Quirky Quirks

My sister Abra tagged me. This one is about quirks: you disclose 6 "unspectacular" quirks about yourself and then tag 6 other bloggers to do the same. I never tag anyone, though, so if you want to, go ahead, but I'm not tagging you.

Here are my quirks:

1) I love brushing my teeth. I can't stand aftertastes, especially of the "milk and cereal" variety, so I usually brush my teeth after every meal. When my dad was in the hospital getting an emergency triple bypass I was freaking out because I hadn't brushed my teeth since that morning and it was like midnight. Sister Wright went out and bought a toothbrush for me so that I could get a grip on life. That was probably a defense mechansim of sorts.

2) I see life through my blog. I think about writing all the time and am always thinking about how I can turn a situation, conversation, or picture into an entertaining story. I'm a little obsessive, perhaps.

3) I sort through Rachel's toys and put them away "properly." I hate it when she loses pieces to her toys and hunt through the house for them until I can "put it together again." We've been missing the red oval for her shape sorter and it's been driving me nuts. I look for it on a daily basis. Andrew suggested that Rachel probably put it in the trash and that it is now in Garbage City. I am still looking for it.

4) I can't go to sleep without checking on Rachel. And I have to touch her when I check on her. I can't just peek in and see that she's still snug in bed and that she's still breathing. I actually have to put my hand on her chest to feel it rise and fall. You would think that after 14 months I'd be pretty confident of her ability to survive on her own through the night, but I'm not. I think it stems from all the worrying I did for the last 20 weeks of my pregnancy. I still think that she's fragile somehow...or maybe it's because I just like to worry. I have to check the door two or three times before going to bed as well.

5) I have worn a CTR ring virtually every day since I turned 8 and got my first one. I had several of those cheap-o rings and they would always turn my finger green. Then I got one with a purple shield from my grandparents one year for Christmas...it was lost in a sharing-a-room-with-Josie incident. Then I got a small one with a black shield. Somehow it got run over by the vacuum cleaner and was completely mangled. My current CTR ring is David's old one. He gave it to me before he left on his mission after mine was run over by the vacuum cleaner. It's rather chunky and masculine and I've tried to not wear it but my finger is so used to it that I can't take it off for long. One day I'll try to get a cute ring...but for now I'm stuck with David's...

6) I'm a dainty eater; I only eat one kernel of popcorn at a time. Or one chip. Or one fruit snack. Or one grape. Whatever it is I'm eating I only eat one at a time. Andrew grabs a whole handful and shoves it into his mouth. He thinks it's funny that I eat so cleanly.

My greatest quirk though is probably that I married Andrew. Need I say more? He has enough quirks for the both of us. Let me highlight a few:

• He won't touch washcloths. He thinks they're gross. He won't wash dishes if he has to use a cloth--he'll use a sponge or anything else, but not a washcloth. If there is a washcloth sitting out and it needs to be washed, I have to pick it up. He prefers if they sit in the diaper pail than in the regular laundry basket.
• He organizes his clothes. And sometimes he organizes mine for me. It annoys him to no end that I don't have a "system" for my side of the closet. Sometimes I'll go to the closet and will find that my dresses have been organized by length or that my shirts have been organized by color.
• He is absolutely addicted to the news. The only way he's been surviving without the internet for this long is because we get CNN and Al-Jazeera on television. Before he goes to bed he has to "see if the world is still alive."
• He gets into my nice-smelling things. For someone so opposed to the color pink (the boy won't use a pink toothbrush or sponge), he sure is fond of pink soaps. He sometimes comes out of the shower smelling like Japanese Rose or some other scent and was recently really excited that we found "Red Berry" soap. It's pink, so it must smell good...
• He says that he doesn't have any quirks. He just has little attributes that makes him more endearing. He also says that I don't have any quirks. Seriously, nothing I do bothers him...except maybe cutting my nails on the bed or using the same cloth to wash the dishes and the counter or the fact that I don't organize my clothes.
  

Rachel can be pretty quirky, too. For example, she has to take her shoes, pants, and underwear off to go potty--completely off. She cries if we try to convince her that it's alright to have her pants sit at her ankles. She wants it all off! She also won't go to bed without her blankey, likes to eat off of our plates even if she has the same thing in front of her, and sometimes puts her underwear on her head.

