Have you ever had someone say to you that they'd like to just take your child and keep him for a while and only bring him back if he cries or needs his diaper changed? Unless you're one of Kevin's grandmas, no offense, but what kind of deal is that? That's like saying, "Here, I'll just take this cake you made and eat it, except you can keep the nasty burned parts that don't have any frosting." (The reason I'm willing to make that kind of deal with one of Kevin's grandmas is because they've more than earned the right to enjoy Kevin without having to change his diaper.)
And of course I realize that when people say this to me they're just joking. I would never blow up in someone's face if they said that to me.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
How to eat yogurt
A demonstration by Kevin. (Costco had a great deal on yogurt, so Kevin has gotten a lot of practice lately.)
Step 1: Always lick the lid. And keep it handy, because sometimes it's useful (or at least fun) later.
Step 2: Use the spoon to eat the first third of the yogurt. It's good manners.
Step 3: Use your hands, the spoon, the lid, or whatever other tools are necessary to eat the rest of the yogurt.
Dad says Argentines eat cereal with yogurt.
Step 1: Always lick the lid. And keep it handy, because sometimes it's useful (or at least fun) later.
Step 2: Use the spoon to eat the first third of the yogurt. It's good manners.
Step 3: Use your hands, the spoon, the lid, or whatever other tools are necessary to eat the rest of the yogurt.
Dad says Argentines eat cereal with yogurt.
lots of videos this month
Kevin is getting quite good at walking in Mama's shoes.
A very interesting story:
What do you mean I can't have these chocolate chips for dinner? (Yes, a tantrum, but definitely not the worst one we've seen.)
some pictures
Recently we visited somebody who has some very friendly dogs. The white one loves to lick. Kevin practically had his hand in her mouth because she was licking him so much, and Kevin thought it was wonderful. He was laughing so hard and saying "Uh! Uh!" like a dog. He made doggie noises the whole ride home.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Guest post from Kevin
The following is a guest post written by Kevin for the benefit of his baby sister, with the intent of giving her a head start in the technique of causing mischief. This is, of course, both for her own benefit and for his, since he is going to need her as a cohort in crime.
Getting Attention from Mom and Dad: An advanced guide written by Dr. Kevin
Getting Attention from Mom and Dad: An advanced guide written by Dr. Kevin
- If asking for food does not secure you entrance into the kitchen, refuse all food or drinks she offers you and throw a tantrum. She may bring you into the kitchen so you can show her what you want, at which point you can use the advice in the previous point.
- If Mom or Dad is using a computer, your best hope is to cause enough distractions and damage that they give up. The following are some very effective techniques for this special case:
- Turn the computer on and off using the button with the pretty blue light. Not only does this have the benefit of the pleasant sensation of pushing a button, but it prevents them from using the computer at all for several minutes, during which they will likely give up. If you can’t manage to get to the button, there are lots of cords underneath the desk that you can pull on as well as another shiny blue button that also turns off the computer.
- Open the CD/DVD players repeatedly.
- Beg to sit on their lap, and be very still and good for several minutes. Frequently say adorable things and point at the computer. Then insist on playing with the mouse and keyboard so that they can’t use the computer at all. Both behaviors are very effective.
- Get into the desk drawer. There are several useful and amusing attention-getting tools in there, and all have their advantages. The permanent markers are very effective, particularly if you open them and then run away, because Mom and Dad are very afraid of permanent marker on the wall. Similarly, pens are very effective, especially if you can get away fast enough to draw on the couch, because then Mom will get out the hairspray and a wet washcloth and let you help her wash the pen off, which will take a good amount of time. Pencils or crayons also have their benefits if you can convince Mom to give you a piece of paper, because you will likely require enough supervision that she will draw with you.
- Play with the screwdrivers, ties, or games in the closet. Even if they catch you at it and take you out, they will use the big duffel bag to block the door, which provides you easy access to the light switch.
- Get into Dad’s side table and pull out anything you can find. The added benefit of this is that he has many interesting items with cords and buttons there. Dad’s scriptures are also a very good target because Mom and Dad would be very sad if those were ripped.
- You can also use most of these distractions to get Mom and Dad to stand up and chase you, which will provide you with an opportunity to climb into the chair and play with the computer.
- Do not underestimate the effectiveness of your toys and books. If you shove or throw a book in Mom or Dad’s face, they usually read it to you. Once you have them reading to you, it is easy to maintain their attention by asking for the same book again, turning back to your favorite pages repeatedly, and bringing more books. It is also helpful to choose toys that require their help.
- Bring shoes, socks, or your sweater for them to help you put on. This draws a decent amount of attention and sometimes results in going outside or at least playing in the hallway.
- Climb into the stroller or onto the table and get stuck.
- Do not forget to take advantage of any opportunity to use food that has been left on the table. Usually the fact that you are on the table is enough, but walking into a room with food all over your hands and face and reaching for their clothes or a piece of furniture produces a very gratifying result as well.
- If you are struggling for ideas, it is always effective to kick, throw, bang, break, scatter, and rip.
- When all else fails, pull hair, break eyeglasses, and take off your diaper. These three methods are 100% effective.
Dear readers:
Please take this post the way it was meant to be taken: as a humorous little post.
Friday, January 14, 2011
It's a . . .
Girl????
Oh!
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my mom and she said, "Now, you'll be sure to let me know when you find out for sure you're having a girl, right?" I laughed and said I would, but honestly, since we knew we were having a baby we have been talking about Kevin's little brother. We just felt like it was another boy. So I woke up this morning thinking, "Today we will know for sure that we're having another boy." I was already wondering if my little sister would be disappointed that we weren't going to have a girl.
Well, we were pretty surprised. She is definitely a girl. And once the ultrasound technician told us, it felt right to me. I have felt for a long time that there was a girl's spirit who was waiting to come to our family. I just wasn't sure when, and for some reason I didn't think this baby would be her. But it is her! I am so excited to meet her! She has been preparing for so long to have a body and begin her mortal life, and I am very excited to bring her into this world and to be part of the next step in her journey.
Everything looks healthy. Her size matches the due date on the doctor's plastic slide. Which means, of course, that we have no idea when she will be here other than June.
This is a 3D picture of her face. Her face is right in the center of the image, with her arm under her chin, and she's snuggled up next to the placenta. I think it's such a sweet face!
Here's a foot.
And here are a couple of profiles. Her head is on the right in both.
This week has brought some new aches and pains. My tailbone is feeling worse, and my shoulder is also really bothering me. I was never much of a yoga person because the speakers always say such weird things, but I've started looking for prenatal yoga videos because the stretches seem to help, and the videos have stretches that I wouldn't think of doing on my own. I'm hoping that stretching and walking will help alleviate the pain a little. Other than that, I have been feeling great. I'm also starting to feel Baby Girl's little thumps, which is fun, of course.
I remember when I was pregnant with Kevin, I always knew exactly how far along I was, to the day. This time I haven't really been keeping track. It's interesting how the exact date isn't as important to me this time around, and it's also kind of a relief to not be thinking about it.
I know newborns don't need a lot of space, but I'm still not sure how we're going to make room for another baby's things. Whether Kevin is still in a crib or has already moved to a bed at that point, we're going to have to find room for another bed and some kind of dresser, and I'm really not sure how it will fit. Plus, Kevin's boxes of old clothes already take up space, and now we'll be making room for more boxes of girl clothes. Then again, maybe I'll just buy a few girl outfits for going out (so we don't get comments about the cute little baby boy) and she can wear dinosaurs and puppy dogs at home--she won't care. Maybe some decluttering and consolidating is in order.
