This week started out fairly normal, but quickly changed. People stsrted to disappear at work. By the time Christmas eve rolled around work was more or less deserted so I decided to leave early too. Christmas day was relaxing. Alice played and played with all of her toys. She really enjoyed it a lot.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Eve with Alice
Happy Christmas Eve! What a lively and yet very ordinary day! If you'll bear with me, I would like to document it in exquisite detail here. How have I come to accept life with Alice as so dull and ordinary? When I take the time to step back and marvel at it all it's easy to fall in love with my life again. Here's how today went:
7:30 AM
Alice wakes up this morning with a morbid fear of the toilet. She insists it will get "too full" if anyone uses it and we'll have to use the "pyunger-thingy" to make it go down again. She decides that she will "hode it inside" indefinitely. Bobby leaves for work and Alice starts doing some serious squirming up and down the hall. I can see the fight in her mind between her desire to pee somewhere clean and her fear that everything will go horribly wrong if she does. The situation grows urgent. I imagine scenarios where logic wins over fear, and then I imagine deep-cleaning the entire hall carpet. I decide to offer her another choice: the bucket.
Bobby and I are odd people. Very odd. For my "bridal shower" we decided we should stock up on 72-hour-kit supplies. Our families humored us and showered us with the likes of flashlights, emergency blankets, non-perishable food, and a port-a-loo. The port-a-loo is a large bucket with a lidded potty seat attached to the top. It was a hilarious gift at the time. I didn't realize I would actually use it in any situation short of Armageddon. Well, we've used it several times in a few different situations. When you need a toilet and the usual one is not available, it can feel like Armageddon.
Alice immediately loves the idea of the bucket. It doesn't have water in it, so there's no chance of "filling it too full." It's a bit tipsy, though, for a kid her size, so I help her balance on top. Success! When she's done, I just dump the contents into the potty and rinse with hot, soapy water. No big deal.
9:00 AM
Alice turns to my tummy and says, "I wanna feel my baby brudder kick! Is he awake?" Turns out, he is stirring a little. No one but me has felt Zurg move yet. He's a real mover, but completely shy whenever Alice or Bobby have tried to feel him. Can he feel the heat of their hands? Whatever it is, I am doubtful and hopeful at the same time.
Alice says, "Wake up!" and he kicks hard enough that I can see my belly move. I put her hand right on that spot and tell her to say it again. He kicks again right on cue. She is amazed and amused. He kicks 3-4 times for her this way. I tell her he's saying "hi" and that he's happy to meet her. She giggles and says, "I yike 'im too."
10:30 AM
I start our Christmas Eve dessert: chocolate pudding pie! I decide midway that I want a key lime pie as well (I keep hand-squeezed lime juice in the freezer for just such occasions), then I hear Alice in the office-that-will-be-Zurg's-room chirp, "Hey! You put clothes in here!" Yes, I had just filled a chest of drawers with 0-3 month baby boy clothes that morning. Sure, sure, it's WAY too early for most people to start prepping a kid's room. I'm weird that way. Anyway, she squeals to hear that they are clothes for her baby brother. I could have left it at that, but remembering our little sibling bonding moment earlier, I figure we can make this a fun activity too. I tell her they will also fit her baby right now if she wants to try it. Of course!
She literally grabs as many clothes as her arms can hold and runs off to find her babies. She picks outfits for each of her babies and we dress them together. Then she runs back to the dresser for more! She finds a baby hat that reads "Benevolent Dictator" (an amusing gift from her Aunt Erin) and puts it on the baby. Then herself. She runs off to check it out in her full-length mirror (a generous loan from the Bair's house) and gasps, "It matches!" The red hat clearly coordinates with her red pajamas and she can't be more delighted. She decides she could do with a new outfit, too, and strips off the PJs in favor of a teeny, green jungle onesie. It doesn't fit well so she decides to pick out some of her own play clothes. I head back to the kitchen to work on the pies.
A few minutes later, Alice prances into the kitchen completely decked out in a red long-sleeved turtleneck, red cotton pants, the red baby hat, and a pair of white socks on her hands. "Yook, Mommy! My fancy wain suit! Now da wain can't get me wet." She runs off again to play with her babies.