What are your quirks?

Another Shot

Before leaving the doctor's office, when we went for Rachel's 1 year check up, I asked for a photocopy of her vaccinations record. I will admit that I was very confused. On the record that I had, the nurse had written in the combined shots without writing the diseases Rachel was immunized against.

So my records showed that Rachel hadn't had any of her polio or Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis shots. The nurse had also taken our immunization card from us, but hadn't written down which shots Rachel got last time. She had also written down some shots by the wrong age, for example she wrote down her 1 year MMR shot in the square for the 4 year MMR shot. Things were very out of order and very confusing.

Perhaps I'm just a worry wart, but I wanted to be sure that I fully understood what she was immunized for before we take off for Egypt. Just so that I know and can tell her doctor for sure. I don't know. Somehow I just figure that might be important.

After going over our bill from the insurance company and noting that she had received her MMR, Hep A and Chickenpox vaccinations, I phoned the doctors office to verify the rest of her record.

It was all very confusing because the doctor had written her birthdate beside the shots she just received instead of the date she came in for her 1 year checkup. I see how he got confused because she was born on 07/20/07 and we came in on 07/21/08, but his confusion caused much confusion for everyone else.

After failing to communicate over the phone, I decided to go in and show them how the information I had and the information they had just didn't match.

I first talked with a medical assistant at the front desk who agreed that the whole situation was rather confusing. She went through the computer records and the paper records and made sure they all cross referenced correctly.

She thought Rachel was missing two shots, so she asked a nurse to talk with me about getting those. The nurse went through Rachel's records again and said it looked like Rachel might have already been given one of those shots.

She wouldn't get a fourth Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b) shot because there's a national shortage right now so they're just giving a series of three shots. That's fine with me.

The last shot she was missing (or not?) was the Pneumococcal shot. The doctor had a date written by the shot but the nurse had not filled out any lot number or dosage on Rachel's chart. The lot number and dosage had been filled out for the other three shots Rachel recieved, I remembered three shots and three bandaids, and I was only billed for three shots so we decided that we should probably give Rachel the fourth, and allegedly missing, shot.

After the nurse assured me that it wouldn't hurt Rachel to be vaccinated twice (just in case), we went into the back to find an open room. Rachel started getting nervous the minute we walked through the door and started to cry when I put her down on the table. I don't think she liked the crinkly paper.

Since our doctor wasn't in today, our nurse wasn't in, either. Instead we had a different nurse and she let me hold Rachel during the shot, which worked out a lot better than laying her down on the table. I was able to keep her arms and legs under control the whole time, unassistted, and when the needle poked her, she was able to hug me, which I think is what she is trying to do when she thrashes around on the table.

I think I'll request to hold her the next time she needs a shot , which isn't for at least 6 months.

So, after our long afternoon, Rachel's records are complete. I can finally cross that one off my list of "things to do before moving to Cairo."

Mandarin Orange Monster

For lunch today I opened a can of Mandarin oranges. Soon I had to open another can. Rachel just couldn't get enough of them!



When she was finished eating she turned her bowl upside down on the table so I quickly went to grab a wash cloth before she could make too big of a mess. In the 10 seconds it took for me to run into the kitchen, Rachel had taken her sticky hands and rubbed them through her hair.


She was one sticky mess, covered in orange juice from her head to her toes--quite literally, too! I've already sponged her off three times and she's still sticky. She might just have to hop in the tub...again. She's already had 1 bath today. How many does she need?

Twice in one week

Disclaimer: Mom, this is not to make you feel guilty--it's just for posterity's sake.

Rachel has almost asphyxiated twice this week, both times due, in part, to my very own mother!

The first was on Pioneer Day when we went up to my Uncle Bruce and Aunt Sara's place in Salt Lake. They live right downtown, close to the Gateway, so parking is atrocious. We fed the meter coin after coin until we had paid for a half hour's visit worth, then went inside to find Josie.