Oh!
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my mom and she said, "Now, you'll be sure to let me know when you find out for sure you're having a girl, right?" I laughed and said I would, but honestly, since we knew we were having a baby we have been talking about Kevin's little brother. We just felt like it was another boy. So I woke up this morning thinking, "Today we will know for sure that we're having another boy." I was already wondering if my little sister would be disappointed that we weren't going to have a girl.
Well, we were pretty surprised. She is definitely a girl. And once the ultrasound technician told us, it felt right to me. I have felt for a long time that there was a girl's spirit who was waiting to come to our family. I just wasn't sure when, and for some reason I didn't think this baby would be her. But it is her! I am so excited to meet her! She has been preparing for so long to have a body and begin her mortal life, and I am very excited to bring her into this world and to be part of the next step in her journey.
Everything looks healthy. Her size matches the due date on the doctor's plastic slide. Which means, of course, that we have no idea when she will be here other than June.
This is a 3D picture of her face. Her face is right in the center of the image, with her arm under her chin, and she's snuggled up next to the placenta. I think it's such a sweet face!
Here's a foot.
And here are a couple of profiles. Her head is on the right in both.
This week has brought some new aches and pains. My tailbone is feeling worse, and my shoulder is also really bothering me. I was never much of a yoga person because the speakers always say such weird things, but I've started looking for prenatal yoga videos because the stretches seem to help, and the videos have stretches that I wouldn't think of doing on my own. I'm hoping that stretching and walking will help alleviate the pain a little. Other than that, I have been feeling great. I'm also starting to feel Baby Girl's little thumps, which is fun, of course.
I remember when I was pregnant with Kevin, I always knew exactly how far along I was, to the day. This time I haven't really been keeping track. It's interesting how the exact date isn't as important to me this time around, and it's also kind of a relief to not be thinking about it.
I know newborns don't need a lot of space, but I'm still not sure how we're going to make room for another baby's things. Whether Kevin is still in a crib or has already moved to a bed at that point, we're going to have to find room for another bed and some kind of dresser, and I'm really not sure how it will fit. Plus, Kevin's boxes of old clothes already take up space, and now we'll be making room for more boxes of girl clothes. Then again, maybe I'll just buy a few girl outfits for going out (so we don't get comments about the cute little baby boy) and she can wear dinosaurs and puppy dogs at home--she won't care. Maybe some decluttering and consolidating is in order.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
already an interesting day
The night before last night I dreamed that I had beautiful twin boys. They sort of fell out of me. I was really concerned because I'm not even halfway to my due date, but they were healthy and strong and looked full term. My mom was there and we were busily trying to figure out a way to get to the hospital with them to make sure everything was all right (because they were five months early!). I was kind of glad to wake up and find it was a dream, but it did make me feel more baby hungry.
When I woke up I mentioned to Ryan that I was out of breath, and he said, "No wonder. You were running through my mind all night. Literally. We were running from the flood."
So between running all night and having two babies at some point as well, I guess it's kind of surprising that it was actually a rather restful night.
Then Kevin and I made bread together. By hand. It was the most stressful thing I've done in a long time, but I feel like a good parent because I cooked with my child and didn't even yell. It was fun too, though. Kevin enjoyed stirring the dough with a measuring spoon and helping me measure ingredients and trying to taste the dough (which he didn't like, but he kept trying it anyway). In the end, the damage actually wasn't too bad--one flour-covered outfit and a counter covered in about as much flour as you'd expect from making bread by hand, plus the dishes and our hands, of course. It was a new recipe that calls for a little bit of cornmeal and oats, and it turned out very nicely. I bought a lot of cornmeal a few months ago and then realized that I don't like cornbread enough to cook it often enough to use all this cornmeal by the time I die, so I'm on the hunt for other good recipes that call for cornmeal (besides cornbread). We still need to try making tamales. The bread turned out quite nicely. Kevin ate about five pieces yesterday evening before dinner--he kept begging for more! Now I can't decide if it was good because it was made by hand, or because it was a good recipe. Or maybe it's just that Kevin makes awesome bread. I usually let my bread mix in my breadmaker and then I bake it in the oven, but lately it hasn't been tasting good to me, so I've been wondering if it's the recipe or if it's something about the breadmaker (I suspect that the breadmaker warms the dough slightly while it mixes, and I wonder if that changes the taste). I know I shouldn't have changed two variables at once (method of mixing and recipe), but I guess I was so excited to try this recipe that I did it anyway.
My first class today was cancelled because of the snow, but they only cancelled class until 11:00, so I still had to go to my second class. It didn't snow a lot, but there was a lot of ice. On my way down to catch the bus, I passed a girl who was standing by the sidewalk, staring at it rather fearfully. As I passed, she asked me if it was slippery. I told her it was a little slippery, but her shoes looked like they had better traction than mine did, so she would probably be fine. I had to walk a little more slowly than normal, but it didn't seem that slippery to me, and the stairs are easy because you take one step at a time anyway. So I was a little surprised to look up from the bottom of the stairs (there are a lot of stairs before you get to the bus stop) and see her still almost at the top of the stairs. She was clinging to the rail for dear life and going down the stairs very slowly. I'm pretty used to ice because we had ice pretty often in Idaho when I was growing up, so it didn't really faze me. If you have ice often enough, you kind of get used to the different types of ice and figure out how to walk without slipping. I guess this was the first time it occurred to me that a lot of people around here are scared of walking on ice because they don't know how to do it.
Just before I left, I was doing the usual things--putting on my coat, grabbing my keys, putting on my backpack, etc. Then Kevin got a look of realization on his face that said quite clearly, "No! It's starting again!" and started crying because he knew I'm going to start going to school again. It didn't take him too long to recover, but it's always tough to leave him crying like that.
When I woke up I mentioned to Ryan that I was out of breath, and he said, "No wonder. You were running through my mind all night. Literally. We were running from the flood."
So between running all night and having two babies at some point as well, I guess it's kind of surprising that it was actually a rather restful night.
Then Kevin and I made bread together. By hand. It was the most stressful thing I've done in a long time, but I feel like a good parent because I cooked with my child and didn't even yell. It was fun too, though. Kevin enjoyed stirring the dough with a measuring spoon and helping me measure ingredients and trying to taste the dough (which he didn't like, but he kept trying it anyway). In the end, the damage actually wasn't too bad--one flour-covered outfit and a counter covered in about as much flour as you'd expect from making bread by hand, plus the dishes and our hands, of course. It was a new recipe that calls for a little bit of cornmeal and oats, and it turned out very nicely. I bought a lot of cornmeal a few months ago and then realized that I don't like cornbread enough to cook it often enough to use all this cornmeal by the time I die, so I'm on the hunt for other good recipes that call for cornmeal (besides cornbread). We still need to try making tamales. The bread turned out quite nicely. Kevin ate about five pieces yesterday evening before dinner--he kept begging for more! Now I can't decide if it was good because it was made by hand, or because it was a good recipe. Or maybe it's just that Kevin makes awesome bread. I usually let my bread mix in my breadmaker and then I bake it in the oven, but lately it hasn't been tasting good to me, so I've been wondering if it's the recipe or if it's something about the breadmaker (I suspect that the breadmaker warms the dough slightly while it mixes, and I wonder if that changes the taste). I know I shouldn't have changed two variables at once (method of mixing and recipe), but I guess I was so excited to try this recipe that I did it anyway.