11:30 AM
Alice runs to me concerning an urgent potty break of the other sort. This time I put a little water in the bottom of the bucket to prevent sticking. I was not prepared for how much she had been holding, however. *sigh* Ten minutes later, she hops off and I'm left with a very, very big mess and a pot of burned chocolate pudding on the stove.
"Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Why did I ever MENTION this stupid bucket?!" I silently curse myself for being so lazy. "I didn't want to scrub a carpet, so now I get to scrub a bucket, a toilet, AND a bathtub. Just great." Alice dances around simply excited to see the bucket "get a bath." Ugh.
12:00 PM
I scrub everything and sanitize everything else (especially myself!) before starting over on the chocolate pudding pie. Then I notice I'm a few key ingredients short for the key lime pie and even dinner itself. I feel guilty shopping on holidays. I hate making people work all day just so I can pick up a can of sweetened condensed milk and a sack of potatoes last-minute. The parking lot is chock-full when we get there. The employees inside still look happy, though, and some of my guilt melts away. Alice gets a free cookie and happily follows me all around the store looking for the few items we "need" to complete our meal for tonight. She doesn't beg for anything. She doesn't even whine about wanting to touch things. I'm amazed! I pray many thanks as we slip out of the store in record time.
12:30 PM
Home again, home again, we see Bobby has gotten off of work early. Alice can hardly contain herself! She's been a real Daddy's girl of late. They play while I finish the pies, then we all get dinner into the crockpot. Alice needs to pee again. I tell her that the bucket is STILL taking a bath (i.e. soaking in Oxi-Clean) and it will be out-of-commission indefinitely. She squirms up and down the hall in indecision. Tired of the drama, I take her to the potty and hold her on it until she finally lets go. Then she gets lots of praise and a surprise treat for being so brave. Bobby also gives her a full demonstration of how a toilet works. He pours extra water into the bowl and shows her that it can't overflow. Then he explains that even if the hole were clogged, one whole flush would not spill out the top. She remains calm and curious throughout the demonstration. We cross our fingers and hope it works.
1:30 PM
Quiet time. I love this part of the day :)
3:30 PM
Alice falls asleep at the very end of quiet time. We decide to wake her up so she'll go to bed on time later. That task proves more difficult than we anticipate. Talking, singing, bouncing on the bed, rubbing her back, clapping, loud kissy noises, and real rib-tickling barely cause her to stir. Bobby and I figure she's in a deep sleep that she probably needs right now, so we settle down on Alice's floor for a raucous game of Hen Berta. Success is entirely based on luck, but it gives you the semblance of strategy, so it's easy to get noisy about it. And we are LOUD this time. Eventually, she stirs and wakes up interested in playing the game with us. We show her how to play and she decides "I too busy to pyay wight now." Hm.
3:45 PM
Alice uses the toilet successfully without complaint as long as Mommy is in the room with her. Woo hoo!
4:00 PM
We eat dinner: Burgandy beef and veggies, oranges, cucumbers, and grape juice. Alice then invites us to a birthday party in Zurg's room where we dress up her babies in Zurg's clothes. She's getting pretty good at this stuff.
5:00 PM
Special Family Home Evening event. We watch "Joy to the World" and pause to explain things along the way. She seems to get it, then get bored after the shepherds find Christ in the stable. We press on with the movie anyway. Oh well. She has decades ahead of her to appreciate the finer points of the Christmas story. We enjoy chocolate pudding pie and key lime pie for dessert.
6:00 PM
Alice in the tub for an hour. We literally play together that long. These are some of my favorite times as a family when we're just hanging out and talking and playing and not hurrying/waiting to do something else. We are all in a good mood.
7:00 PM
Play in Alice's room together as a family. Alice plays Hen Berta by her own rules while Bobby and I play Lego robots. I haven't had this much fun in a looooooong time. All the imaginary stories come together and feed off of each other. I laugh a lot and I laugh hard.
7:30 PM
Get Alice ready for bed. Brush teeth, Daddy makes up a story (she rarely asks for a book story anymore), song, snuggle with Mommy, then she requests all of her newly-dressed babies to join her in bed.
8:00 PM
Quiet time again. Ahhhhh.
See? An ordinary and yet very unordinary day. None of this will happen again just like this, though many themes will certainly pop up again. I love my life. I love my family. It's the strangest little life I've ever lived.