It's an interesting apartment building; kind of reminded me of UVSC's campus. The cement floors were stained burnt orange and the cement walls were painted lime green. What wasn't orange or lime green was plain old grey. The pipes, which were plainly visible because there was no ceiling, were painted pink. There were black and white pictures of rusty metal things hanging on the walls.

It was...interesting.

I was happy to get out of the lobby and into their apartment, which was still orange and green, but at least had a lovely grand piano and acceptable artwork.

We sat and visited, munching on grapes. Rachel, always a mooch, was taking grapes from whoever would give them to her. She's pretty good about chewing things, but grapes are a little scary, so we try to give her only half a grape at a time, or hold the grape until she bites it in half and then give her the whole thing.

My mom was trying the latter method when Rachel sucked the whole grape right into her mouth. It seemed like she was chewing it up alright, but my mom warned me that she had some big pieces in there when Rachel started walking from her to me.

No sooner had Rachel arrived at my feet did she start gagging. There's not a whole lot scarier than watching your baby choke.

I encouraged her to cough it up so that she could rechew it, but it seemed to be lodged in there pretty deep. I watched her face turn redder and redder. Then she stopped making any noise and just stood there, her gag reflex going wild.

Hardly thinking, I scooped her up, crossed my legs, and balanced her, slightly upsidedown, over my knees. After a few good whacks on the back, she spat out the half-chewed grape (and a handful's worth of milk) into my waiting hand.

"You're an unflappable mother," my mom remarked.

Sara came over with a cloth to take away the grape/milk mess from my hand.

"Well, no, she's shaking," she said, as if to assure my mom that I actually was worried.

And I was quite worried. After all, my baby couldn't breathe. It was quite alarming then, and it was quite alarming tonight.

Rachel and I went to a pool party bridal shower for Maddie Nielson with my mom and Josie this evening. It was a fun idea, even if most of the women there sat around the pool talking about what a cute idea it was without ever actually getting in the water.

We got in the water, though. Rachel loves swimming, so we had little say in the matter. She would have gone in with or without us. There were a few others in the pool. My mom was the only one from her generation in the pool. There were several of Maddie's age in the pool, including myself. And there were plenty younger girls in the pool, around Josie's age. And a couple of babies, of course.

After a while, my mom suggested that she hold Rachel while Josie and I had a race with some of the girls.

Rachel willingly went to my mom. She just loves her grammy.

I took my glasses off and placed them on the side of the pool.

"I'm just going to leave my glasses here, 'kay, Mom?"

"They should be fine there," she said. All the traffic was on the opposite side of the pool, so they really were pretty safe.

I was just standing there, blindly, while we tried to coreograph our racing path, when Josie tapped me on the arm.

"Uh, Nan," she said, pointing to my mom and Rachel.

I looked over. Rachel was looking at me from under the water, her eyes wide, and a little bubble of air escaped from her lips.

"MOMMY!" I screamed, "YOU'RE HOLDING HER UNDER THE WATER!"

I'm not in the habit of calling my mom "mommy" quite so much anymore, but apparently when I'm petrefied I still do. I know I just said, "There's not a whole lot scarier than watching your baby choke," but I have to admit that watching your baby being held under water is a whole lot scarier.

Let the record show that this incident was entirely accidental. My mom had Rachel on her hip, thinking that the water was shallow enough where she was standing that Rachel was above the water. It wasn't though!

Rachel was a real trooper! She didn't cry or act scared or anything (I, on the otherhand, did). She didn't even look scared under the water (I, on the otherhand, did). She just looked...fascinated. Her eyes were wide, but not with terror. Instead she was curiously watching everything from under the water, blowing her bubbles.

She obviously can't have been under the water too long because there was no evidence that she inhaled any water. She didn't come up coughing and her breathing wasn't raspy.

I just thank my lucky stars and bars that she already knew how to blow bubbles...and that we'd had some time to practice a few minutes before. She has this odd habit of forgetting which way to breathe when she blows bubbles and instead of blowing out she inhales a mouthful of water and comes up sputtering. I can just imagine what she was thinking while she was under there,

"Mommy always says to blow out when my face is in the water. Always out. Never in. So I'll just blow out. I'll just blow out. Out, out, out. Still blowing out. Hmmm...when do I get to blow in again?"

