privately, and a representative was elected in a fair and valid manner. The whole thing was so incredible and I am beyond proud of all my students.

I met with my new representative and vice representative today to talk about ideas and implementation. One of the first ones they brought up? Integrating service projects and class social events into our curriculum. Bless them.

This is my Friday Night

2010-08-28T11:18:00.006-06:00

Well it looks like I survived my first week of teaching (okay just three days). Not only that, though, I LOVED it. I know that I'm still in the honeymoon phase with my kids and that their eager to please teacher attitude won't last, but I really do think they are just a fantastic group of ten-year-olds. Really quite splendid. And even though I'm bone tired, I've just been loving every second of teaching.

Some highlights:

-One of my identical twins told me that he and his brother like to play tricks and change places, but I'll know when it's happening cause they can't stop giggling (I made a mental note here of things to include in sub plans).

-Quite possibly the tiniest girl in my class declared in her "Student Interest Sheet" that she is an avid hunter. Later when we wrote personal narratives about birthdays, she talked about how she wanted her mom to let her make a pinata out of a deer carcass and fill it with red candy. Yep. (Her mom didn't let her and she had to settle for a pony pinata with antlers attached that everyone shot with arrows before they beat it with a bat. Yep.)

-My parents sent me these lovely flowers as a surprise on my first day.

When the secretary brought them in, one girl said, "Oh, they're from me. I wanted to be teacher's pet."

-I taught my kids that when I say, "Give me five!" when they are standing in line, they are to assemble themselves into a perfectly straight, perfectly silent line. When I went to pick them up from recess yesterday, they watched for me at the door and then got into a five line without me asking, just as a surprise. Bless them.

-During the open house on the night before school started, a parent overheard one of my girls saying to another, "You'll like her. She's pretty." (Yes, I am vain like that).

-We've had some rather deep discussions on what our rights and responsibilities are in this country and then connecting those to what our rights and responsibilities are in our class. This is certainly a bright bunch of students.

-We had an impromptu discussion on acronyms. I let them guess what FBI stands for (several students yelled out, "Police!") and when I told them the B was a French word, they started guessing things like baguette and bonjour.

A lot more happened, but I don't want to bore you to death with things that I've found to be adorable. So pretty much just know... it was an awesome, awesome week. Three days.

When we came home last night, Lewis and I were both beyond exhaustion. Lewis fell asleep for an hour and then made macaroni and cheese for dinner (healthy, no?). At ten o'clock we were both pretty much just sitting there staring off in to space. But in the spirit of Friday night is date night, we tottered off to Macey's to get some Ben and Jerry's. Then we watched an episode of a TV show on Netflix, read a chapter of Harry Potter, and were dead in bed by 11:30, lamenting the fact that we stayed up so late. Yep, we're the vision of youth and vitality. Mid-twenties, you know.

Bring it on.

2010-08-24T19:57:00.001-06:00

It's okay. I'm better now. I met all but ten of my students tonight at my school's open house and they did not eat me. In fact they were quite delightful, as were their parents. Downright adorable (the kids, not the parents). I'm sure my preparation and confidence will wane within the next few hours, but for now I feel like I can do it. I can teach.

Psych!

2010-08-23T20:57:00.002-06:00

I changed my mind. I don't want to teach. I want sit at home all day, eat bonbons, watch soap operas, and get fat. This teaching thing? Not for me. I'll be bad at it.

Look Out Students... Class Just Got Cooler

2010-08-19T17:05:00.005-06:00

There I was, minding my own business, when my principal rolls a cart into my classroom bearing this:

A bona-fide Epson computer projector. Quality, people. Quality.

As he described it, our school was finally given the go-ahead to join the 21st century. Each classroom now has one. Basically it means my class will be tons cooler. I don't know how yet because I didn't think there was a prayer in the world that I would get a computer projector (heck, I just recently commandeered an overhead projector!) so I haven't been planning on having one, but never fear students... This technological beaut will be used frequently.

Now if only I could get my hands on a Promethean Board...

Grizz was in the Navy

2010-08-18T21:17:00.003-06:00

So the other day I was in my classroom working on stuff for the upcoming school year (seeing as school starts in a week - gasp, gulp, gasp - I've been doing that a lot). As I was sitting there writing names on popsicle sticks or something, I hear a pint size voice from my doorway say, "Hi Miss Young." (I have a nameplate above my door.). I turn to find a little boy, maybe a first or second grader, just hanging out at my door as if it's the most natural thing in he world.

I greet him and ask his name (Jared). I start to ask him how his summer is going, but he talks over me to tell me that the hat he is wearing is fifty years old. And that it's from the Navy (which, funnily enough, I had deduced from the fact that it said "NAVY"). He obviously was very excited to be wearing such an accessory and was bursting to expess the awesomeness of it to anyone he met. That doesn't exactly explain what he was doing roaming the halls of Foothill Elementary two weeks before school starts, but never fear, he did not go unclaimed. An older sister appeared to collect him shortly after our conversation began, but not after I validated how fantastic his hat was.

My point is... I'm excited to be spending so much time in a place with such uninhibited beings, who get excited fit to burst about the little things in life like that Navy hat which I'm sure Jared begged his dad for weeks to let him wear just this once. Because, well... I get excited about those kinds of things and want to share them with whoever I see too, okay? So eat it.

Two True

2010-08-16T15:29:00.004-06:00

In honor of our second anniversary, here are the top two reasons why my marriage is awesome, cause srsly. Have you met Lewis? He's pretty much as awesome as a husband can get and that's no lie. I like him lots and so I'm glad we wed two years ago.