7:30 AM
Alice wakes up this morning with a morbid fear of the toilet. She insists it will get "too full" if anyone uses it and we'll have to use the "pyunger-thingy" to make it go down again. She decides that she will "hode it inside" indefinitely. Bobby leaves for work and Alice starts doing some serious squirming up and down the hall. I can see the fight in her mind between her desire to pee somewhere clean and her fear that everything will go horribly wrong if she does. The situation grows urgent. I imagine scenarios where logic wins over fear, and then I imagine deep-cleaning the entire hall carpet. I decide to offer her another choice: the bucket.
Bobby and I are odd people. Very odd. For my "bridal shower" we decided we should stock up on 72-hour-kit supplies. Our families humored us and showered us with the likes of flashlights, emergency blankets, non-perishable food, and a port-a-loo. The port-a-loo is a large bucket with a lidded potty seat attached to the top. It was a hilarious gift at the time. I didn't realize I would actually use it in any situation short of Armageddon. Well, we've used it several times in a few different situations. When you need a toilet and the usual one is not available, it can feel like Armageddon.
Alice immediately loves the idea of the bucket. It doesn't have water in it, so there's no chance of "filling it too full." It's a bit tipsy, though, for a kid her size, so I help her balance on top. Success! When she's done, I just dump the contents into the potty and rinse with hot, soapy water. No big deal.
9:00 AM
Alice turns to my tummy and says, "I wanna feel my baby brudder kick! Is he awake?" Turns out, he is stirring a little. No one but me has felt Zurg move yet. He's a real mover, but completely shy whenever Alice or Bobby have tried to feel him. Can he feel the heat of their hands? Whatever it is, I am doubtful and hopeful at the same time.
Alice says, "Wake up!" and he kicks hard enough that I can see my belly move. I put her hand right on that spot and tell her to say it again. He kicks again right on cue. She is amazed and amused. He kicks 3-4 times for her this way. I tell her he's saying "hi" and that he's happy to meet her. She giggles and says, "I yike 'im too."
10:30 AM
I start our Christmas Eve dessert: chocolate pudding pie! I decide midway that I want a key lime pie as well (I keep hand-squeezed lime juice in the freezer for just such occasions), then I hear Alice in the office-that-will-be-Zurg's-room chirp, "Hey! You put clothes in here!" Yes, I had just filled a chest of drawers with 0-3 month baby boy clothes that morning. Sure, sure, it's WAY too early for most people to start prepping a kid's room. I'm weird that way. Anyway, she squeals to hear that they are clothes for her baby brother. I could have left it at that, but remembering our little sibling bonding moment earlier, I figure we can make this a fun activity too. I tell her they will also fit her baby right now if she wants to try it. Of course!
She literally grabs as many clothes as her arms can hold and runs off to find her babies. She picks outfits for each of her babies and we dress them together. Then she runs back to the dresser for more! She finds a baby hat that reads "Benevolent Dictator" (an amusing gift from her Aunt Erin) and puts it on the baby. Then herself. She runs off to check it out in her full-length mirror (a generous loan from the Bair's house) and gasps, "It matches!" The red hat clearly coordinates with her red pajamas and she can't be more delighted. She decides she could do with a new outfit, too, and strips off the PJs in favor of a teeny, green jungle onesie. It doesn't fit well so she decides to pick out some of her own play clothes. I head back to the kitchen to work on the pies.
A few minutes later, Alice prances into the kitchen completely decked out in a red long-sleeved turtleneck, red cotton pants, the red baby hat, and a pair of white socks on her hands. "Yook, Mommy! My fancy wain suit! Now da wain can't get me wet." She runs off again to play with her babies.
11:30 AM
Alice runs to me concerning an urgent potty break of the other sort. This time I put a little water in the bottom of the bucket to prevent sticking. I was not prepared for how much she had been holding, however. *sigh* Ten minutes later, she hops off and I'm left with a very, very big mess and a pot of burned chocolate pudding on the stove.
"Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Why did I ever MENTION this stupid bucket?!" I silently curse myself for being so lazy. "I didn't want to scrub a carpet, so now I get to scrub a bucket, a toilet, AND a bathtub. Just great." Alice dances around simply excited to see the bucket "get a bath." Ugh.