My first class today was cancelled because of the snow, but they only cancelled class until 11:00, so I still had to go to my second class. It didn't snow a lot, but there was a lot of ice. On my way down to catch the bus, I passed a girl who was standing by the sidewalk, staring at it rather fearfully. As I passed, she asked me if it was slippery. I told her it was a little slippery, but her shoes looked like they had better traction than mine did, so she would probably be fine. I had to walk a little more slowly than normal, but it didn't seem that slippery to me, and the stairs are easy because you take one step at a time anyway. So I was a little surprised to look up from the bottom of the stairs (there are a lot of stairs before you get to the bus stop) and see her still almost at the top of the stairs. She was clinging to the rail for dear life and going down the stairs very slowly. I'm pretty used to ice because we had ice pretty often in Idaho when I was growing up, so it didn't really faze me. If you have ice often enough, you kind of get used to the different types of ice and figure out how to walk without slipping. I guess this was the first time it occurred to me that a lot of people around here are scared of walking on ice because they don't know how to do it.
Just before I left, I was doing the usual things--putting on my coat, grabbing my keys, putting on my backpack, etc. Then Kevin got a look of realization on his face that said quite clearly, "No! It's starting again!" and started crying because he knew I'm going to start going to school again. It didn't take him too long to recover, but it's always tough to leave him crying like that.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
on shopping and other pregnancy stuff
Have you ever looked at the models on motherhood.com? I'm pretty sure half of them aren't actually pregnant and they're just leaning back and pushing out their tummies. I want to see a model who is eight months pregnant wearing these outfits. That's the true test of whether a maternity shirt is worth buying.
A couple of days ago I was going out in public, and the few shirts I have left that look okay on me were all dirty. In desperation I pulled out a maternity shirt, and, lo and behold, I looked pregnant. And cute. And a shining light bulb appeared above my head as I realized, "Wait a second, I look awful in these shirts because I'm starting to look pregnant!" Not pregnant enough to wear all of my maternity shirts, but some of the smaller ones look pretty good. So I decided that I want to enjoy going to the playground or the store or to a Relief Society activity and feel like I look nice without having to hide under a sweater or coat, and therefore, I am going to go buy some clothes that I like and that I can feel confident in. (I go shopping very rarely, so the fact that I decided to go shopping is kind of a big deal.) So Kevin and I drove to the great and spacious building (i.e. the mall), and I headed to Destination Maternity to find some transition-into-looking-pregnant clothes. Kevin was very good even though he was bored, and he spent most of the time pointing at the mirror and telling his image, "No! No!" So as a reward he got to play at the play area for a while before we went home. And I am so excited because now I can feel like I look nice in my clothes again. I've been wearing big shirts and covering up with a sweater for a couple of months now.
By the way, I was very pleased to note that they've fixed the picture of the pregnant lady on their bags. She used to have her belly poking out under her shirt, but now they fixed it so her shirt covers it all. The old version really bugged me.
The most interesting symptom of pregnancy I've been having this time is that my tailbone hurts, and has been hurting since early in the pregnancy. A lot of the time when I try to roll over or sit up, it causes me a lot of pain and I have to move slowly and carefully. My midwife said it's probably because my body is making hormones to make my joints and ligaments and such relax, which is what I suspected, but I may go see a chiropractor just in case. It would not be fun to find out that I can't get this baby out because there's something funny happening with my tailbone. I don't remember this happening with Kevin, but every pregnancy is different, and this time around maybe my hips know what's coming.
Other aches and pains seem to be setting in earlier this time, like aching hips at night. But for the most part I've been feeling really well. I hardly feel sick at all. My only disappointment is that I'm not sleeping well like I could with Kevin. When I was pregnant with him I was able to take awesome naps that were very deep and very relaxing. This time I have been trying to nap when Kevin does, but for some reason most days I just lie there wondering why I can't get to sleep even though I feel tired.
Classes start this week, and for some reason I'm kind of nervous to start getting bigger and have people in my classes realize I'm pregnant. Maybe I'm afraid it will make me even more different from them because I'll be the married person who's pregnant with her second child. It might be weird. Outside of BYU, it's pretty uncommon for undergraduate students to be married, let alone parents. Or maybe I'm just scared of the attention from people asking if I'm pregnant.
I'm excited to see what Kevin thinks as my tummy grows. Maybe he won't even notice, or maybe he'll eventually figure out that there's a baby in there. He loves to see the babies at church, so I hope he will be as happy having a baby at home all the time. I know it may be challenging to have our attention less focused on him, but I think he will be excited to be a big brother. He is starting to understand a little better what "soft" means. If I tell him to be soft he remembers that it's okay to gently touch a person's head but it's not okay to hit or pull hair. He does enjoy head-butting people, but please don't be insulted if he does it to you or your child, because he truly views it as a sign of affection (I do apologize if it hurts, though). I think it must be a boy thing. I'm sure I will still have to remind him to be gentle with the baby and that there will be times when I have to keep the baby way out of reach, but I hope that I can find the right balance so that he can start bonding with the baby and not feel like this is just one more thing he's not allowed to play with.
I'm starting to feel baby-hungry again like I did before the morning sickness set in. Recently some of my friends on facebook have posted pictures of their new babies and I tend look at them and say, "Oh, I want a baby." I don't know how it's possible that I barely remember the half-conscious once-an-hour feedings in the middle of the night, or smelling like rotten milk, or desperately wanting to take a shower but not doing so because if I set the baby down for too long he will cry till he's purple. I don't even remember being in labor hurting much. I just want a baby. Which is probably why the human race is still around.
A couple of days ago I was going out in public, and the few shirts I have left that look okay on me were all dirty. In desperation I pulled out a maternity shirt, and, lo and behold, I looked pregnant. And cute. And a shining light bulb appeared above my head as I realized, "Wait a second, I look awful in these shirts because I'm starting to look pregnant!" Not pregnant enough to wear all of my maternity shirts, but some of the smaller ones look pretty good. So I decided that I want to enjoy going to the playground or the store or to a Relief Society activity and feel like I look nice without having to hide under a sweater or coat, and therefore, I am going to go buy some clothes that I like and that I can feel confident in. (I go shopping very rarely, so the fact that I decided to go shopping is kind of a big deal.) So Kevin and I drove to the great and spacious building (i.e. the mall), and I headed to Destination Maternity to find some transition-into-looking-pregnant clothes. Kevin was very good even though he was bored, and he spent most of the time pointing at the mirror and telling his image, "No! No!" So as a reward he got to play at the play area for a while before we went home. And I am so excited because now I can feel like I look nice in my clothes again. I've been wearing big shirts and covering up with a sweater for a couple of months now.
By the way, I was very pleased to note that they've fixed the picture of the pregnant lady on their bags. She used to have her belly poking out under her shirt, but now they fixed it so her shirt covers it all. The old version really bugged me.
