International Waffle Day

International Waffle Day was on March 25th. It's mostly a Swedish holiday, Våffeldagen, that signals the start of spring. We celebrate it because 1. I'm always trying to get in touch with our Swedish roots, and 2. Waffles = easy dinner.





I told Tyler they should start celebrating Våffeldagen at his work. They could have a waffle bar where you could put all sorts of fruit or whipped cream and chocolate chips on your waffles. And then we could just happen to show up around lunch time on that day.

Disneyland

I took maybe 4 or 5 pictures of these kids in this teacup, and this was the best one.




I like Lillian's complete aversion to being touched. I can't imagine where she got that from.



I grew up right next to Disneyland and had an annual pass every year starting when I was about 15. In high school, we went all the time. We'd go right after school, go on a few rides, listen to the Dapper Dans, eat a churro, then go home. We'd go on Saturday night and go swing dancing at the Carnation Plaza. We knew the best spots to watch the fireworks and where you needed to stand if you wanted to see Tinkerbell crash into her big mattress in the Matterhorn. I haven't been back since. I got burned out on the crowds and tourists and the Disneyness of the whole place.

But, as soon as we walked through the tunnel and on to Main Street, all the great memories came flooding back to me. It may just be the pregnancy, but I almost started to cry as I looked around. "It really is the most magical place on Earth," I exclaimed.

And, there really was something special about taking Lillian. She had several moments where she almost peed her pants because There. Is. Jasmine. Right there. Talking to me. She was so excited about everything and pretty well behaved, for the most part. Nora had a hard time sleeping in the stroller and was very crabby by about 3. I was also pretty crabby by that time. It may have been the heat, or all the walking while pregnant, but I almost fainted on our way to ToonTown, where we were going to go see Mickey, which was to be our last activity. And by "almost fainted," I mean it- my legs turned to jelly, my head felt light, and I yelled at Tyler that I had to sit down Right Now. I seriously considered just laying down right where I was and closing my eyes, but forced myself to walk 20 feet to a bench.

So, by the end of the day, the magic had worn off, the crowds were pressing in, it was hot, I didn't feel well, and Nora was freaking out. But, I'm really glad we went. Maybe we'll go again when I'm not pregnant and can walk around for more than 10 minutes without having to rest. Or, we should just get a wheelchair next time.

Mom's Beach

We went to California last week. It was kind of last minute, and really fabulous. Our friends the Allens that used to live next to us when we lived in Tucson proper, but have since moved to Flagstaff, drove out as well. We started the week off, as any week in California should be started, with a trip to the beach.

Wow, my kids are white. That's Rachel and she's just trying to provide some shade for her baby, and not nursing, not that there's anything wrong with nursing babies at the beach. I just probably wouldn't post a picture of my friend nursing without asking her. I probably wouldn't post a picture of myself nursing. Have I talked about this too much? Moving on.

I love the beach and miss it so much. Lillian, apparently, does not remember the countless hours we spent at Avila chillaxing in the warm sand because as soon as we got to the bottom of the hill, and the waves were in sight, she freaked out and said she wanted to go home.

Tyler's brother lives in Huntington Beach, which is not terribly far from the mom's beach (is that it's real name, or just what everyone calls it?), and I was jonesing for Wahoo's so we made plans to meet him for lunch at Fashion Island.

After we had been at the beach for like 2 hours, the Allen's baby got some sand or sunscreen in his eye, so we had to leave a little earlier than we planned and walk around the mall for a bit. Rachel felt really bad that we had to cut our sand-time and apologized a lot. I didn't care too much. That's kids, right? When we got in the car, Tyler turned to me and said, "you know, I don't know why Rachel feels so bad. I really only expect outings with the kids to last 45 minutes before someone gets sick or hurt or poos through every diaper and outfit we brought. I thought our beach trip was pretty successful."


Tyler's brother came with his wife and baby, so we had to take some cousin pictures. Carlie's grown quite a bit, so there better not be any more jokes about Nora eating her.


I'm not sure these fish needed any more food (because look at the size of those things), but there was no sign saying not to, so we fed them a whole bunch of animal crackers. Maybe I shouldn't put that on here in case all the fish at Fashion Island are now dead and now they can track us down. I've heard that those koi fish can get pretty pricey.

Sugar Face

I refilled our kitchen jar of sugar from a 25 lb bag that I keep in the closet under the stairs. Not wanting to battle the closet clutter and wanting to just finish the cookies I was making, I left the 25 lb bag of sugar in the hallway.



Don't worry, Nora found it.



I was in the kitchen and I heard a curious crinkling noise coming from the hall. When I went to investigate, Nora was shoving fistfulls of sugar into her mouth as fast as she possibly could.

Save me Captain Moroni!

Take a minute to look over the above picture. Let me briefly explain the story behind the picture for who have never read the Book of Mormon. The central figure of this story is Moroni who, in an effort to rally the troops tears off a piece of his coat and writes some inspiring words on it. "In defense of our homes, our wives, our children, our liberties," or something like that (Tyler also suggested "from hell's heart I stab at thee," but I think that he's getting mixed up). Moroni attaches this piece of his coat to a pole and calls it the Title of Liberty and rides around and inspires men to join his cause to fight off the enemy.

This is a moderately famous painting in Mormon culture, so it shows up a lot, like on the front of the church programs, or in the Gospel Art Kit (a collection of paintings about scripture stories) that we recently purchased.

