CHOMP!

Spud spent the last week getting FOUR premolars in. And in case you are wondering, no, he didn’t do it without a protest. Noodle was the same way. When their teeth came in, you KNEW. Nighttime fevers, diaper rash, vomiting, not to mention the almost everpresent general level of fuss. Of course, i don’t really blame them. I’ve had tooth pain before, albeit of a different sort, and it is rather hard to suffer in silence. He does seem to be out of it for now, though I’m not sure if the bottom premolars have cut through yet.

I must say that I am quite happy to say farewell to January. First the kids were sick, which led to my severe sleep deprivation, which led to 10 days of me being sick, which was immediately followed by the teething episodes. Not to mention David going out of town all day once a week, and working later in the evenings and Saturdays. Yup, I don’t think I’ll miss January at all. Oh, AND I had to give a talk in church yesterday. Here’s hoping that February will be a bit less eventful.

Giant

So Spud is a BIG BOY. This isn’t really a surprise or anything, considering his size at birth (10 lb 10 oz, for the uninformed). But he hasn’t slowed down at all. Plus the fact that he started walking so early, and has so much hair, he just does NOT look like a 12 month old little boy. I sold a couple of baby items at Kid to Kid yesterday, and he was playing with another little boy. I’m guessing this boy was at least 12 months, as he was walking pretty well and seemed fairly equivalent with Spud as far as developmental milestones. But Spud was a good head taller, and must have had at least 15 pounds over the other little boy. I do think the other boy might have been on the small side, but it sure made Spud look ENORMOUS. The only real downside I see to it, besides my arms tiring so quickly, is that people will expect him to “act his age” which they will presume to be much older than he actually is. Noodle wasn’t nearly as large as Spud, and we got that a lot with her. Just because at age 2 she could easily wrench any toy away from a 5 year old...

I’m not sure what it is about the combination of David and me that produces these Amazon children. I guess it could tie in to the fact that we did meet in the Amazon.... (Although, did you know that the “Amazon Woman” comes from Greek Mythology, and that the Amazon in S. America was named such after explorers encountered female warriors? Knowing the sizes of Brazilian natives, the “Amazon Woman” idea seems very out of place, since they tend to be around 5 feet in height.)

But it’s good. The world can always use more tall people.

I didn't think it would be so cold...

So Monday marked the 3 year anniversary of when we started keeping rats as pets. We currently have four, and have had six cross over the “rainbow bridge.” Last winter, a couple of them died and as it was too cold to dig a proper grave anywhere, we packaged up their remains and stuck them in the corner of the freezer. By the time we were able to get around to having a proper ceremony, we had 3 rats and a hamster to bury. Noodle understands, as much as a 3 year old can, that when people or animals die, their bodies stay here and their spirits “go to heaven”. One day we were discussing animals dying and this part about the spirits going to heaven and she asked, “Is heaven the freezer?”

I guess she didn’t quite grasp it as well as I thought.

End of the Season

We finally took down the Christmas tree and other decorations today. I meant to get to it last Sunday, but it didn’t happen. Noodle was kind of upset that we put the Nativity scenes away, as she really liked playing with the kid one. Then she asked if she could help pack it up, so that alleviated the sadness.

Our stray cat Nemo reappeared tonight. We hadn’t seen him all day yesterday, and didn’t see him this morning, either. I was starting to worry, and it seemed particularly ironic because we just bought a case of 48 cans of cat food. His brother Stripers disappeared about 3 weeks ago, and I feel pretty certain that he must have died. I know that I am much more sensitive about the suffering and “emotions” of animals than 99% of the population, so I couldn’t help but worry about Nemo. Heck, I hadn’t even wanted a cat, but then he came along and was just so friendly and likeable. He’s by far the nicest cat I’ve ever known, which is even more remarkable considering he was born to a wildcat MEAN momma.

Other than that, I am feeling a sense of restlessness. It doesn’t look like we’ll be in a position to meet with a lender before mid/end of February, so until then my house-hunting is on hold. It’s probably just as well, as more homes will be listed in early spring, and at present the pickings are pretty slim. I just feel aimless without something to “work” on a bit every day. I had Christmas & Spud’s birthday to get together and look forward to, but now I just have the rest of a looooong winter stretching out ahead of me. We are going to get a second car next month, and that will help a lot. As it is now, the kids and I are stuck at home everyday, and if it’s too cold outside (which it looks like it will be for the next while) we develop some serious cabin fever. It would be a delight to be able to take them to the library or even shopping to burn off some of our energy. One of my NYs resolutions is to develop a routine/schedule of things to do with the kids, but when the options are “Be stuck at home” everyday, that feels a bit pointless. Especially as Spud isn’t exactly at the age where you can engage him in planned activities.