The most interesting symptom of pregnancy I've been having this time is that my tailbone hurts, and has been hurting since early in the pregnancy. A lot of the time when I try to roll over or sit up, it causes me a lot of pain and I have to move slowly and carefully. My midwife said it's probably because my body is making hormones to make my joints and ligaments and such relax, which is what I suspected, but I may go see a chiropractor just in case. It would not be fun to find out that I can't get this baby out because there's something funny happening with my tailbone. I don't remember this happening with Kevin, but every pregnancy is different, and this time around maybe my hips know what's coming.
Other aches and pains seem to be setting in earlier this time, like aching hips at night. But for the most part I've been feeling really well. I hardly feel sick at all. My only disappointment is that I'm not sleeping well like I could with Kevin. When I was pregnant with him I was able to take awesome naps that were very deep and very relaxing. This time I have been trying to nap when Kevin does, but for some reason most days I just lie there wondering why I can't get to sleep even though I feel tired.
Classes start this week, and for some reason I'm kind of nervous to start getting bigger and have people in my classes realize I'm pregnant. Maybe I'm afraid it will make me even more different from them because I'll be the married person who's pregnant with her second child. It might be weird. Outside of BYU, it's pretty uncommon for undergraduate students to be married, let alone parents. Or maybe I'm just scared of the attention from people asking if I'm pregnant.
I'm excited to see what Kevin thinks as my tummy grows. Maybe he won't even notice, or maybe he'll eventually figure out that there's a baby in there. He loves to see the babies at church, so I hope he will be as happy having a baby at home all the time. I know it may be challenging to have our attention less focused on him, but I think he will be excited to be a big brother. He is starting to understand a little better what "soft" means. If I tell him to be soft he remembers that it's okay to gently touch a person's head but it's not okay to hit or pull hair. He does enjoy head-butting people, but please don't be insulted if he does it to you or your child, because he truly views it as a sign of affection (I do apologize if it hurts, though). I think it must be a boy thing. I'm sure I will still have to remind him to be gentle with the baby and that there will be times when I have to keep the baby way out of reach, but I hope that I can find the right balance so that he can start bonding with the baby and not feel like this is just one more thing he's not allowed to play with.
I'm starting to feel baby-hungry again like I did before the morning sickness set in. Recently some of my friends on facebook have posted pictures of their new babies and I tend look at them and say, "Oh, I want a baby." I don't know how it's possible that I barely remember the half-conscious once-an-hour feedings in the middle of the night, or smelling like rotten milk, or desperately wanting to take a shower but not doing so because if I set the baby down for too long he will cry till he's purple. I don't even remember being in labor hurting much. I just want a baby. Which is probably why the human race is still around.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
I don't think I ever followed up on my strange Calculus teacher.
At the beginning of the semester I mentioned that the first thing I heard her say was a swear word, just because the previous teacher didn't erase the board. For the first half of the semester she was, for the most part, very intimidating and unapproachable. Most of us were scared to even ask questions about the material. If she gave us time to work problems I lived in fear that she would look over my shoulder at my work and then start telling me all about why I was doing it wrong. And she always seemed to do it. On the first test there was a part where we were to choose to do one of two problems and clearly indicate which she should grade--if we didn't clearly mark the one she should grade, she said she would choose the one on which we had done WORSE (yes, in all caps). She is the only teacher I have ever seen who does that. I've seen teachers who default to the first one if it's not clearly marked which should be graded, but I just couldn't believe that she could be so negative even on a test. I thought that said pretty clearly, "I want my students to fail."
I expected my first test to come back battered with criticism. But her grading was very fair. Merciful, even.
Towards the middle of the semester I was shocked one day when she made a joke and then winked at the class. It took us a while to laugh because we weren't used to hearing her make jokes. All I could do for half a minute was stare at her wondering if I had seriously just seen her smile and wink at the class.
And then jokes became a fairly common occurrence. They were very eccentric jokes, but still quite amusing. And then she was singing as she walked down the hallway towards the classroom. When she looked over my shoulder while I was working a problem, she was actually quite nice and helpful. Asking questions in class wasn't a scary experience.
The end of the semester came. I looked up the final exam information she had posted, and, wonder of wonders, she said we could put notes on one side of a 3 x 5 card and use it on the final. Now, that was a very kind thing to do. And then, at the final exam, she passed around a bowl of gum. I found myself wondering, how did we go from swearing about the un-erased chalkboard every single day to passing around gum at the final exam? And then she sent us a final email, and finished it by saying that she had looked forward to class every day and it had been a pleasure being our teacher.
I am left thoroughly confused. She was mean enough at the beginning of the semester that one day I came home and cried (and then felt ashamed of myself for being so sensitive). I thought she had no heart. But by the end of the semester I rather liked her and even felt a little defensive when people made fun of her eccentricities. I really think that she does care about her students and that she enjoys teaching math. If she was teaching another class that I needed to take, I would possibly consider taking the class from her. But she was so negative for the first half of the semester! My guess is that she does it to encourage people to drop the class, but at the same time if she actually does care about her students, I can't understand why she would want to get half the class to drop. It's a hard enough class that most of the people who dropped the class were floundering because it was hard and didn't need any encouragement from an intimidating teacher. I will probably never understand. I just can't figure her out.
I will say, though, that I think I am a better person than I was because I stuck with this class. I often wondered if it was really worth it to stay in this class when the teacher was so negative, but I decided that I had put so much effort into the class already that it would be silly to give up. Besides, I didn't want her to succeed in getting me to drop the class. I think that because I persevered, I will be able to meet future challenges with more capability of getting through them.
(Wait, does that mean I'm going to have to do harder things than take Calc. 3?)
At the beginning of the semester I mentioned that the first thing I heard her say was a swear word, just because the previous teacher didn't erase the board. For the first half of the semester she was, for the most part, very intimidating and unapproachable. Most of us were scared to even ask questions about the material. If she gave us time to work problems I lived in fear that she would look over my shoulder at my work and then start telling me all about why I was doing it wrong. And she always seemed to do it. On the first test there was a part where we were to choose to do one of two problems and clearly indicate which she should grade--if we didn't clearly mark the one she should grade, she said she would choose the one on which we had done WORSE (yes, in all caps). She is the only teacher I have ever seen who does that. I've seen teachers who default to the first one if it's not clearly marked which should be graded, but I just couldn't believe that she could be so negative even on a test. I thought that said pretty clearly, "I want my students to fail."
I expected my first test to come back battered with criticism. But her grading was very fair. Merciful, even.
Towards the middle of the semester I was shocked one day when she made a joke and then winked at the class. It took us a while to laugh because we weren't used to hearing her make jokes. All I could do for half a minute was stare at her wondering if I had seriously just seen her smile and wink at the class.
And then jokes became a fairly common occurrence. They were very eccentric jokes, but still quite amusing. And then she was singing as she walked down the hallway towards the classroom. When she looked over my shoulder while I was working a problem, she was actually quite nice and helpful. Asking questions in class wasn't a scary experience.
The end of the semester came. I looked up the final exam information she had posted, and, wonder of wonders, she said we could put notes on one side of a 3 x 5 card and use it on the final. Now, that was a very kind thing to do. And then, at the final exam, she passed around a bowl of gum. I found myself wondering, how did we go from swearing about the un-erased chalkboard every single day to passing around gum at the final exam? And then she sent us a final email, and finished it by saying that she had looked forward to class every day and it had been a pleasure being our teacher.
