Rachel's belated birthday balloons

Rachel's birthday was over a month ago, but her birthday balloons have been sitting stalely on the birthday trees waiting for Andrew to buckle down and write out a birthday message for Rachel.

The summer wasn't ideal, truly. We spent a lot of time being sick, a lot of time navigating disasters in the house (like, for example, our oven has been out of commission for about as long as Rachel has been 15), a lot of time...I don't even know what. All small stuff, really, but exhausting stuff nonetheless. And somehow Andrew didn't sit down to write a birthday balloon when everyone else did. So we waited and waited and waited. 

And tomorrow his semester starts (mine started last week) so he's been puttering around the house with first day jitters, tidying things up, and he wanted those balloons down. But first we made him fill out a balloon and Rachel posed with it to show how appreciative she is:

Adjectives that describe me...

Benjamin brought home a paper from school yesterday listing adjectives that he thought of to describe himself:

He says that his is nice, playful, helping, and loving. His spelling of "play foul" made me laugh, along with his explanation of why he's loving (he has a crush on a girl named Charlotte, so basically he's pretty loving). My favourite part, though, is that he so honestly (and accurately) described himself. 

What are you eating up dog?

Sorry so truncated. I just thought I'd throw this down before scriptures and prayer. We were all dying with laughter during dinner. Also, sometimes we have meaningful conversations, too. Just not tonight.

Andrew: Does it smell like 'up-dog' in here?
Rachel: Ummmm...under where?
Andrew: No. I said, 'Does it smell like 'up-dog' in here?'
Rachel: Ummmm...no.
Me: Here, do it to me.
Andrew: Does it smell like 'up-dog' in here?
Me: What's 'up-dog?' See how that's the logical question. Under where. Pffft.
Andrew: Okay. Does it smell like 'up-dog' in here?
Rachel: What's up dog?
Andrew: Hahaha. Got you.
Me: No! You're supposed to say, "Nothing. What's up with you?" Come on, Dwight!
Andrew: Oh, no! Hahaha! I can't believe I did that, but you know what? The first time I heard the underwear joke was in the Barenaked Ladies song.
Rachel (scandalized): The WHAT?!
Me: The Barenaked Ladies. They're a great group.
Rachel: Bare. Naked. Ladies?
Me: They're Canadian.
Rachel: Well, of course they are.
Me (singing): We could hide out under there.
Andrew (giggling): Under where?
Me (singing): I just made you say underwear.
Rachel: You really haven't heard that before? It's been going around the school for ages.
Andrew: Yeah, I've heard it before...just not before that song.
Me: How did you get through childhood without ever hearing that? That was my life.
Andrew: I'm the oldest child.
Me: How did you not pick up on it so you could tease your siblings?
Andrew: Because I'm nice?
Me: My brothers and sisters would tease me with that joke all the time! Hey, Miriam...
Miriam: *looks up*
Me: What are you eating under there?
Miriam (confused): Under where.
Andrew (laughing (until crying)): Bahahahaa! That's even better! Eating your underwear!
Miriam: Hey, Dad! What's up dog?
Everyone: *laughs*
Miriam: No! I mean... Dad—what are you eating over there.
A: Over where?
Miriam: No! I mean... Hey, Mom! What are you eating?
Me: A quesadilla.
Miriam: No! I mean... Why can't I say it?!

But seriously how had he never heard the "eating your underwear" joke until this evening at dinner. HOW?!

And later during scriptures...

Me: Benjamin, what are you eating under there?
Benjamin: I'm eating mine unda-wears!

Smart phones. Smart me.

I forgot my pump when I walked out the door to go to church this morning. Technically, I remembered the pump but forgot everything else—bottles, flanges, diaphragms and valves. In order to pump I need to have all of the above, not some of the above but, unfortunately, some was all I had so I couldn't pump.

Not pumping can be devastating for me. It's uncomfortable, first of all, and, second of all, it can be embarrassing. But I was wearing a few layers and my top layer doesn't really show wetness so I figured it would be okay to wait until I got home from church to pump. It would have to be okay. Still, I was sad about forgetting my pump so I took out my phone to text Andrew that I forgot it and when I did that I saw that the last person I had been texting with was our good friend Steve.

"When did I text Steve?" I wondered as I clicked on his name to re-read our conversation. Had he texted me and I missed reading it? I didn't remember texting him...so imagine my surprise when the conversation I thought I'd had with Andrew (regarding Benjamin's poor little noggin) popped up on the screen.

Re-reading this conversation was hilarious considering Steve is...a doctor! 

