I can't fight this feeling anymore

Okay okay, so I wish I was a more interesting person myself, but it can't be helped that I only want to blog about my kids now.

I was proud to make a dessert that Caiden thought was really cool. Straight out of Parenting magazine was the jello with gummie worms idea for a Halloween-type treat.

Here is Caiden and Bailey in Halloween costumes before we went on the Haunted Canyon train ride. She loves her big brother so much.

Then the other day I was making a cake and out loud lamented that the recipe didn't indicate if it was a 1 oz package of pudding mix to use or a 3.5 oz package of pudding mix. Caiden commented that cooking required math and then told a clearly made up story that went like this:

"Yeah, this girl was making a cake and the recipe just said 2 of something and so she put in 2 centimeters instead of 2 cups."

And I thought that was an awesome story.

And besides that Bailey and I went to our last East high game of the season last night. The sophomores don't have playoffs so only the Varsity will continue for another week or two depending on how they do. The night ended in tears, but not because I was sad it was ending. I love football season, I really do. I just get stressed out after a couple of months of it. I complained to Tyler how I was sick of driving everywhere by myself and sitting by myself to watch these games, which isn't always the case. Truthfully though I normally love to be able to do something by myself occasionally. I've been known to go to movies by myself, go on long hikes by myself, go out to eat myself, etc. It's just that I get tired of doing it all alone this time of year. It will be nice to have him around in the evenings again.

9009

Caiden had some friends over the other day and they were playing in the other room. Caiden came into the room where I was to show me what he had made. He proudly presented this paper saying "right now it's the number 9,009 but if I erase the comma then it's just nothing" (I guess he thinks it must have the comma).

Guessing what was coming next, I tried to be patient and to stifle my laugh. He said "But if you turn it upside down it says..." and he started laughing himself and couldn't say the word boob out loud.

Bailey's Blessing Day

Bailey looked absolutely beautiful. My mom made her blessing dress and we laid her on the baby blanket I got in Israel, made in Bethlehem. She was so soft and sweet as always, but it was as if she truly felt special in that dress (though her face suggests that she's just very curious about the camera).

Afterwards we had a get together at the house with our families who had come to celebrate her life as well. Since I've often spent Sundays outside the parameters of "keeping the Sabbath day holy" it's ironic that I was frustrated at just how un-ceremonial the day began to seem. I wanted to feel connected to everyone there and for it to truly be a day to ponder and discuss the potential that each life has. And because that didn't happen I felt a little disappointed, or maybe just kind of alone.

There are so many opportunities I want for Bailey and I guess I wanted the chance to show that better, or even more just to feel understood. Why do we so often say those things, but never talk about them specifically? Why do we practice religion, but rarely discuss why it does or should fulfill us or what parts of it do?

I am always craving more intimacy. I want so badly to understand others and be understood. I want all of my relationships to be ones where I am always growing closer and learning more about the other person. I hope I can be close to my children. I hope that they also find a kind of closeness with others that gives them an even stronger sense of identity, allowing them to find meaning in all of the things that they do.

Modern Kangaroos

Another great t-shirt found:

It says:
1 Drink Holder
2 Pen Loop
3 Joey Pouch
4 Additional Accessory Storage
5 MP3 Player Pocket
6 Phone/PDA Pocket
7 Key Hook

This one comes from Threadless

Israel 2000 scanned

I recently scanned my collection of photos from the semester I spent in Israel. It was something I've wanted to do for a long time. It turns out I've finished just about the same time that my experience there took a drastic turn 8 years ago.

It was right around the beginning of October that fighting broke out in the Old City at the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount has of course long been the source of great contention, but this was different, especially considering that it had been more peaceful there in recent years than ever before. Shortly after it began, we got on a bus for our scheduled field trip to Jordan.

From that point on our semester itinerary would change at any moment's notice. We rearranged field trips and had an extended stay at a kibbutz and resort at the Sea of Galilee. For one week we were not allowed to leave the Jerusalem Center building at all. Eventually, we came home one month earlier than planned. It cut short our classes and I never made it to the pyramids of Egypt, but I will never forget many of the things I learned as well as just what it felt like to be there (and I can still recite the Muslim Call to Prayer since I heard it 5 times a day). I can't wait to take my family there someday.

