Abdullah and Rania

Last night Andrew spoke on the phone for 56 minutes with a man he's never met. It's Hebron Adam's son-in-law, Charles. He wants Andrew to help him make a website and it turns out that they just had a lot to talk about.

Andrew rehashed some of their conversation for me as we were going to bed. I don't make the best conversationalist late at night. It's not my fault, really. It's just that my brain powers down at around 10 PM and then all I have left to work with is mushy brain residue.

Charles went to the Jerusalem Center to study Arabic with Kirk back in 1989. After he graduated from BYU in the 1990s he went to work for the government so he lived in either DC, Maryland, or Virginian. I don't remember quite where--remember, my brain had already turned off, but I was still trying to pay attention because the phrase "working for the government" could mean a good story.

"He lived in an apartment with a bunch of Arab families," said Andrew.

"Mmmhmmm," I yawned.

"And there was this one family that lived in the apartment above him. The man's name was Abdullah and the woman's name was Rania. They would hang out all the time" Andrew ended, finitively.

I waited patiently for him to continue his story. He didn't.

"Isn't there a story?" I asked.

"That was it," he said, "Isn't that cool?"

"Oh, yeah," I said sarcastically, "Nice story."

Andrew waited patiently for me to get it. I didn't.

"King Abdullah and Queen Rania," he explained, "Only back then he was just a prince."

"Oh, that Abdullah and Rania..." I hedged.

You'll have to excuse me. I'm a little bit slow.

If Rachel could talk

In honor of Rachel's 10 month birthday I asked her how she wanted to spend the day.


"Well," she sighed, "Dad already ruined my plans for the day. I wanted to stay at home and play with his laptop but he says he has to take it to work. Sometimes he's like, so lame!"

"Oh, that's too bad," I consoled her, "Is there anything else you'd like to do?"

She debated for a minute and then asked, "Can we go to that place with lots of books?"


"The library? Hmmm...That sounds like an excellent idea to me. Storytime starts soon so you'll have to hurry and get ready to go if we're going to make it in time!"

After Rachel was dressed and we had packed a snack and gathered up our library books, we left for the library. She fell asleep when we were about halfway to the library but woke up when she heard the crowd of excited children gathering around her stroller. She was a little embarrassed to be found sleeping in front of all those kids but soon cheered up when she saw another little baby who was all covered in drool.

"Hey, guys, stop laughing at me," Rachel said, "At least I don't drool."

"Now, now, Rachel," I chided, "Be nice. He's teething."

"Oh," she said guiltily, "I know how that goes."

"You don't have to tease someone else just because you were being teased. Now go make friends."

She crawled over to the boy she had pointed to and laughed at and they poked around each other's faces and played tug-of-war over a particularly interesting board book. Soon they settled down to listen to some stories about seeds, gardens, and farmers.

"Gee, mom! Playing in the dirt sounds like fun right now!"

"Oh, but Rachel, there's another storytime in just a few minutes," I stalled, hoping that she would want to go to the next storytime and would therefore forget about playing in the dirt.

To my relief she answered with a swift, "Oh, boy!"

So we went to the "big kids" story time with her friends Kelsey and Melanie. This one was much more fun than "laptime" was today. The storyteller handed out shakers to the kids and they got to shake them everytime they heard a certain word. Rachel was sitting in the back with the grownups so she was able to comendier my shaker, Julia's shaker, and the shaker of the Grandma sitting next to us. She now thinks noisemakers are the best thing in the world.

"Gee, Rachel," I whispered, "Maybe we should have gone to play in the dirt..."

"Dirt?" she asked, looking up at me, "Where?"

I didn't mean to draw her attention away from the story, but I did, so we had to leave storytime, with Rachel squirming to get out of my arms in order to either find another noisemaker or a nice pot of dirt.

Right before I dropped her, she relaxed in my arms, and pointed straight ahead.

"Books!" she grunted.