Tyler opened to this painting and said, "when I was little, I always thought those pointy things were his ears, like he was an elf... and that it looked like all those people on the bottom were drowning in lava. (In a cartoonish voice) 'Save me Moroni, save me!' Actually, it still kind of looks like that to me."

I think this highlights a key difference between boys and girls as the only thing I ever thought was unusual about this painting was that he must have had a big coat.

It's... a...

I would scan the pictures from our ultrasound to show you that we're having a boy, but they're all the way upstairs.

So.

I'll just tell you.

It's a boy.

"Are you excited," is what you want to ask, because that's what everyone's asked. I think, if I were to rank my emotions at this time, they would be as follows:

1. Overwhelmed
2. Panicky
3. Relieved that a) it's not twins as was the suspicion of a woman at church, b) he has 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 kidneys (because we have kidney issues in our family), and a normal sized head and 3) they moved my due date up to July 14th. Sah-weet. (But also, to go along with numbers 1 and 2, if this baby comes on the 14th, that will be 2 days before Lillian's birthday, so for two days, I'll have 3 kids, 3 and under. And, oh. crap. That sounds like a lot of work.)
   
4. Excited

I'm still no closer to deciding on a name than I was a few weeks ago. We have a short list of 3, but I'm not ga-ga about any of them. I like them as names, but none of them jump out as THE name for THIS baby.

Nora Bora

We here at Us and Things have been deluged with requests for more pictures of Nora. And, by deluged, I mean two of you asked. This series of pictures represents my best efforts at a photo shoot.


The problem is that she won't (can't?) hold still. She is the wiggliest kid I've ever met. She's up, she's down, she wants to crawl over here. What's that? Can I eat it? Pick me up. Let go of me.



We had our neighbors watch our kids when we went to El Charro, birthplace of the chimichanga, which I never thought were good until I had The Pollo Elegante, and now I wish I had an extra-large stomach so I could eat two. Pollo Elegante... so good. Oh, anyway, our neighbors. When we came back, she said, "wow! Nora gets around. We were watching a movie and Lillian was sitting nicely and Nora was on my lap, then on the ground, then on John, then in the toys, then she went in the other room, and when I went to go look, she was up on the 3rd shelf of the bookcase."

High Chair Makeover

Yesterday, I was perusing the giveaway section of Goodreads, and they had a book about called EcoBaby or something. The blurb said that average parents spend upwards of $7,000 in preparation for the birth of their child. Is this true? Because that's ridiculous. This book purported to show you how to spend less than $1,000. I'm pretty sure that for Lillian, we spent about $50 before she was born, and not really very much until she started growing out of all the hand-me-down clothes we got from friends and relatives a year or so later.

I didn't really think that it was a secret that to save money, you don't buy new things: you borrow, take hand-me-downs, pillage thrift stores, breast feed (if you can), and make your own baby food, which is not that hard. I should have written that book.

Anyway, we were really fortunate to get a lot of our baby furniture from Tyler's sister, who was done having her kids. One of the things she gave us was this high chair:


It's sturdy and useful and, until recently when Tyler broke a prong off one of the buckles, in perfect working order. But, sorry Tonya, it's ugly. I've always thought it was ugly.

Then, the other day, I ran across a website selling (and extolling the virtues of) laminated cotton. At first I couldn't find any for less than $18/yard, and I thought that was a little steep. So I looked into just buying a new cover, but that was going to cost anywhere from $30 to $50, and I'm not paying that.


Finally, I found some non-ugly, gender-neutral fabric for only $13/yard. I felt like I had won the lottery. Later, when Tyler came home from work and I relayed this whole story in breathless detail, as he was trying very hard to sound interested and hide the bored look creeping onto his face, I stopped myself and realized that this is my life. And I was very depressed for a second.


But then I remembered that no, this is my life:
and I was happy again.

Ta-Da! It doesn't fit quite as snugly as the other one did (which is weird because I cut the pieces the same size), and it's only slightly mangled around the left side, but I think it looks pretty good.

Robot Pony

On the morning of the Rodeo Round-up (see previous post), Lillian came and got in bed with me. I started talking up the pony ride because she tends to be a little shy about things like that. "Do you want to go for a pony ride today?!" I asked.
"Yes! And Daddy will ride a robot pony!"
"Um, ok. I don't know what that means, but if they have robot ponies, Daddy can ride one."

Turns out, they did have a robot pony.

Robot Pony from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Rodeo Days

The rodeo is kind of a big deal here in Tucson. There's a parade and people get a few days of work and school. We didn't go last year because I was chicken (the rodeo grounds are in the barrio, which I am no longer scared of) and I had a 2-month old baby, so I was looking forward to getting in on the Tucson experience... AND because all the years I lived in San Luis, I never made it to Poly Royal (pronounced like how John Travolta says "Royale with Cheese" in Pulp Fiction) for one reason or another, so I wanted to break my no rodeo streak.



This year, Tyler was out of town for Rodeo Week, and although I'm not scared of the barrio (as a friend once said, "bars on the windows mean that they make their own tortillas!"), I'm not brave enough to lug my two children with my pregnant belly (and yes, a woman at the grocery store said I must be due sometime soon. She was so grandmotherly I didn't want to crush her by saying that I'm actually only 20 weeks. Or maybe I just didn't want to admit it to myself) to an event that they probably won't enjoy, just to settle a decade-long rodeo drought. My mom called me chicken, but I think I was just being practical.