Mama vs. Dada

Andrew was rough housing with Rachel on our bed the other day. Pillow fights seem to have become one of our waking up rituals. Rachel loves them.

They were playing on the bed, bouncing, rolling around, tickling each other, and (of course) hitting each other with pillows.

Rachel was laughing her head off and egging Andrew on,

"Dada, Dada, Dada..." she'd say, gasping for air between her fits of laughter.

After I was finished getting ready for the day, it was Andrew's turn to go off and have a shower. I resumed his position, tackling Rachel on the bed.

She squealed and ran away,

"Dada, Dada!" she screamed in joy.

Then she stopped dead in her tracks, looked at me, smacked herself in the forehead, and, while slowly dragging her hand down her face, said,

"Mama."

She was quite embarrassed to have called me the wrong name. From that point on, our game played out the same as it had with Daddy, only Rachel was egging me on,

"Mama, Mama, Mama!"

Welcome to the Eighties

Yesterday I put Rachel into one of my old shirts. Since I got the shirt in 1985, she looked pretty authentically vintage. My favorite part is that she found a gold medal in her toy box and wouldn't part with it for the whole day. She thought she was so hip!

What completed her outfit, though, was when she found her sunglasses that we got in a spy kit from the Dollar Store.


Seriously, who wouldn't want to been seen in public with such a well-dressed chick? Of course, if anyone could pull off this outfit, it would be Rachel. She is borderline overconfident. This means that sometimes she still needs Mommy to hold her hand, but when she knows what she wants...watch out!

Once she had that gold medal around her neck, there was no getting it off. I tried to take it off before we went outside, but it brought on a barrage of tears. This not being a battle I wanted to fight, I let her wear the medal outside.

I often have to think about which battles are worth fighting. Rachel has such a strong will that we get into a lot of "fights." I've never met a baby quite so tricky at getting her own way.

Just to give you a taste, a few months ago she was doing something she knew she wasn't supposed to be doing (shocker, no?). I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something bad or dangerous enough that she needed to be stopped.

"Look at Mommy, Rachel," I told her. I often have her look at me before I tell her no. That way I know she's listening. Usually she'll look at me and I'll say, "Put it down, please," or "That's not a good idea," or, when I'm desperate, "NO! That's bad!" Usually she'll just stop what she's doing.

This time, however, I guess she either really wanted to continue her not-so-good activity or she just wanted to get on my nerves because she complied with my request, almost. Instead of just turning around to look at me, though, Rachel slowly turned around to face me with her eyes squeezed tightly shut!

I could not believe her gall. She got stuck in a timeout for that little maneuver.

From that incident she learned that Mommy means business. I learned that she is an exceptionally good listener with a whole lot of effrontery!

At least she's a good listener, though. I'm often surprised with how much she understands. She chews, sits, stands, lies down, claps, and growls on demand. She can correctly identify far more things than I have specifically taught her.

She recently learned that if she climbed up on a moving box, she could hoist herself up onto the couch. From there she can reach the light switch. Now she spends all day flicking the lights on and off and clapping for herself.

I think the relationship between the switch and the light is fairly complex, but Rachel seems to get it. When I ask her to turn the lights on and off, or if I ask her where the light switch is, she knows the answer.

"It's right here, Mommy!"

She also knows where the lights themselves are. She knows what the switch does, but she understands that the switch is not the light. She really surprised me--I was expecting her to point to the light switch again when I asked her, "Where's the light?"

"It's way up high!"

"Off, on, off, on, off, on..."

If only I could get her to be so happy about going to the potty as she is about turning the lights on and off. She knows how to take off her BumGenius diapers--they're just velcro. She can take off her rubber pants and tug on her prefolds. She can walk to the potty. She can sit on the potty. She can go on the potty. She knows where it is and will take me to it if I ask her to show it to me. She knows exactly what she's supposed to do in it. She just won't sometimes.

We had a 6 hour 45 minute standoff yesterday afternoon, all regarding the potty. It was a battle I was willing to fight.

She woke up from her nap at 2 in the afternoon and went potty, just as a good girl should.