I am left thoroughly confused. She was mean enough at the beginning of the semester that one day I came home and cried (and then felt ashamed of myself for being so sensitive). I thought she had no heart. But by the end of the semester I rather liked her and even felt a little defensive when people made fun of her eccentricities. I really think that she does care about her students and that she enjoys teaching math. If she was teaching another class that I needed to take, I would possibly consider taking the class from her. But she was so negative for the first half of the semester! My guess is that she does it to encourage people to drop the class, but at the same time if she actually does care about her students, I can't understand why she would want to get half the class to drop. It's a hard enough class that most of the people who dropped the class were floundering because it was hard and didn't need any encouragement from an intimidating teacher. I will probably never understand. I just can't figure her out.
I will say, though, that I think I am a better person than I was because I stuck with this class. I often wondered if it was really worth it to stay in this class when the teacher was so negative, but I decided that I had put so much effort into the class already that it would be silly to give up. Besides, I didn't want her to succeed in getting me to drop the class. I think that because I persevered, I will be able to meet future challenges with more capability of getting through them.
(Wait, does that mean I'm going to have to do harder things than take Calc. 3?)
long post about Christmas 2010
Christmas was interesting. I knew that I would probably be keeping Christmas simple this year. I had finals until the 17th, which only left me about a week to get ready. I didn't have a lot of plans, but I did have some. There were several things I wanted to buy to make some Christmas treats, I wanted to make said Christmas treats, I was still hoping to get a small Christmas tree even though we knew Kevin would destroy it, we still wanted to get a few Christmas presents, and I had some secret plans to make some personalized stockings for Kevin and Ryan. And I had some grand plans to make clam chowder for Christmas dinner.
On Monday we went to Costco and got a lot of things. We always had chocolate kisses at Christmastime growing up, but once we were at the store I realized I wanted candy bars, not chocolate kisses, so we bought candy bars. And of course we bought a couple of boxes of oranges. By the way, Christmastime is a great time to go to Costco. They have so many awesome samples because lots of people come to sell Vitamixes and fancy cheese and fudge and cheesecakes. Ryan and Kevin shared a spicy meatball. It was the kind of spicy where you put the food in your mouth and it seems just fine but then two seconds later your mouth is on fire, so by the time Ryan realized it was actually really spicy he had offered the other half to Kevin. Kevin had tears trickling down his cheeks and looked miserable and angry. Poor kid. We found a sample of a smoothie to wash it down, and then he seemed to feel better.
On Tuesday we went to Target to find some Christmas presents. We let Kevin play with a few toys, and soon we found just what he wanted: an AlphaBerry. It's like a fancy phone except it has buttons for all the letters of the alphabet and plays four different versions of the ABCs. Kevin loves buttons. They're his favorite thing, especially if they make noise. So as soon as he got his hands on the AlphaBerry it had to be his. We also found a cute little puzzle.
Still no tree and no personalized stockings. I hadn't had a chance to get to Joann's to get materials yet. The nativity set also still wasn't out, although we had taken out the advent calendar and used it fairly consistently.
Ryan started getting sick Tuesday afternoon. He took a really long nap and I tried to keep Kevin out of his hair. When RT woke up we tried to have dinner. Kevin was grumpy and wouldn't eat and Ryan said Kevin was tired and probably starting to feel sick, so we hurried and got him to bed.
We woke up in the morning to a hoarse and pain-filled cry. My comment was, "Oh, he seems a little sad." Ryan, already feeling sicker, said, "He's dehydrated and coughing and his throat hurts and he can't breathe, and he probably wants to be held." Even though it wasn't fun for Ryan to also be sick, it was kind of nice that he was sick slightly ahead of Kevin, so that we had some idea of what Kevin was experiencing based on what Ryan had just gotten through. So I got Kevin out of bed. He was so terrified and uncomfortable that it took a while for him to realize that he was being held and taken care of. We went and laid on the couch and I tried to get him to drink some water. For the next few hours we did a lot of holding and cuddling and thumb-sucking (in Kevin's case). I dosed off occasionally, but I think mostly Kevin just sat there in a reverie. Occasionally he would cough and it would hurt and he would cry and I would have to help him calm down. It was a really awful-sounding cough--really dry and barky and raspy. His breathing was also loud and labored for a few days. Occasionally he would get down and play for a few minutes but then remember he was miserable and come back and ask me to hold him. At one point he also went to get the blanket his Aunt Eliza made for him (it has silky edges, which are really nice to hold onto, so it's one of his favorite blankets). When Ryan woke up and came out he said we would probably need a humidifier, so we called Eliza and asked her what kind is good to get, and then I went to Target. At first I figured I could also get the grocery shopping done while I was out, but then Kevin got pretty bad and Ryan took him into the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. So it became a trip for just a humidifier and baby Tylenol.
Would you believe that Target keeps its humidifiers in three different places in the store? And they put different brands in each place. So after visiting two of the locations I had concluded they didn't have the brand Eliza recommended, so I chose a different humidifier, and then when I went over to the baby Tylenol I found the brand of humidifier I had been looking for.
When I got back, Ryan and Kevin were on the couch, and Kevin was sleeping very heavily. He was very hot. We got the humidifier set up in his room and put him in his crib. When he woke up we gave him some Tylenol and tried to get him to drink something. He just wanted to be held in the rocking chair with the blanket. Even though he kept falling asleep again he would cry and beg us to hold him if we put him back in the crib. He also tended to want both of us to be there with him. It was a really hard day for him. He has never been this sick before. When we got to bed that night I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave him alone all night because I was afraid he wouldn't be able to cry for us if he started having a hard time breathing.
We also realized that Kevin had several molars trying to break through (the tiny sharp spots finally just poked through a couple of days ago), so that was possibly augmenting the problem. Kevin was putting his fingers in his mouth a lot and chewing on them in the back where his molars are. He hasn't seemed to have any pain at all with his other teeth coming in, but I guess molars are a whole different ball game.
On Thursday morning he was still really sick, but for some reason we felt like he was getting better. He needed a lot of attention and Ryan still didn't have a lot of energy. By this point I had given up my plans for personalized stockings and the Christmas tree. We felt like if we could just get the house clean by Christmas we would be happy. Kevin was feeling better as the day progressed, and his coughs seemed more constructive rather than just dry painful coughs that he couldn't control. His fever had also reduced quite significantly. We were able to take apart his broken down dresser, take it to the dumpster with the garbage, and replace the dresser with some nice shelves our neighbor was giving away for free, and we vacuumed Kevin's room and picked up the living room a little bit. I put out the Nativity set on the shelf and mopped the kitchen floor.
On Friday (New Year's Eve), we still had hopes to get all the dishes washed and vacuum the living room. Kevin was closer to feeling back to normal, so he was playing with things and throwing food on the floor like his normal self. He would cough occasionally and cry in pain, but it wasn't as painful as before, so he could cope with the pain on his own. We actually managed to get the kitchen all clean, wash off the table, and vacuum the couch and floor. The apartment looked really nice, and we were relieved that we had gotten the house clean before Christmas. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take pictures so people can see how we've decorated the place.
(Our new camera does panoramas, so you get to see our whole living room.)
And then we had an earthquake. Just kidding. : ) That would have made Christmas really interesting.
Our new nativity set from Becky. The figurines look like origami. It's very pretty.