The good thing about our little town out here in the boonies is that they sponsor events like last weekend's Rodeo Round-Up. It's all the things my kids probably would have liked at the rodeo, without the hassle of actually having to go there: pony rides, petting zoo, bounce house, face painting.


I mean, how often do you get the chance to maul feed a baby goat?

When Aloha Means Goodbye

I have a secret that's really not that big of a secret: my life has spoiled my plans over and over again. Don't get me wrong, life's been good to me so far. But, it's also messed with me a lot, specifically with my travel plans. Right after I graduated high school, I wanted to go to England and Scotland with the AP English class, but somehow I couldn't go due to a combination of lack of funds and the fact that I didn't actually technically take AP English.

In college, a group of friends went to Mexico, but I was really sick and couldn't go.

We wanted to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon, but as we got married in the middle of the semester on a random weekend, our schedules didn't permit it, so a long weekend in Pismo Beach it was.

Tyler and I were in the early stages of planning a trip to Peru when I found out I was pregnant with Lillian and we decided it would be more fiscally responsible to actually, you know, save our meager funds for our unborn child instead of splurging on airfare.

After graduation, we did get to spend almost 2 weeks in DC and Boston, which was a miracle and so much fun.

Since then we've been to... Idaho. Which was a lot of fun, but it's still Idaho, in line with that pesky fiscally responsible attitude that we have adopted.

Ever since the stars aligned for us to buy our first house during the time that the government was throwing free money at first-time home buyers, I've had visions of Hawaii dancing in my head. We would be able to afford the air fare with minimal financial impact AND Tyler has a really good friend (Hi Erin!) who lives in Hawaii who offered to house us for at least part of our trip. It was a really good plan and I was really excited about it.

We knew that we wouldn't be able to make a trip like this for a looooooong time where we'd only have to buy 3 tickets and only have 2 kids. I looked up airfare, planned out the things I wanted to do and see, and perused Frommer's at the library during story time. I told a bunch of people that we were going to make them jealous and looked at maternity swimsuits online. All that was left was for us to coordinate better with Erin and Tyler's work about a date.

Then, President Obama ruined my life. You may have heard that he cut the funding for the Constellation Program, which program has been paying our bills and purchased us our first-time house. I'm not worried about Tyler's job: even if he does get laid off, I'm 99% sure he can find another one... just one that is not in Tucson. The caveat for the first-time home buyer's credit is that you have to stay in your house for 3 years. Come March, it will be one year, and Tyler's job is guaranteed for at least one more year. But, if we have to move after that, we have to give the money back. I haven't looked into the scenario of having to move and buying another house right away, but I'm not counting on us being able to sell this one right away, or even after a long time, or at all.

So, once again, I say aloha to Hawaii.

The one upside to waiting is that after next year my mom will be retired and can maybe watch one (or more?) of our kids, so we won't have to buy as many tickets. Eh, mom? What do you think?

Baby Naming

I'm having trouble coming up for a name for this baby we're cooking.

Problem number one is the Baby Name Wizard. A year ago, Bridget got me hooked on Laura Wattenburg's blog. My sister Anne thinks I'm silly for reading it, and frankly, before I started reading it, I thought Bridget was a little kooky for reading it as well. But, it's fascinating. As this will be the first baby I've gestated (and named) since becoming a fan, I can't help being influenced by Ms. Wattenburg. Not necessarily by the things she says, but by the trends she points out and the predictions she makes. For example, I like the name Alice a lot (and I have an ancestor named Alice Brooks who was in the Martin Handcart Company), but she predicts that it's going to take off in popularity due to Twilight and Alice in Wonderland. I can't bring myself to give the kid a trendy name.

Problem number two is I like naming my kids with family names. Lillian is named after my grandmothers and Nora's middle name is Allison, which is my sister's name.

To illustrate why this is a problem, here is a list of male names from our family tree going back to the great-grandparents:

Vaughn
Saul (unavailable: Saul Ball? Who would do that to a kid?)
Tracy (unavailable: too many Tracys - Tyler's uncle and brother also named Tracy)
Angus (do I really want to embrace our Scottish heritage that badly? Probably not)
Henderson
James (unavailable: I have no problem with my mother's brother Jim (James), but due to some business deals that went south (I'm probably going to receive a phone call about this), let's just say that he and my father don't exactly get along. And never will. Ever.)
Solomon
Ellis (I don't really like names that end in 's' because when you say them too fast it spills onto our last name: Elli Spall. It's going to confuse all the customer service reps in India and he'll have to spell and re-spell his name 10 times per call)
Franklin
Ashal (unavailable: too many Ashals running around as it is - my dad, my brother, my nephew)
Eldon (unavailable: my grandmother's first husband, and, although I've never gotten the full story, I think there were some very good reasons they got divorced)
Jesse (also unavailable: my dad told me that he abandoned his wife (my dad's grandma) and small children)
Paul (see Saul, above)
Ferdinand (can't do it. Ferdinand is the name of the duck on Babe)
Albert (The one semi-famous man in the mix, he was a supreme court justice on the Supreme Court of Utah. I read his auto-biography and I think he was a funny guy. But... Albert Ball has too many Bs. Plus... Albert.)
Hayden (Not to disparage my sister-in-law who has a son named Aiden, but I can't get in on the The Age of Aidens)

I'm also contemplating something that I haven't consulted my husband about, but predict he won't like, and I don't think I have the guts to do it: Name the kid Calder Ball. Ms. Wattenburg has written about this as well. My maiden name is Calder, so that would be a nice nod to his maternal family but I can't get over the pitfall mentioned in the article of people thinking that they just didn't hear his first name. Like he'd say, "hello, my name is Calder Ball." And the other person would say, "and, what's your first name, Mr. Calder-Ball?" Maybe we'll use it for a middle name.