I put her down and let her choose a few books. She chose more than a few and we ended up leaving half of them behind to be reshelved (sorry, librarian). We checked out quite a few more books by Nancy Tafuri and since she enjoyed reading Whose Chick Are You? so much, I let her renew it instead of turning it in. She was so happy that she gave the book a nice big hug...and kiss (sorry, librarian).

"I'm hungry, mommy!" she said when we were in line to check out the books.

"We can't eat in the libary. You'll have to wait," I told her.

"But I'm really hungry!" she said, rather annoyed.

"Be patient, please."

"But I'm hungry, Mommy! I'm really, really hungry! I'm hungry! I'm hungry! I'm hungry!"

"It will just be a minute," I said, shushing her.

"I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry!" she continued, "I'm hungry! I'm hungry! I'm...oooh, that baby can walk...where was I? Oh, yeah! ...HUN-gry! I'm hungry! I'm hungry!"

"Thank you," I said to the librarian. And then to Rachel, "Say bye-bye!"

"Bye, bye!" she waved, "Mom, I'm hungry! Did you know I'm hungry? 'Cuz I am! And I really want to eat because I'm hungry! I'm hungry! Mo-om! I'm hungry! Feed me NOW! I'm hungry!"

"Yes, Rachel, thank you. That's enough,"

"But I'm..."

"Hungry? I know." I said, pushing the stroller with one arm while wrestling her with the other and somehow managing to get my wallet back into the diaper bag at the same time.

We walked outside.

"Ooh! A tree!" Rachel said, pointing.

"And a person! And a car! And the sky! Ooh, that's bright...what's it called? The sun! Yeah, the sun! Grass! Can I play on the grass! A bike! Mom, I want a bike! That boy has a book! I want a book..." she nattered on and on.

We sat on the grass.

"It's kind of damp," she noted, "I'm not sure I want to sit here...ooh! A leaf! I found a leaf! Hey, Mom, look! I found a leaf! I wonder if it tastes good...ew! Not so much. But maybe this one tastes better. Hey! That leaf is moving! Oh, it's not a leaf. It's a bug. There's a tree! Hello person! Look how cute I am! What's in my hand? Oh! A leaf! I found a leaf! I wonder if it tastes good...ew!"

I opened up her snack container and handed her a graham cracker.


"Hey, thanks, Mom!" she said, "How did you know I was hungry?"

"Lucky guess," I sighed, relaxing into the lawn, glad to have a few minutes to myself...

"Can I have another one?" Rachel poked me with her gooey hands.


Just then a man walked down the sidewalk. He looked at Rachel and put his hands up on either side of his head. Then, raising his index finders he pawed at the ground and charged at her!

She looked up at him and laughed, "Mom, that man is being silly!"

"I'm sorry," the man said. "She just looks like a..." he waggled his index fingers sheepishly, "Uh, yeah.."

He walked away laughing. Rachel watched him go.

"Oh, Funny Man!" she called out, "Don't go! You're funny! Hey, Mom! He's not listening to me. Make him do what I want him to do! He can walk. I can't walk. I wonder what he thought I looked like. Hmmm...I don't know... Oh! Can I have a cracker? Why didn't you give me one before?"

When we were finished our snack and had a quick diaper change (Rachel, not me) we set off for home. She fell asleep on the way home.

The minute she woke up from her nap Rachel wanted to read the stories we had just checked out from the libray. She happily held story book after story book to me.

"Read this one!" she said, "Now this one!"

We read a lot of stories. When my voice had all but given out, Rachel crawled off of my lap and stood mournfully by the door.

"Please, Mom, please can we go outside? We haven't been outside all day! Why don't you ever take me outside? Let's go. Please, please, please? Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top? Oh, you're getting on your shoes! That's a good sign! No, wait! Why are you walking down the hall? That's very bad, Mom! Outside is this way!" she gave the door a good banging.