I lost most of the emails I sent from there and a few years later I lost the set of scriptures I had taken there and marked up with copious notes. I've cried over those losses plenty of times, but am grateful I have all of these pictures. And I would never trade that semester over any other more peaceful time in Israel. That's why I love the Bible so much anyway, it's full of passion and war so why not have my experience there be like that too?

Here is a link to my collection on flickr. Middle East photo collection
In the photo at Petra I'm in the middle in red. (Some of you may only know me with dark hair or light hair).

Bailey loves football

Especially East High football. She sometimes sleeps through it, but at the Varsity game last night she was wide awake and anxious to show everyone around her the cute little skirt on her red pants. She loved staring at the stadium lights above us and just bounced on my lap for a good portion of the game.

Nectarines

I feel a little uninspired lately. Part of me is resisting this mold that I think others are expecting me to now fulfill as a mother. Or perhaps it's self-imposed. I want to be a wonderful mother. I just am not sure I'm ready to give in to having a total mom-blog. Nor does being a mother mean I no longer have the dreams I had before. I'm perfectly content to just stare at my baby all day long, to read to her, make her smile, kiss her, take her picture, and hope that she's happy. But I fear that my dreams of living an unordinary life, one of adventure, will seem muted and consequently ignored if I show any sign of them letting up.

(Also, I believe people are defined by the things they actually do, not things they say they will. So I don't like that the person I like to think of myself as, seems to now only exist in short periods of time.)

So I actually got mad at Tyler the other day for not eating some nectarines I bought. Ridiculous, I know, but it came out of a fear that our children will be resistant to trying new things. Caiden won't eat a nectarine when I suggest it for a snack, and I think that if maybe he saw his dad do it, he would. But they're both in the habit of only eating bananas or apples for fruit and whenever I come home with something different, I alone will eat it. After the discussion, Tyler agreed to eat various fruits.

Besides some of those feelings of confusion, I have to share some just a few amusing things.

I met April for lunch at a new restaurant recently. She arrived a few minutes before me and had already gotten her meal. When I brought mine to sit down at the table with her, we discovered we had ordered the exact same thing, same salad, same sandwich.

Instead of playing chess with his Shrek chess set, Caiden now lines them up as football teams and practices his plays. Shrek, as you might guess, is the team's Center because he's the biggest.

Bailey is getting pudgier and more adorable all the time. So of course I had to include a picture of my buta-chan (little pig).

Just like her Daddy

I think she looks just like Tyler but he says her smile is from my family. I'm leaving you to your own conclusions.

Prez Dispenser T-shirt

Yeah, I've seen plenty of funny campaign t-shirts in the last several months, Urban Outfitters seems to always have the best, but I saw this linked on the site www.iliketotallyloveit.com and had to post it.

Playing Dressup

As a kid, my sister and I used to like to play dress-up. This was always a little more fun at our friend Shelby's house because her dress-up clothes seemed more princess-like. But we had a small collection too and wore them out sufficiently I'm sure. I believe even the most tomboy of girls likes to dress up nice occasionally. I also believe that the less you do it the more fun it is, though now I wish I had more opportunities.

Saturday was my cousin's wedding at the Gallivan Center downtown. I knew it would be absolutely beautiful because I love the Gallivan Center. I've rode my bike through the fountains at night numerous times and watched movies from the grass there. I've enjoyed many outdoor concerts there during the summer and one very snowy concert there in the winter. One beautiful night I saw Arlo Guthrie perform and I sat on the edge of the little pool that is an ice rink in the winter, dangling my feet in and enjoying the performance.

So I knew it would be a great night for dressing up. Problematically, I'm not quite fitting into many of my old clothes so I had way more fun dressing Bailey up. At first I'd thought I'd be dressing her up all the time, changing hair bows, painting her face for the games, etc., but onesies and nighties quickly became the norm out of convenience. And of course, to me, she is irresistible as she is. Still, seeing her with her little bow and shiny bracelet make me want to do it more often. She is such a cutie!

Trailhead Tailgating

Not exactly the sport of the season, but I couldn't resist sharing this short list from Outside magazine, courtesy of my mother-in-law.