12:00 PM
I scrub everything and sanitize everything else (especially myself!) before starting over on the chocolate pudding pie. Then I notice I'm a few key ingredients short for the key lime pie and even dinner itself. I feel guilty shopping on holidays. I hate making people work all day just so I can pick up a can of sweetened condensed milk and a sack of potatoes last-minute. The parking lot is chock-full when we get there. The employees inside still look happy, though, and some of my guilt melts away. Alice gets a free cookie and happily follows me all around the store looking for the few items we "need" to complete our meal for tonight. She doesn't beg for anything. She doesn't even whine about wanting to touch things. I'm amazed! I pray many thanks as we slip out of the store in record time.
12:30 PM
Home again, home again, we see Bobby has gotten off of work early. Alice can hardly contain herself! She's been a real Daddy's girl of late. They play while I finish the pies, then we all get dinner into the crockpot. Alice needs to pee again. I tell her that the bucket is STILL taking a bath (i.e. soaking in Oxi-Clean) and it will be out-of-commission indefinitely. She squirms up and down the hall in indecision. Tired of the drama, I take her to the potty and hold her on it until she finally lets go. Then she gets lots of praise and a surprise treat for being so brave. Bobby also gives her a full demonstration of how a toilet works. He pours extra water into the bowl and shows her that it can't overflow. Then he explains that even if the hole were clogged, one whole flush would not spill out the top. She remains calm and curious throughout the demonstration. We cross our fingers and hope it works.
1:30 PM
Quiet time. I love this part of the day :)
3:30 PM
Alice falls asleep at the very end of quiet time. We decide to wake her up so she'll go to bed on time later. That task proves more difficult than we anticipate. Talking, singing, bouncing on the bed, rubbing her back, clapping, loud kissy noises, and real rib-tickling barely cause her to stir. Bobby and I figure she's in a deep sleep that she probably needs right now, so we settle down on Alice's floor for a raucous game of Hen Berta. Success is entirely based on luck, but it gives you the semblance of strategy, so it's easy to get noisy about it. And we are LOUD this time. Eventually, she stirs and wakes up interested in playing the game with us. We show her how to play and she decides "I too busy to pyay wight now." Hm.
3:45 PM
Alice uses the toilet successfully without complaint as long as Mommy is in the room with her. Woo hoo!
4:00 PM
We eat dinner: Burgandy beef and veggies, oranges, cucumbers, and grape juice. Alice then invites us to a birthday party in Zurg's room where we dress up her babies in Zurg's clothes. She's getting pretty good at this stuff.
5:00 PM
Special Family Home Evening event. We watch "Joy to the World" and pause to explain things along the way. She seems to get it, then get bored after the shepherds find Christ in the stable. We press on with the movie anyway. Oh well. She has decades ahead of her to appreciate the finer points of the Christmas story. We enjoy chocolate pudding pie and key lime pie for dessert.
6:00 PM
Alice in the tub for an hour. We literally play together that long. These are some of my favorite times as a family when we're just hanging out and talking and playing and not hurrying/waiting to do something else. We are all in a good mood.
7:00 PM
Play in Alice's room together as a family. Alice plays Hen Berta by her own rules while Bobby and I play Lego robots. I haven't had this much fun in a looooooong time. All the imaginary stories come together and feed off of each other. I laugh a lot and I laugh hard.
7:30 PM
Get Alice ready for bed. Brush teeth, Daddy makes up a story (she rarely asks for a book story anymore), song, snuggle with Mommy, then she requests all of her newly-dressed babies to join her in bed.
8:00 PM
Quiet time again. Ahhhhh.
See? An ordinary and yet very unordinary day. None of this will happen again just like this, though many themes will certainly pop up again. I love my life. I love my family. It's the strangest little life I've ever lived.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Twang
Alice is getting better at speaking American English, but it's sounding a little too American these days. Several one-syllable words now have two syllables...kinda twangy:
yeah (yeh-ah)
Dad (Da-yad)
now (neh-ow)
yes (yeh-us)
yeah (yeh-ah)
Dad (Da-yad)
now (neh-ow)
yes (yeh-us)
Monday, December 21, 2009
Robin Williams
Robin Williams has a crush on me. He told me so himself at a Cambodian pool party put on by a few frat boys. I did have the presence of mind to remember I was already married (besides, Robin Williams isn't that hot) and turned him down with a delightfully clever and slightly sassy response that only made him want my attention all the more.