Everytime I tried to take her potty after that, though, she threw a fit. She'd scream and kick at me and the potty and would refuse to sit down. She wasn't going in her diaper, though, so I kept trying to get her to go potty.

She nursed 3 times, played outside for an hour and a half, had a cup of water, ate dinner, played with Daddy, and went on a walk. I even let her run around without a diaper on for a full hour.

She would not go, although she did several variations of her potty dance.

Right before we put her to bed, I stuck her on the potty again. She started to fuss and I said something to the effect of,

"Oh, come on, Rachel! You know you have to go!"

She looked at me, gave a slight nod, and peed a tremendous amount of pee. She held her pee for 6 hours and 45 minutes just because she wanted to win our little battle. Seriously, what kind of one year old holds their pee for that long just to spite their mother?


I have a feeling I'm going to have to become very well versed in the arts of persuasion and reverse psychology in order to raise this child.

15 sleeps

Our box supply was cut off unexpectedly when a sign appeared in Andrew's office above where the empty boxes are kept:

All boxes reserved for S.C.

Andrew's been bringing home empty paper boxes from work and hoarding them in our storage closet, but that reserve has all but dried up. And that serves as our excuse for why we haven't been packing lately.

However, with only 15 sleeps left in the US of A, it was time to do some more packing instead of just sitting around nervously watching the days tick by. We still have most of our kitchen stuff to do and some random books and things around the house. Other than that we're really almost finished.

Still, we needed more boxes, so this afternoon I went on the hunt.

I first turned to Craigslist. There were a few postings for free moving boxes. I called those first, but they were all taken. There were plenty more boxes for sale, but we aren't really in the mood to pay for used cardboard at the moment so I sat and debated about what to do.

We've had several families move into our complex recently. I'm sure they still have some boxes, but I haven't had the chance to meet any of them yet. Two of the three families had babies last week and weren't in church on Sunday. I would feel kind of awkward showing up at their door and saying something to the effect of,

"Hi and welcome to the ward! I hope you like your new place. Wow, looks like you have a lot of boxes there...we're moving soon so I won't ever really get to know you, but can I have your boxes? Cute baby, by the way!"

I'm just not sure I'm brave enough to do that, although they might have liked to have me offer to lug all the empty boxes out of their apartment and into ours.

I'll never know, though, because we next turned to Freecycle--where everything is gloriously free. Their mantra is is "changing the world one gift at a time," but I think it should be "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

The first number I called was Shaka, when the walls fell.

We hit the jackpot with the second number, though.

"Hi, I'm calling about the boxes you posted on Freecycle..." I started.

"COME AND GET 'EM!" the lady enthusiastically offered, "They've been stacking up all week!"

"I'll send my husband over on his way home from work,"

And with that, our box supply was replenished. Now all my excuses are gone. It's off to work I go...

H-A-I-R

Recently Rachel has become quite fascinated by hair. So fascinated, in fact, that we've started spelling H-A-I-R if she happens to have hers up so that we don't accidentally remind her to check and see what's in it today.

As a side note, we also have to spell E-Y-E or else she'll P-O-K-E it.

In the past couple of weeks she's started to run her fingers through my hair while she nurses. She likes to pet other babies' hair. She likes to reach up, pull her hair clips out, examine them, and then put them back on her head.

Of course, she can't really put them back in her hair, so they just balance on top, snagged on some tangle, until I notice and put it back in.

Sometimes she'll find a particularly interesting barrette or ribbon and will walk into the room holding it onto her head. Then she'll hand it to me and put her head in my lap, ready to be prettied up.

I thought since she's so interested in hair now that she'd sit still long enough for me to do some fun things with her hair. Braids, french ponytails, curlers...her hair is long enough for it! But no such luck.

The most I can get in recently is one clip, and that has to be kind of on the sly.

Her hair stays in best (read: longest) if I can do her hair when she's least expecting it, and then distract her with a new toy or a trip outside. Otherwise it's out in 30 seconds if I can get anything in it at all.

Here she is, ponytail still in tact, with an extra barrette in her hair. She can open and close this type of barrettes, just not in her own hair, so this barrette is just shoved inside her existing ponytail. She was quite proud of herself.