What are little boys made of?

Boys will be boys? Even monkey boys

What makes people gay?

These are a couple of interesting articles that came up on the FMH blog. The first one is particularly relevant to my experience with Noodle and Spud. Noodle will take anything, spoons, condiments at the dinner table, scraps of paper, etc., and call the biggest one “Daddy,” the next biggest “Mommy,” and the smallest “Baby.” She’s done it as long as she could vocalize, and probably prior to that though we weren’t aware of it. Spud, on the other hand, started “driving” things around with his hand the instant he was slightly mobile. He’d drive pieces of paper, CDs, jar lids, whatever, around the room.

Sick

I’m sick. The kids are almost better, but the 4 severely sleep-deprived nights have caught up with me. I feel like I have mild croup, which I thought was reserved just for kids.

Off to try and get some sleep.

Dog Days

We were at David’s folks house today and I was taking advantage of their high-speed internet to peruse the pit bull rescue websites. It kills me to think that I’m STILL not in a house, mostly for the reason that for the past two years I’ve been dreaming of the day when I could adopt my very own rescued pit bull. It started with my love of Great Danes. I was on a Great Dane mailing list, and one of the members had a personal website with pictures of her dogs. I checked it out to drool over her danes, and discovered her other cute dogs. I didn’t know what they were, but I was intrigued. They had short short hair, of medium size, and looked like fun, happy-go-lucky dogs. I soon found out they were pit bulls. I couldn’t believe it, as I thought pit bulls were the Spuds Mckenzie and Target dogs. I soon learned that those are Bull Terriers, which don’t generally fall into the “pit bull” classification. The three breeds commonly referred to as “pit bulls” are Staffordshire Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, and American Pit Bull Terriers, with very fine distinctions between the latter two (and admittedly some overlap as some dogs are registered as both with different registries). I started researching pit bulls like mad (like I do all of my interests) and quickly was able to get past the myths and media hype. Also since that time I’ve met a number of pit bulls, and they have been the friendliest dogs I’ve ever come across. It is all about the handling of these wonderful animals. They have an inclination to be lovers when it comes to people. And though many do have “dog aggression,” that is a completely different thing from human aggression. Think of it like beagles having “rabbit aggression”. Dog aggression was bred into most bloodlines historically, so you have to expect it to manifest itself. That said, many pit bulls do great with other dogs, but it’s always good to be smart.

Anyways, I digress. I was using the high-speed internet to find my newest dream dog. And I found a couple of beautiful pups. If I had a house right now, I’d drive clear across the country to pick one of these pups up. How can you resist??? I certainly can't!

Gotta Dance

So both Noodle & Spud have been the kinds of kids that can’t NOT dance when they hear music playing. I remember in Brazil, we had Noodle in the sling and were walking around the shopping district. Every store was pumping out different tunes through their open doors, and she would just start bobbing and grooving in the sling. Spud is the same way, though now it seems he doesn’t even need music. He just has to get excited enough. Last night when David came home, Spud got up and walked over to him and then just danced and danced while grinning like crazy. Later that night he was in the tub and was splashing and getting more excited, and finally he just busted out his dance moves again. It really is one of the cutest things. He’s also started trying to incorporate hops and one leg up dance moves, which is pretty advanced for a 12 month old little guy.

For Christmas I got the kids some play silks, as I knew they’d be great fun for dress-up and our frequent dance parties. Both of the kids (and me, too) love them. Nothing adds flair to your dance moves like brightly colored silks. We usually just wave them around, but David made a skirt out of them the other night, so the kids were having lots of fun twirling.

Dancing

Out with the old...

I can't say I'm sad to see 2005 gone. For me, the first 4 months of it were full of post-partum blues, combined with the stress of worrying how to pay the bills every month. Life has been much more pleasant since we joined the income-earning side of the population again. I think 2006 will be a good year. I hope to figure out a good routine for myself and the kids, and we'll likely be able to move to a house in the first half of the year. I was feeling kind of bummed that we aren't moving down to southern Utah (ahhh...the warmth) but in the last couple of days I've learned that a friend of mine who lives an hour north of me here is expecting a baby, and yesterday an old roommate of mine called and said they're moving out here from Tennessee! If I were moving down south, I'd miss these fun opportunities. I am sad that I won't be closer to my sister who lives down there, though. I hope that after we're able to get another car, I'll be able to go down and visit every other month or so.