Bizarre dreams: one of the more amusing side effects of pregnancy hormones.
Bizarre dreams: one of the more amusing side effects of pregnancy hormones.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Bobby's Sunday Summary
This week felt like it went by very quickly. Our anniversary was this week. I took the day off and we spent the day together. We had a picnic at an indoor playground. Alice hasn't been to a playground in a while, and she really liked running around and having that physical activity. We dropped her off at a friends house just before dinner, and went out for dinner and a movie. Dinner was from a mediterranean restaurant. It was very yummy. Then we went to go see a movie. I know it sounds a bit boring but we enjoyed it a lot.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Bobby's Sunday Summary
This was a long week. As Susan mentioned we had a guest with us all week, and no matter how nice a guest they are it can be rather stressful for an entire week. She left saturday morning at 5:30 am. Susan and I decided to spend the day together. We ran some errands. Went to the library and had some quiet time at home. After that it was movie and popcorn time. Alice picked out a tomas the train video at the library and she seemed to really like it. That evening was our ward Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. I even got a candid shot of Susan performing. All in all it was a wonderful day.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Meeting Santa 2009
So, there's no picture of Alice's encounter with Santa at the ward Christmas party this year. She asked, "Is he real?" I replied that he was dressed like Santa, yes. She seemed satisfied with that answer. We hung around the outskirts of the crowd as she watched the kids get on his lap and chat with him. I told her that you get a candy cane for talking to him, but she pointed out that he wasn't actually giving them out...they were just in a bucket next to his seat and the kids were grabbing one as they got off his lap. I looked at the length of the line, the less-than-enthusiastic Alice in my arms, and the bucket of candy canes. She had a good point. We snuck over to the bucket where she got one by herself, then we headed to the car.
It was in the parking lot that I realized what Alice was actually wearing. She had chosen to wear blue jeans, a lime green polo shirt (that somehow ended up backwards in the process of using the church potty completely by herself for the first time!), open-toed sandals (one size too large), and a pair of unmatched socks (one turquoise and one white). As I unlocked the car, she was trying to catch some rain on her tongue. I was sad, then, that I didn't get a picture of her tonight. This girl makes me happy.
It was in the parking lot that I realized what Alice was actually wearing. She had chosen to wear blue jeans, a lime green polo shirt (that somehow ended up backwards in the process of using the church potty completely by herself for the first time!), open-toed sandals (one size too large), and a pair of unmatched socks (one turquoise and one white). As I unlocked the car, she was trying to catch some rain on her tongue. I was sad, then, that I didn't get a picture of her tonight. This girl makes me happy.
Recent Photos
Here are a few recent pictures I'm happy to share. Yes, Alice is wearing a dress in almost every single one. She prefers them over any other clothing and REALLY enjoys the "dancing dresses" that have extra layers of froo-froo skirts and velvety or shimmery fabric. She has two Christmas dresses that she wears as often as sanitarily possible, so she's almost always overdressed for the occasion. It turns out these two dresses in particular are quite resistant to wear, dirt, stains, and wrinkling. I picked them up at garage sales for less than $5 each. What a dream! Less laundry, less hassle, and she absolutely loves to wear them! I may stock up on these resilient little Christmas dresses to last us through May!
Anyway, on to the pictures:
Anyway, on to the pictures:
Alice chopping bananas for a new pie that is sure to become a Thanksgiving tradition in our home: Banoffi. It's a graham cracker crust with bananas and a generous layer of dulce de leche on top. Cook it until the bananas dissolve away and all that remains is sweet, banana-caramel goodness. Serve with ample whipped cream.
Admiring the lights on the tree. We didn't have time to do lights AND decorations in one night, so we spread the joy across two days.
Here, Alice and Bobby are admiring their handiwork after putting all the ornaments on the tree. We have since added some paper snowflakes from Sandy and two absolutely charming handmade ornaments from my sister Heidi. Alice pulled them out of the mailing package and gasped, "Oooo! Dey so boo-ful!"
Alice posing by the nativity scene we put out together. She put the lambs next to baby Jesus "to keep him cum-nee." This is one of the two indestructible Christmas dresses.
Alice posing by the nativity scene we put out together. She put the lambs next to baby Jesus "to keep him cum-nee." This is one of the two indestructible Christmas dresses.