Adding to the embarrassment is that I then got on Facebook and fished for medical advice again. I probably wouldn't have done that had I known I'd been talking to a doctor in the first place...but I thought I was talking to my husband who doesn't handle injuries with much aplomb (which is why I figured he was googling first aid). 

Still, though, the question of how, exactly, I'd managed to text Steve remained. The contacts in my phone are listed alphabetically by last name, so Andrew and Steve are pretty close together (Steve is at the end of my G list and Andrew is at the top of my H list) but I hadn't used my phone to text Andrew Steve. I had used my computer, so when we got back home I checked my computer to see if I had an open conversation with Steve. I didn't. I had an open conversation with Andrew—the very same one that is filed under Steve's name on my phone. 

Then Andrew noticed that the phone number was different. When I uploaded the picture to the chat window, my computer decided to direct it to an old number I had listed for Andrew (rather than Andrew's current number). That old number of Andrew's is Steve's current phone number, so that's how I texted Steve—completely by accident!

First day of school

We interrupt our regularly scheduled frantically-trying-to-catch-up-about-summer-break posts to bring you a very important message: the school year started yesterday!

It was a very big day for Rachel because it was also her birthday. She picked out a new shirt to wear. It's orange on top and pink on the bottom and has a butterfly on it. "I like this shirt!" she said, pulling it out of the pile. "Ew, but it has a butterfly on it. Oh, well. I'll still wear it."

That awkward moment when...

Choir was a trying experience today. My kids were not in the mood to behave. I know you all think they're perfect little angels, but punches were thrown today...in the chapel! My sweet little girls in their matching Easter dresses were punching and kicking each other, pulling each other's hair, stepping on each other's head. They were doing it as discretely as possible, but it was happening nonetheless, and when we got into the van they got a stern talking to and cried all the way home.

Blotchy-faced and quite solemn, they filed out of the van when we got home.

"And I was so hoping to take a picture of you in your matching Easter clothes," I said.

In return I was given icy stares of death. No pictures were taken this afternoon.

Benjamin was misbehaving in a different, more regular, yet still exhausting, basic two-year-old sense. He was throwing toys around, running around screeching, and constantly escaping through the chapel doors into the corridors of the church building, which in turn give him access to the parking lot and wide, wide world.

Early on in our choir hour, my friend's husband, whose name happens to be Ben, left the chapel after speaking to her briefly. He usually takes 4/5 kids home after church, while she and one daughter stay for choir (her to sing, her daughter to hang out with my daughters). My little Benjamin followed him right out, so I got out of my seat, raced down the platform stairs, and followed him into the hall.

"Benjamin, honey!" I called out.

It was only when my friend's husband turned around in response that I realized I'd suddenly put myself in a rather awkward position. Turning a little bit red in the face, I did the only thing I could.

I raced up to my Ben, grabbed his arm, and said, "My Ben, you need to stay here."

"Gotcha," other Ben said, waving goodbye.

It wasn't too big of a deal, I suppose, but it was momentarily awkward/embarrassing and I still find it terribly, terribly funny.

Nancy Newt Needs Naps

When I was in kindergarten we learned an alliterative verse for each letter of the alphabet that we'd chant every single day. There were twenty-six of them (obviously) but I can only remember two.

My name happened to be featured in the verse for the letter N, which was (as you've probably gathered from the title of this post), "Nancy Newt needs naps."

Now that I'm a mother I have come to enjoy both naps and newts (in that order because naps are way better than newts) but as a five-year-old I found this verse rather offending. First of all—Nancy Newt?

Not anything elegant like Nancy Nightingale.

Not anything interesting like Nancy Narwhal.

Not anything exotic like Nancy Numbat.

(Yes, I'm reaching here—Numbat sounds too similar to Dumb-bat so it wouldn't have worked at all. There aren't really many creatures that begin with the letter N. Naked mole rat? I don't think so).

It had to be Nancy Newt—a slimy creature, the pet of witches, lover of dark and scary places.

And then there's the whole nap thing. I'm pretty sure I began shunning those long before kindergarten. I loathed how my babysitter would make me take a nap because I was "so little" while she'd let my brother (who was "only" 2.5 years older than me (as if that even makes a difference when you're 4)) and her son (who was my age only properly proportioned (ie. he maybe didn't look like he was 2)) play outside. I could see their long shadows dancing through the curtains while I sat in bed and seethed at the ceiling. Naps were lamer than lame.

Nancy was not a newt and Nancy certainly didn't take naps!

