Baby Fortress

After lunch I pulled all the cushions off the couch so that I could vacuum under them since we haven't done that since we got the couch (shhh! don't tell) and there were plenty of little treasures hiding under and between them.

Rachel had a great time climbing over and around them while they were piled up on the floor. When I was all finished vacuuming, Rachel and I built a fort. Mostly I built it and Rachel played in it, but that's beside the point.

We read Teeny Tiny Tingly Tales, a book of (not so) scary stories, in the dark of our fort. Rachel thought the pictures were pretty silly.

What's this? A pair of yellow pants, with nobody inside them!

Old Dr. Wango Tango gets blown away

Then we played some rousing games of peek-a-boo, rub-your-head-on-the-roof, and knock-the-door-down.

Peek-a-Boo, I see you!

Rub your head on the roof

More head rubbing

We had to brace the supporting walls of the fort against the couch and the table because the first time Rachel knocked down the door the whole fort collapsed on top of her, which she didn't really enjoy. She found knocking down just the door pretty enjoyable, though.

Knocking down the back door

Knocking down the front door

After about a half hour of playing Rachel was pretty worn out (and all staticky from rubbing her head on cushions) and I was wondering if it was fair that I was having this much fun while Andrew was stuck at work all day. And then Rachel needed to go potty and, while I wrestled with Rachel to get a diaper on her after she was finished, I remembered that motherhood, as much fun as it can be, isn't all fun and games. Still, I'd rather have my current job than be away from my baby all day long!

What's this pillow doing on my roof?

I'm waiting...for the one I love...to find me...today...

Busy Rachel

We haven't gone to the library in quite some time. It's just been too cold outside to fathom walking that far, at least in my opinion, but today was beautiful so Rachel and I went as soon as we woke up from our morning nap, which was about 9:30.

It was so sunny outside that I decided to have Rachel wear a sunhat. We bought her one a while ago and we've been practicing wearing it inside but it seemed the minute I got it on her head it would be off again. It even has a velcro strap, so I'm not sure how she managed to get it off so quickly every time. Today when I put it on, however, she just shook her head a few times instead of trying to yank it off immediately. I think she noticed that when the hat was on her head the sun wasn't in her eyes so she let it be.


She had fun at the library, pulling a bunch of books off of the bottom shelf and looking at the pictures. We sat at the tables and read a few of the books that she chose because she chose way too many books to be able to take them all home with us!



After we checked out our books I let her play on the lawn in front of the library for a few minutes.


She fell asleep on the way home so I just carried her right upstairs in her stroller and let her continue her nap. She was probably way too hot underneath her blanket but she carries it around everywhere with her and wanted to be wrapped up in it.


When she woke up from her nap she let me know that she wanted to play the piano.


I've been trying to play the piano with her more often because I want to learn to play more hymns and I think it's important that she grows up with music. She just makes it rather difficult to get through any hymns since she won't let me practice in peace unless she's sitting on my lap with full access to the keyboard.



When she was doing more chewing than playing I put her down. She crawled away while I tidied up a few things in her room. I heard her drumming away on something so I went to go find her. I checked the living room first because I was hoping she was using her "drum" from Grandpa L., but she wasn't there. So I followed her noise, and there she was in the bathroom, pounding away on the toilet seat. I helped her wash her hands and tried to take her out of the bathroom but she squirmed so much that I put her down.

She showed me the tub and tried to climb inside it. I didn't want to give her a full bath, so we just filled some containers up with water and played outside. She splashed away to her heart's content for about five minutes...until she noticed the tricycle. She tipped over the container of water in her hurry to get over to it.



I steered her away from the trike and put her on the rocking horse but she still would have nothing to do with it.


So I put her up on the tricycle again and pushed her around a few times. Then she got her feet on the back wheels and started pushing herself again but leaned a little too far, causing a tragic acident. Maybe now she'll believe us when we tell her that the rocking horse is safer than the tricycle.

I love this bike!

I hate this bike!

That was about half our day. I'm exhausted.

Shopping Lists and Watch Bands

"Are you ready?" Andrew begged, rather than asked. He almost always manages to be ready before I am.

"I think so," I said, going over the mental list of things to remember.