So that leaves three or four candidates out of a field of 17. I can't even think about girl names. I've already named two girls and I'm completely spent.

Also gumming up the works is my pesky husband, who, for some reason, is actually being picky about the names I come up with. With the first two, he would just nod and say, "yeah, that sounds nice."

The wreath

My Aunt J is probably the craftiest person I'm related to. Not crafty like she's up to something, but crafty as in she made this wreath for an owl-themed baby shower she threw. I find a few things unusual about this. 1. Who makes a new wreath to fit the baby shower theme? And 2. Who throws themed baby showers? Even though she informs me through her website that "owls are sooo in right now," I would say that every baby shower I've ever attended had the theme of "baby shower." You know... pink or blue balloons, corresponding napkins and paper plates...? That's not how my aunt rolls. She's crafty.


My aunt's looks like this and is cuter because it's bigger, and she possesses actual talent for this sort of thing. And, you know, there's an owl. She lives in a place that has actual stores that have actual selections of things. She has no idea about us out here in the sticks, roughing it with only two wreath forms to choose from.

Some of you have inquired about our week of solitude. Today is day three of Tyler being out of town. It's been going pretty well.

Monday: I had a minor breakdown and got a little panicky that Tyler was going to get into a car accident in Denver and I wasn't going to be able to get there in time to remind him that he wasn't allowed to die.

And, Emily came over and I made my wreath.

Tuesday: Lillian started missing Tyler terribly and started asking me every hour, or every five minutes when he was coming back. Now? How about now? What... about... now?

I lost my patience with Lillian and asked her why she was such a spaz: I was standing with Nora, dripping wet after washing her hands and Lillian absconded with the dish towel. When I asked her to bring it back, she came back sans towel. When I told her to go get it, she went into the other room and started playing with her Ariel horse. Spaz.

We went to the drive-thru car wash, which, contrary to my memory, is terrifying for small children.

Wednesday morning, 4 AM: Nora woke up with croup. Twenty minutes in a steamy bathroom, and two hours of kicking me in the stomach later and she's fine, if maybe a little cranky. But, that could be because she's getting four molars. Or, because she had to stay awake to do all that kicking.

Two more sleeps.

Obedience School

If you were wondering how obedience school went, think back to that Simpson's episode where Santa's Little Helper goes to obedience school. Things that were different: mine was taught by an older gentleman with no trace of a British accent, I was not afraid of correcting Daisy, and there was no beef wellington. The same: Daisy's complete unwillingness to learn anything. All the dogs were able to learn how to not pull on the leash and walk nicely next to their owners while Daisy was completely unaware that she was supposed to be doing anything besides trying desperately to smell everything in a 10-foot radius.

My homework for this week: make Daisy lay down 50 times a day, practice making her wait behind me when we go through doors, make her sit before I pet her, and try to drain her of energy every day. That last one will be a special trick because I've never seen her get tired, ever. Even after running 3 miles (while I was riding a bike), she was all set to go another 3.

Devil Dog

Each day that passes, I hate our dog a little more. She is intelligent but intractable, stubborn, mischievous, recalcitrant, chewy, barky, whiny, and naughty. And, she pees in the car every morning when I take her to the dog park (or, in the case of this morning, pees and vomits).

I was complaining to my sister about the dog, and she (who has no children) patiently compared dogs to children and chided me for wanting my dog to "be perfect in a day" as I would never expect that of a child. This analogy holds no water for me. Daisy is the worst aspects of a 3-year old, and maybe a teenager rolled into one, which combination, by nature, does not exist in children.

1. I can't put Daisy in time out. I can put her outside, make her submit, put her in her kennel, but I can't say, "I'm making you lay on the ground because you got in the trash and that is naughty and we don't do that in our house." Well, I could, and I have, but it makes zero percent difference as, as soon as I let her up, she sneaks around the corner and gets in the trash again.

2. Daisy makes no sincere effort to try better. Even if sometimes Lillian's efforts are lame and token in nature, she usually does try. This morning, I was out with my lemon-water spray bottle. It went like this: BARK BARK BARK. *spray* "No barking!" _pause_ BARK BARK BARK *spray* "No Barking" _pause_ BARK BARK BARK *spray spray spray spray* "NO BARKING" and so on for about 10 minutes until I had to go inside to keep myself from delivering a swift kick to her midsection.

3. Lillian has not the size, strength, or speed of Daisy. I can easily chase Lillian down, hold her down, pick her up, or sit next to her nicely. With Daisy, I can do none of these things. I rotate watching kids with a group of ladies so that we can go to the gym. While the other ladies actually use this time to maintain their physical fitness, I take Daisy to the dog park because I've never made quite the spectacle of myself as I did when I tried to take my kids and the dog. One day, I was 15 minutes late to pick up because I couldn't catch Daisy. Even without the children, I tend to make myself look ridiculous: running around after the dog with my pregnant belly, frantically calling her, trying and failing to corner her. The dog park is probably about 2/3rd's of a football field, so it is no small amount of running. That day, there was no one else there. On normal days, Skittle's owner usually helps me out.