I came home from school and outraged complained to her mother, who took it up with the kindergarten teacher, who was in her last year before retirement and—although kind enough—was rather set in her ways. When my mom suggested changing the verse in some way—Nicholas Newt, for example, could be the one in need of a nap, or Nancy Nightingale could nibble...nectarines—Mrs. Thornton was aghast.

"Change the words?" gasped Mrs. Thornton. "But I have said it this way for many, many years!"

"But have you ever had a Nancy in your class?" my mom might have asked (because I am totally making this conversation up).

"Well, no, but I simply couldn't change the words now. I have said them the same way since I very first began teaching," likely when dinosaurs were still roaming the planet. "Nancy should be honoured to be in the poem. We say it every day!"

"That's part of the problem," my mom might have sighed before continuing her explanation, because not only was there a vain repetition of my name every single day at school there was also a girl named Allison.

Allison and I did not have an amicable relationship.

Everyday Allison would be sure to sit close to me—not too close but just close enough—and then she would leer in my face and scrunch up her nose as menacingly as a kindergartener can as she chanted, "Nancy Newt needs naps!"

One day—several days into the school year since we didn't get to the letter N until after we did the letters A through Z (with one new verse introduced every day during the first few weeks of school)—I decided to get my revenge and when it came time for everyone to gather on the carpet to recite our alphabet verses I made sure to sit as close to Allison as I could—but not too close, mind you.

My revenge cut fast and cold (as revenge is meant to be served), coming on the very first letter of the alphabet.

"Allison Alligator eats apples!" I hissed at mean ol' Allison.

And do you know what Allison did? She told on me. She went and cried to the teacher about it, about how it hurt her feelings, about how mean it was.

And do you know what happened to me? I got in trouble because "changing the words to the verse was wrong."

The proper verse, in case you were wondering, was "Ally Alligator eats apples."

That wasn't the only time I got unjustly punished in Mrs. Thornton's class, but Mrs. Thornton wasn't all bad. She did knit little stockings (big enough to hold a small candy cane) for every single child in the class for Christmas, so...that's a redeeming quality, right?

Anyway, it took me awhile to get over the whole Nancy Newt thing. And it's possible my family still teases me about it.

Whatever, I'm so over it.

I'm nearly-a-quarter-of-a-century over it.

I'm my-girls-found-a-newt-today-and-I-didn't-even-write-an-800-word-essay-about-it over it.

Ahem. So, perhaps I'm not as over it as I thought. But my girls really did find a newt today.

A Red Eft (juvenile eastern newt)

Family Funnies, issue 1

It's 9:45 AM and my children are still sleeping. Must be some sort of modern day miracle. And you'd better believe I'm going to let them wake up on their own (probably) because they were both a little grumpy yesterday and didn't go to bed until late.

I've decided to start a little facebook status round-up of what my children say because, frankly, my kids say the darndest things and I don't always write them down on the blog but I need to because that's where we're creating & hoarding our family history (we've yet to actually print it out but definitely need to get on it).

Without further ado, here's April's (and beyond's) edition of our Family Funnies:

How's about cookin' somethin' up with me?

Being the main contributor to this blog has its perks—perhaps the one most commonly mentioned by my husband (and a few other family members) is that the blog, while abounding in ridiculous stories of others, is severely lacking in ridiculous stories about myself.

The role of blogger is one of omniscient hindsight.

Most everything I write about has already happened. I know what details of our experience I have found too intimate to expound upon. I know exactly how much I can say without embarrassing myself. I can laugh at our mistakes because I usually only share things that don't bother me to share (otherwise I probably wouldn't share them). But sometimes I forget that perhaps That Funny Thing My Husband Did might actually be freshly awkward and embarrassing for him. He is a dear, though, and takes everything in stride.

But why am I talking about him? He saw the first line of this post and said, "That's going to be about me, isn't it?" and then typed a bunch of random numbers to throw off my train of thought. I assured him this blog post would be about me. And it is.

It's a freshly awkward and slightly embarrassing tale about me and you are welcome to enjoy it (and laugh at me, if necessary). Be forewarned, my fifteen-year-old niece claimed to almost have wet her pants when she heard this story. It's just that good.

And now, without further ado...The Story.

As you may or may not know, we went to the park today. Rachel knows her way to the park and will often run ahead to relish that sense of freedom you get from being out of the reach of your mother's ever-loving arms (or for some reason I'm unaware of). She's allowed to cross a few streets along the way all by herself, barring the main road. She's typically pretty good about remembering to look both ways before crossing since she's terrified of being hit by a car (living in Egypt will do that to you).

