Christmas Adam

Tonight is the eve of Christmas Eve--thus, Christmas Adam. We had our ward Christmas sacrament meeting today. It was really nice, I thought. I sang a "barber shop" version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen with the Lowrys and Brother Elkins. Having been sick all week I won't lie and say that I hit all my high notes because I didn't but the fact that I was actually able to sing was a miracle.

Andrew said that I looked like I was sixteen, standing by Brother Lowry--he's at least as big as Uncle Michael, if not bigger. I think his fingers are as big as my wrists (so I exaggerate some...he's not quite that big but he certainly dwarfs me). I felt kind of silly singing with this group of people. I'm no musical genius so I kind of get confused when I'm handed music and they tell me to sing it a third down from where it's written and then randomly decide to do a key change and all this other crazy stuff. It's a good thing I was singing the melody! We sounded good though, and it was fun.

Andrew, on the other hand, is a musical genius and he played on his clarinet (which he hasn't played since last Christmas) a flute/clarinet duet with only one rehearsal. He sounded wonderful.

Also, Sister Svendsen sang one of my favorite songs, Breath of Heaven. She cried all through the chorus. I always cry through that song. She did a fabulous job. I went up and told her so after the meeting and I said,

"I don't know how anyone can get through that song without singing," then I stopped and thought about what I said and added, "I mean...crying...I can't get through that song without crying. It's so beautiful."

I just often feel that I need a breath of heaven to hold me together, especially being a new mother, and when I hear this song it reminds me of how many times I've been given heavenly help--the peace of the spirit, a can of soup from a neighbor, each offer someone gives to watch my baby when I just can't take motherhood anymore. The list of blessings goes on and on. Every little prayer I utter is answered in the most miraculous way--ways I would never dream up myself. Heavenly Father really does watch over us and cares about every desire of our heart, both the small things and the big things.

The song also reminds me that I should be praying and watching for opportunities to serve others and help them feel that breath of heaven. I can be an instrument in the Lord's hands. I just really like that song.


This evening we went up to Temple Square with Andrew's family to see the lights and to listen to Aunt Dorothy sing in the Assembly Hall. Rachel got a little restless, being bundled up inside and not walking around, so I fed her, which was a little tricky but we managed.

Aunt Dorothy, right in the middle

Aunt Dorothy sings tenor, which I think is cool because I have a voice like Minnie Mouse and can only sing tenor if it is knocked up an octave. Singing any note below middle C can be a challenge for me, which is pretty sad because I can't sing very high, either. My range just isn't very big, I guess. Oh, well. There's a part to be sung by everyone.

We were lucky that it was so warm today. We were able to spend quite a bit of time outside without worrying about getting Rachel too cold. We went inside the newly refurbished Tabernacle. The benches are a whole lot more comfortable now--you can sit down without banging your knees on the bench in front of you.


We then went and watched the Nativity story outside of the tabernacle.


We went to the Visitor's Center and watched the movie of Luke II, which is just an extended version of The Nativity. Rachel couldn't sit through the seven minute movie, though. Grandpa took her out and walked around with her. She likes to walk around with Grandpa because he lets her touch everything: the flowers, the walls, the signs...everything.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve, or simply Christmas Adam, whatever you prefer.

After the children go to bed

I think we have a new way to put Rachel to bed. She really does enjoy sleeping, it's just getting her there that's the hard part. The girl gets overstimulated just by having her eyes open.

She's slept fairly well the last few nights, which I appreciate. I put her to sleep by a series of entering her room and rocking her on my yoga ball--a workout and a comfort session all in one, and then letting her scream in her room. See, she doesn't want me to hold her unless she wants some cuddles which typically means that she has to be either really excited or really upset. Screaming helps her be cuddly.

But I really can't stand her screaming. Not at all. It makes me cry (and *cough* leak milk *cough*). So I've found that I can ignore her better if I am distracted in some way.

Tonight we cleaned our house. Our poor little house was in shambles from finals/being sick/staying up all night with an overactive baby. It needed a makeover. Andrew and I worked hard and I intermittently went and rocked Rachel. Eventually she fell asleep, snuggling her toy bunny.