The baby was ready, I had a diaper, I had the stuff for DI, I had the shopping list. Oh, wait.

"What did I do with the shopping list?" I asked. I had just finished writing it down. I checked my pockets. It wasn't there.

"What did I do with it?" I asked again.

"Retrace your steps," Andrew advised.

We walked all around the house looking for that blasted list. I had brushed my hair so we checked the bathroom. I had gotten Rachel pants so we checked her room. We walked all around the house checking every room. That list was no where to be found.

"Are you sure it's not in your pocket?" Andrew asked.

"Yes," I said, checking again, "It's not here."

I sat down, wrote out a new shopping list, ripped it off the pad of paper, folded it in half and stuck it in my pocket. As I did so I felt something already in my pocket so I pulled it out.

There was the other shopping list.

"How did that get in there?" I asked, "It was not in there before. I checked. Twice!"

"Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't in there. I was holding onto it and just slipped it into your pocket when you weren't looking..." Andrew joked.

Seriously I have no idea how I checked my pockets twice and didn't find the list in there. I suppose our shopping trip would have been fine with either list. They were exactly the same except for one item on each list and we probably could have lived without either item.

While we were out shopping we went to get Andrew's watch fixed. Again. I have been to that same watch store four times in the last two months.

I first went in a few days before Valentine's Day to get Andrew a new strap. His watch tragically broke our first day in Jordan and he had been without it ever since. He'd mentioned his sad watchless state probably at least once a month for the past two years, perhaps more often than that even, so I finally broke down and went to get it fixed. When they returned it to me they gave me a free coupon to get it sized since Andrew wasn't there with me that day.

We returned to the store to have it sized. They ended up having to put the band on all over again because whoever did it the first time did it backwards. Andrew was very happy for a few weeks.

Then a few weeks ago Rachel was acting up in church so Andrew gave her his watch. She loves anything shiny and it made her quiet so we let her keep it and chew on it for a while. The next day, the pin fell off the strap and although we found the pin we couldn't find one of the sprigs, rendering the watch useless once more.

It sat on Andrew's dresser for a a week or more until we took it back into the store to have it fixed again. We mentioned that we had just had the strap put on and they fixed it for free.

Then last week Andrew was on campus, rushing between classes. He opened a door and walked on through, but his watch got caught and broke. Again. Both of the pins were bent so we had to get new ones. We went to get it fixed when we went out grocery shopping on Saturday.

I told Andrew this is the last time we're getting it fixed. It's starting to get a little embarrassing heading to that store every other week. We're almost on a first-name basis with everyone in the store and at some time they are bound to recognize a pattern and charge us with watch abuse or something.

Small and Simple Things

It's interesting how the smallest thing can make your day go better.

This morning I got up with Rachel at 6 o'clock. I fed her, hoping that she'd go back to sleep for an hour or so but I didn't have any luck. I even tried putting her back in her crib and turning on the fan so that she could watch it but she wasn't really interested in that. She wanted to be up for the day which meant that I had to be up for the day, too. One of the many imprecations of motherhood.

So we got up and started puttering around the house waiting for daddy to wake up. When the alarm went off, Rachel got back in bed to give daddy some wake-up snuggles (along with a few eye pokes and nose twists). When he got in the shower, Rachel and I went back into the living room to play.

Daddy left for school early so that he could finish the website he was working on without Rachel putting caps lock on or unplugging his mouse and Rachel started acting a little sleepy so we played some quiet games and sang some quiet songs until she was ready for a nap. The terrible thing about waking up early is that nap time is earlier as well. She fell asleep shortly after nine o'clock, which seems rather early to be taking a nap. But she had been up for three hours, and she was sleepy, so I put her down and, because I was still tired, I went to go lie down as well.

I walked into the bedroom and, much to my surprise, the bed was made!

It made me so happy! Just one less thing that I had to try to get done with Rachel nipping at my heels.

Andrew did the same thing on Saturday. I picked Rachel up and said, "Let's go make the bed," and when we walked into the bedroom it was already made.

Perhaps I should get out of bed before Andrew more often...

Traditions Ball

Going to a formal dance when you're married is a lot different than going to a formal dance when you're in high school. For one thing, you dance with the same person all night long. For another, you find yourself going grocery shopping for your "day date."