We had a nice Christmas morning. I decided to put a few things in my stocking for Kevin, just some things that we thought would make him happy. There was an orange in the toe (of course), and then we put a couple of packages of M&Ms, and then a bag of goldfish crackers. Kevin really enjoyed walking around eating his bag of crackers. He wasn't really interested in opening presents. He may be destructive, but he's actually not that interested in ripping. So we just opened his presents for him and handed them to him. He's the only grandchild on my side of the family, so my parents and siblings sent him several fun things. And he is really enjoying the buttons on his AlphaBerry.
Kevin was doing much better on Christmas Day. The new symptom was that his nose was running like crazy and his eyes were watering, which we took as a good sign that his sinuses and throat were working on clearing up. He was also pretty sleep deprived since coughing and wheezing had robbed him of a lot of sleep. So by the end of Christmas day he looked like this:
I promise he was not drunk on eggnog.
We also have a couple of lovely videos of some amazing temper tantrums, which you are welcome to come see if you're interested. Although many of you have other resources for tantrum-viewing, I'm sure.
Christmas afternoon I made some orange rolls and a cheese ball. We had a nice day. Despite all my worries, we actually ended up doing most of the things I was hoping to accomplish for Christmas. The house was clean, we had candy bars, and my family is healthy again. So far, I haven't had any symptoms of getting sick with whatever Ryan and Kevin had, so that's a blessing too. It's been long enough that I feel pretty confident I won't get it. I was rather worried that it would set in on Christmas Eve and I would be sick on Christmas. Ryan and Kevin were a lot better by the end of Christmas day, so I was hopeful that on the 26th we would be well enough to celebrate Annandag with some friends in the ward. My grand plans for clam chowder on Christmas didn't work out. Turns out Ryan can't stand clams. But I decided to bring clam chowder to the Annandag celebration where hopefully there would be a better reception for it.
We got several inches of snow that night. In Idaho and Utah, snow doesn't slow us down too much, but here everything shuts down as soon as we get a light sprinkling, so we weren't too surprised to get an email from the bishop saying church was cancelled. Soon we also got a call from the hostess of the Annandag celebration letting us know that it would take place the next evening instead.
So on the 27th we had a quiet day, I made clam chowder, and then we headed down to the car to go to the party. I was excited because it looked like we would at least get to do one Christmas thing with friends after being cooped up all week with croup and such (or I guess I could say we were crouped up all week and save some words). But then we got down to the car and one of the tires was pretty flat. We keep a pump in the car that plugs into the cigarette lighter and fills up your tires, so Ryan pumped the tire full of air. We weren't sure if we should drive the car since we didn't know how bad the leak was. On the one hand, I really wanted to at least go to one Christmas celebration with friends, but at the same time we didn't want to have a blowout or something. We decided to go, and even though we were an hour late we actually arrived in time for the opening prayer.
Annandag is a Scandinavian holiday, so there were a lot of traditional foods--mostly Swedish since the host and hostess are very Swedish, but also a few things from Norway brought by our bishop. There were some fancy cheeses and yummy fish (this is the only fish I've liked since I went to the Stewarts' cabin and had fish there). The bishop always makes a Kransekake (see the link), which is quite good. I got some nice compliments for my clam chowder. (It didn't turn out how I was hoping, but it was still good. I had some clam chowder at a restaurant a long time ago, and ever since I've been hoping to find a recipe for clam chowder that tastes like that--this recipe didn't taste like it.) After everyone had eaten, we did some ring dancing and then danced around the house (they do this every year).
It took a while to get Kevin back to eating normal foods. After M&Ms and goldfish in his stocking, plus being sick, he wanted nothing to do with normal foods. He was pretty tired and grumpy for a few days, but I think he's finally caught up on sleep, and he will eat real food again.
We went to Costco to get the tire looked at the next day. Then on the way home we missed our exit and decided to try taking another highway and see if we got somewhere we recognized. We saw some signs pretty soon for a highway we use sometimes, so we kept driving until we found it, but once we were on it we realized we had passed our city and we were in the next town. But it was fun to explore, and we ended up at home okay.
We had another interesting adventure a few days later looking for a park. It wasn't very cold, so we thought we'd go to a park that Kevin and I had visited and liked last summer. We missed a turn and didn't realize it for a couple of miles, so we turned around to go back, and then once we were on the right road, we missed the park. It didn't matter anyway because it had started to rain. But soon Ryan realized we were right by a shopping center with a frozen yogurt shop that he had heard about, so we decided to check it out. It was a cute little place where you serve your own frozen yogurt and toppings and then they weigh it all and charge by the ounce. It was kind of frustrating to have no idea how much your frozen yogurt is going to cost, but it was still a fun concept and we enjoyed going out for once.
It has been very special to tell Kevin stories about Jesus during the Christmas season. It's definitely a tradition we'll have to do every year. It didn't always go well, but I did notice that a lot of the time when I started telling him the story he would become calmer, and we did feel the Spirit. Kevin probably got more out of it than what I could see. I'm excited to do this again in future years, especially as he learns to talk more and participate more in telling the stories. It strengthened my testimony of our Savior and helped make Him the main point of this time of year.
On Monday we went to Costco and got a lot of things. We always had chocolate kisses at Christmastime growing up, but once we were at the store I realized I wanted candy bars, not chocolate kisses, so we bought candy bars. And of course we bought a couple of boxes of oranges. By the way, Christmastime is a great time to go to Costco. They have so many awesome samples because lots of people come to sell Vitamixes and fancy cheese and fudge and cheesecakes. Ryan and Kevin shared a spicy meatball. It was the kind of spicy where you put the food in your mouth and it seems just fine but then two seconds later your mouth is on fire, so by the time Ryan realized it was actually really spicy he had offered the other half to Kevin. Kevin had tears trickling down his cheeks and looked miserable and angry. Poor kid. We found a sample of a smoothie to wash it down, and then he seemed to feel better.
On Tuesday we went to Target to find some Christmas presents. We let Kevin play with a few toys, and soon we found just what he wanted: an AlphaBerry. It's like a fancy phone except it has buttons for all the letters of the alphabet and plays four different versions of the ABCs. Kevin loves buttons. They're his favorite thing, especially if they make noise. So as soon as he got his hands on the AlphaBerry it had to be his. We also found a cute little puzzle.
Still no tree and no personalized stockings. I hadn't had a chance to get to Joann's to get materials yet. The nativity set also still wasn't out, although we had taken out the advent calendar and used it fairly consistently.
Ryan started getting sick Tuesday afternoon. He took a really long nap and I tried to keep Kevin out of his hair. When RT woke up we tried to have dinner. Kevin was grumpy and wouldn't eat and Ryan said Kevin was tired and probably starting to feel sick, so we hurried and got him to bed.