With the house clean and the baby asleep, Andrew and I broke out our triominoes set and played a few rounds together. We figure this can be an on-going tradition, to clean the house together after we send the kids to bed and then do something fun together. That way the kids will think that we just do boring things, like cleaning the house, after they go to bed and they won't want to stay up after we send them to bed because they'll know that they would have to help clean up, more rigorously than just their regular chores. If they happen to want to stay up then we can just put them to work--and if they work hard then they deserve to do whatever fun activity we do.

Plus, the trick will be on them because sometimes Andrew and I don't even do anything fun after we are done working. We just go to bed. So they'll never know if we're going to do something fun after the work is done or not--more incentive to just go to bed.

For now cleaning just helps distract me from Rachel's operatic screaming. She doesn't really have chores yet.

Anyway, triominoes was fun. I won the first round, hands down, but the second round put us in a bit of a grid lock. It took forever. Midway through the round Andrew remarked,

"Eventually one of us is going to win."

"Thank you, captain obvious," I retorted. Of course one of us would win...

Neither of us did though. We ended up calling it a draw because neither of us could put our pieces anywhere, even after we gave up and looked at each other's pieces. I guess technically I won because I only had one piece that I couldn't play while Andrew had two.

He won the third game, by the way. We always (at least, we usually) play triominoes in three. It's good luck, I hear.

Christmas Goodies

We finally delivered some Christmas treats to a select few of our neighbors. Okay, so nine of our neighbours which is about half as many as I had originally planned for. Perhaps we'll make more cookies tomorrow. I just haven't been feeling up to it this week.

This happened last year, too, only I was pregnant and didn't feel up to it. Karen gave us the cookies. She gave us the bags. She gave us the ribbon. She gave us preprinted labels. All we had to do was deliver and I'm not sure we even finished doing that because Andrew found a fortune cookie about a week ago...and ate it.

This year, Karen gave us some Chinese take-out boxes and we filled them with treats of our own. We're trying to get more independent, see? We might eventually get there.

Well, we were out delivering these treats--with our blue and orange ribbon (very Christmasy, I know) because we couldn't find red, green, or gold anywhere--and we got stuck behind a car going about 10 MPH. We followed it semi-patiently for about three minutes until it turned off onto a side street. We breathed our sigh of relief and continued straight...

Only to be almost broadsided by that very same car! The driver pulled a "u-turn" of sorts in the side street and was coming straight for us! Andrew honked his horn and got out of the driver's way. Crisis averted. The driver, a young teenaged girl on her cellphone, slammed on her breaks and started waving her hands in front of her face. I'm quite sure she was trying not to cry.

We drove on but she stayed parked for a while. I think she was pretty shaken up--we weren't terribly calm ourselves. Two minutes after our near-collision, when we were just seconds away from our destination, Andrew said,

"Man, I think I'm having an adrenaline rush. I just want to honk at someone else! Someone needs to try to kill us again--I'm all ready!"

And with a quick "That's nice, dear," from me, I delivered the last of today's packages and we headed to Macey's to buy some more spices.

See, we forgot our list at home when we struck out for our grocery shopping trip yesterday. That means that we kind of made up what we needed spur of the moment while looking at our wiki at Andrew's parent's house. We forgot a number of spices that we never use, except that we wanted to use them for Christmas baking.

Allspice
Seasoned salt
Whole ginger
Onion powder

You know, things for wassail and chex mix--festive things like that. We tried making our own seasoned salt because we have this spice rack that we got for our wedding that has a bunch of bizarre spices that we have no clue what to do with. Seasoned salt apparently uses a lot of the spices we don't know what to do with. Celery seeds--who uses those? Apparently those are called for in seasoned salt.

Our attempt at seasoned salt was a little meager. We were missing quite a few of the many spices that it called for--it even asked fur curry, which itself is a mixture of a bunch of different spices, and we had run out of that already. We gave up when it told us to grind the stuff together and we didn't have anything that we thought would do that. I tried mashing it between two bowls, trying to simulate a pestle of sorts. We had to give up.

We bought seasoned salt and brought it home. Lo and behold it smelled the same as my own little concoction...but it didn't quite look the same. Ah, well. Our Chex Mix was wonderful with the store bought seasoned salt and our wassail was absolutely fabulous.

Our house now officially smells like Christmas!

