The Hideout

I recently cleaned out the area under the computer desk in our TV room and stashed some of William's toys under there. It has now become one of William's favorite places to play. He calls it his playhouse and tries to block Anna out with his big truck and anything else that may be available. She doesn't mind as long as she can get a toy car or two to chew on. Emma has been allowed underneath, since she is a special friend. I love her "Uh-oh, they caught me" look.

William updates

William is doing some really cute things lately, interspersed with all the really annoying ones that come with being a three-year-old. I thought I'd share some with you.

William has caught on to the "proud of you" comments we make and now likes to turn them back on us. When we do things he likes us to do, he tells us how proud he is. When I made him an apple-juice bottle for bedtime a week ago (before we stopped bottles for good this week) he said to me, "Mommy, I'm so proud of you for making me a bottle." I had to laugh. Yesterday he told me he was very proud of Anna for pulling up to stand at my chair at the table.

He also seems to be stuck on the idea that something he likes is "the best in the world." Of the Costco frozen lasagne I baked for dinner the other night he said, "Lasagne is the best food in the world." The next night it was, "eggs are the best food in the world." He proceeded not to eat much of the eggs, so I'm not sure he really understands what he's saying.

Meanwhile, he can't seem to understand that you can't make five peepees at one time and earn a potty prize. He sits on the potty and asks how many peepees he made. I tell him how many stickers are on his chart and how many more he needs to reach five. Then, he tries to get some more pee out and tells me he just made five peepees and should get his prize.


He's really stuck on the concept of "bad guys" lately. I believe it's something he picked up from a 5-year-old friend. He's always talking about seeing bad-guys in our house and making them dead. OK, this isn't one of the cute things, but I think it is very odd. He also told me and Kip yesterday that he has an orange-haired momma that goes everywhere with him and holds him when I'm not there with him. He calls her his Orange Momma. Do we have any red-haired ancestors who might be guardian-angeling him? Of course, he told me today when we were playing with some Little Mermaid foam waffle blocks that Ariel was the Orange Momma. He used to say Ariel was me...

Sick Sick Sick

We are all currently sick. OK, all but Kip. Anna got a cold Tuesday. I thought it was the one William had recently cast off, but apparently it was a new one. Her fever reached 102 Wednesday. William's is at nearly 103 tonight. And what I thought was just particularly bad hay fever for me has settled into my own version of this miserable spring-time cold. We're not having a good time. William took 2 long naps today. Anna slept for one of them, allowing me to sleep, too. We dirtied every single snot-rag (burp cloth) in the house and I'm doing the laundry now. Every time he sneezed, William would whine until I wiped his nose for him. And coughing made him cry. Then, he would tell me that he was not going to "puke" because that's something he does at night-time. (He had the flu a few weeks ago.) He went to bed OK, thanks to the Triaminic PM he gets to take. And Anna's dosed up with Children's Motrin Cold. Now, I'm off to bed with the nursing mom's version of night-time cold medicine: Tylenol PM + Sudaphed. I think those are all legal nursing drugs...

Pathologically speaking, "It's notta tuma!"

The pathology report came back this week. It says that Kristin and I are soul-mates! The rubbery ball recently removed from her foot really was a ganglion cyst. The summer before we met I had a ganglion cyst on my left bird finger. Both our doctors said we could leave them unless they started bothering us. Well they bothered and they are gone!

I have a calling too...

Since EVERYONE seems to be posting their callings I thought I'd remind you that I am a primary worker. There is a reason they call it that... "worker". Because we are basically the worker bees - sent out to do the bidding of the primary presidency queens (one of which happens to be Kristin). Many of the teachers were missing last week so I was demoted to junior primary to cover for the two missing CTR7 teachers. We played charades - acting out the plagues that Moses inflicted on the Egyptians. It worked well till we ran out of plagues and one of the boys started running across the room and slamming himself into the wall... then back across and slam into the door... then back to the wall. That's when I bore a brief testimony about Moses and the priesthood and moved on to hangman for the final 10 minute stretch.

At least in junior sharing time I was considered a 'visitor' and got to choose the action for "Do As I'm Doing". We stomped!

Road Trip, Pt 2

The second half of our Utah Visit was spent with the Sandy part of the family. On our way down from Kaysville, we stopped and let the kids see Temple Square in Salt Lake. William really enjoyed the visit (in spite of being over-tired and prone to crankiness) and now calls the Salt Lake Temple his temple. Its picture now hangs over his bed.