"This way, Mom! You're going the wrong way! Oh, you just wanted a hair elastic. Okay, let's go! I'm ready! What? you want me to put on pants? But that takes time! Daylight's burning, lady! Maybe if I put both my legs down the same hole..."

"Rachel, cooperate, please,"

"But I'm just experimenting, Mom..."

"I thought you wanted to go outside," I said.

"Oh, yeah! I remember! Outside! Did you know we can see a tree from our window? We can. It's right there! See? See? Do you see? Oh, she's picking me up! Where are we going? Outside?! Yippee! I love outside!"


We played outside until Daddy came home from work. We saw his car drive by and waved. Rachel was very happy to see him.

"It's Daddy!" she shrieked, "He's back! I thought he'd never come back! What does he do all day, anyway? Ooh! He has his backpack on! Maybe he has his computer! I like his computer! Can I play with it? Oh, hello, Daddy!"


"What did you do all day?" asked Daddy.


"Pretty much nothing," Rachel admitted, "Mom never lets me do anything fun. All we did is stay inside all day and do nothing. Sometimes she's like, so lame! Can we do something fun, Daddy? Like, toss me in the air? I like when we play that game! Ooh, getting the mail is fun! Can I sit on your shoulders and pull your ears? Oh, you want kisses? Okay, here you go. Now, about something fun..."

*THUNK*

"Uh-oh, Daddy! Mommy fell down. Mommy! Mommy! Can you hear me? Mommy, mommy! Oh dear, I think she's fainted."

Perhaps it's for the best that Rachel can't talk yet.

10 months

It is so hard to believe that our little baby is now 10 months old--and how much she's changed since last month! She learns something new everyday! Here's what's new this month:

• She can eat whole crackers now, among many other things.
• She waves hello sometimes, but more often just bye-bye.
• She can take about 5 steps on her own.
• She growls at pictures of lions.
• She chases and throws balls.
• If you ask her to go get something for you, she will.
• She doesn't like to spill while she eats and won't take another bite until you clean up her mess.
• She blows kisses...kind of... Really she just kisses her hand while smiling at you.
• Her hair is long enough for pigtails.
• She has six teeth now.
  
• She's still as cute as can be!

Drinking Water

On our way to the park, Andrew and I were discussing everything that we want to do (and have to do) before we leave for Egypt.

"We have to inspect our suitcases," I said. Some of our suitcases were pretty much in shambles when we arrived home from Jordan, having gone overseas several times previously.

"We have to get our visas," said Andrew.

"We have to go to California," I said.

"Oh, yeah. We have to do that. What a drag!" Andrew mocked me and didn't stop there, "We also have to go to Grover..."

"And we should hike Timpanogos caves!" I suggested. I haven't done that since I was like 5. Or 9. Something like that.

"We can try out our new CamelBaks*," said Andrew, giving me a sideways glance, "We'll have to because there's no drinking water on Timpanogos trails."

"Yeah," I said, not reacting to his comment. Why would I react to it? It was a completely normal thing for him to say.

"Wait. You don't know that story?" he asked, amazed, "It's like me and tomatoes! I can't believe my family hasn't brought it up!"

Apparently Andrew's family hiked up to Timpanogos Caves several years ago, with Uncle Rod, Uncle Matt and Aunt Becky. They had brought water bottles since, although paved, the path is rather steep and Utah gets rather hot in the summer.

At the bottom of the path, however, Andrew saw a sign posted that read, "No drinking water on trail."

Andrew is very obedient, bless his heart. If I ask him to do the dishes, he'll do them. And, by golly, if the sign says to not drink water on the trail, he's not going to.

The kids were all goofing off a little ways away from the adults, so Andrew took this opportunity to approach the adults altogether.

"We have to dump out our water," Andrew informed them soberly.

"Why?" someone asked.

"Well, there's a sign over there," Andrew said, pointing, "That says, 'No drinking water on trail.'"

He was rather embrassed when one of the grown ups explained to him that drinking was acting as an adverb, not a verb.