Spud got his birthday pictures taken last week (he turned one on December 24th). He did such a great job, and I was pleasantly surprised. He tends to want to do his own thing, which is often diametrically opposed to what you want him to do. But we managed to get some really cute shots before he decided he'd had enough posing.

I'm back!

November saw the death of both my “free” wireless internet connection and my wonderful little Macintosh iBook, so I had to take a leave of absence from blogging. I’m back, though, and hopefully I’ll have more brilliant thoughts for you to read. For today, however, I think I’ll just bless you with pix of my cute kids.

Farewell Turbo

My rat Turbo passed away today. He’d been ailing for the past couple of weeks, but kept eating and moving around a bit. Last night it was a noticeable turn for the worse. He spent most of his life as a lone rat, which is definitely not the idea situation, but as he didn’t care much for other rats or people, his options were limited. I got him from the Humane Society when he was probably a few months old. I am glad that he got to live his life in comfort and even a bit of luxury--he loved it when I’d give him a hammock, but never could leave them up for more than a few days before chewing down one or more of the corners. Needless to say, I didn’t keep him in hammocks all of the time. When I saw him at the HS, I was really excited because he was agouti, and you rarely see those in the pet stores. I don’t think I’ve ever seen agoutis in the stores, probably because they look like “wild” rats, but have seen them on breeders pages, and know other people who have had them, so they aren’t too uncommon. While Turbo wasn’t very keen on being handled, he always amazed me at how gentle he was when he’d take food from my hand. He’d do it ever so gingerly, which was a nice contrast to some of the snappers I’ve seen/had.

Anyways, I just wanted to do a little tribute to my lone rat. Rest in Peace little guy.

Oh the CUTENESS!!!

I am in love with this pup’s sweet face! His name is Duncan and he's at a rescue in Missouri.
BHMS Rescue

Belated Halloween Blog

So my internet was down nearly the entire week. Halloween this year was a lot of fun. Noodle was Little Red Riding Hood, Spud was the Woodcutter, I was Granny and David was the Wolf disguised as Granny. We went to a little Trunk or Treat at the church, and then took Noodle trick or treating around a nearby neighborhood with our neighbors. This was her first year going door to door, and Noodle was in her element. She’d run up to the doors at full speed and knock heartily, then say “Trick or treat!” very enthusiastically. After getting the goods, she’d head away from the door and shout a loud “THANK YOU!” back at the doorway. Then she’d return and report to me whether or not the person had said “You’re welcome.” She was going strong the entire time, and outlasted the neighbor kids, both of whom are older than she is. She was so excited and kept asking if we could go to another house. I had as much fun as she did, I think, just watching her go up to the doors. I hadn’t been too keen on Halloween since I’ve been too old to TorT, but I think I’ve rekindled the dormant flame. I can’t wait until next year!

Clever little rat!

Adventure Rat This is great!!

daily update

I am a woman obsessed! I look on Realtor.com nearly every day in many or all of the towns we could move to, and I also peruse the websites of the real estate offices to check out their featured listings. I don’t know if it is a good pasttime or not. (It doesn’t really take that much time.) I like to think that I am familiarizing myself with the market, but sometimes I think I’m only torturing myself when David says we won’t be moving until January, at the soonest, 10ish weeks has never seemed so painfully long. So, I’m especially ancy to do the holiday shopping, as well as shop for Spud’s b-day (Christmas Eve!). As if that will hurry time along. It was quite cool here today, reminding me of the painful imminence of winter. Since I’d hoped to have moved south before it turned cold, I think I’m trying to live in denial. It only works on sunny days.

I went jogging this morning for the first time in months. I felt it. But I felt good during and later, after my lungs forgave me for the cold air. Hopefully I can make it a habit of sorts.

The Comic Life

Peek-A-Boo!

Isn't this little fella cute? Nope, he isn't one of mine. But I did take the picture at the rattery where I got Marco & Berkeley. I was cleaning out old photos today and noticed this guy. I really don't know why some people view rats so negatively. Sure, there's the naked "wormy" tail, but that is pretty easy to get over. And with faces like these, who can resist?

comic life

New program I played around with today. I just used some pix I had on hand of my late rat Frisco. No, my captions aren't very clever, but hopefully I'll get better.

In the News

Hey hey! Mormons are the feature story in this week’s Newsweek.
The Mormon Odyssey
Q&A with President Hinckley






“You go through life, you try to be nice to people, you struggle to resist the urge to punch ’em in the face, and for what? So some pimply little puke can treat you like dirt because you’re not on the team. Well, I’m better than dirt. Well, most kinds of dirt. I mean not that fancy store bought dirt. That stuffs loaded with nutrients. I... I can’t compete with that stuff.”

Moe Szyslak