The reason we chose this particular time to visit Utah was that all of Kip's family would be there for various college graduation ceremonies. It was a wonderful opportunity to see all the cousins, Aunts and Uncles. Of course, although we were there for graduations, we did not manage to attend either of the ceremonies. Instead, we hung out with our kids and relaxed, which was a treat. Unfortunately, Anna got sick the last few days and spent a good amount of time looking miserable. She wasn't in the best frame of mind for getting to know her cousins. William, on the other hand, had a blast playing with Jenny's boys. And Daddy especially enjoyed the Saturday evening game of Bocci.


We started our return drive Sunday evening, after family dinner. Unfortunately, none of us had gotten great sleep during the trip, so we started out a little more exhausted than we had been on the drive down. This made our drive a little more challenging. Our driving shifts were shorter and we stopped several times at rest stops so both of us could sleep. Unfortunately, with the car not moving, the kids would wake up after about an hour, so our naps weren't ever as long as we would have liked. But we made it home safe and sound and were even able to get Anna in to her Pediatrician on Monday morning for her cold and eye infection.

Now, things are back to normal. Anna sleeps well some nights and not well other nights. William is great some days and cranky others. We're always busy and our garden is growing well, especially in the rain we just started having again.

Road Trip, Pt 1

We finally decided to break in our fancy-pants minivan with a trip from Oregon to Utah. We took off on Friday evening, stopping to wait out rush hour traffic at Red Robin. William had his traditional noodles and red sauce. As he picked at his food after Kip and I had finished eating, I began to fear for my white t-shirt. In my attempt to move farther from his red-stained reaching fingers, Anna took advantage of my distraction and dumped Kip's chocolate shake on me. Hooray. I got to start a 12 hour overnight drive in chocolate-shake stained clothes.

The drive wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be. Kip did the first big leg while I attempted to sleep in the front seat. Then, I took over and drove from midnight to 3 am. In the thick darkness of deepest night, all I could see of the scenery was the small stretch of road my headlights illuminated as I flashed past and the twinkle of lights in the towns I passed. I loaded the CD player with 6 CDs I hadn't listened to in a while and enjoyed myself singing softly along in the solitude of a carful of sleeping companions. William woke at one point and talked for a while about the toy cars at his Grammy's house and the Matchbox fold-out city she saved from our childhood. He was also a little concerned about the fact that we hadn't brought his bed along.

Kip drove for the early morning, sun-rising time. As he coasted through the freeways of Southern Idaho, some kamikaze deer attempted to take us out. He hit the brakes and swerved and William and I came awake. William somehow got the idea it was rabbits we were about to hit and still talks about the rabbits on the road whenever we drive anywhere.

We spent the first half of our visit in Kaysville with the Parker side of the family. Grammy and Grandad were there, and Uncle Trevor. Janean and Jeremy and Craig, Lesley and Enoch frequently came to visit. We finally got to meet the elusive little cousin Enoch and he and Anna seemed to do fairly well, although she tended to bully him a little bit. Of course, she is a little older and has the advantage of having an older brother to toughen her up. I think she was just trying to let Enoch see what it was like to get picked on.

While in Kaysville, we toured the Air Force Museum. William loved looking at all the airplanes but was a little depressed that he couldn't get on any of them and fly away. We also had fun swimming in the family hot tub.

Easter Dress

Anna wore her new Easter dress to church on Sunday. She was so cute, I couldn't help but take her picture. I love having a little girl to dress up!

Train Ride

Saturday, April 15th was a rainy day all around Portland. The drive to Hood River was especially wet and I worried that the train ride would be a dismal one. But, as we reached our destination, the rain stopped. We found the train station, just off the freeway, and parked in the paid lot for the convenience. William hadn’t slept on the hour and a half drive, in spite of being exhausted from the morning’s egg hunt. Anna had slept, but she almost always sleeps in the car. We met Tom and Carolyn and hopped onto our train after breezing through the gift shop fast enough that William didn’t notice the Thomas the Train items on sale off to the side.