So, we were on our way home from the park and Rachel had just raced ahead of me in order to cross the street independently.

"Hey! Good looking!" I yelled out to her, since she had remembered to look both ways and all.

Why I chose that exact moment to praise her is beyond me because when I reached the corner a few seconds later and looked both ways I noticed that there was a guy standing on the sidewalk opposite of us (it was a T-intersection so he was on the sidewalk across the street beside us, not on the sidewalk Rachel had just crossed to) and he was staring at me quite quizzically.

No, sir. Not you. I was talking to my daughter.

I didn't really want to explain the whole situation though so I did the only thing I could do: blush...and just keep walking. Because "when life gets you down do you wanna know what you've gotta do? ... Just keep [walking]. Just keep [walking]. Just keep [walking, walking, walking]. What do we do? We [walk, walk]."

Thank you, Dory, for helping me know what to do.

Pssst! Wanna buy a...dryer sheet?

I remembered one of the funny stories from last night. I knew I would. I'll probably remember more as the day goes on. That's the fun thing about funny stories—you just remember them randomly throughout the day and break into a smile even if there's nothing to smile about otherwise. Not that there wasn't anything to smile about this morning—my girls are the sweetest cuddle bugs in the morning and apparently if I'm not there to put them to bed they are even more cuddly.

Anyway, we'd just arrived in Salt Lake and were in a parking garage, fiddling with Sarah's dress. She hadn't worn a slip so her dress kept sticking to her nylons—that blasted static cling.

We had just passed a little wall when a woman ran out from behind it and said, "Pssssst! Hey, you!"

We all stopped, turned around to look at the lady, and then exchanged glances as if to ask each other if anybody knew her. Nobody did.

"I have something for you," she said.

In her car. Around the corner. Behind the wall. That sounded like a trustworthy proposition. Not.

We all just kept staring at her. She looked wholesome enough—she was wearing jeans and a pink sweater and a big, helpful smile.

"For your dress," she explained. "I have a dryer sheet in my car. You can rub it on your nylons and then your dress won't ride up. Sorry—I couldn't help but notice everyone trying to fix your dress and I just happen to have one so you're welcome to it..."

We followed her to her car and she dug out her temple bag and pulled out a sheet of fabric softener in a ziplock bag and handed it to Sarah.

We all—including our Good Samaritan—had a good laugh about our awkward exchange. 

I'm terribly funny

"You're a tortfeaser," Andrew told me last night.

"Um, what?" I asked.

"I'm just practicing my vocabulary. A tortfeaser is someone who commits a tort. A tort is some sort of injustice done to someone, either deliberately or through negligence. So that," he explained, lightly punching my arm, "would be a tort."

"And would this be a retort?" I asked, punching him back.

Sometimes I can be really funny.

"I wonder if tort shares the same root as torture," I said (it does).

That got us on the topic of torture which eventually led us to discuss terrorism, which is something we've been discussing at length recently, trying to determine whether the recent attempted-assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and massacre of onlookers could be classified as terrorism or not.

Terrorism as it stands is a fairly new concept. Its usage skyrocketed after 9/11 but it's still a rather shaky, ambiguous term so it's hard to say if any "isolated incident" should be considered terrorism or not.

"I wonder if terrorism is really a word of mixed origin," I mused, "Perhaps it is most commonly used to describe acts of terror perpetrated by Muslims because it uses the Latin root terror and the Arabic root ism. That gives you terrorism: something done in the name of terror."

Andrew thought that was clever.

Sometimes I can be terribly funny.

Park

I spent the last month gathering up junk from around our house. A sweater I haven't worn since grade eleven. A few stuffed animals no one seems to play with (or know of their origin). An Anne Geddes print my gymnastics coach gave me for Christmas ten (or more) years ago. A pair of boots my little sister gave to me when she grew out of them five years ago. A pair of cords that just don't seem to fit my post-pregnant body like they did my pre-pregnant one. That kind of thing.

I even made Andrew help me go through our bookshelves to winnow down our collection. I meant to do this earlier when my sister was collecting books for a group of underprivileged girls in New York (I think) but I never got around to doing it. We found about 25 books that we felt we could part with—though most of them were college-level textbooks we hadn't been able to sell back and I'm not so sure teen girls from New York would appreciate outdated college textbooks for their liesure reading. Just a hunch.

Always good for a laugh

A few nights ago (Friday, maybe) during dinner Grandpa suggested that he watch a movie with Rachel and although he didn't specifically state it, he implied that this activity take place after dinner was over. Rachel didn't catch that though and quickly pushed her plate away.