Bizza Barty

When we came home from the Brick Oven, Rachel was so wound up that it took her a full hour to settle down before she could take her nap. She talked to me the whole time.

From her series of "oohs," "aahs," and "phhhlllhhhs," I've gathered somewhat of a story. This is her story told only as she could tell it.

Ahh, ahh, ahh, phhhlll *spittle, spittle, spittle,* ooh, ahh! (I got to see Rachel again today. She said that I've gotten chubbier since the last time I saw her, which was last week when I helped daddy at his study session. I can't help it. I'm a growing girl!)


Phhhllllhh, mmmmmmma, *spittle, spittle*, phhhlllh, aah, aah, ah. (I met a little girl named Miriam who is so cool! She can do so many things that I can't, like drink from straws and walk around. Whenever I try to drink from straws they jab my mouth. I was happy to see that Miriam had trouble getting away from the straw--it kept floating up into her mouth--perhaps I'm not so far behind after all.)


Maaaa, oooh! Phhhhllll *spittle,* mmmmmmm *squeal,* ooh, ooh, ooh! (I was very interested in Miriam but she was only moderately interested in me. I kept wanting to touch Miriam but every time I did she would cry to Bridget, "Mo-om! The *sniff* baby touched me!" at which time Bridget would have to kiss her wounds better. I was even trying to be gentle and not pinch--I have a mean pinch--and give kisses. Maybe next time we meet she'll like me a little more).

Miriam, probably nursing a Rachel-inflicted "wound"

Phhlll *spittle* hhhlllph! Ah, ma, ooh, ahh! (Eventually I had to be passed from Bridget to Ashley so that I would stop touching Miriam. I had a lot of fun on Ashley's lap but she was so close to mommy that I had to go see her. We had a high chair for me but I wasn't really interested in sitting in it.)

Ahhh, oooh, mmmmaa, *screech!* Aaah, aah, phhhlllooo! *spittle, spittle...* (There were a lot of exciting stories told--quite a few of Egypt. Mommy and Daddy have been taking about Egypt quite a lot lately. I was surprised how many stories were told about Egypt since everyone professed not to like it that much. We recounted how Lindsay got hit by a motorcycle, how mommy got abducted by a bedo and put on a donkey--and was then asked for baksheesh, how Kirk was overpowered by a horse, how Matt's kefiya got stolen, how Nate ran from the Great Pyramids to the "panoramic view" to meet up with Jamila, and the dreadful, dreadful hike up Mt. Sinai. There was plenty talk about Jordan as well--the Stoop and Shoop by the "apartment of seven guys," the shooting at the amphitheater, how ghetto all our apartments were, and the 2007 Study Abroad folk helped tell us how the city has changed since we were there. They moved Abdali station, what?!? The church is moving, the language center has wireless internet now...we won't even recognize the place when we get back there! Everything is different.)

Don, telling a riveting story

Maa, waa, waa. (And then Sean came wearing a sweater with Hebrew on it! We told Bridget how Sean went to Jerusalem after our study abroad and she was like, "I should not know this!" See, we were banned from going to Israel because of the lovely little war going on while we were over there. Sean went to do another study abroad in Israel the following year, so it was perfectly legal.)


A-ah, Oh! A-ah, Oh! Aaaaaa, aha! (Steven has an iPhone. Quite a few people are jealous of it. He kept playing with it all through lunch and joked about how it does almost everything--except it won't give him a massage. He feels like he should be able to say, "Massage!" and it should turn on vibrate and then he could rub it on his back. It doesn't do that...catch up Apple! People are dreaming.

And Bryan was able to tell us about Yemen and how it's fine if you don't mind going without "Western amenities." Since we all lived in ghetto apartments without consistent water or properly functioning toilets or shower-toilet combos, we were wondering what "amenities he was talking about. Air, maybe. Admittedly, what he saw in Yemen might have been a little more "rustic" than what we saw in Jordan.)


A-boo, boo, boo, poo, ploo, phhhhllloooo, phhhhlllll *spittle!* Ahh, ahh! (Mommy's pizza was late coming out so the manger came to apologize and give her a free salad. Mommy was glad for the free salad because she was hungry, but she didn't really mind that her pizza was late because I was busy eating when the pizza was brought out anyway so her hands were tied. The pizza at the Brick Oven was much better than the pizza we had at The Pizza Factory last week. They have a lesson or two to learn from good ol' Heaps! Daddy held me while mommy ate some pizza because he was already finished eating when mommy got hers.)