(In no particular order):
1. Lewis gets as excited about I do about the little things in life, especially when it comes to teaching.. Mmm curriculum mapping... Ooh yeah management plans.
2. For my birthday last year, Lewis bought me a KitchenAid. This morning I made a white chocolate cheesecake with it. Nuff said.

Happy anniversary Lewie! You plus me equals us.

I'mma Be a Professional

2010-08-13T15:01:00.003-06:00

Dear beloved blog readers,

First, an apology: I have left you without for over a month. I am truly sorry that you have had to go so long without the blessed opportunity to read my words.

Second, a justification: Dude. In less than two weeks, I will have 25-30 young souls in my care for 6.5 hours a day, 5 days a week. So eat it. I've been a little busy.

Third, another apology: That was rude. I'm sorry.

Fourth, a request: I am taking a break from developing my first-week-of-school class schedule to write this post to ask for your help. If you were a brand new fifth grader, what would you like to do during your first week of school? What did you do during the first week of school back in the day when you were a small child? If you teach/have ever taught, what did you do with your students during the first week of school?

Thanks readers. You are all gentlemen and scholars, lacking merely education and couth.

Sorry. That was rude too.

The Thrilling Conclusion! Or is it?...

2010-07-02T10:33:00.003-06:00

I realized that I hadn't ever posted the conclusion to my microwave drama story (parts 1 and 2).

On the very same day that I renounced all my old microwave ill will, Lewis' mom bought us a brand spankin' new microwave for graduation. With all the bells and whistles. And it pops popcorn beautifully. Yeah. Karma works that fast.

So we've been enjoying this new microwave for the past few months. Some popcorn here, a microwave s'more or two there, maybe a bit of defrosted chicken or ground beef. And this microwave heated them all to perfection. What a champ.

The moral of the story is that karma is a downright ho bag when you disrespect shim. But when you are kind to karma and you give karma karma's dues, karma is just about the nicest lil ol' thing you'll ever meet. The end.

Or is it?!

Epilogue:

Since we, you know, graduated, we had to find jobs to, you know, pay for stuff. I already had one lined up by the time we graduated, but Lewis was still looking. Fortunately for us, Lewis is basically the Chuck Norris of elementary school teachers, so er'rybody wanted him. He is so awesome, he got a job offer from Jordan School District - the district that was planning on firing 250 teachers earlier this year. What, what.

In the end, Lewis took a position at Saratoga Shores Elementary, fourth grade. Great school, great team, great grade - he's pretty dang excited about it. However, Saratoga Shores is on the other side of Utah Lake. My job at Foothill Elementary is in south Orem. These are not the two farthest schools apart in all of Alpine School District (an enormous district), but there are not many that are farther. Not to mention the fact that Lewis' has to be at his school a whole hour before I have to be at mine. A second car and new home became stark requirements.

Fast forward to present day: we found a lovely condo just off the freeway in Pleasant Grove. Dishwasher, pantry, actual counter space, two bathrooms, washer and dryer, a deck, a pool... oh my goodness me, I love this place. We applied, got approved, and signed a contract all within a week. Right this very moment, as I type these words, Lewis is moving us in. (No, I'm not helping. Who do you think I am?) It met or exceeded all of our requirements for the time being, especially in terms of location. Fifteen minutes to Foothill via State Street; 25 minutes to Saratoga Shores via the freeway. What the freaking what?

(Lest we forget about my post from a year and a half ago, it might even meet all those desires. We haven't found out about the History Channel yet, but we know cable comes with the unit.)

There is one other thing that it comes with, and this thing is very important because otherwise this story being here in epilogue form would not make any sense: A microwave. Yep. This lovely, lovely condo includes a hanging-over-the-stove microwave. Which I love. But now we have a few-months-old fantastic microwave without a home.

There are many options for our old new microwave. Storage is one. We've had a few people suggest putting it in our TV room for - wait for it - popcorn. But the TV room is connected to the kitchen where the current new microwave is (a great room), and if we can't walk all the way over there for popcorn, we don't deserve a microwave in the first place. Lewis mentioned trying to return it to Kohls, from whence it came. I think I like it too much for that one, though. We'll need it eventually, just not right this second. Maybe I'll put it in my classroom. Some teachers have mini fridges; why can't I have a microwave?

All of this debate could be completely moot, however. We have not yet tried the current new microwave's popcorn capabilities. It could suck.

If that's the case, well... maybe this story isn't as done as I've made it out to be...

To be continued. Maybe.

Super Alyssa World

2010-06-22T08:19:00.002-06:00

If my walk to work every morning were made into a really lame video game (the likes of which you would get as your toy in a Happy Meal) it would be something like this.

Super Alyssa World!

Objective: Get to work on time.

Two Settings: Walk and run. Running is faster, but it makes you more susceptible to slipping on wet ground and running into various objects. Three hits of specific objects mean death. If you die, you get sent back to the beginning of the level. If you die three times, you have to start the whole game over.

Level 1: Wymount. Your goal is to make it from you apartment front door to the corner of 900 East and University Parkway. You have to smile and say some variation of "Good morning!" to every neighbor you pass. Failure to do so will result in a fist fight. Do not get into a fist fight. Halfway through the level, you pass two large dogs on long leashes. Since you are terrified of the dogs, you must successfully evade them while traversing wet sidewalk and cheerfully greeting the dogs owners.