We woke up in the morning to a hoarse and pain-filled cry. My comment was, "Oh, he seems a little sad." Ryan, already feeling sicker, said, "He's dehydrated and coughing and his throat hurts and he can't breathe, and he probably wants to be held." Even though it wasn't fun for Ryan to also be sick, it was kind of nice that he was sick slightly ahead of Kevin, so that we had some idea of what Kevin was experiencing based on what Ryan had just gotten through. So I got Kevin out of bed. He was so terrified and uncomfortable that it took a while for him to realize that he was being held and taken care of. We went and laid on the couch and I tried to get him to drink some water. For the next few hours we did a lot of holding and cuddling and thumb-sucking (in Kevin's case). I dosed off occasionally, but I think mostly Kevin just sat there in a reverie. Occasionally he would cough and it would hurt and he would cry and I would have to help him calm down. It was a really awful-sounding cough--really dry and barky and raspy. His breathing was also loud and labored for a few days. Occasionally he would get down and play for a few minutes but then remember he was miserable and come back and ask me to hold him. At one point he also went to get the blanket his Aunt Eliza made for him (it has silky edges, which are really nice to hold onto, so it's one of his favorite blankets). When Ryan woke up and came out he said we would probably need a humidifier, so we called Eliza and asked her what kind is good to get, and then I went to Target. At first I figured I could also get the grocery shopping done while I was out, but then Kevin got pretty bad and Ryan took him into the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. So it became a trip for just a humidifier and baby Tylenol.
Would you believe that Target keeps its humidifiers in three different places in the store? And they put different brands in each place. So after visiting two of the locations I had concluded they didn't have the brand Eliza recommended, so I chose a different humidifier, and then when I went over to the baby Tylenol I found the brand of humidifier I had been looking for.
When I got back, Ryan and Kevin were on the couch, and Kevin was sleeping very heavily. He was very hot. We got the humidifier set up in his room and put him in his crib. When he woke up we gave him some Tylenol and tried to get him to drink something. He just wanted to be held in the rocking chair with the blanket. Even though he kept falling asleep again he would cry and beg us to hold him if we put him back in the crib. He also tended to want both of us to be there with him. It was a really hard day for him. He has never been this sick before. When we got to bed that night I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave him alone all night because I was afraid he wouldn't be able to cry for us if he started having a hard time breathing.
We also realized that Kevin had several molars trying to break through (the tiny sharp spots finally just poked through a couple of days ago), so that was possibly augmenting the problem. Kevin was putting his fingers in his mouth a lot and chewing on them in the back where his molars are. He hasn't seemed to have any pain at all with his other teeth coming in, but I guess molars are a whole different ball game.
On Thursday morning he was still really sick, but for some reason we felt like he was getting better. He needed a lot of attention and Ryan still didn't have a lot of energy. By this point I had given up my plans for personalized stockings and the Christmas tree. We felt like if we could just get the house clean by Christmas we would be happy. Kevin was feeling better as the day progressed, and his coughs seemed more constructive rather than just dry painful coughs that he couldn't control. His fever had also reduced quite significantly. We were able to take apart his broken down dresser, take it to the dumpster with the garbage, and replace the dresser with some nice shelves our neighbor was giving away for free, and we vacuumed Kevin's room and picked up the living room a little bit. I put out the Nativity set on the shelf and mopped the kitchen floor.
On Friday (New Year's Eve), we still had hopes to get all the dishes washed and vacuum the living room. Kevin was closer to feeling back to normal, so he was playing with things and throwing food on the floor like his normal self. He would cough occasionally and cry in pain, but it wasn't as painful as before, so he could cope with the pain on his own. We actually managed to get the kitchen all clean, wash off the table, and vacuum the couch and floor. The apartment looked really nice, and we were relieved that we had gotten the house clean before Christmas. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take pictures so people can see how we've decorated the place.
(Our new camera does panoramas, so you get to see our whole living room.)
And then we had an earthquake. Just kidding. : ) That would have made Christmas really interesting.
Our new nativity set from Becky. The figurines look like origami. It's very pretty.
We had a nice Christmas morning. I decided to put a few things in my stocking for Kevin, just some things that we thought would make him happy. There was an orange in the toe (of course), and then we put a couple of packages of M&Ms, and then a bag of goldfish crackers. Kevin really enjoyed walking around eating his bag of crackers. He wasn't really interested in opening presents. He may be destructive, but he's actually not that interested in ripping. So we just opened his presents for him and handed them to him. He's the only grandchild on my side of the family, so my parents and siblings sent him several fun things. And he is really enjoying the buttons on his AlphaBerry.
Kevin was doing much better on Christmas Day. The new symptom was that his nose was running like crazy and his eyes were watering, which we took as a good sign that his sinuses and throat were working on clearing up. He was also pretty sleep deprived since coughing and wheezing had robbed him of a lot of sleep. So by the end of Christmas day he looked like this:
I promise he was not drunk on eggnog.
We also have a couple of lovely videos of some amazing temper tantrums, which you are welcome to come see if you're interested. Although many of you have other resources for tantrum-viewing, I'm sure.
Christmas afternoon I made some orange rolls and a cheese ball. We had a nice day. Despite all my worries, we actually ended up doing most of the things I was hoping to accomplish for Christmas. The house was clean, we had candy bars, and my family is healthy again. So far, I haven't had any symptoms of getting sick with whatever Ryan and Kevin had, so that's a blessing too. It's been long enough that I feel pretty confident I won't get it. I was rather worried that it would set in on Christmas Eve and I would be sick on Christmas. Ryan and Kevin were a lot better by the end of Christmas day, so I was hopeful that on the 26th we would be well enough to celebrate Annandag with some friends in the ward. My grand plans for clam chowder on Christmas didn't work out. Turns out Ryan can't stand clams. But I decided to bring clam chowder to the Annandag celebration where hopefully there would be a better reception for it.
We got several inches of snow that night. In Idaho and Utah, snow doesn't slow us down too much, but here everything shuts down as soon as we get a light sprinkling, so we weren't too surprised to get an email from the bishop saying church was cancelled. Soon we also got a call from the hostess of the Annandag celebration letting us know that it would take place the next evening instead.
So on the 27th we had a quiet day, I made clam chowder, and then we headed down to the car to go to the party. I was excited because it looked like we would at least get to do one Christmas thing with friends after being cooped up all week with croup and such (or I guess I could say we were crouped up all week and save some words). But then we got down to the car and one of the tires was pretty flat. We keep a pump in the car that plugs into the cigarette lighter and fills up your tires, so Ryan pumped the tire full of air. We weren't sure if we should drive the car since we didn't know how bad the leak was. On the one hand, I really wanted to at least go to one Christmas celebration with friends, but at the same time we didn't want to have a blowout or something. We decided to go, and even though we were an hour late we actually arrived in time for the opening prayer.
Annandag is a Scandinavian holiday, so there were a lot of traditional foods--mostly Swedish since the host and hostess are very Swedish, but also a few things from Norway brought by our bishop. There were some fancy cheeses and yummy fish (this is the only fish I've liked since I went to the Stewarts' cabin and had fish there). The bishop always makes a Kransekake (see the link), which is quite good. I got some nice compliments for my clam chowder. (It didn't turn out how I was hoping, but it was still good. I had some clam chowder at a restaurant a long time ago, and ever since I've been hoping to find a recipe for clam chowder that tastes like that--this recipe didn't taste like it.) After everyone had eaten, we did some ring dancing and then danced around the house (they do this every year).
It took a while to get Kevin back to eating normal foods. After M&Ms and goldfish in his stocking, plus being sick, he wanted nothing to do with normal foods. He was pretty tired and grumpy for a few days, but I think he's finally caught up on sleep, and he will eat real food again.
We went to Costco to get the tire looked at the next day. Then on the way home we missed our exit and decided to try taking another highway and see if we got somewhere we recognized. We saw some signs pretty soon for a highway we use sometimes, so we kept driving until we found it, but once we were on it we realized we had passed our city and we were in the next town. But it was fun to explore, and we ended up at home okay.