She also added an orange, monkey-shaped, pencil-topper to the scene.
Sandy gave Alice this pink, fuzzy comforter on her last day. The gift certainly softened the blow of her leaving :) It fits very well on Alice's new big girl bed.
Zurg Update (and more thoughts on gender)
Chugging along at 24 weeks, Zurg and I are doing well. He would hardly sit still for a Doppler check of his heart rate:
The midwife asks with a raised eyebrow, "Is the baby always this active?"
"Oh yeah. It's either crazy man or absolute stillness."
"Was your first baby this active?"
"Uh, I don't remember."
I honestly don't remember how active Alice was at this stage. I have no good memory to draw from, so any assumption about Zurg's personality from this behavior would be based on stereotype, not reality. That said, my deeply-ingrained gender stereotypes pop through brightest when I'm trying to avoid them.
Case in point: Imagining this baby to be a girl instead of a boy, extra activity would get me excited that she's active and vigorous, confident and curious, a real go-getter who will find her way in the world. That's a good thing, right? Yes, because the assumption (i.e. stereotype) is that these traits would be tempered by her feminine gifts...compassion, team work, and a tendency to nurture.
Extra activity in a boy strikes fear in my heart because I automatically jump to the assumption (i.e. stereotype) that he's a crazy man lying in wait to turn my world upside down. There are no stereotypically masculine traits to temper such an active, vigorous, go-getter personality. The knee-jerk fear is that I will have to chase him down, constantly redirecting and training his energy into socially acceptable behaviors (i.e. compassion, team work, and a tendency to nurture).
In other words, my stereotypical mindset up to this point (unrealized until this very moment) is that a girl can be anything because she's "protected" by her feminine nature, but an especially active little boy must be trained to adapt stereotypical "girl" traits in order to be socially well-balanced. Writing it out helps me realize how absurd that assumption is. None of the boys in my life fit 100% in that box, and I've met little girls with very few "naturally protective" feminine traits.
The question now, though, is how do I change that assumption in my brain so it doesn't keep making me afraid of this little boy?
The midwife asks with a raised eyebrow, "Is the baby always this active?"
"Oh yeah. It's either crazy man or absolute stillness."
"Was your first baby this active?"
"Uh, I don't remember."
I honestly don't remember how active Alice was at this stage. I have no good memory to draw from, so any assumption about Zurg's personality from this behavior would be based on stereotype, not reality. That said, my deeply-ingrained gender stereotypes pop through brightest when I'm trying to avoid them.
Case in point: Imagining this baby to be a girl instead of a boy, extra activity would get me excited that she's active and vigorous, confident and curious, a real go-getter who will find her way in the world. That's a good thing, right? Yes, because the assumption (i.e. stereotype) is that these traits would be tempered by her feminine gifts...compassion, team work, and a tendency to nurture.
Extra activity in a boy strikes fear in my heart because I automatically jump to the assumption (i.e. stereotype) that he's a crazy man lying in wait to turn my world upside down. There are no stereotypically masculine traits to temper such an active, vigorous, go-getter personality. The knee-jerk fear is that I will have to chase him down, constantly redirecting and training his energy into socially acceptable behaviors (i.e. compassion, team work, and a tendency to nurture).
In other words, my stereotypical mindset up to this point (unrealized until this very moment) is that a girl can be anything because she's "protected" by her feminine nature, but an especially active little boy must be trained to adapt stereotypical "girl" traits in order to be socially well-balanced. Writing it out helps me realize how absurd that assumption is. None of the boys in my life fit 100% in that box, and I've met little girls with very few "naturally protective" feminine traits.
The question now, though, is how do I change that assumption in my brain so it doesn't keep making me afraid of this little boy?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
1000 days old
1 DAY
10 DAYS
100 DAYS
1000 DAYS
We're blessed to have had her this long. May we get to celebrate 10,000 days with her when the time comes. Woo hoo!