Our car’s name was Katherine. She was an old car. Her seats were bucket style and we realized on the return trip that you could flip the back around to face either direction. The train was not full, so when it started from the station, people shifted around to sit in groups facing the ways they wanted to face. (I don’t think any of the other passengers knew right away about the flipping seats either.) The overcast skies actually made for a perfect ride, making it easy to enjoy the scenery without needing sunglasses or getting too much of a glare. We were there for the blossom festival, but it was unfortunately not very far underway. The fruit trees were only starting to bloom. The train passes through fields and orchards, small towns and quiet neighborhoods. I couldn’t imagine living in such a remote way, knowing everyone else in town, considering it a major effort to get all the way into the big city of Portland. The places we passed looked as though they hadn’t changed in years and wouldn’t change in years. Things seemed very peaceful there.

The train ride was very calming. The cars rocked over the tracks, making it difficult to walk around and soothing to sit. Anna fell asleep again fairly quickly. William and I went back to the caboose to check things out. It was fun to climb up in the cupola and see over the top of the train, although my fear of heights actually made the climb up the ladder on the rocking train a little unnerving.



Our destination on this trip was a little town called Parkdale. When we got there, we sought out one of the two possible meal options. There was a buffet and a café. We chose the café. There were basically two menu options: the burger or the quesadilla. William had fries. Kip and I, indecisive as ever, split the other two options. They weren’t bad. While we ate, the rain picked up again, pouring down on anyone unlucky enough to be outside. We saw several of the other passengers with drenched hair and clothing. During the ride home, the sun peeked through the clouds for a while, making a rainbow over the fields beside the train.




On the drive back home from Hood River, William talked excitedly. He had gone past the stage of being tired to that of being hyper. Then, suddenly, he stopped talking. One moment he was carrying on a detailed discussion of some train-related topic (which we didn’t quite understand), the next he was sound asleep draped over the arm of his chair leaning against the window. He chose this position even after we reclined his seat so he wouldn’t have to slouch!

Pre-Easter Madness

Everyone seems to have deep spiritual insights posted from their Easter experiences this year. Unfortunately, I packed so much stuff into my own Easter that I never had a chance to think much about the whole point of Easter.

Our craziness started on Friday. Jo called to see if we wanted to join her at the Children's Museum. I was supposed to practice flute for a Sunday service performance with Heidi and make brownies for an evening church activity. But we have a membership at the museum, so why not go. I told myself it would just be for a couple of hours, then I'd head home and practice, bake brownies and make dinner and then go to the activity. Well, it didn't all happen, of course. The museum was fun but crazy since it turned out school was off for the day. I stopped at the store for brownies for the church activity since time was getting short. While there I decided to refill a prescription and it took a good half hour for the pharmacy to do it for some reason. While still waiting for the medicine, Heidi called to say her son's nap was over and we could practice. I still hadn't started baking the quiche I'd planned for dinner. I went to Heidi's after dropping off my purchases. Our practice was short because, in spite of having her husband there to watch William and Anna and their son Isaac, there was a lot of crying from the kids. I headed home about 6:00 hoping to throw dinner together and still maybe make it to the church activity at 7. But William had had too much. When we got home he refused to leave the car, insisting that we go somewhere else. He cried about half an hour, almost to the time that Kip finally came home from work. I decided it might not be the best idea to drag him to a sugar-filled church activity in that state of mind.

So, our Friday ended in a rush. Saturday started much the same. I had to be at the church at 8:45 to start setting up for the Activity Day's Combined Girls and Mom's activity. We were doing a service project, making jewelry and cards and sorting donated clothing for a girls' shelter.


While I helped supervise the service activity, Kip and William joined Butch and Jo for the annual Alpenrose Dairy Easter Egg Hunt. In the pouring rain, hundreds of kids met at a Portland park to search for cheap chocolate egg candies. Some of them had stickers on them earning the collector a specified prize. William, too excited by the prospect of unlimited chocolate in the grass below him, only found one piece with a sticker. Jo's kids made super hauls and won supersized stuffed animals and toys. Jo herself participated in the mother's hunt after the kid's hunt and won the grand prize of diamond earrings. Kip and William came home soaked through and full of sugar.

My activity ended at noon, about the time Kip and William got home. At 12:30, we were planning on heading to Mount Hood to ride the train with Tom and Carolyn. I had to clean up my table as fast as I could, then leave some other leaders in charge of final room clean-up and getting everyone out of there. Then, it was off to Mt Hood and the spring blossom festival.