4. I have no natural affection for Daisy. Children do have a way of driving you to extremes and before I had children I never ever ever thought I would understand parents who put pillows over their kids faces. Now, I get it. I've been so physically and mentally ground down that I've had to put my screaming baby in her crib and take a bath with ear plugs to calm down because I wanted to shake them until they just stopped crying. But I didn't because nature builds in this natural love for your offspring. I do not have this towards Daisy. Before I figured this out, I was amazed at how quickly I would lose my temper with the dog when I hardly ever lose it with my kids.

I don't want Daisy to be perfect; I want her to listen. And, before you try to be helpful, yes, I have watched many episodes of The Dog Whisperer, skimmed Cesar Milan's book, read his website (and many others), and tried all the techniques for turning myself into the pack leader. We start obedience school this week... mostly because I signed a contract stating that I couldn't give her back to the shelter unless we completed a course.

When perspective slaps you in the face

Tyler is going to be gone for what amounts to almost 5 days at the end of the month. He's going to work all day Monday, fly to Denver Monday night, be there until Friday morning when he'll fly home, then work all day Friday. Denver is where the people who are in charge of his project physically work, so he occasionally goes up there for some face-to-face time, just to make sure everyone is actually on the same page, and it doesn't just look that way, you know, on paper, or email, as it were.

I briefly considered my options as to what to do with my time. Option 1: drive to see my sisters and parents in Southern California. Pro: Sisters and parents. Con: both sisters and parents have full time gigs that would prevent most all socializing during the day. Also, 9 hours one way. Option 2: drive to see my other sister in Draper. Con: 12 hours in the car. No way.

Being that I was drawing my possible driving circumference at about 1 hour, I realized I wasn't going to go see anybody, except maybe my friend Emily, who lives about 2 miles away, i.e. I am going to stay at home. By myself. During Rodeo Week when there is no preschool. All day. Me and the kids. All. Day.

I started feeling sorry for myself, maybe, a little bit.

Then yesterday, I was transcribing some genealogical-type papers I got from my mom. They were typed up legal sized, and I wanted them letter sized so I could print it out easier. One was called "Sketch of Eliza Collins Hunsaker, Daughter of Allen Collins, a Welshman, and Mary Broady, Scotch." If you're Mormon, you are probably related to Eliza Hunsaker, or, more specifically, to her husband, Abraham Hunsaker who in the end, had 5 wives and over 50 children.

Eliza was Abraham's first wife and they got married in 1833, when she was 15 and he was 20. They joined the church in Illinois after harboring a number of members who had been driven from their homes by mobs. Soon, they too were driven from their home. They loaded up their wagon and headed for Council Bluffs (near Omaha), in preparation for striking out across the wide prairie to who knows where. (It ended up being Utah, if you don't know the story.) While at Council Bluffs, the call came for 500 men who were needed to volunteer to fight in the Mexican War. Abraham signed up and left his wife and six small children with aught but a covered wagon for shelter for OVER A YEAR. Eliza had a brother who lived in Council Bluffs who offered to house her and her children on the condition that she renounce her husband and her religion. Spurning his offer, she lived in that wagon (and later, a crude log cabin) until her husband had walked clear to San Diego and back. He was gone from July 1846 to the fall of 1847.

Yeah, so. Maybe five days isn't so long.

Richard, What's Happening?

Ok, we've made you wait long enough. Here's the song Lillian was singing:

Lillian's Dance

Lillian's Dance from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Fifty points to whoever can guess what song she's singing.

A few thoughts about some things

I've been thinking about coffee and/or tea. Being a life-long Mormon, I've only had coffee once in my life: I was in high school and we were sitting around a coffee shop that also sold smoothies and I reached down to grab my smoothie but accidentally got my friend's iced coffee-mocha-frappeé-chino-whatever that was in the same sized cup and took a sip. Eww. And until recently, I've never felt the loss of coffee: all through school, I never had trouble waking up early to study or felt the need to give up my precious precious sleep in order to study late at night (I'll just get a B on this test). So, there was a neighborhood block party a few weeks ago, and Lillian made friends with a little girl about her age. I started chatting with her mom, and she gave me her phone number. I haven't called because I have no idea what to do with her if she comes over to my house. On TV, this situation came up and the first mom said, "Why don't you come over tomorrow around 10 and have a cup of coffee?" Coffee! That social lubricant. It's perfect because it's something to do that doesn't take any planning or energy, and the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee is about as long as I want that first visit to be. In Jane Austen books, women are always coming over, drinking a cup of tea, and then leaving. This, obviously, isn't an option for me, (and not just because I don't live in Austen-era England, but because Mormons don't drink coffee or tea) but I can't come up with a good substitute. Hot chocolate seems sort of juvenile, although I wouldn't mind if someone offered me some. Chocolate milk in a frosty mug would also be delicious, but again, that seems not very grown up, and it's winter.

Any ideas?

I probably won't call for a while because we've had a rash of sickness at our house. Lillian woke me up early Sunday morning and had vomit all over her and in her bed. Gross. She threw up a few more times on Sunday, but then felt fine. Tyler stayed home with the kids from church. I was really looking forward to being able to listen to the speakers without having to play the fishing game and sing the hymns without my hymnal being snatched away to be used as a ramp for the micro-machines. I liked it for about 10 minutes... and then it was actually really boring. I kept looking around for something to do. I tried to entice the little boy behind me to come into my pew and share my strawberry newtons with me, but I guess his mom told him not to take food from strange women. Maybe I'm not that pious.