A few weeks ago my mom forwarded me an email from the BYU alumni association about the first annual "Traditions Ball," and offered to babysit for us if we wanted to go. I, of course, asked Andrew about it right away. We haven't gone out dancing in so long!

He acted like he didn't really want to go, saying it would be boring and it cost too much and so forth. Tickets were rather expensive, so I let it go and didn't nag him about it at all (really). And then last week he sent me an invitation via Google Calendar to attend the ball with him.

"I just had an extra ticket," he wrote, "So I figured I'd ask you."

That's my charming husband for you!

I immediately accepted his invitation and went to try on my bridesmaid dress from Heather's wedding and was happy to discover that it still fit after having a baby. Actually, it fit better than it did before. I wasn't there to try on the dress before the wedding--since I was living in Jordan at the time and Lavon was sewing it in Alberta--so it was a bit too big in some places that have since filled out.

That taken care of, I was able to relax until Saturday. We spent the day grocery shopping, working, and playing with Rachel. Not at all like the dances we went to in high school where we would spend the day hiking, picnicking, and playing games. We were so busy that we hardly had time to get ready before my mom showed up to babysit.

When she rang the doorbell, Andrew was still working on a website wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

"Am I at the right house?" she asked. She was expecting us to be all ready to go when she got there, but we weren't.

I was busy trying to bounce Rachel to sleep, still in my capris and a button up shirt. For some reason she did not want to go to bed last night at all. She kept screaming and throwing fits. How nice that my mom was there to take over her bedtime routine while I threw on my dress.

We said our goodbyes and headed out to the car. Andrew opened up my door for me and helped me get my dress in the door and then opened up the backseat door to put Rachel in...only we didn't have Rachel with us. He did that when we went out last night, too. I guess we're just used to having her around now.


The first thing Andrew steered me towards when we got there was the hors d'œuvres. Apparently he was hungry. We went outside to eat them in the gazebo, by ourselves. We were a little worried that we wouldn't see anyone we knew the whole night long, but while we were eating we saw Gordon Duvall, who I used to lifeguard with at OFC, and his date; and Doug and Ganeen; and Danielle McKinley and her date. It was nice to see some people we knew and have a few little chats throughout the evening.

After we had finished eating we went to get a complimentary picture taken in the library, which I will post after we get it (if it is decent, that is).

We danced to a live band, which was fun, if not tricky. We had a blast, definitely, but we do need to get out more often--we haven't practiced in a long while! We had trouble remembering the steps we once knew and people just were not moving line of dance. They were not moving against line of dance, either. They just weren't moving, making it hard to dance a nice waltz or foxtrot, which are two of our favorite dances.

We both prefer standard to latin or swing, but it seemed that the majority of the dancers, as well as the band, wanted fast music the whole night long. I guess that's what you get when you surround yourself with brass players and short people. Just kidding; not everyone else there was short--the band really was a big band, though, which accounts for all the swing music. We had fun anyway. We like swing. We just prefer waltz.

At ten o'clock we headed upstairs to have root beer floats and watch Noteworthy, an all-girls a cappella group, perform. I've never seen females do a cappella before. In fact, I'd never even heard of a female a cappella group, but they were awesome. We really enjoyed their concert and then went down to finish off dancing the night away in the ballroom.

We'd love to make this ball a tradition, but who knows how many years it will be until we will be in Provo in April again?

Alumni is so dumb!

Andrew and I went to the Senior Celebration at BYU yesterday while his parents babysat Rachel. We were both starving so the minute we were admitted we went straight for the free food, which was marvelous. They had pizza, burgers, soda fountains, ice cream, and chips. Pretty much the whole food court was ours for the taking. The rest of the party was so-so, but the food was awesome.

After we were finished eating we wandered into the terrace to look at the "carnival" games, most of which had long lines and waiting lists.

A banner greeting us, saying, "Welcome BYU's Newest Alumni!"

"What's the new west?" asked Andrew.

"Hmmm?" I asked. He pointed to the banner.

"Honey, that's newest."

"Oh, right...uhhh...look, SWAG!"

He grabbed a little bag with graduation information and a magnet in it to cover up his embarrassment.