Teething

Anna has her first tooth! She's been super cranky for over a week. I thought she was teething, but it just seemed to be taking forever. On Wednesday night her nose started to run like a faucet and on Thursday morning, there was a tiny little bottom front tooth poking through. It's not there in this picture. I just thought the picture was cute. Lately, she won't open her mouth for anything. You can hardly get a spoon full of mushy Gerber fruit into her. And there's no way she'll open wide for a good look at the offending tooth and raw gums. I tried to rub her down with orajel and I'm fairly certain her lips are now numb but I doubt anything reached her gums.

Annoying Toddler Questions

William has officially reached the age of the annoying toddler questions. For him, it is not the ceaseless repetition of the word "why" as I remember from interaction with other children. At this point, he doesn't seem to have any grasp of the word "why." Instead, his question is completely related to his relationship with his sister. The question I hear far too often in an average day is "what does Anna want?" Generally, this question is asked when Anna is struggling with all her might to get to a toy William has left just out of her reach. When William poses the question the first time, I generally pick the obvious answer as the one to give. "She wants your insert toy name here." Unfortunately, this has no effect on him. Instead, he responds to my answer by asking again, with identical inflection, "what does Anna want." So, I look harder. What answer am I not giving that would satisfy this child? I haven't found it yet. We spend what seems like hours every day with William demanding to know what Anna wants and me incapable of determining what it might be. Sometimes, for variety, William throws in the phrase "to see" at the end. "What does Anna want to see?" Invariably, I tell him that she wants to see something related to him. She wants to see him eat. She wants to see him play. She wants to see him take a stinkin' nap, darn it!!!!! He doesn't accept these answers any more readily. So, I guess we've entered a stage where William is realizing that Mommy doesn't know all the things he wants to know. Perhaps if I could just figure out what Anna really and truly wants as she's reaching for William's toys, we would all be happier here at home.

I'm a VERY lucky man

I took William and Anna to dinner last night while Kris was at orchestra. We sat across from two old couples who just adored Anna. They asked "Daddy, do you have a shotgun? Cuz you're gonna need one!" They were also impressed with how good William was... eating his pasta; not to mention all my broccoli and carrots. When they left, one of them said, "You are a verly lucky man." I thought on that for a while and have to agree completely. I have the best two kids and wife one could hope for.

Where do you get a shotgun anyway? Looking at this picture, I'm seriously considering it...

Do you like cars?

Only someone who really, really likes cars would wear this shirt. It was our gift to William in honor of "Gone Digital" day... Once I went to Utah and forgot to pack any shirts. I ended up wearing loud hawaiian shirts every day because that's all Dad had in his closet.

Monkey Queen

I've had a digital camcorder for close to a year now and last week was the first time I extracted any video onto my computer. This frame came from some video I took in Israel at the Monkey Forest. What sort of psychological damage did these monkeys do to Anna in her developmental stages?

Kitchen Patrol

We've started William early on his kitchen duties. He's learning how to rinse the dishes for me. It's just too bad they don't make shirts long enough to cover the bellies of tall kids like him.

Really Starting Solids

Anna started rice cereal this week and really seemed to enjoy it. She gets it all over herself, in true baby fashion, but manages to swallow a lot of it. I gave her squash yesterday and she made quite a mess.

It's been a sickly month for our little family. As I mentioned in the entry right before Christmas, William got a cold at that time. Well, since then he and Daddy and Anna have all had ear infections, Daddy's had a sinus infection, and William, Anna and I have had eye infections - twice. We all got through them once only to have a relapse. Anna has felt pretty miserable off and on. So has William, with a constant stream of snot dangling from his nose and chapping his lips and cheeks. This has made it hard to keep up on this blog. Both the kids aren't sleeping well which means Mommy isn't sleeping well. And William doesn't nap in the daytime anymore, so I don't get any breaks from him to work on the computer or my scrapbook or anything I really want to do.

In spite of all that misery, we have managed to have some good fun lately. William and Anna are both making tons of progress with development and we're very proud. Anna has learned to roll over! She first developed this skill about a week and a half ago. I took some photos of the event...But William kept getting in the way.


She's a real champ at it now and can get herself into new and exciting places.