Ahh! Ma, ma, mmmmmmmmphlllphhhllll *spittle!* Ah, ahhh, ahh, ah, a... (Rachel fell asleep before she was finished this little sentence, but I think it had something to do with how much fun she had seeing everyone and talking about the Middle East and how she'd love to go there someday...so daddy should finish his application for AUC.)

Last Minute Christmas Shopping

We had two people left to buy gifts for--you probably know who you are since there are no gifts under the tree for you yet. Andrew came home shortly before two o'clock and we figured we had time to do some Christmas shopping.

Of course we did. It was only two o'clock. But we have a baby. So by the time we fed her and got everything all ready to go it was nearly three o'clock. Perhaps even later.

It was so nice and sunny out when we left that we dressed minimally. Rachel was in a jacket and had two blankets. I wore a coat and shoes and put a diaper in my pocket. Andrew wore a light jacket and flip flops, of course. (He wears those whenever he doesn't have to work and would have worn them to take his last final of the year but it was gently snowing when he left so he wore shoes).

We went to Target first, where we were planning to pick up both of our gifts. Unfortunately we couldn't find one of our gifts there. Nor could we find cloth diapers. I've been wanting to try those out because, with our potty, I usually catch her just as she first starts going so there's only a little squirt in her diaper. I feel bad putting a soiled diaper back on her but I also feel bad tossing a diaper that hasn't gotten it's "full use," if you know what I mean.

We left Target and headed to the dread superstore Wal-mart. That was a maze. We're never going shopping this close to Christmas ever again. Of course, that's what we said last year, but you always forget something, right?

First we got a warm-mist humidifier, then we found some cloth diapers. But there were no diaper pins to be found. I talked to one sales associate and he asked us if we couldn't find them in the baby section. I said I couldn't so he directed us to "HB8." I stared at him. He stared at me. I put on my "come again" face. He looked at me like I was stupid and repeated himself,

"HB8."

"Huh?" I responded.

He sighed at me.

"Health and Beauty, aisle 8." he said curtly.

Apparently I don't know the lingo.

We headed over to HB but the aisles weren't numbered so we had to walk up and down every one trying to guess whether it was eight or not. No pins.

I found another sales associate and told him our story.

"I just suppose we're just out of stock," he said and went back to socking shelves. Maybe he was just seasonal help.

I found yet another sales associate and told her our story again with a pleading tone in my voice that somehow caught her interest. After she ludicrously suggested that perhaps they don't sell them anymore since they are a hazard to babies, I asked her why they would sell cloth diapers and not pins when the package says that you need pins to use the diapers. She couldn't think of a good answer and agreed to help us. I'm glad she deemed our cause a worthy one, although it did take a bit of convincing on my part.

She led us back to the baby aisle where we combed each rack looking for the pins. They were no where to be found, but I did help some lady who was looking for sheet covers. Apparently they don't have those at Wal-mart. They have them at Target though. I sent her there.

While I was busy helping the sheet cover lady (who was very nice and just moved here from out of state and can't find her sheet covers anywhere) and the sales associate was trying to find the pins over by the sippy cups, Andrew appeared out of no where with Rachel happily sucking on a package of pins--now we were committed to buying them. At least we found them. They were apparently the last package in the whole store. He found them wedged between the shelf and the wall underneath the piles of cloth diapers.

With that, we found our last gift and then headed to checkout, which was a nightmare.

When we finally got through the line the sales clerk said, "Good luck out there, drive safe and stay warm."

We smiled at her and chuckled to ourselves. After all, it was bright and sunshiny--due to snow, sure--but it was sunny just an hour ago. We walked toward the exit and there was a long line of people with all their purchased items just standing there.

"What, is there a line to get out now?" asked Andrew.

Nope. People were just trying to figure out the best way to face the blizzard outside.

I unzipped my coat and held Rachel close to me, wrapping her tightly in her fleece and burp cloth. We blindly struck out to find our car. The snow was blinding--obviously so, since we had just struck out blindly. We could have perished. But we did find our way to our car. I walked backwards most of the way to shield Rachel. Andrew plowed on ahead with his flip-flops (yes, Andrew...this is why we wear closed-toe shoes in the winter).