Cuddle Bug

Something about turning one has triggered a strange, new behavior in Rachel. She's suddenly become the cuddliest baby there ever was.

She cuddles when she wakes up in the morning. She cuddles before and after nursing. She cuddles every time I take her off her potty or out of her high chair. She cuddles after sliding down the slide. She cuddles after I read her a story. She cuddles every time I pick her up. She cuddles before bed. And sometimes she cuddles just because she hasn't cuddled in a while.

It's different; she didn't used to be like this. She used to be one of those put-me-down-so-I-can-wiggle babies and when she was really little she didn't even like to let her head rest against anything. Not my shoulder, not her car seat. Nothing.

Now, though, she makes time for cuddling whenever she can.


And not just wimpy because-I-have-to cuddles either. No, these cuddles are the amazing feel-good cuddles. She wraps her arms around my neck and nuzzles her face against me, pats my back a few times, and gives me a great, big, sloppy kiss! All the while she hums or sings, "Ma ma ma ma." When's she finished, she usually dives back in for another hug.

This is a stage that you will never find me complaining about.

الجريدة الجديدة

We've slowly been continuing our Arabic lessons, very slowly. Between Rachel and packing and working and spending time with friends and family we've had little time for much else.

Last night, though, we decided that we needed to get back into it. I'm not even halfway through the alphabet yet so we have a lot of work to do in very little time. I can recognize all the letters, I just can't write them all very well.

I struggled with D a lot. Andrew kept saying mine looked like a backwards C. I told him his looked like that, too, but he didn't believe me until I told him to write the word I was writing. Lo and behold, his D turned out looking a whole lot more like a backwards C than mine did. After that I didn't worry too much how he criticized my handwriting.

His penmanship is horrible in English, so I'm assuming it's horrible in Arabic, too.

My penmanship in English is pretty good, when I want it to be, and this is the eighth script I've learned so far in my life. First I learned how to print, and then I learned cursive in English. Then I learned some Korean--most of which I have forgotten by now. In high school I took Japanese so I learned Hirigana and then Katakana. At BYU I took Russian so I learned the Cyrillic alphabet, first cursive and then printing. Now I'm learning Arabic. I think I have quite a bit of experience learning how to write.

I know that Andrew knows more Arabic than I do, but seriously, when it comes to penmanship I have the upperhand.

One of the D words that I was copying over was جديد/jadeed (or in Egyptian, gadeed), which means "new." As I write, I sound out the words.

"جريدة/jareeda," I said as I spelled out jadeed.

"What?" said Andrew.

"جريدة" I repeated again. Jareeda.

"I've ruined you forever," said Andrew.

"Why?" I asked.

"You keep saying newspaper," he said.

When we lived in Jordan we lived in a building located behind the Dustour newspaper building. It was the closest landmark to our apartment building so whenever I took a taxi I would say,

"بناية جريدة الدستور" Banayat jareedat addustour, which means the building of the Dustour newspaper.

The taxi driver would drive me up Queen Rania street towards the Dustour building and then ask where to go from there and I would ask to be dropped off by the blue bridge, al jisser al asrak.

"الجسر الازرق"

I learned more Arabic than that when I lived in Jordan, but "jareedat addustour" was one of the first phrases I learned--it was my lifeline. I could end up anywhere in the city, completely lost, but if I said those two magic words I would always end up home.

Saying jadeed is difficult for me. I start out with good intentions but it always ends up coming out jareeda.

Chicken was another one of the words I learned. Dijaaj, or in Egyptian digaag.

"دجاج"

I can only imagine the looks I'll get when I walk into a restaurant over there and instead of asking for their "new chicken dish" I'll asked for a "newspaper chicken dish."

I'm preparing for a lot of funny looks. Besides being a foreigner, I know that I will say the wrong words at inopportune times and that the Jordanian dialect will be wont to slip out. I still struggle with the hard Egyptian /g/. I just don't like it. /J/ is much prettier, I think.

You know, we considered the name Jamila for Rachel, but since we had a hunch we'd be heading to Egypt, we opted not. Gamila just isn't as pretty.