Level 2: 900 East. Your goal is to make it from the corner of 900 East and University Parkway to the lawn in front of the Morris Center. You can either cross the street here at the light or walk down to the flagged and light-less crosswalk. The flagged crosswalk takes much less time, but it is dangerous because there's no guarantee the cars will stop for you. Throughout this level you will have to dodge bike riders and joggers.

Level 3: The Lawn. This is the shortest level in the game. You simply have to make it from the front of the lawn to the Morris Center. However, there are high-power sprinklers watering the lawn and sidewalk that you need to take. If you get wet, you drown. You can either time it just right and walk down the sidewalk, or you can time it okay and make a run for it praying that you don't slip and end up on your can. Everyone who has made it so far has run for it, but it's scary.

Level 4: The Morris Center. Your goal is to make it from the front of the Morris Center to the edge of Heritage Halls. The most direct route is blocked by an enormous gaggle of hungry EFY kids, waiting to get into the cafeteria for breakfast. You can either go around the cafeteria line, which is very safe but very slow, or you can try to push your way through the line. Pushing your way through means you run the risk of being trampled by spiky gladiator sandals and/or smothered by Axe body spray.

Level 5: Heritage Halls. This level is that simple one that everyone thinks has some catch they are missing. Your goal is to simply wind your way through Heritage Halls towards Campus Drive. The only obstacles are poorly placed EFY scripture study groups that you have to avoid. Most players take this level at a run because they wasted a long time taking the long way in the last level because, let's face it: being smothered by Axe is a crappy way to go.

Level 6: Campus Drive. Your goal here is to make it successfully across Campus Drive to the Wilkinson Center parking lot. The traffic lights might seem to be a challenge at first, but they are actually very strictly timed and once you figure that out, it's a piece of cake. The quickest route depends on when you actually approach the first traffic light, but it sometimes requires a bit of running, which as we know holds its risks.

Level 7: The Parking Lot. Your goal here is to make it across the parking lot into the Wilkinson Center. This is the penultimate level, so most people take it at a run. It looks very innocent. But just as you are about to run up the stairs to success, a conglomerate of old ladies from the Nutrition Conference streams out the front doors. Adapt! Adapt! If your eyes are keen, you will notice a side door to the right.

Level 8: The Wilkinson Center. If you get into the building before 7:59 am, you've won the game. You just have to walk up the stairs into your office. However, if you get into the building after 7:59 am, you have to sneak quietly past your boss' office while wearing flip flops. If you make it to your desk without your boss noticing, you're in the clear. If you do not, you will be defenestrated.

To the Parents of the World

2010-06-18T13:55:00.002-06:00

If your child is old enough to open the front door and walk outside, he/she is old enough to know when and how to properly cross a street.

Let me explain.

As we were driving home yesterday, we noticed the car directly in front of us unexpectedly stop. Confused, Lewis reached up to honk the horn. We were driving on a fairly busy street and desired to continue smoothly on to our final destination. Right before Lewis actually honked, however, we noticed the cause of their stop. A four-year-old girl was crossing the street.

It was ten o'clock at night.

As we sat there in our car, we watched this small child make her way across the street, never looking left nor right. Her eyes were on one thing and she was determined to reach her goal. She wasn't in a hurry to reach it, as was clear by her slow and even gait, but she knew where she was going. Luckily no cars came from the opposite direction and the car in front of us saw her at all. The driver mentioned later that he thought she was a dog when he first saw her, just out of the corner of his eye.

When she made it to the other side of the street, she opened the door of a car there, calmly climbed in and began honking the horn and playing with the lights.

We pulled over, as did the car in front of us. Lewis was ready to call 911, but I told him we should go knock on doors first to see to whom she belonged. The driver and passenger of the car in front of us were knocking on the door of the house it looked like the kid might have come from, while Lewis knocked on the door of the house across the street. They said that it wasn't their kid, but nobody answered the door the other driver knocked on. That is, until he gave up and was halfway back to the street. Then someone finally came to the door.

If I was a mother and someone came to my door telling me that they had almost hit my child because he/she had crossed the street by him/herself without even looking I would have freaked out. So I guess maybe this lady's stoicism is something to be envied because she didn't bat an eye. Rather, she stood there calmly while her ten-year-old daughter walked across the street in a remarkably similar fashion as her little sister to investigate. Mostly, however I was just disturbed by her behavior/attitude.

That mother should be counting her blessings that nothing happened to her daughter. This occurred on the main road of a neighborhood. Now to be fair, at that time of night (ten freaking o'clock!), it is normally not a very busy road. However, last night was Game 7 of the NBA finals, and it was clear from the volume of cars parked on the street that many households in this neighborhood were hosting parties for the game, and since the game had ended by this time many people - us included - were driving home from watching the game. PLUS the stupid Lakers won, so I'm sure lots of people were riled up about the outcome, not to mention the near-disastrous placement of that Amber Alert. In short, good thing that one driver was paying enough attention to notice a tiny person on the street in front of him.

I keep replaying it in my mind. It was freaky the way that girl was just all of a sudden there, barefooted and ghostly in the headlights (although the freaky aspect might just be because I've been watching too much Heroes on Netflix). What if the car hadn't seen her? What if he managed to miss her and we hit her? What if she had made it across the street safely without anyone noticing and tried to cross it again to get back? What if a creepo saw her and took her? (Like I said, there was an Amber Alert so kidnapping was on the brain)

The point is, keep an eye on your four-year-old, lady! Especially at ten o'clock at night and especially on a busy street like that. More importantly, teach your kid how to cross the street! A four-year-old should know that she shouldn't cross a street without an adult. At the very least, she should have learned to look both ways before crossing!