Driving home was a joke. We had to go up that big hill behind UVSC...what's it called? University Parkway (Andrew says 1300 South). We started out inching our way up behind hundreds of cards. More and more cars started spinning out and would pull off to the side of the road to wait out the storm. By the time we got up to the top of the hill there were only about 5 of us left.

Even buses were spinning out and giving up. We passed muscle cars, jeeps, suburbans, minivans, trucks, and, yes, a bus--all that in our little '93 Ford Taurus.

We were all starving so it's a good thing we didn't have to sit and wait out the storm, although we did buy some French bread and two different pestos for dinner. We could have had those if we were desperate. I prayed the whole way up the hill, inch by inch, that we would make it home without spinning out or sliding back down the hill or rolling into a ditch. And then I sat they lying to Rachel, "We're almost home, baby girl." and sang her a bunch of ridiculous made-up songs about the letter Q because that's the only letter we had with us.

I'm not sure that praying works when you sit there and lie to your baby for a half hour, but apparently this time it did because we out drove SUVs and other "tough" cars and made it home safe and warm. Andrew even scraped the passenger window behind him while we were at a standstill--from inside the car. That amused plenty of drivers who were otherwise upset with the traffic and weather. Andrew handled the drive remarkably well.

As for me, well, you'd be surprised how much you can sing about Q when you really have to.

"My name is Q and I have polka dots.
I like to be in your mouth where it's wet and soft!"

Noisy Baby

A month ago Rachel made a lot of growling dinosaur noises, as she does right around 30 seconds in this clip from November 18th.

Rachel has since gotten a whole lot more mobile and has expanded her "animal noise" repertoire to contain the elephant. Here she is today, making an elephant noise, which I think is actually an attempt at "p." It sounds kind of funny because she says everything now with her tongue rolled and her mouth in tight "o" shape.

Who knows what we'll have for you next month. I'm hoping to teach her "cock-a-doodle-doo," but we might have to settle on "moo."

Borchestrand Concert

Rachel had a fun afternoon with Grandma. Grandma had a fun time with Rachel. Mommy had a fun afternoon sleeping. And Daddy had a fun time writing a three-hour final. Good times were had by all, although if you were to ask Andrew who had the most fun he probably wouldn't nominate himself.

After Andrew came home from school/work we headed over to his parents house to get Rachel, eat some dinner, and go to Emily's concert. It was a fun little Christmas concert. Rachel spent the majority of it with Grandpa walking around and dancing (a little bit--it was more like bouncing I guess since Grandpa insists he doesn't dance).

Auntie Em played both cello and flute and even had a solo. She did a great job and looked so pretty in her concert black. This year they went all out and all the girls got matching skirts and tops. They looked stunning and played marvelously. Unfortunately I only caught one picture of Emily and it's all blurry--she was in such a hurry to get back to the band room (where all the boys were).

Baby Cousin Kayl was there. The music was a little too loud for him sometimes but Grandma saved the day and plugged his ears for him.

(if you look closely at Andrew's pocket, you will notice a pen in his shirt pocket. But don't worry...he's not a nerd. It's just his favorite "good luck" pen...)

After the concert Rachel got very interested in Kayl. Holding his hand...


Trying to eat his hand...


And giving some big, wet kisses--after we stopped her from pulling his hair...

(she really is giving a kiss here, although it looks more like she's smelling him)

He wasn't all that interested back, but I guess he's a little young for that. Can you believe Rachel will be 5 months old tomorrow and Kayl is almost 2 months!?! It's crazy how fast time flies.

For our sleeping update, we went for a little more "white noise" than usual tonight and moved the humidifier into Rachel's room. After doing our bedtime routine we just put her in her crib and let her cry and cry and cry. I prepared myself to be completely stoic for a half hour, no longer. At t minus two minutes, Rachel stopped crying and fell asleep. I made it! I listened to my baby cry for 28 minutes without going berserk. Of course, the humidifier and primary songs kind of drowned her out.

With any luck she'll sleep on through the night. Goodness knows we need the rest. We'll have to modify her sleeping position--her head is pushed rather awkwardly against her crib slats--but other than that she looks good to go. I'll be sleeping with a prayer on my lips and my fingers crossed tonight...