"The worst part," Andrew told me, "Is that this was when I was like 17, not when I was like 5. So I know: we have to carry our own water in. There's no drinking water on the trail."

Hiking up to Timpanogos Caves will be a great way to break in our CamelBaks*, and if that sign is still there, you can bet that I will take a picture of Andrew standing next to it, dumping out his water.

*We don't actually have CamelBaks. We have the Costco ripoffs.

1, 2, 3, 4! Tell me that you love me more!

For FHE we went on a walk to the park by our church and discussed what we learned in stake conference yesterday. A lot of the talks were, appropriately, about the atonement. In my mind all of the talks were since the ones that weren't overtly covering the atonement were talking about service and paying attention to individual needs.

The atonement is individual--the Savior knows each one of us and atoned for our sins, personally. We can see the effects of the atonement daily in our lives, with each small blessing and miracle that occurs. When we are baptized we take the name of Christ upon us, and so doing covenant to bear one another's burdens, mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those in need of comfort, among other things. When we do those things we are serving as Christ would serve and in so doing are able to help others feel the power of the atonement.

We told Rachel that she should also clap her hands and shout with joy that she'll be able to get baptized and make these covenants in just 7 short years. She was much more interested in the dogs that were running around the field, though, so we gave up talking to her and instead let her down to play.

With her occupied by innumeral blades of grass, and the dogs charging every so often to lick her feet, Andrew and I began our Arabic lesson for the day.

I can count to five, no problem. But when we get to 7, 8, and 9 I really struggle.

One of the exercizes we did was to count to 10 with a partner. Andrew was, of course, my partner. He's my partner for every exercize.

"واحد" Andrew started with '1.'

"اثنين" I responded with '2.'

Overconfident, and without thinking, he shot out his next number.

"أربعة؟" I asked him, hesitantly, wondering why he had said '4' instead of '3.' I am the student, afterall, so I thought perhaps I had learned the numbers in the wrong order.

He looked down at his hands and blushed. "ثلاثة" he corrected himself '3.'

"أربعة" I continued.

It always feels good to outsmart your teacher.

It's a Jungle out there

When I grow up, I want to do yoga like my mom

The HOA hires some landscaping crew to come in once a week and mow the lawns. This means that we don't have to do any yard work, and it would work out perfectly for us, except that the sprinklers come on virtually everyday.

By the end of the week, the grass has grown up so tall that Rachel can't lift her feet high enough to walk in it. When she crawls it comes up to her armpits and tickles her nose.

The feral baby stalks her prey

That tickles!

We like that it is lush and green, but sometimes it gets too lush and too green, if that's even possible. Considering the fact that we live in a desert, I would say that it is possible. Not that we don't appreciate having grass--we do, believe me, we do--but it seems that it is watered a little too often. We are sure to make use of the lawn almost daily, however, regardless of how long or wet or hot it may be.

The overwatering of the lawn gives us ample opportunity to find all sorts of slimey creatures: eathworms, slugs, snails, and anything else trying to avoid an untimely drowning.

Ooh, escargo!

Rachel is always looking to expand her diet and is therefore willing to try anything she happens to find while combing through the grass. I do my best to stop her from eating anything too unappetizing, including the aforementioned earthworms, slugs, and snails. Although Patrick ate his fair share of slugs when he was little and seemed to turn out alright, I don't really want my daughter to follow his footsteps. I let her eat the occassionaly ant. That's about as far as I go.

I suppose we'll just continue to enjoy it while it lasts. We won't get much grass in Egypt, that's for sure. Although Egypt is greener than Jordan, it is mostly a gigantic sandbox. I'm sure Rachel will be fine with that, though. She enjoys eating sand as much as she enjoys eating grass.

Crazy Monkey

Rachel spied a book on the bookshelf that she desperately wanted to read. It's the one laying on its side by the (sometimes violent) panda bear's feet. The only problem was that she had already pulled out the toy box, and the box of blocks, and had scattered toys all over the floor, rendering the bookshelf inaccessible.