And for goodness sake, care more when somebody tells you they almost killed your child! Or at least show it more! Good heavens.

I Am a Total Summer Junkie

2010-06-08T08:30:00.003-06:00

The other night when we went to bed, it was a little bit hot in our apartment. Holding off on putting the air conditioner in the window for as long as possible, Lewis put a fan in the living room window on full blast. We closed all the doors except for the one to our bedroom, hoping to tunnel the cool air straight to us.

As I settled down under the covers into the soft folds of our pillow-top, a wave a comforting nostalgia washed over me. I remembered many summer nights from my youth where it was just this side of too hot, but heavens I could never sleep without the covers (still true). Those summer nights were the eves of glorious summer days full of running in the sprinkler, climbing trees, and washing the car - aka the best dang times ever.

Sure. I complained all summer that I was bored. I probably was even excited to start school again when the end of August showed up. But after a week of that crap, I was ready to be back to summer vacay.

As I grew older and my parents realized how expensive I was to keep around (I'm very high maintenance, you know), I obtained a summer job. Lifeguard. Pretty much I was paid to go swimming and get a tan. I spent most of most days in nothing more than a swimming suit and a tank top and/or swim shorts (although my parents preferred me to put on pants at the dinner table). My only regret from that three summer long job is that most of my heroic saves occurred on the cold and drizzly days where you had to pay me to jump in that frigid water (good news for the drowning kids: they paid me).

Back to the other night and the nostalgia wave. As I lay there in bed, I thought about all the things I wanted to do the next morning. I wanted to go swimming. I wanted to run around aimlessly outside. I wanted to climb a tree and read a book. I wanted to eat an ice cream sandwich on my porch.

Then I went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I went to work and spent six or seven hours in a chair at a desk in front of a computer, listening to screams of delight from the EFY kids during lunch.

Now don't get me wrong. I have a great job, a fact of which I was forcibly reminded of just last week. But man-oh-man. I most definitely picked the right career for my desired lifestyle.

The good news is, I have a dear husband who has a similar attitude toward summer adventures as me. Our apartment is a mess right now because we chose to hike around Y mountain, go to an outdoor barbecue, and engage in a summer evening swim rather than clean it. Such activities are bound to continue during the evenings and weekends until July the twenty-third when I am done with my job. Then we can play all day for almost a month before we have to start making the big bucks.

But in the meantime, I'm just dreaming of the future. A life of summers off? Yes, please.

My Spouse, the Fashionisto

2010-05-21T11:18:00.005-06:00

The night I met my husband, he was dressed like this:

Hot, right? Little did he know that his fashion choice of the cutoffs so short that the pockets were hanging out was ahead of its time.

That's right, a mere two and a half years later, I discover that according to Victoria's Secret (I get their catalog. What of it?), cutoffs so short that the pockets hang out is in.

Behold:

I would show you multiple examples of this style (there are several) or in the least post a link to Victoria's website, but goodness me people, this is a family place! If you want further proof that Lewis retroactively kick-started a booming summer trend, go find the website yourself.

The moral of the story? You should be jealous that Victoria's Secret doesn't get fashion advice from your husband.

Eat It, Yahoo! I'm Going for Happy!

2010-05-10T10:52:00.003-06:00

There is currently an article on Yahoo outlining the top ten worst-paying college degrees. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that Elementary Education is on the list. Number two, in fact. So if there is anyone out there who believed Lewis and I are only going to teach for the money, you can now lay your doubts at rest. There is now empirical evidence to suggest that fiscally, we are crazy people for going into this career field.

You think we're poor now as we barely scrape by each month between rent and groceries - ha! Just wait til we have younglings and a mortgage!

But dagnabit, we're going to be happy. Cause teaching is fun and we like it.

Thank You, Captain Obvious

2010-05-08T19:47:00.004-06:00

I just read an article in Time about serial marry-ers and how marriage is the one area in life where we allow repeat offenders to do it over and over again. Hazardous drivers get their licenses revoked; failing college students get kicked out of school; doctors who violate their codes and creeds and crap could lose their license for just one infraction, but any single consenting adult can marry any other single consenting adult any time they please. The story cited Larry King who is currently getting divorced for the eighth time. It talked about a variety of celebrities with multiple ex-spouses - Liz Taylor, Mickey Rooney, William Shatner, etc.

The story then went on to talk about the late Linda Wolfe of Indiana who got married 23 times (although the last one - just the last one, mind - was just a publicity stunt). She is official record holder. Even with 23 marital failures, Linda was not to be discouraged and before she passed said that she wouldn't mind marrying again. That declaration had a caveat, however. She would only marry a straight man. From the article, I quote, "On the two occasions she married a gay guy, it didn't take."

Uh... She's been married and divorced 23 times. I'm pretty sure NONE of them took. And I'm willing to bet that her husbands' sexual orientations had nothing to do with that.

Have I Become a Hippie-Dippie Granola?

2010-05-06T16:20:00.005-06:00

Apples.
Strawberries.
Bananas.
Carrot sticks.
Spinach.
Potatoes.
And last but not least, some homemade granola balls - easier to make than bars.

This is what I've eaten recently. And I've been enjoying it!

That's HOMEMADE granola.

I mean, this is a good thing, no doubt, but what the what?

That's all.

PS: Lest you fear for my poor health, Lewis went out to dinner last night with his friends, so I had macaroni and cheese for dinner last night. With side of Kinder Eggs and apple juice.