"I'm full of it!" she declared.

A round of snickers went around the table. Even Miriam laughed, though I don't think she got the joke.

Rachel wasn't too pleased when we told her that she had to wait for dinner to actually be over before she could be excused to watch a movie with Grandpa but she finished what was on her plate.

Musicality

Last week Grandpa came home from a long day at church with some black mark on his shirt. His Sundays are long days—he leaves early in the morning and usually doesn't come home until around 9:00 PM. He's a bishop for a BYU single's ward, so he's busy. This was our conversation about the shirt:

Karen: What did you do—lean up on something?

Reid: I dunno...but you can lean on me.

Andrew: When you're not strong.

Me: I'll be your friend.

Karen: I'll just spray it and see if it comes out.

Reid, Andrew and I burst out laughing. We had all been expecting her to say "I'll help you carry on" but she hadn't even realized that we were all singing. She was just concerned about getting that white shirt clean. Maybe that doesn't sound too funny when you read it, but if you were there you would know that she said "I'll..." right on pitch so we were sure she was going to sing the next line of the song.

Today Grandpa came home from church and told us that when he had typed up the bulletin he typed the name of one of the hymns wrong. Instead of typing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" he had typed "Hark, the Herald Angels Sin."

I'm just jealous that their ward sang Christmas carols because ours didn't. And I feel a little gypped because there are only a few weeks left until Christmas. I love Christmas carols but since so many people feel they can't be sung until after Thanksgiving it leaves very little time to get them sung.

It's after Thanksgiving now—we've just lost a whole week of valid Christmas caroling.

Breaking water and procreant primates

I went to the Relief Society enrichment meeting last night while Andrew stayed home with the girls. It's kind of strange being in this ward--Andrew's family's ward--because everyone seems to already know so much about me while I know so little about everyone else. There's this one young mother in the ward that I've been meaning to talk to but haven't yet. We each have two children who are similar ages so I often see her in the hall or in the mother's lounge but we've both been so busy wrangling, hushing, nursing, and lulling children to sleep during those times that we've merely exchanged understanding glances.

Rachel Nuggets

I almost forgot about this until this morning. Rachel is in the kitchen making banana bread with Grandma--we have a lot of leftover bananas from the wedding. Grandpa was just in there teasing Rachel (under the guise of eating breakfast) and this story came up so I thought I'd jot it down.

Shortly before Sarah got married we were all downstairs in the basement playing when Sarah came downstairs halfway and poked her head over the banister. She started gushing about this and that and that and this, as only Sarah can. Rachel still hadn't seen Sarah a lot since Sarah was working all day and spending all evening with Cory, only to return far past Rachel's bedtime, so Rachel wasn't too sure what to think about her yet.

She sat there listening to Sarah blather on for quite some time before looking up at her and saying, "You talk a lot."

You know you’ve been in Egypt too long when…

Your landlord shows up at your door unannounced at 11:55 PM…and you’re cool with that because, hey, you weren’t planning on going to bed for a few more hours, anyway.

You tell time by the call to prayer.

You judge the seasons by whatever creepy crawlies are taking over your apartment. Or by what fruit is for sale.

It’s 30°C (86°F) outside and you wish you had remembered to bring a jacket.

The weather forecast is always the same—it’s been 40°C (104°F) for weeks now.

Curious Mar Girgis

We went to Coptic Cairo today, which is flooded with images of Saint George, the dragon-slayer and Christian martyr. In Arabic he is called Mar Girgis, which also happens to be the name of the metro stop where you’ll find Old Cairo. There are portraits of Mar Girgis everywhere, gallantly sitting astride his steed, with red cape flowing majestically behind him and sword poised and ready to be thrust into the belly of a ferocious-looking dragon.

Light bulb scientists

To say that we are anxious to hear back about grad school would be an understatement. Already having been turned down by two schools, we are always at the edge of our seats almost biting our fingernails while we wait for news from the remaining four. It comes up in conversation every night.

Another nightly discussion: back up plans.

Settling of contents

A pair of green shorts has been at the bottom of our laundry basket for a few weeks now. Somehow they just never made it into the washing machine—it was always too full by the time I got to the bottom. The shorts belong to Andrew and he decided that since I seemed incapable of washing them, he’d do it. So he put a load of darks in.

All the more power to him.


We’re not very good at separating our clothes into loads here. Our washing machine cycle takes upwards of three hours to run, so I’m not keen on separating darks, colors, and whites. We just do two loads a week—darks and lights. (Probably we will end up doing more once we’re into cloth diapers full time).
This is where we run into issues.