We're all crazy over here

So, tomorrow morning, which I guess is today, if I tell you that I don't need help, that I'm okay, that everything's fine....you can go ahead and commit me.

Everything is not alright. My baby woke up yesterday before 10:00 am. She and I took a nap from either 2 to 3 or from 3 to 4 pm...I can't remember right now, but that's not relevant. It was an hour.

I tried taking a nap while my brother was babysitting, but I'll be honest, it didn't happen. Lucky for me though I got a nice 45 minute break from Rachel and Rachel wasn't allowed to nap.

Rachel slept from 10:00 pm until 10:30.

Rachel slept from 11:00 until midnight.

It's 3 o'stinkin' clock in the morning and the girl is STILL up.

She's in her swing.

I can't sleep. All I can hear is the incessant grinding of the engine of her swing. It's driving me crazy. She has her eyes closed. I think she's asleep. I turn the swing off and her eyes pop open. Back on goes the swing.

I nursed her from 2 am until after 2:30. Every time I coughed, she'd wake up, if she was even asleep in the first place.

I nursed her until 3:03. She came off, looked at me, cooed and then latched on again.

I nursed her until 3:07. She came off, looked at me, cooed and I turned over. No more. She's not hungry. Andrew put her back in the swing.

Andrew has a test at 7 in the morning. He hasn't slept much either. Every time I close my eyes, I have nightmarish images pop into my head. I keep dreaming he gets in a horrible car crash, due to lack of sleep, and he dies. And that would be horrible because he promised to make me laugh everyday. I don't think I could laugh if my dream came true and that would make Andrew a complete liar and a liar he's not.

I can't sleep. I can't sleep with the baby crying. I can't sleep with the swing grinding. I can't sleep when every time I close my eyes, I dream my husband just died. I can't sleep because when I lie down my sinuses hurt even worse than they do when I'm sitting up.

I don't know what to do. We even let her scream in her room for a very long time, but Rachel has endurance. If there were an award for endurance crying, she'd win it. Maybe I'll make her one. Put it in her bedroom. Make her look at it everyday for the rest of her life. Blame her for every time I act a little bit crazy.

"See, Rachel, see what you've done to me?"

I suppose it would have been alright that she did this to us tonight had she not done it the last few nights as well. I'm at the end of my rope. I don't think it would be possible for me to become any more tired.

All I have to say is this: if there's no tooth at the end of this little "phase," so help me, there will be no tooth fairy when she starts to lose her teeth. And if she whines about it because all her little friends get a quarter for their missing teeth, I will tell her,

"Girl! You should owe us money for that tooth! Do you know how many nights I lost sleep over that tooth? Now pay up!"

Yes, that's exactly what I'll do. If she stays up tomorrow night as well I think I'll start charging her interest, too.

Now, I'm going to attempt to go to sleep again. Perhaps on the couch where I've allowed myself to come and scream into the pillows several times already this long and dreadful night.

First thing in the morning, I'm calling grandma.

Oh, dear. I feel like the girl from Labyrinth. What is it that she says?

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby. And the baby was a spoiled child, and wanted everything to himself, and the young girl was practically a slave. But what no one knew is that the king of the goblins had fallen in love with the the girl, and he had given her certain powers. So one night, when the baby had be particularly cruel to her, she called on the goblins for help!

Goblin: [inside the closet] Listen!

"Say the right words," the goblins said, "and we'll take the baby to the castle, and you will be free!" But the girl knew, that the Goblin King would keep the baby in his castle for ever and ever and ever, and turn it into a goblin! And so the girl suffered in silence. Until one day, when she was tired from a day of housework, and she was hurt by the harsh words of her stepmother, and she could no longer stand it...

---

I can bear it no longer! Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be take this child of mine far away from me!

Goblin: That's not it! Where did she get that rubbish? It doesn't even start with "I wish!"

Well, then the girl says that she really does wish that the Goblin King would come and take the baby away. And he does.

But I won't say that because I love my baby very much and so I don't really want the Goblin King to take her away. Perhaps he already has though because she kind of reminds me of a goblin right now.

I know in the morning she will be cute again. Like magic. And I'll still love her as much as I always have even though she causing me so much grief right now. I even love her right now even though she's being a little unreasonable.