Karma Comes Back Around

2010-04-21T13:50:00.004-06:00

I just recently posted about how we got a new microwave and we are oh so delighted because it has buttons, right? In particular, we are happy because it has a popcorn button. That has been Lewis' dream for a while: to have a microwave with a popcorn button. It's a simple dream, but he owns it.

Naturally, when we were finally able to put the microwave up (we managed to make room on the shelf, and although we can now fit fewer items on that particular shelf, and in spite of the fact that I am certain it will all come crashing down and smash our table, it looks nice up there and it works) we wanted its maiden voyage to concern popcorn. So we threw a bag in there and hit the blessed button of popcorn.

And the microwave sparked.

Thinking there might be some metal in there, we took out the bag and inspected, both the bag and the microwave. Nothing. We put the bag in and tried again.

And it sparked again.

Crud.

We finally have a new microwave and it's sparking like it's got a roll of aluminum foil inside. Fantastic.

I immediately knew what the problem was. I had publicly dissed our old microwave, the one we got for free, the one that was donated to us by my dear, loving sister. Call it karma, the force, string theory, whatever. It had caught up to us.

The next day I decided to try microwaving something else. Maybe it just needed to settle or something. I noticed the inside could use a wash, so I stuck a bowl of water I there so I could wipe it down with ease.

And... It didn't spark. It ran beautifully, as if it were new.

What the what? You mean my "settling" theory was correct?

Hardly. I put another bag of popcorn in there and guess what? It sparked.

It's a marvelous machine, unless you want to pop corn. Then it decides to recreate Dante's inferno right over its turn table.

So we finally get a microwave with a popcorn button and what does it have problems with? Popcorn. Is that irony? Or just interesting? Either way, I've been craving popcorn ever since.

In any case, I hereby renounce any ill will I had towards our old microwave. Your knobs and lack of reasonable second intervals give you character and remind me of simpler times. You were a shining beacon of hope in our dimly lit apartment. May you rest in peace on the chair under our coat rack and next to our keyboard.

All the Statuses I Didn't Post

2010-04-15T12:25:00.004-06:00

First of all, thank you to everyone who voted for us. We spammed you til you wanted to kill us, no doubt, but it paid off! And we're very grateful for all the support.

There were a lot of statuses I wanted to post on Facebook over the past week, but I couldn't because I had the eye of the tiger and didn't want to distract from our iPad winning cause. So I'm going to post them all here for your enjoyment. These might not be entirely true to the dates that stuff happened, but I'm estimating.

Wednesday, April 7th
Alyssa Young what the weather? Isn't April a Spring month?

Thursday, April 8th
Alyssa Young nice weather today. I wore sandals. And then I was ashamed because I haven't painted my toenails all winter.

Friday, April 9th
Alyssa Young seems like a nice night for a luau, eh?

Saturday, April 10th
Alyssa Young Lewis is off skiing today. I've done not a thing. Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored.

Sunday, April 11th
Alyssa Young I KNEW that scratchy throat and painful cough had a malicious intent!

Sunday, April 11th
Alyssa Young naturally, on the day that we don't want to sit near anyone at Church so I don't spread my diseases, there are two baby blessings so we're shoulder to shoulder.

Monday, April 12th
Alyssa Young is basically drunk. I took some NyQuil and then went over to the in-laws' casa to watch 24. My mouth tastes like purple.

Tuesday, April 13th
Alyssa Young last day of classes as an undergrad. Seems a shame I'll be starting up again as a post-bacc during Spring Term. Little to no time to celebrate my graduation!

Tuesday, April 13th
Alyssa Young 's seven-year-old nephew just taught me how to Rip Stick.

Wednesday, April 14th
Alyssa Young is enjoying her reading day by reading. Not any textbooks, of course, but a delightful children's book followed by another. Boo-ya.

Wednesday, April 14th
Alyssa Young paper towel dispensers in the ladies restroom on the third floor of the Wilk are mysteriously disappearing. Does the janitorial staff think this will make for cleaner restrooms? Maybe. More'n likely it'll just make for wetter restrooms.

Get Out the Vote, For Real For Real

2010-04-07T12:37:00.002-06:00

Voting for real this time. Click here and please, please, please vote for Lewis and me, number 4 ("5th Grade Persuasive Writing (Young & Young)")

Thanks blog readers, especially for your patience.

The Vote 2.0

2010-04-06T21:43:00.003-06:00

Well it looks like we got punk'd. They opened the poll to vote for everyone and then changed their minds and started a new poll. I'm rather annoyed at the whole thing, but now is not the time nor the place to go into that. In any case, the new poll will "open" on Thursday, April 8th (although it's technically open now) and I'll get everyone voting details then.

Thanks to everyone who voted for us in the apparently fake poll. Please vote again when the real poll opens!

Vote for Us!

2010-04-05T21:10:00.004-06:00

Hey-oh!

So last week, Lewis and I competed in the Innovative Instruction Competition through the Teacher Education Department at BYU. We didn't win the grand prize, but there's still going to be a "Peoples Choice Award." The winner of that gets an iPad for each member of the team. Naturally, Lewis and I want to win. A lot.

As my delightful blog readers, I would like to ask you to vote for us. Pretty please? Just click here and vote for number 4 in the poll. I surely would appreciate it.

Thanks, readers. You're the bomb-diggity.