This is the same person who signed up to work during graduation. I was putting some things on our family calendar yesterday and I noticed that he was scheduled to work all day on the 24th.

"Andrew," I said, "Are you planning on attending your graduation on Thursday?"

"Yeah, why?" he asked.

"Because you signed up to work all day that day."

When he went to work today he switched his hours around so that he could get all his hours in for the week and still be able to attend graduation and become one of BYU's newest alumni. Look out world, here he comes!

Little Red Tricycle

Our neighbors across the way have a little tricycle for their daughter. As their father explained to me it's more of a communal trike. I believe they found it at the playground in our complex where there are plenty of disowned, forgotten, and often broken big toys.

Rachel has been coveting this tricycle for quite some time. Our neighbors downstairs will ride their bikes around outside with Emily, the owner of the tricycle. Rachel loves to stand in the window and watch them ride back and forth on the sidewalk. She likes it even better when we watch them while sitting on the lawn outside.

Yesterday we went out onto the breezeway to blow bubbles but Rachel's attention was instead drawn immediately to the gleaming red tricycle. She's a little young for tricycles so I tried to distract her by blowing bubbles in her path. It didn't work. She kept on her course.

She played with the pedals for a minute and then pulled herself up and banged on the seat.

"Uhh! Uhh! A mama!" she hollered at me and started to try to lift herself up using the handlebars, indicating to me that she wanted to be up on the bike like a big girl, so I put her on.

How do I mount this crazy contraption?

I pushed her around the breezeway a few times, which she enjoyed immensely. She was laughing and squealing the whole time.

Wheee!

That was awesome!

I wonder if this button makes mommy go faster...

Somehow she discovered that if she lay out on her tummy she could reach the back wheels with her tiptoes and push herself along. (No video, sorry...I was too nervous to do much more than a quick snap shot. I didn't even want to switch modes on the camera. I was too busy hovering). This is evidence that I have a very "busy" baby. A busy baby is one who can ride a tricycle by herself at only 8 and a half months. And you all wondered why I'm going crazy...

I like to ride my tricycle, I like to ride my trike

Our little neighbor Cory came outside while Rachel was riding around and they pointed and said, "Ooh!" at each other for a few minutes before Cory got on his own tricycle and rode around like a wild man while Rachel stared in awe.

Cory's mom brought out a little rocking horse for Rachel to play with. Something "closer to the ground and a little more safe for a baby." I dragged Rachel over to the rocking horse, while she tried to squirm out of my arms, and put her down on it. She didn't really like it even after I pushed her back and forth on it a few times. She just fussed, climbed off, and headed right back to the tricycle.

Whatever.

Now, that's what I'm talkin' about!

Oh, yeah...

I don't know what we'll do in Cairo if we don't have daily access to a roof, terrace, garden, or park. We're considering getting a swing to take with us, although I'm not sure there will necessarily be anywhere for us to hang it up.

Do they have tricycles in Egypt, Mommy?

Living in Egypt isn't even my biggest concern. I know they have toys over there (yes, Rachel, even tricycles). It's the plane that worries me. Somehow I don't think they'd appreciate it if Rachel was riding a little tricycle up and down the aisles the duration of the flight. Trust me, if they would let her, she would do it!

Graduation Details

By this time next week Andrew will be finished with his undergraduate education forever. Well, besides finals week. I am probably ten times more excited for him to graduate than I was for me to graduate.

He has been working so hard, non stop, since we got married--and he's been doing incredibly well for the workload that he's been carrying. He takes 15+ credits each semester, sometimes having to get special permission to take extra classes. He works 25+ hours a week--this semester he's also been donating a lot of his time for the ULA/MPLA conference--teaching and working in the library. He finds the time to fulfill his church callings and spend time with me and Rachel and help out around the house. He's pretty much amazing!

We're excited to have the summer free of schoolwork. We've never really had more than a week or so of "no school" our whole married lives, so having Andrew just working will be a nice change of pace before we get back to the old grinding stone.

This week will be a very busy week--Andrew has several major projects to finish--but things will hopefully slow down soon!

Here's the graduation announcement we sent out to our family:


Andrew's planning on having Rachel walk with him, wearing a little cap and gown. We'll see how that goes.