She could have walked or crawled around her mess to the red bin, but that route was too easy. So instead she climbed in the box of blocks ...


And from there into the toy box...




She shuffled towards the book as far as she could without tipping the bin over, only to realize that she couldn't lift up her hands to get the book without falling backwards. After trying her hardest to reach the book, she gave up and instead worked on getting out of the bin.


Getting out of this situation was a lot harder than getting into it...so Mommy had to rescue our crazy monkey.

As soon as I had her in my arms she stopped screaming and squirmed to get down, so I put her on the ground and she sped off to get that book. She grabbed it, and smiling broadly, held it up to me.

"Take it to Daddy," I told her, "He'll read it to you. That book is too hard for Mommy."

It's in Arabic. We have five children's books in Arabic and I can only read two of them. Those two have one word per page. I can handle that. The others have full sentences in fusHa, which is too complex for me at this point. Andrew actually struggles with them, too. They're fully voweld, Koranic sentences, and he stumbles over them, too, but not as much as I do!

Dejected, Rachel crawled over to Daddy, carrying the book in one hand, and offered it to him. After a short tussle about which direction the book should be read--Arabic books read right to left, which confuses Rachel and she tries to have us read them from finish to start instead--Andrew read her the story.

That was a lot of work for one little story.

Dancing with the stars

We have stake conference tomorrow night, so we went to Jacob's ballroom concert this evening instead. It was fun! It made me want to be on stage again! I'm so glad that the ballroom program is still alive and well at Timpanogos, even with Alison retiring from coaching. The new coach seems to have done an excellent job of taking the team through the transition.

Jacob was in quite a few numbers again this year. He's very energetic, that's for sure, getting his groove on for the disco. I was partial to disco, too, Jacob, it's alright.

Not the disco number, still energetic

When Rachel saw Uncle Jacob after his performance she was a little wary of his faux tan and sweaty hair, but she warmed up with him when he offered to let her sit on the T-wolf.


She really enjoyed the dancing though, often bopping up and down to the beat. The show was a little too long for her, though, and by the end of it she was pulling both of her ears and trying to fall asleep. She didn't though. She stayed away all through the concert, and all the way home, only to completely lose it the moment we walked through the door.

So, there was no teeth brushing, and no pre-bedtime potty break. She went straight into her pj's, had a little nurse, and then went, very willingly, to bed. I suppose staying out past bedtimes can have its benefits.

Stranger Danger

I've had checks piling up on my desk for weeks, so Rachel and I finally trudged off to the bank today. We got all set to go, making sure we had gathered a few essentials: the stroller for walking, an extra diaper for emergencies, her favorite blankey for emotional meltdowns, and some kleenex for runny noses.

Double-checking to make sure I had my house key, I closed the door, lugged Rachel's stroller down the stairs and (after stopping to touch a tree, point out a bird, and pick a dandelion) we were on our way.


Rachel held onto her pretty flower the whole way to the bank (and back). She cuddled it up to her face and showed it to every car, person, or light pole that happened to cross her path. When there was no one else to show it to she would turn around, push her stroller visor out of the way, and show it to me.

Mom, I have a flower! See? See? See?

We were walking down a busy street, with cars whizzing past us. Rachel was holding out her flower to each car in turn. One white van that she held the flower out to slowed down and flipped a U-turn so that it was on our side of street. The driver, a lone male, sidled up beside us as if to offer a ride. I gave him my best "you're not welcome here" look.

Unlike my sister, I'm not very good at giving dirty looks. I try not to hand them out like candy, but in our culture it is kind of taboo for an unknown male to approach an unaccompanied woman. At least in my idiom it is, so the driver was therefore deserving of my most crusty look, whether he realized he had broken my rules or not.

He sped off, so I guess my glares can be pretty good, if necessary.