You Don't Really Notice Until You Don't Have It

2010-04-02T11:54:00.005-06:00

Back when Lewis and I got married, my sister very kindly donated her old microwave to us. It's little, but we don't have that much space anyway. It's noisy, but that's why they created volume buttons on TVs and stereos. It doesn't have buttons, but hey it heats up our food fairly decently. And the knobs technically give you all the settings of a normal, buttoned microwave.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very grateful that my sister was so willing to give us this little machine. A microwave is just something you need!

That being said, I must say that I hate the stupid thing. Who makes microwaves without buttons? I mean, really! How difficult are buttons? But if you absolutely have to have a knob, can't you make one with more widely spaced numbers? Or more than two ticks between them? What if you only want 30 seconds? The first tick is for 1 minute! And two ticks between minutes gives me twenty second intervals! 30 is a basic microwave number!

Knob < Buttons

As you can tell, there's a lot of rage in my heart directed towards that microwave.

We've been wanting to get a new one for a while. Pretty much since the first time we used that one. But new microwaves are expensive, and we got this one for free, and it was doing the job so we dealt with it.

This microwave would be awesomely ridiculous.

My parents moved to Idaho from Kenya this past weekend. Since the move was back to the states, they got back a lot of their stuff that they had put in storage six years ago. Including (I think) a microwave! With buttons. Which they very decently donated to us!

Why would your microwave need two doors? Answer: It wouldn't. This is stupid. Also, it has knobs so it probably sucks.

So now we have TWO microwaves. We're really rolling in it now. Except there is a very real problem about our new microwave. It's huge. Since I've been spending all my time with this itty-bitty microwave of ours, I had forgotten the size microwaves generally come in. Apparently the typical size is enormous, bigger than my whole apartment.

This microwave and I would get along.

We're trying to figure out where to put our new machine. We can't put it where the old one is because it's too big for the shelf. We can't store it on the table because it's too big for the table. We can't store it on the counter because we only have two and the other one is for the cleaning the dishes process and also it's too big for the counter. We're thinking of storing it on the shelf above our fridge, but that's where we keep all of our, you know, food.

Maybe we just need a new house to go with our new microwave. Whatever. As long as we have a popcorn button.

This is not a microwave.

The (Somewhat) Recent Realizations of My Life

2010-03-25T15:13:00.003-06:00

1. I never mentioned it here that I recall, but over to the right you can see the link to my other blog, where I've been keeping track of the keeping of my New Year resolutions.

See the link? Cool right. Now you have a whole new blog of mine to enjoy.

Or not, cause I'm abandoning it.

It's a shocker alright. But if I really thought about it I would see that with my schedule the way it is, having to blog every single day about keeping my resolution is just silly. Especially since I have made my resolutions habits, thankyouverymuch. I was pretty much writing the same thing every day. There's got to be an easier and faster way to hold myself accountable for my resolutions. What is that way? I don't know. But I'll let you know how I do in 9 months (because that's when the year ends, not when I will have a baby. I recognize that that is a sensitive amount of time to talk about when you've been married for a whole year and a half).

I just thought of the fact that a lot of you read my blog posts on thefacebook and it doesn't have my links. Too bad for you, you'll have to click on "View Original Post" to find out what the heck I'm talking about.

2. Long ago I came to the conclusion that I'm a little bit OCD. I like things neat and ordered and complete and I can get a little stressed if they are not so. Of course this only extends to some things like cupboards that need closing or songs that need ending (Lewis' favorite game is Sing the Whole Song Except for the Last Note and See How Much it Bugs Alyssa). I have always had atrocious handwriting (a great quality in a future teacher) (if there are any principals who might want to hire me reading this, that was a joke I have handwriting perfectly suitable for any class in which you need an intern) and the current state of my kitchen table is, well... less than neat (although I blame this on the lack of counter space provided me by the institution that is BYU). Nonetheless, there are somethings that I just cannot not fix and am eternally bothered if they are not just right.

For example, my Wii Fit Plus workout calendar. On the Wii Fit, you are supposed to take a test every day measuring your center of balance, BMI, weight, and regular balance. After you finish the test you get to stamp the day indicating that you took the test and recording your results. Every so often you get a new stamp to use.

One of my previously mentioned New Year resolutions requires me to workout at least five days a week. As a part of that resolution, I decided to take a Wii Fit Body Test (as they are known) Monday through Friday. Because of my OCD-ittude, I used the same stamp for all of January and then all of February. By March, I had earned a stamp in the shape of a shamrock - perfect!

The Wii Fit Body Test comes in two parts. In part one, you stand on the balance board as still and as centered as you can. This part measures your center of balance, BMI, and weight. When it's finished, the little computerized balance board jumps on the screen and judges you and your lifestyle choices (to be fair, that occurs throughout the Wii Fit experience). After judgment time, you are given the option to end your test there (if you're in a hurry) or continue.

The computerized balance board is a right old Chatty Cathy, but luckily you can push "A" and speed through his monologuing. However, you have to be careful about this because if you push "A" at just the wrong moment, when the balance board is asking if you want to "end" or "continue" your body test, you'll accidentally hit "end" and exit out of the test. And since you are in such a hurry, the program is kind enough to stamp the calendar for you - with the default stamp!

I made this mistake last night. I hit "end" when I meant to hit "continue" all because I was tired of listening to the balance board try to help me improve my body. It let me retake the test, but to no avail. I could not re-stamp my calendar. So now I have 17 green shamrocks and one ugly orange foot. I cannot tell you how sad it made me to do this. And orange is my favorite color!

This is where the OCD part comes in. It bothered me so much to have an orange foot where there should be a green shamrock that I tried everything to fix it. Lewis, because he loves me and understands my issues and needs, even did an internet search trying to see if there was a fix. Nothing. The orange foot remains.