1000 DAYS
We're blessed to have had her this long. May we get to celebrate 10,000 days with her when the time comes. Woo hoo!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Grrrrr......Chicago
I just don't how to function in Chicago. I'm a bumbling frump every time I try to do anything there on my own. Downtown Chicago is a culture and way of life that doesn't even enter my radar of consciousness, much less appeal to my country bumpkin leanings. This weekend, I dashed up there to meet Julia for an opera. The opera was housed in the historic Civic Opera House in the heart of downtown. Absolutely stunning building! Absolutely stunning people! I felt course and unsophisticated every minute I was in Chicago, even when "safe" in my crazy hotel room with Julia. Those fancy pillows and $3 bottles of water seemed to sneer at me all night. I've never felt so self-conscious and insecure as I did last night in a 4-star hotel. Ugh. Not a happy feeling.
The opera itself was a pleasant surprise. Not exactly what we were looking for, but delightful in its own way. The lead soprano had such a sweet voice at just the right times! We didn't have time to eat dinner before the performance, so we ordered pizza afterwards...not much was open at 11:00 at night. With all the surprise parking fees and such that we encountered, I don't think I'm allowed to have another birthday present for the next five years *sigh*
I wonder if Indianapolis has an opera company...hmmmm.
The opera itself was a pleasant surprise. Not exactly what we were looking for, but delightful in its own way. The lead soprano had such a sweet voice at just the right times! We didn't have time to eat dinner before the performance, so we ordered pizza afterwards...not much was open at 11:00 at night. With all the surprise parking fees and such that we encountered, I don't think I'm allowed to have another birthday present for the next five years *sigh*
I wonder if Indianapolis has an opera company...hmmmm.
Bobby's Sunday Summary
Apparently if you hit enter in blogger after just typing in the title of a blog, it will publish the empty entry. I just found that out, so any of you who are fast at reading this may be a bit disappointed, because I do not plan on finishing it right now. I have stake conference in about an hour, so check back later for an update.
This week has been a very interesting one. We have had a guest staying with us some of this week, and she will stay until next Saturday. She is a very nice surrogate grandmother to Alice. Alice loves her lots and lots, but sadly she is with us because she is moving to Nevada and needed a place to stay for a week after leaving her old apartment. It was especially odd last night as Susan is off on her final birthday celebration, another opera in Chicago this time, so it was out guest, Alice and me last night.
It was almost even odder, because I recently dodged another trip to California. Two trips in fact. This week two people I work with will be in California giving some training on what we have built. The next week two more are going out to give a presentation to our new management, yes we got moved around again, about exactly what it is that we do. For some reason I always seem to get picked for these types of trips so I have ended up going to CA three to four times a year. Well if I were going on the first trip then I would probably be flying out this afternoon, so it would be one more thing in an already crazy schedule for today, with a guest in our house, Susan coming home and me leaving for a week. I just don't think that would work.
well look at that, because Alice is eating oatmeal with her friend I actually managed to get enough time to finish this, reducing that chances that anyone will have to check back later to read the actual entry.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Quality Time
Though only 5 months in utero, I think this little fellow already has a sense of humor. He manages to move and kick at the most interesting times, especially when I try to say anything prophetic about our future life together. For example, seed catalogs for next year's garden have just begun to arrive. He makes an exasperated flail every time I'm tempted to add a new vegetable to my wish list. It will take MUCH self-control to limit my expectations for Summer 2010.
"C'mon, Zurg, it's belgian endive! You'll love it!"
The more he moves, though, the better acquainted I feel with him. I get the sense that he's hanging out with me as I live my life and make choices. That's some serious quality time. I love him more for it, too. Quality time is my love language above and beyond all others.
I'm excited to meet him. I've gathered some boy clothes that I like, a couple names that might work, and a general sense that we'll be okay. I guess I'm trying to say that he now has a place in my family. I've made room for him in my thoughts and preparations. He's actually there...now and in the future...a faceless, voiceless, but absolutely real little kid that's going to be a part of my life indefinitely. We're a family of four. Kinda cool to feel that.
"C'mon, Zurg, it's belgian endive! You'll love it!"
The more he moves, though, the better acquainted I feel with him. I get the sense that he's hanging out with me as I live my life and make choices. That's some serious quality time. I love him more for it, too. Quality time is my love language above and beyond all others.
I'm excited to meet him. I've gathered some boy clothes that I like, a couple names that might work, and a general sense that we'll be okay. I guess I'm trying to say that he now has a place in my family. I've made room for him in my thoughts and preparations. He's actually there...now and in the future...a faceless, voiceless, but absolutely real little kid that's going to be a part of my life indefinitely. We're a family of four. Kinda cool to feel that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