Then on Monday, I threw up, which is not news: I throw up all the time. But, I wasn't hungry, and that is not normal. With my morning sickness, I am starving and I eat and eat, and throw up, and then my body sends me signals that I must replace the food we just gave up so eat Eat EAT! I couldn't make myself eat hardly anything yesterday and I threw up and threw up some more, so I decided I probably had whatever Lillian had.

I'm so sick of being sick.

I woke up this morning and I felt marginally better, but I cracked while I was trying to get Lillian ready for preschool. Background: Lillian doesn't like bananas. It's not just that she doesn't like to eat them, she can't even been the same room as someone who is eating one, or where someone ate a banana an hour ago. Also, although we empty the dishwasher together almost every day, she's convinced that the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty, and the ones in the cupboard are clean; almost like, it's not the dishwasher that cleans them, it's the act of putting them in the cupboard. So, this morning. It was a fight to get her to go to the bathroom and get dressed (because she wanted to keep watching cartoons), then I was trying to get her to sit up to the table and eat a bowl of Kix. First, she didn't want to walk through the kitchen because Nora was eating a banana. She plugged her nose very dramatically and screamed that it smelled like "b-wana" and indicated that she was NOT going to go in there. After I got her sitting, I went to pull a bowl out of the (clean) dishwasher and she freaked out saying it was dirty. She sprung out of her chair and threw herself bodily against the dishwasher door to prevent me from extricating my hand with the offending bowl. I called my mom in tears and told her I was having a hard time. She was very supportive, even if she did laugh a little at Lillian's antics, and made the point that the fight is worth it because then she'll go to preschool and I can take a breather.

It was a good point, but turned out was incorrect because when we showed up, the woman doing preschool this week said she'd heard I was sick and was sorry, and then politely asked me to keep Lillian home.

So, Lillian is watching Hercules for the 5,000th time.

She's named all the muses except that one second from the left. I can't think of a good name for her. And, does it bother anyone else how they call the things Zeus throws "thunder bolts"? That doesn't even make any sense. They are lightning bolts, Disney. If you're going to botch up the whole of Greek mythology, maybe you could at least get one thing right.

Crossword-ease

Tyler got me Will Shortz's Greatest Hits: 150 New York Times Crossword Puzzles Personally Picked by the Puzzle Master for our anniversary. I love it when he gets me non-traditional quirky things (like a few years ago, he got me this special kind of floss that I really like). Anyway, I'm a little rusty when it comes to crosswords. It's not like riding a bike, and it's not a matter of just being smart. It's its own particular language. I've been doing the Mondays and the Tuesdays in the book (they get progressively harder during the week) to warm up. Today, I thought I'd try a Wednesday. Here is a list of facts that I didn't know that I had to cheat and look up:

• Sammy Cahn wrote the lyrics to "High Hopes"
• There's an Italian auto maker named Alfa Romeo
• Olio is another word for a hodgepodge
• Dirty Harry worked for the SFPD
• Jonathan Swift wrote a pamphlet titled "A Modest Proposal" in 1729
• Bill Cosby was in a TV show called I Spy
• Gary Lewis and the Playboys sang "This Diamond Ring"
• Paula Abdul and Stevie Wonder sang a song called "Will You Marry Me" (The puzzle was a marriage proposal for a woman named Emily Mindel, which, if I were her, I would have no idea it was meant for me because these clues and a mention of Emily Dickenson are as specific as it gets.)
• There's an artist named Paul Klee
• Cassis is a kind of black current liqueur
• Stephen Foster wrote a song called "Old Uncle Ned"
• Sedge is a kind of reed
• Rollo was a character in an old comic strip called "Nancy"
• Tyrol is the capital of Innsbruck, which is an Austrian state
• Yente is the matchmaker on Fiddler on the Roof (I think I did know this at one point)
  
• Enero is Spanish for January

So... it doesn't look promising for progressing past Wednesday.

It's Spanish for....

Tornado off Huntington Beach Pier, sent to me by my SIL who lives there (Meghan, did you take this?)

The last time El Niño came around, I was in high school. There was a lot of talk about all the severe weather we were going to have and making sure you had enough flashlights and powdered milk. And then what happened? Nothing. I was on the swim team, and I can remember swimming in the rain, but I think that happened every year.

Then, the first full year we're out of California, El Niño hits again (is it an every 10 year thing?), but this time, it was serious. No messing around. Tornadoes. Hail. Flooding. And, I'm not trying to gloss over all the people who had real damage to their homes or property, but I'm totally jealous. I love severe weather. It's like taking a vacation in your own home: you get to see new sights, smell new smells, be inconvenienced by things out of your control, get awed by natural wonders.

Of course, I can write this from the comfort of my 55˚-partly-cloudy Southern Arizona (we did get a little bit of that last storm... just enough to make everything soggy and get our backyard good and muddy for Daisy to run around in) and my house is in the same place as opposed to being picked up and moved 100 feet away by a mudslide. My family in California is probably thinking that this storm was exactly the opposite of fun and that they wish the next 10-year storm will be a dud like 1999, or whenever it was.