William has developed a love of singing and often tells me that there is a song in his mouth. He then opens his mouth and points inside. This is especially fun at mealtime. Some of his favorite songs are the ABC's, the Wheels on the Bus, and the Snowman song. He seems to be learning a lot from his nursery song leader and every time we listen to the Primary Songs CD, he surprises me by singing along with new ones. He absolutely adores Anna. If she naps while he and I are awake, he asks me every five minutes "Is Anna awake?" If I say yes he says "want to go see she" (his pronouns aren't quite straight) and runs to whichever room she's in to stand over her and smile and laugh (and hit her in a way he means as hi). He loves to shake her in her bouncy seat and push her in her swing so hard that it scares me but he ignores my demands that he stop because she laughs at it. He continues to love to watch TV, with his first words every day being "want to watch a show." We're trying to limit our TV time, but when I'm tired I don't do so well with it.

Starting Solids

Last Monday, Anna got really cranky in the afternoon. I spent a few hours just holding her and watching TV with her and William, since she would cry if I put her down. This was unusual. She’s usually a very good-natured kind of baby spending hours laying on the floor or sitting in her bouncy seat cooing and gurgling and drooling all over any toys within her reach. She finally fell asleep and I was able to get dinner on.

Some time after she woke up and before I bathed her, she pooped. I went to give her a bath after getting William to bed (who has suddenly and inexplicably decided that baths are miserable and awful experiences—this after 2 years of begging me to bathe him several times a day!). When I removed Anna’s diaper I found it full of baby pooh and, right in the middle, a round, plump, and perfectly intact raisin. This struck me as odd considering that Anna is 5 months old and hasn’t been given the go-ahead for solids yet, and even if she had, I wouldn’t be starting the toothless baby on whole raisins. Her 2½-year-old brother, on the other hand, loves raisins and eats them whenever he can. In fact, he is often given baggies of raisins and animal crackers as a breakfast-time treat to keep him occupied while I shower. Well, I’m guessing he decided to share his raisins with his adorable little sister one morning and that would explain the discomfort that led Anna to cry for hours and then pass a solid raisin in her pooh. My first response to this discovery was to laugh. Her first solid food – a raisin stuffed into her mouth by her well-meaning big brother. Then, another thought crossed my mind, that of ‘choking-hazard.’ I could imagine the outcome of the raisin-sharing being a little different. What if she hadn’t managed to swallow the offering? What if she had choked?

I thank the busy guardian angels of my little girl for pushing the raisin down the right tube. I hadn’t realized that the biggest threat to the survival of a baby would be her older siblings. But I should have guessed. After all, there were six kids in my family. I’ve seen what kids do to each other.

Ear infection?!? Who me?!?

When I was a baby my mom would take me to the doctor and he'd ask if I'd been upset/screaming/crying a lot. She'd say no, and he'd say, "That's wierd, he has an ear infection, sore throat, etc. "

So last week I caught the cough that William had. And then my right ear started hurting. I came to the most plausible conclusion - it was my headphone earbud irritating it. I'd been listening to iTunes radio while working from home, watching episodes of 24 on the computer, and playing computer games I got for Christmas. Boy was I wrong! Last night I heard some liquid in the ear, and within two hours I was crying in intense pain. The pressure was amazing! I lost hearing, and the constant ringing kept buzzing in my ear.

Kristin took me to the ER, and after waiting for hours the doctor looked in my bad ear and said, "Wow! That's incredible!" Probably the last thing you want to hear a doctor say when he looks in your bad hear. He told me it was infected and the eardrum would probably burst - nothing he could do about it. I didn't ask if it could just be an irritating earbud. He prescribed penicillin (can someone send me the grilled-cheese sandwich?), ear drops to numb the drum, and Vicadin (hope I don't get addicted). Loaded up with drugs I was able to sleep, and I am feeling much better today. That Vicadin makes you feel funny...

Before the ER, while I paced the floor in pain, I thought, "Why me?" I decided it must be my RUDE,RUDE,RUDE teasing. I thought, "What if I die from head explosion and the last blog entry I wrote ripped on Chad?" So I'm apologizing to Mom for calling her an "Old Bitty" - not that I ever did, but just in case. And I'm sorry Bro for the jab at your GRE. And I'm sorry for the countless other low blows I've dished out in the past. Now hopefully my head won't go KaBoom!!