But this is how much it bugs me. I considered (only half seriously) the possibility of deleting my profile and changing the date on the Wii, one day at a time, retaking a Wii Fit Body test for every day of the year, Monday through Friday. Sounds crazy, right? Well it was. I'm exhausted.

No, I'm just kidding. I didn't do it. But the mere fact that I considered it speaks volumes about my insanity.

To be fair to all those out there who are actually suffering from such conditions as OCD, I'm probably not OCD, because what I have is not a disorder. I can survive with that little orange foot as a blemish on my March calendar. I don't want to, but I can.

Lewis lovingly decided that I'm not even OC, because I'm not obsessive either. I can let it go when he plays his little game with the songs and the notes. I usually don't because I may be small and slight of strength, but I can pummel a stinking note out of my husband, but I can. So I'm just C. Compulsive. I feel compelled to make things the way I want them (neat and orderly and such), and I don't rest until they are right. So maybe there's a little O in there after all.

3. I have a lot to do before next week. It's Thursday, right? That means I only have three more days in the fourth grade class I have been enjoying being a part of for the past month. Not only is that a bummer, but it means that the end of the semester is fast approaching. And like I said, I have a lot to do.

The good news is that some of the stuff I have to do is not for sure yet. For example:

a. If we make the finals in the Innovative Instruction Competition, then I will have to prepare an eight minute presentation for the judges by next Tuesday.

b. If I get hired as an intern next week, then I will have to drive myself crazy starting to plan for the next school year before I finish this one.

c. If I want to pass my classes and graduate next month, then I will have to work hard and complete all of my assignments. Although technically I only have to pass one class, not all this elementary education mumbo jumbo that I love.

The moral of the story is, what am I doing blogging? I am about to collapse under my workload, and yet I choose to ramble on about the inequities of the Wii Fit Plus program for those of us with compulsive tendencies!

Although if you really think about it, it's not procrastination. It's just putting it off til later.

The Banana Problem

2010-02-24T14:58:00.004-07:00

Let me start this out by telling you that I very much enjoy bananas. They are nutritious and tasty and especially good on a peanut butter sandwich. They are the best thing to eat before and after rigorous exercise. Por ejemplo, if I feel tired before I go for a run, I'll eat half a banana. Then if I feel like I pushed myself too hard after a run, I'll eat another half a banana. I also love me some bananas in my lunch, baked into bread, in desserts (ever had IHOP's crispy banana caramel cheesecake? AHmazing), on top of waffles or pancakes, or just for a snack. Bananas are great!

But they come with a very real problem: they stink. I mean, I'm all about the banana smell when I've got a loaf in the oven or something, but beyond that I'd rather smell other things like grapefruit dish soap or our apple-cinnamon candle. But if we get bananas, they overtake all of those other smells. Seriously, of all the fruits there are (or that regularly find themselves in our apartment) bananas get the most pervasive smell award.

I packed a banana in my lunch today. It was a reasonably fresh banana. Just purchased yesterday. Still a little green, which is my favorite way to eat bananas plain. I figured the banana stink wouldn't come until they were at least a little brown and mushy. But then I opened my lunch bag so that I could enjoy my yogurt during class this morning. And I got a faceful of banana stench and realized how very wrong I was.

I especially hate eating bananas at work. For some reason banana peels get all the more stinky when the fruit is removed. And my desk trash can sits a mere two feet from my desk. So if I eat a banana, it smells bad for my whole shift. (I won't even get into the day custodial forgot to empty my trashcan and I had day-old banana stink.)

Oh well. Sure the odor is annoying, but I'm not going to stop eating them. In fact, I think I'll eat my lunch banana right now. And I'm going to enjoy every last bite, darn it!

(Actually, I think I'll wait for an hour so I can throw the peel away right before I leave work)

If We Had A Kid The Day We Got Married...

2010-02-17T20:25:00.007-07:00

...S/he would be starting nursery this week.

Studies show that couples have a period where they really, really like each other (1 year - 1.5 years) and then they sort of can't stand each other for a little while (1.5 years - 2.25 years) and then they like each other again. I'm not going to cite anything, it's just something I remember from my major in, you know, marriage. (Please hold the jokes.)

I do speak the truth, though (insofar as I remember it). Not like that dude in my singles ward who said there was a doctrinal basis for the origin of that woodland ape we all lovingly know as "Sasquatch" or "Big Foot."

Well, with our 18 monthiversary yesterday, Lewis and I have been a "couple," in a "relationship," or "together" for 2 years and 3 months - or 2.25 years.

It's official, Lew. We can start liking each other again.

Touche, Mary Anne. Touche.

2010-02-16T14:03:00.003-07:00

On Monday morning, I was rudely awaken at 9:02 by a phone call for Mary Anne Miller. This would be the start of roughly half a dozen phone calls, all for Miss Mary Anne (actually, during the course of the first phone call, I received a second call, but that was just a recorded message. I thought that was weird, but I didn't realize until later that the recorded message was also for Mary Anne). I finally asked one of the callers where he had gotten this number, and he informed me that Miss Mary Anne had filled out a form requesting information on health insurance and apparently she put down the wrong number on the form. Apparently.

The Mary Anne Miller calls have been problematic for several reasons:

1. I was still asleep at 9:02 am on Monday morning. It was a holiday and although I did not mean to sleep in that late (9:02 became 10:31 suspiciously quickly), I did anyway and a wrong number phone calls is not a desirable way to be woken up on a day off. Or two wrong number phone calls for that matter (I'm glad the second one was a recording because I just yelled "NO" into the phone and hung it up. Hmm, I hope it really was a recording).