Here is the text:

Outside Etiquette
On Tailgating at the Trailhead
1. The time spent riding or hiking must be greater than that spent hanging out at the car.
2. If there's beer in the cold stream and you didn't put it there, leave it.
3. Car stereos are acceptable, unless you have a subwoofer or a blown speaker.
4. Joining a Hacky Sack circle is fine; owning a Hacky Sack is not.

Football Attempts a Coup

It would be easy to let Bailey totally hijack my blog, she is pretty much my entire life right now, but football is making its best attempt at a takeover.

Every Thursday afternoon we go to the East High sophomore games where Tyler coaches. Last year we also went to the varsity games on Friday nights because he helps out there too and those games are more exciting. Caiden particularly likes the varsity games because the concession stand is open at them. As you can imagine, for most kids, buying food or candy at the concession stand is more fun than actually watching the game.

Here are some recent conversations with Caiden at the games:

Caiden: "Do you like watching the sophomore games even though there's no food?"
Me: "Yes, I like watching the games. I come for the game, not the food. What about you?"
Caiden: "I like watching the games too, but sometimes I'm starving."
Me: "Even though we bring snacks or eat snacks before hand?"
Caiden: "We brought snacks?"
Me: "No, but today we had snacks after school before driving over here."
Caiden: "Oh."


Caiden: "What are cheerleaders even for?"
Me: "To get the crowd excited."
Caiden: "Well they're not making me excited."

Bailey doesn't care about the concessions, but she likes being outside and that's fun enough. She's also trying to quickly gain a few so she can start wearing her game outfit. She actually likes going to Caiden's games a bit more though because we don't have to sit on the bleachers and she can lay on a blanket on the grass. Admittedly though, she is the center of my attention at the games even though I love watching them and being there.

Testing the Big Bang

My favorite book read for a college course was probably "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn, a Physics and Philosophy professor at UC Berkeley, Princeton, and finally, MIT. My class was Symbolic Anthropology at BYU. I littered the margins of that book with copious comments and notes, and I would love to take another look at it, but it too was damaged in our basement flood.

Generally I'm not a fan of hard sciences. I'm not even much of a fan of science fiction unless it somehow addresses the conflicting overlap between free agency and destiny which fascinates me. And of course, I'm crazy about the show LOST which does science fiction very well.

But I loved the book because it seemed to be more about how people think and make decisions than about scientific paradigms. He talked about how shifting paradigms is a decision made based on the new paradigm answering questions better than the last, but the decision is largely aesthetic, it is usually initially made within about 3 seconds.

Somehow reading this article about trying to re-create the Big Bang brought that book back to my mind. Apparently there is some concern that the experiment could cause some very negative effects, or even bring about the end of the world, but I don't see how the experiment could not be done once conceived. I am too much like Eve, or for a more modern example, like Clive Own in "Closer"--if we could know or understand, why wouldn't we want to? Regardless, it's being done tomorrow and I'm anxious about what we'll discover, even if it takes years for anything to come.

Two Weeks Later

I still am not convinced sometimes that Bailey is really mine. Mine to keep. To hold all that I want. She is so sweet. I wish I had more energy and didn't feel so disconnected from everything right now, but even when she's napping and I haven't held her for a few hours, I can't wait for her to wake up so that I can hold her again.

She is so responsive too! I can't wait to hear the things she'll say and watch the things she'll do, even though I'll miss her being a baby. She likes to be in the swing and she likes to be outside when it's not too bright for her to keep her eyes open. Naturally, she also loves to be up all night, despite my body language.

Today we had Bailey's first follow-up with her pediatrician and everything the doctor told me made me feel so proud. About what a good eater Bailey is and how healthy she seems to be growing, what good coloring her skin has and how alert she is. I can't take credit for these things, but it makes me feel proud.

Caiden clearly can't wait for her to grow up a little more. He is especially anxious to help feed her I think because he's persistent about asking why can't she use a sippy-cup yet and when can she? A few days in a row I explained that she doesn't have teeth yet, can only drink milk, my milk has all of her nutrients, etc. and that she can only suck. After a few days of that he came back with--"but can she drink milk out of a sippy-cup?" Yes, he's very persistent.

A Poem

I don't consider myself a big fan of poetry. The truth is I don't really know much poetry at all, but I get turned off by stuff that seems too sappy or too sugar-coated. Every once in a while I come across something that strikes me as truly honest, or raw in its approach. This one suits me perfectly right now.