The remainder of our walk to the bank was pretty normal--we almost got hit 3 or 4 times while trying to cross state street, even though the "walk" sign was clearly in our favor. It's kind of like playing frogger. The left-turning cars turn the moment they think we're out of their path while the right-turning cars are cutting off our way to the safety of the sidewalk. Just good practice for Egypt, I guess.

Another little baby arrived at the bank at just the same time we did, which made Rachel very happy. She pointed at the baby and showed off her flower. The other mom and I were called up to the counter at the same time. We set up our babies facing each other so that they could chat while we did our business.

It seemed to keep them happy enough, until a man approached Rachel, completely ignoring the sign dictating to "wait here for next available teller."

I looked at the man. It was the driver of the white van. He broke my idiom twice. Not only do I believe that men should not approach women, I believe that people should obey signs. He got another crusty look.

Completely ignoring my glare--okay, so maybe it wasn't as mean of a look as I intended--he reached out and stroked Rachel's cheek.

"Here's the pretty girl I saw on the sidewalk," he crooned, tugging gently at her ponytail.

Rachel recoiled. Apparently she had the same feelings for the man that I did. I don't know why I didn't like him. I just didn't. Seeing him look at my baby from his white van gave me shivers.

I grew up in a big city. I was taught not to talk to strangers, to not take rides from strangers, and certainly to not let strangers touch me. Sometimes we would be warned to avoid a certain color and type of vehicle before being dismissed from school for the day. Little kids are picked off the street all the time.

I thought everyone was taught that. But perhaps this man missed that day of school.

"It's okay, baby," I said, protectively pulling her stroller closer to me.

"Have a nice day," gushed the teller. "Can I help you?" she asked the man.

"Thanks," I said through gritted teeth before barreling out the door.

The man's white van was sitting in the parking lot.

He approached the teller, so perhaps he really did just bank there.

Still, he made me nervous. Why did he slow down beside us? Why did he arrive at the bank moments after us...since he was driving and we were walking? Why did he give so much attention to my baby and ignore the other equally cute baby?

Those questions were enough to put me ill at ease. I walked away from the bank as fast as I could, trying to put as much ground between me and the man as possible before he left the bank. I checked behind me every so often to see if I could see his van following us.

Oddly enough, that's kind of hard to do while you're pushing a stroller--especially when you're on a busy street and there are too many cars to keep track of--so I pulled off onto a quiet side road before going home so that I could better check to see if he was following me. My plan was to run to Heather's or Kristi's if he happened to be.

The coast was clear. He probably was just an innocent bystander who needed a refresher course in "How to Not Scare the Living Daylights out of People 101."

We live in a scary world. I remember playing at the park by myself when I was four. I don't see any four year olds doing that today. This is America. Strange men don't slow down and drive beside women. They don't single them out in banks. His behavior was, by my standards, completely out of line.

Still too nervous to go home, Rachel and I went to the park instead. My friend Megan was out with her little boy, so it was nice to get to talk to someone while calming my nerves. Nice until two boxers came out on the field to see if our babies wanted to play with them. That helped me get brave enough to go inside pretty quick!





I'm not sure when I'll be going to the bank alone again.

Let us gather in a circle

We were kneeling down for family prayer this morning when Andrew accidentally crushed my hand with his knee. These things happen: it's an occupational hazard of praying.

It hurt quite badly and I instinctively cradled my hand and said, "Ouch!" Actually, I said ouch several times while whimpering. It hurt quite badly.

"I'm so sorry!" Andrew gushed, while trying to get a look at my crippled hand.

Rachel was playing a few feet away. She hasn't quite clued in about getting ready for prayer yet. She just thinks it's funny that we all close our eyes. Otherwise she ignores us when we ask her to get ready.

But she's a sensitive girl and noticed that Mommy wasn't okay so she grabbed her favorite blankey, crawled into my lap, and lifted the blankey up in the air to rub my cheek with it.

"I don't know if this will work," I'm sure she was thinking, "But Mommy always does it to me and it make me happy so we'll give it a go!"

And it did make me happy. What a sweet girl I have!