Oh well, at least I have monsoon season to look forward to.

Well, we have done SOME things.

Back in September, we decided how we were going to do up the backyard. That was pretty much all we did about that. Then we got this dog. If it were up to me, the dog would be a 99.9% outside dog. I realize that we do have some extreme temperatures here where we'd have to let her inside, like the 6 months where it's so hot, you want to take off your skin and soak your bones in a bucket of ice water. But, it's a short haired dog... right? This prejudice is probably because my dogs growing up were 99.999% outside and the concept of an inside dog is completely bizarre to me. But, I think Tyler likes the dog to lay at his feet while he watches Dead Like Me (by himself because I'm sleeping). This means that we let her in. Which means she jumps on the counter. And pees on the carpet (although, not anymore). And steals the kids snacks. And jumps on the couch. I have thought about shooting the dog with our shotgun, but I don't know where the shells are. I would use the .57 magnum, but because of my irrational fear of pistols, I don't know how to use it and I'd probably end up killing myself or one of my small charges that I actually like, which would look bad.

Canineicide aside, the dog brings in a lot of dirt into the house during these jumping, stealing, peeing ventures. Dirt from our backyard, that is still dirt.


This dirt grossness was the catalyst for us actually getting in the car and going to the landscaping place to look at pavers. Tyler decided on this pattern, and I think we're going to go with this color which is actually kind of a gray-purple, if you can't tell from the pictures..


I realize that we're still not all that much closer to being done, but it's one small step towards finishing, one giant leap towards getting started. I think the next step is renting a jackhammer to dig up our hard-as-rock dirt. So... that will be fun, not that I'll get to use it. Dumb pregnancy; it ruins all my fun.



Also, this is how Lillian spent all of dinner last night. We had ravioli. She likes ravioli. Usually.

Nothing to report

Tyler and Lillian at the Palo Alto Children's Museum over Thanksgiving

My brother Austin told me about the Enigma machine. He explained in great detail all about how it worked and how it was supposed to create codes that were unbreakable (which, incidentally, is what Austin does for a living). It made sense at the time, sort of, but like so many things that my genius brother has explained to me: the theory of relativity, how to "see ahead" in chess, alternating currents, my grasp on it lasted only as long as he was talking. The one thing I solidly remember from our conversation is that they way Team B (Britain?) was able to crack Team A's (Germany?) code is because Team A sent the same message over and over again, which was: Nothing to report.

Such is my life, but without the Enigma machine part. I'm feeling a little better, but I still throw up mostly every day. Aaaaaaaand... that's about all that's happening around here. I just hang out with the kids and the dog (well, mostly I yell at the dog). I get unbelievably tired and/or barfy around 8:00 at night, and I used to just go to bed, but Tyler requested that I at least sleep on the couch until he goes to bed, so we can pretend that we're spending time together.

Um.... what else is news... Lillian has a cold. Nora's getting a tooth. The software on my phone crashed, so I'm incommunicado (by phone) for a few days. And today after storytime, I'm thinking of getting down the mystery box in the garage to see what's in it. It's from our storage shed that we had at our apartment in SLO, so I haven't seen the contents for about a year and a half. I have no idea what's in it. It could be really exciting... or really lame. I'm hoping for exciting.

Meet Daisy

Tyler and I have talked extensively about the day we get a dog. We haven't gotten one before now because we were always moving around and living in small apartments and we knew we wanted a substantial dog that wouldn't fit in a small apartment.

It's our 5-year anniversary on Friday and I wanted to do something special for Tyler. I decided that the time had come, and I wanted it to be a surprise. All week, I looked at the dogs they had online, and I thought about going down there and scoping the place out, but I knew Lillian would totally rat me out and spill the beans to Tyler. Then, on Friday, I was chatting dog adoptions with my sister on the phone, and as soon as I hung up, Lillian piped up, "we're getting a dog for daddy!!!" Crap. I tried to impress upon her young mind how this was a secret and that we weren't going to tell daddy about it. She didn't mention it all day, so I thought she'd forgotten... until Saturday morning and we were getting in the car to go down there and she blabbed all about it to Tyler.



There were two dogs we were considering- Daisy here, and a German Shepherd mix-type dog. I was leaning toward the German Shepherd because that's the dog I had for a large chunk of my childhood, and she was a good dog. Plus, she was all sad and whimpered when we left and my maternal instincts cried out for me to take her home and pet her and let her lick the kids faces after they eat lunch. But, Tyler got final say because, after all, it was his present, and he fell hard for those floppy ears and droopy eyes.

The shelter was run by retired old ladies who were not in a hurry and didn't seem to notice that our kids were both DONE with the adoption process 45 minutes before it was over. We only had to sign two papers, but this somehow took an hour... probably because our adoption specialist had to tell us all the possible ways my children will try to torment the dog and possibly get their face bitten off and/or all the things the dog will possible chew up/pee on. I kept saying, "our kids have been around dogs quite a bit, they know not to try to ride them (pull their ears, pull their tails, jump on them, bite them, stick their hands in her mouth)," and "I've had a few dogs, I know that they chew on things/are territorial." It was way more stressful than having a human child. I didn't have to sign any papers for that and no one threatened to make an unannounced stop at my house to make sure everything was in order.