We had another interesting adventure a few days later looking for a park. It wasn't very cold, so we thought we'd go to a park that Kevin and I had visited and liked last summer. We missed a turn and didn't realize it for a couple of miles, so we turned around to go back, and then once we were on the right road, we missed the park. It didn't matter anyway because it had started to rain. But soon Ryan realized we were right by a shopping center with a frozen yogurt shop that he had heard about, so we decided to check it out. It was a cute little place where you serve your own frozen yogurt and toppings and then they weigh it all and charge by the ounce. It was kind of frustrating to have no idea how much your frozen yogurt is going to cost, but it was still a fun concept and we enjoyed going out for once.
It has been very special to tell Kevin stories about Jesus during the Christmas season. It's definitely a tradition we'll have to do every year. It didn't always go well, but I did notice that a lot of the time when I started telling him the story he would become calmer, and we did feel the Spirit. Kevin probably got more out of it than what I could see. I'm excited to do this again in future years, especially as he learns to talk more and participate more in telling the stories. It strengthened my testimony of our Savior and helped make Him the main point of this time of year.
all about Kevin
We have a board book copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and one of Kevin's favorite games is to try to poke a little plastic snake through the holes. It's one of the few things he will sit still and do for a few minutes, because it's hard and he wants that snake through the hole. He's getting very good at it.
Kevin has recently started folding his arms. If he sees us folding our arms he will do it, and he will also frequently pause during his meals and solemnly fold his arms. It makes me feel good that he's noticed what we do when we pray!
We enjoy Kevin's growls. He got it from me growling when something spills or breaks or whatever. So now when he spills something (even on purpose), he growls too. Kids copy the good and bad you do.
Kevin also is starting to enjoy action songs, like The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Popcorn Popping. He will often come to me and put his pointer fingers together, which is his attempt at making the spider in the song. He also swishes his arms when we say "washed the spider out," and he opens and closes his hands for the popcorn and puts his hands up to his mouth for "a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet."
Kevin has also started signing to us to come by opening and closing his fist, kind of like the way we do it by moving our four fingers towards us to beckon. Once when he and Ryan were going to go outside and play so I could study for a while, Kevin signed to me to come. Pretty cute. I also started using the sign for "sit" recently because he keeps standing up in his seat at the table (not a new development), except I don't think he quite understands it because I will often look over to him to find that he is standing up and proudly making the sign for sit. He has made up a sign for me where he pats his chest with his hand, although he can also say Mama. He picks up signs pretty easily now--I only had to show him the sign for sit a couple of times before he was trying to repeat it. It's so fun that he has learned so many ways to communicate with us without whining.
Kevin is trying to learn how to jump.
Kevin misses going outside to play. Since it's been cold and he's been sick, we haven't left the house much. The other day I took him out for a few minutes, and he had a look of pure joy on his face as he ran to play on the "Flintstone" car at the playground.
Sunday was Kevin's first day in the nursery. I had a couple of people ask me how he did, but I didn't know how to answer because I wasn't there. But his teacher said he was great. I knew he would have a good time and probably would have no problems. He's a pretty friendly kid. He is always so excited to get to play with other kids. After we dropped Kevin off, we got to walk down the hall holding hands. It was nice to get to actually pay attention to our classes. So now we get a 5 1/2 month break and then it starts again. But now that I've experienced church with an extremely active toddler, having a newborn in Relief Society and Sunday School doesn't seem so bad.
Kevin has learned to say "no". If he is doing something he knows he shouldn't, he will do it anyway but say "no" as he does it. I still think he knows what "no" means, but maybe it helps him to rationalize his behavior?
Kevin likes dogs. Most of his favorite books are his favorite because there is a page with a dog where we say, "Ruff, ruff!" He has a puppy that he likes to have with him when he goes to sleep. When we put him in his crib he puts Puppy in the crook of his right arm, and then sucks his left thumb with a blanket clutched in both hands--generally either the monkey blanket from Aunt Elizabeth or the fish blanket from Aunt Eliza. Yesterday we saw two dogs, and as soon as he saw them, Kevin pointed and said, "Dah-dah! Oh, oh!" (Translation: "Doggies! Ruff, Ruff!")
It doesn't take too long for him to get up to mischief. We left the bathroom door unlocked and in seconds he had dumped an entire bottle of baby powder all over himself.
Kevin has recently started folding his arms. If he sees us folding our arms he will do it, and he will also frequently pause during his meals and solemnly fold his arms. It makes me feel good that he's noticed what we do when we pray!
We enjoy Kevin's growls. He got it from me growling when something spills or breaks or whatever. So now when he spills something (even on purpose), he growls too. Kids copy the good and bad you do.
Kevin also is starting to enjoy action songs, like The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Popcorn Popping. He will often come to me and put his pointer fingers together, which is his attempt at making the spider in the song. He also swishes his arms when we say "washed the spider out," and he opens and closes his hands for the popcorn and puts his hands up to his mouth for "a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet."
Kevin has also started signing to us to come by opening and closing his fist, kind of like the way we do it by moving our four fingers towards us to beckon. Once when he and Ryan were going to go outside and play so I could study for a while, Kevin signed to me to come. Pretty cute. I also started using the sign for "sit" recently because he keeps standing up in his seat at the table (not a new development), except I don't think he quite understands it because I will often look over to him to find that he is standing up and proudly making the sign for sit. He has made up a sign for me where he pats his chest with his hand, although he can also say Mama. He picks up signs pretty easily now--I only had to show him the sign for sit a couple of times before he was trying to repeat it. It's so fun that he has learned so many ways to communicate with us without whining.
Kevin is trying to learn how to jump.
Kevin misses going outside to play. Since it's been cold and he's been sick, we haven't left the house much. The other day I took him out for a few minutes, and he had a look of pure joy on his face as he ran to play on the "Flintstone" car at the playground.
Sunday was Kevin's first day in the nursery. I had a couple of people ask me how he did, but I didn't know how to answer because I wasn't there. But his teacher said he was great. I knew he would have a good time and probably would have no problems. He's a pretty friendly kid. He is always so excited to get to play with other kids. After we dropped Kevin off, we got to walk down the hall holding hands. It was nice to get to actually pay attention to our classes. So now we get a 5 1/2 month break and then it starts again. But now that I've experienced church with an extremely active toddler, having a newborn in Relief Society and Sunday School doesn't seem so bad.
Kevin has learned to say "no". If he is doing something he knows he shouldn't, he will do it anyway but say "no" as he does it. I still think he knows what "no" means, but maybe it helps him to rationalize his behavior?
Kevin likes dogs. Most of his favorite books are his favorite because there is a page with a dog where we say, "Ruff, ruff!" He has a puppy that he likes to have with him when he goes to sleep. When we put him in his crib he puts Puppy in the crook of his right arm, and then sucks his left thumb with a blanket clutched in both hands--generally either the monkey blanket from Aunt Elizabeth or the fish blanket from Aunt Eliza. Yesterday we saw two dogs, and as soon as he saw them, Kevin pointed and said, "Dah-dah! Oh, oh!" (Translation: "Doggies! Ruff, Ruff!")
It doesn't take too long for him to get up to mischief. We left the bathroom door unlocked and in seconds he had dumped an entire bottle of baby powder all over himself.
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