Dear Diary

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this growing up business. I can do almost everything mommy and daddy can do now, except I can't balance too well on my own.

This morning I was sitting on my pretty yellow potty and I saw mommy's hairbrush sitting on the counter. I've never really paid much attention to the counter, but I know that a lot of cool stuff is on it--like toothbrushes, hair elastics, mommy's necklaces, and the like. I hadn't brushed my hair yet today so I figured that I would just borrow mommy's brush.

I sat on the potty for a minute, trying to figure out how to get off it unseen (for some reason mommy doesn't like me to crawl off it while I'm going. I'm not sure why). When I finally saw that mommy wasn't paying attention to me anymore I slipped off, crawled over to the counter, pulled myself up and felt around blindly until my hand touched the brush handle.

Success!

Note to self: brushes are more fun to chew on than to brush your hair with.

Not only can I reach the top of the bathroom cupboard...I discovered today that I can also reach the top of the kitchen table. Mom left the cookie sheet she used to carry the cupcakes yesterday on the table. She was doing the dishes and I figured she needed a little help clearing the table, so I reached up and pulled the cookie sheet on top of me, spilling little bits of dried icing all over the floor.

Mommy didn't really like that and she took me into the kitchen with her so that she could keep a better eye on me. Did you know that drawers have stuff in them?

Apparently everyone knew this but me! Why didn't anyone ever tell me about this?

I was pulling myself up on the drawers today and one of them opened and a whole bunch of things I've never seen before magically appeared. There was a box in the drawer with a bunch of little plastic bags in it. They were rather slippery and kind of popped out of the box like kleenex (also fun). I pulled out as many as I could before mommy stopped me, cleaned up the baggies, and shut the drawer.

I think she thought she had left it open because after she shut it she put me right back down in front of it. Silly mommy! I opened up the drawer and pulled out the plastic baggies again. They're fun to play with, but before I could even stick one in my mouth, mommy realized that it was me opening up the drawers and she stopped cleaning the kitchen to play with me.

At least, that's what she said, "Let's go play." It was really more of a feeble attempt to distract me from all the cool things in the kitchen.

Note to self: mommy doesn't really like me to touch much of anything I want to touch. I must be more sneaky.

So, that's what I've learned today. Soon I will be able to get into everything mommy tries to hide from me, be it high or low!

जन्मदिन मुबारक हो

When we woke up yesterday morning it was overcast and gloomy. It started to rain and we heard some thunder. Then in started to hail, which in turn quickly progressed into an ugly snow storm. Happy Spring.


The power went out so Rachel and I played in the dusky light until she was ready for her nap. I put her down and looked at my list of things to do:

-Email Melissa
-Work on Harman
-Write a blog post
-Make Andrew's graduation announcement

Almost everything on my list needed the computer to get done. Down near the bottom of my list was "decorate Josie's birthday cake." I had baked the cake the day before and I had already researched how to decorate it. All I needed to do was actually finish it. So that's what I did in the half-darkness of my dining room while I waited for the power to come back on.

Funny how the power goes out when it's stormy so you have little natural light to make up for the lack of electricity. Oh, well. I think my cake turned out alright, anyway. Josie liked it so much that she didn't want to have birthday candles ruin it. We sang to her without candles.

Since Josie is very interesting in all things India, I attempted to decorate her cake with traditional henna designs. I made fourteen cupcakes in honor of her fourteenth birthday.


I also made her a little cake that I hope says janmadina mubārak ho (Happy Birthday in Hindi). It was my first time writing in Devanagari script at all, let alone on a cake, so it's a little bit sloppy, but my mom was able to read it so I think I did alright even though I left off part of a diacritic on the /i/.


For dinner mom and David stopped by Many Lands and got some Indian food for us to cook. I made naan while my mom made briyani and a bean dish.

Andrew and David play with K'nex while waiting for dinner

It was really good, but a little too spicy for our delicate American tongues. We mixed the briyani in with plain rice and it was still too spicy for half the family. As long as I used enough chutney, I didn't find it too spicy. It was delicious!

Dinner

Josie and her cake

Henna cupcakes

Rachel ate Froot Loops for dessert while the rest of us enjoyed the cupcakes and then she put her sticky fingers all over Grandpa's hair.