2. I don't get very many phone calls and tend to get quite excited when a phone call does present itself and having them all be wrong numbers is rather disheartening.

Okay, I just have two problematic reasons, but they are extensive!

This whole Mary Anne Miller situation has given me pause to consider how it happened that Miss Miller put my phone number on her insurance information form. Here are some possible solutions:

1. Our numbers are just a digit off and she accidentally typed in a 3 instead of a 2.

2. She filled out the form by hand and her 4s look like 9s.

3. There was an incentive for filling out a form, but she didn't want to be hassled by insurance salespeople, so she put down a fake number.

4. Mary Anne Miller is actually an ex-boyfriend of mine or some acquaintance that I've wronged in some way and s/he is enacting some twisted revenge plot by cruelly siccing insurance salespeople on me. If that's the case, then the jokes on shim! All the callers have been very polite once I tell them I am not who they intended to talk to. Except for the recording I yelled at.

In any case, the calls have stopped so maybe word got out that I am not Mary Anne Miller. Good thing, too, because I was about to track down Miss Miller myself so I could give the callers her correct number. Although maybe she is in desperate need of health insurance and will now die because the callers are calling me instead of calling her. Goodness, I hope not.

The Disney Problem... And Solution!

2010-02-09T12:19:00.009-07:00

We're planning a trip to Disneyland for this coming October. Yes, another one. This time though, we are hoping to go with all of Lewis' family. Should be fun!

Saturday last, as we were all gathered at the casa de los Youngs (as opposed to the apartamento de los otros Youngs) (where I live), we were discussing details of the trip. Sammie, my delightful niece, mentioned how lame the Peter Pan ride was. She described how boring it was to just go up like a foot and ride around for a minute or two and then go back down. No fun at all.

As she was describing this, I just stared at her with a look of shock and awe on my face. I couldn't believe that anyone would think the Peter Pan ride as "lame" or "boring" or "stupid." So I told her she had no sense of nostalgia.

And that's when it hit me. She probably doesn't have any nostalgia towards that movie! Me, I grew up on that movie and other movies like it. That's why I love Peter Pan's Flight and Snow White's Scary Adventure and Pinocchio's Daring Journey. They're not thrill rides, they are rides about movies. Movies that I have loved since I was a wee one. That's what Disneyland is all about. Sure, you do have thrill rides like Indiana Jones or Space Mountain or most everything over in California Adventure. But Disney is not just about thrills. They create an attention to detail experience with the characters that the world adores.

But for how long? How long will love for movies like Snow White or Peter Pan be enough? We live in a world where many of the young people have not even had the chance to see these beloved films. The advent of DVDs are partially to blame for this; families who own VHS copies of the movies rarely pull them for their kids. VCRs are obsolete! True, you can find many Disney Animated Features on DVD, but only once every seven to ten years when they come out of the Disney vault. But will that even be a viable marketing campaign in the future when primary DVD purchasers haven't seen the movies in the first place?

To prevent this (love for cherished characters dying off due to lack of movie viewership) from happening, the Imagineers at Disneyland have (possibly inadvertently) developed some solutions. One is to replace old rides/attractions with updates from more recent films. Case in point, the Swiss Family Treehouse was replaced by Tarzan's Treehouse in 1999. But that practice makes a part of me really sad. I mean, it's good to make updates and to continue to expand and whatever. I'm all for brand new rides and replacing stuff that was no good in the first place. But where is the line? How far can that be taken? Will Snow White be replaced by an attraction from a more recent movie? Can you replace Snow White? Is that what Walt Disney would have wanted? I don't know about you, but I would not want a cryogenically frozen Walter Elias Disney after my neck. You've been warned, Imagineers.

I'm getting carried away. There is still an abundance of classic Disney in Disneyland and there are no current plans to alter that.

A second solution would be to create more rides from interesting characters/stories developed specifically for the park. Sometimes the movie comes later like with Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, but the rides were still there first. I am okay with this as it gives Disneyland a personal stake in people's nostalgia. They have nostalgia for the rides alone, and not necessarily in concert with a movie attached to them. Which definitely makes me keep going back for more!

Neither solution is perfect of course. For example, instead of replacing the old with the new, why doesn't Disneyland just keep adding rides? I don't think anyone would complain about a bigger Disneyland. And if you do, you have no heart. Or soul.

The fact of the matter is today's generation of youths is missing out on a series of classic movies that their parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents grew up on. So here's what I think Disney should do. A few months before they release their movies from that mysterious vault they're always talking about, they should also play them in movie theaters around the country for a limited engagement. That way, parents can take their kids to see for themselves the magic of these animated features, and understand why Peter Pan's Flight really is a great ride. Plus the rest of us would have an excuse to go see the movies from our childhood that we haven't seen since. Disney can do this. They've done it before! I know because my parents wouldn't let me go see Jurassic Park with my older siblings when it was first in theaters and they took me to Snow White instead.

The cynic in me says that this quest would be futile. Most children would probably go into the movies with sky-high expectations and would come out saying it was "lame" or "boring" or "stupid." Psh. Kids these days!

I Never Said it Would be Easy... I Just Said it Would be Worth it.

2010-01-28T12:46:00.004-07:00

And oh boy, was it! Not only worth it, it was downright delicious!

Happy Chocolate Cake Day 2010!