Daisy is a hound dog mix (of what, they wouldn't tell us, but we think she looks a little labrador-y). She's 1.5 years old and was found out by Elephant Head. She's great with the kids and is Lillian's new best friend. She's not quite house broken and peed in our laundry room where we made her sleep and pood all over our loft this morning (after we had taken our outside 2 or 3 times)... so, that will be fun.

On Morning Sickness

I would write a Reminiscence, but my brain is broken from all the nausea and vomiting.

I often think about Eddie Izzard while I'm throwing up. You can find several of his shows bootlegged on youtube and I would link to one, but I'm afraid my mother would click on it. You see, Eddie Izzard has a mouth on him. A dirty, British mouth. And, he's a cross-dresser. But, he's so funny that in the days of my youthful rebellion, I couldn't stay away. I was addicted.

Back to why I think about him when vomiting. He does a sort of irreverent bit about God assigning the body parts their functions and he gets to the inner ear and assigns it hearing and vomiting. The inner ear protests saying, "the stomach, surely, should be in charge of vomiting. Stomach, food..?" No, no. Hearing and vomiting. Mr. Izzard goes on to talk about how there's a lot of odd associations in life: like how seals are good with balls. Who figured that one out? How many failed combinations did they try before they got one that worked (lions with banjos?)

No one knows for sure why pregnancy makes women throw up. There are several theories that range from the plausable (hormones that help establish the placenta and prevent early miscarriage) to the crackpot (an evolved defense mechanism against eating plant toxins. (Yeah, like there's any less toxins in the normally disgusting Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits that are oh so good to my nauseous tummy (I don't know why) than in oatmeal which I couldn't choke down if my life depended on it)). I like the placenta establishment idea, but whenever I throw up, I think of God, with Eddie Izzard's voice, assigning the placenta to support the life of an unborn child and cause vomiting. Surely it must have protested saying that the inner ear already had the vomiting position covered. No, no. Life support and vomiting.

Questions and answer

Here's a list of questions people have been asking recently:

• Why do you sleep so much and/or go to bed at 8:30?
• Why do you throw up all the time?
• Why do you never leave your house?
• Why do you stay in your pajamas until three?
• Why are you getting so fat?
• Why do you eat so much and/or do you really think the number of egg-in-the-holes you eat is healthy?

The answer is expected July 18th. Stay tuned.

PS: no one has really asked me any of these questions, except maybe Tyler has complained about the going to bed early thing.

Saturday: FAIL

My dad asked me if I would leave my kids with him, just him, for a week. I said no because we were there for 40 minutes and this is what happened. Granted, it was my brother Andrew who actually gave her that sucker, but I bet my dad was thinking about doing it, or something like it.

Tyler had/took 6 days off for Christmas break, came back and worked 2 days, and then had another 4-day weekend. It's been great up until yesterday.

Tyler's sister gave us a box of Omaha Steaks for Christmas, which meant that we had to buy a new BBQ, I guess. We used to have Tyler's parent's old Weber BBQ, which was probably like 25 years old. We left it out in one too many monsoons and the bottom rusted out. Dang. On our new house, there's a natural gas port in the backyard, so we've (read: Tyler) has wanted to buy a new one since we moved, and I guess this box of steaks was as good a reason as any.

We first went to the Tucson Children's Museum which is always a good time. Lillian likes the jungle room and the veterinarian room. It all started to go south when we left. The tears. Oh, the tears. Disaster 1. And they didn't really let up once we got to Lowe's. Both children were generally irritated while looking at the BBQs. This was our second BBQ buying trip, our first was to Home Depot, but their selection (of BBQs in our price range) was crappy. We found one we liked and Tyler had it on a cart when he asked a sales rep if there was a conversion kit to make it work with natural gas. The sales rep said that the model didn't work with natural gas, and in fact, they didn't carry many models that did, so we just left. Disaster 2.

In the car, both children were starting to fall apart. I was getting really hungry so we (read: I) decided we would drive through McDonald's and get a Hot 'N Spicy Chicken Sandwich and small fry for the kids to tie me over until dinner. This took forever. I don't know if they were harvesting the potatoes or plucking the chickens or what but we waited in line at the drive-thru for at least 10 minutes. I was regretting my decision because I was really really hungry and if we had just gone home, I could have been eating 5 minutes ago. Disaster 3.

I had taken out two of the steaks out of the freezer to cook for dinner on our new BBQ and was kind of looking forward to them, so I looked in the handy recipe book that came with our package how to cook them on the stove/in the oven. You sear them in a pan and then put that pan into the oven and bake them for 5 minutes until they're done. When I took the pan out of the oven, I put it up on the glass cooktop. After I took the steaks and put them on plates, I realized that I had set the pan on the burner that I had just used to make mac and cheese, and it was probably still hot. Without thinking, I grabbed the pan handle to scoot it over. My hand only made contact with it for approximately 0.2 seconds, but that was enough to give me 2nd degree burns on my palm. Disaster 4.

As soon as dinner was over, Lillian said she had to go to the bathroom. Tyler took her as I was languishing on the couch with my hand in some frozen peas. I could hear the argument about whether or not Lillian should go poo. It went on for some time. "I want mom! I want mom!" I got up and for half and hour, I sat on the floor of the bathroom with my hand under running water and coaxed, cheered on, yelled at, and was exasperated with Lillian. Finally, I had to pull out the big guns: the liquid glycerine suppository, which worked in about 30 seconds. Disaster 5.

As we were putting the kids to bed, Tyler said, "man, I'm worn out."