So, everything's fine. I'm okay. I don't need any help.

Just kidding. I'm still calling grandma.

Ode to Andrew?

So Andrew just finished studying and we still have to clean up from dinner. I just got Rachel off to sleep, hopefully for the final time tonight, about half an hour ago. We were just checking our calendar. We added a lunch "date" with the Palmers and then I added some "busy" time in my schedule just to make myself feel cool because Andrew's had this mysterious "busy" time allotted in his schedule occasionally.

That happens whenever he makes an event for Google Calendar from Thunderbird. Somehow it defaults to private events and doesn't show any of the details. I have been very serious about his "busy" times this semester, trying not to chat with him over IM even if he's online and other such things.

We just discovered that when his calendar says "busy" on my end it isn't necessarily all that important on his end. Glad we got that cleared up.

Anyway, I just opened up the "details" of my "library books due" appointment for today (which I missed and had to send Andrew scurrying off to the library to attend for me). This is what it said:

Guess how much I love you
the color kittens
hop jump
the aunts go marching
snap!
a cat and a dog
winter days in the big woods
the noisy way to bed
hello, twins
a stolen tongue
the blue flower
angel pig and the hidden Christmas
you silly goose
my beak, your beak
do pigs have stripes
do monkeys tweet
baby day!

That's 15 children's books and 2 of my books

Andrew, who isn't egocentric at all, saw the first line and assumed that I had hidden a love poem in a random event in our calendar for him. He stared at it for some time and then looked at me like I was slightly off my rocker.

Then he reached the last line and realized it was a list of all the books that were due...in the "library books due" appointment, go figure.

Apparently the exclamation mark on "baby day!" looks like poetic punctuation since I missed most capital letters and all other punctuation.

By the way, in case you're wondering. Rachel and I really liked "Do Pigs Have Stripes?" and "Do Monkeys Tweet?" and "Baby Day!" which we read over and over. We didn't so much enjoy the books that had more words than pictures. I don't know what Rachel's problem is...she has no attention span. But then again, I didn't really enjoy the books I checked out for myself all that much. I didn't finish either of them. I couldn't bring myself to. I need to check out some books that come recommended but those are forever on hold and I'm bored now.

Andrew just read the "poem" to me very rhythmically to show me that it could be a poem. A, quote, "twentieth-century, finger-snapping, weird poem" end quote. Perhaps I will compile all the lists of books I check out and publish them in an anthology. I've never been a fan of "twentieth-century" art, in any form, but hey, I don't have to read it.

Andrewisms

Andrew made fun of me today, which isn't really fair because I'm still sick.

See, our library books were due today and I forgot until after David and Sarah left (they came over and watched Rachel while I napped) so I sent Andrew scurrying off to the library. When he came back I was still worried about late fees so I went online to see how much they were.

I bookmark and/or use Google to find everything I ever want to look at, so I don't really know any web addresses. It's not that lib.orem.org is hard to remember, it's just that I habitually type "orem public library" into Google and click on the first hit. I'm lazy. So sue me.

I'm sick though, and am not thinking straight. So instead of typing "orem public library," I just typed "library." Oddly enough the page I wanted wasn't one of the first hits. I commented on this to Andrew, who immediately began harassing me about it.

"Hey, I'm sick, okay?" I said.

"Yes, you am," Andrew said.

Who's laughing now, Andrew? Who's laughing now?

Me. That's who. And because I'm the author of this blog, I can make fun of him a little bit more.

One of my ailments has been my sinuses. Last night I started laughing remembering something Andrew said a while back. It was in the fall and he was suffering from allergies quite badly so we went to find some allergy medicine for him. We found ourselves in Costco because their medicine is a lot cheaper than other places. I saw a bottle of something, I don't remember what, and read to Andrew what it claimed to relieve,

"This helps clear your sinuses," I told him.

"That won't help," Andrew responded.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I don't have sinuses," he patiently explained to me, "I have allergies."

Fair enough. We ended up buying a little bottle of AllerClear, which is just for allergies, not sinuses--because Andrew doesn't have any of those.

And d'ya know, I had another funny story in mind when I started writing this but now I just can't remember what it was about. Hey, I'm sick, okay?