New Mother
By Sharon Olds


A week after our child was born,
you cornered me in the spare room
and we sank down on the bed.
You kissed me and kissed me, my milk undid its
burning slip-knot through my nipples,
soaking my shirt. All week I had smelled of milk,
fresh milk, sour. I began to throb:
my sex had been torn easily as cloth by the
crown of her head, I'd been cut with a knife and
sewn, the stitches pulling at my skin--
and the first time you're broken, you don't know
you'll be healed again, better than before.
I lay in fear and blood and milk
while you kissed and kissed me, your lips hot and swollen
as a teen-age boy's, your sex dry and big,
all of you so tender, you hung over me,
over the nest of the stitches, over the
splitting and tearing, with the patience of someone who
finds a wounded animal in the woods
and stays with it, not leaving its side
until it is whole, until it can run again.

An Evil Walk

I was beginning to feel a bit like Boo Radley and decided Bailey and I would go for our first walk. We've been out every evening for Caiden's football practice and she really seems to enjoy it, but this time I wanted a little exercise. I really can't think of the last time it's been 7 whole days between some kind of exercise. On vacation I bring my jumprope or go running. I worked out the morning of my wedding and was last at the gym two days before Bailey was born. My guess would be that it has been about 8 or so years since I took a 7 day workout hiatus. Yes, I'm an addict.

I made Caiden come on the walk with us, and since he's not keen on sweating, and can be fairly over-dramatic, I thought all of his comments were laughable.

"Are you trying to hike across the whole valley?"
"Do you even know the way home?"
"I'm getting dehydrated."
"I need to turn around."
"Are you even sweating?"

When Caiden's friends came over to play later, he told them he'd been on a walk for "...like an hour and forty minutes."

I do feel kind of bad because it had to have been pretty boring for him, and it was hot, and we did sweat, and it was about 45 minutes. Still, I try to avoid being an evil stepmom. He wore his Heely's and glided a lot of the way so hopefully it wasn't complete torture for him.

Becoming Bailey's Mom

Bailey came on Tuesday morning. Just like her mom, she has to do things her own way, in her own time. And she likes to do things the hard way, she would never think of hitching a ride to the top and hiking down for fear of missing something on the way up. So she took her time.

She wanted to scrap all of the prepared methods: the playlist with Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work," the script for Daddy to read me about exploring Osaka on my own. She wanted to start in the middle of the night. She wanted her daddy to be a complete part of it too and I will never forget how wonderful it was to have him there for me.

Thank you Tyler for helping me prepare for this. Thank you for letting me collapse into your arms after each contraction and for stroking my hair. For wrapping me up in the middle of the night to walk me out to our hot tub and whispering encouragement in your every breath. For getting me to the hospital with all of my things and being my every support there still. Thank you for speaking for me, for knowing what I wanted. Thank you for practicing with me so that even though we didn't use everything we planned, I was able still to totally relax between contractions and have the birth I wanted for my baby.

I love being Bailey's mom. She is so beautiful and everyday is more beautiful than the last. I look forward to every future moment with her while I treasure each one I have now.

Half Court

This morning the HB and I are watching the Olympics basketball games. Maybe our baby girl will learn something in utero. She does plenty of athletics herself, usually around midnight. During a quick break they were showing how popular NBA stars are among the youth in China and I was reminded of playing basketball in Japan.

When I lived there I went to church at an LDS "branch" some 40 minutes from where I was living. The meetings were held in a rented building downtown where one floor became our church on Sundays. Occasionally, the church members would have a social get-together to play sports and socialize outside of church meetings. It was a very small group, and an even smaller group among us that would play sports when we did get together. There would be a handful of Japanese and then a few English teachers and a couple of missionaries. Apparently, Mormon missionaries have a rule that says they cannot play basketball full-court but can only play half-court games while on their missions. The LDS Branch President was very fond of basketball and would get very excited about these games. He didn't speak much English, but he would get a grand idea and say loudly, "okay okay, let's play, the Americans, versus the Japanese!" very dramatically as if that would make the game very very intense. The missionaries would always respond okay, but they can only play half-court. Finally the Branch President, tired of trying to fight the rules, suggested this: "You say half court like one half, two half" indicating a bisection in the court as it would normally be played. "But I say half court is one half, two half" and he demonstrated with his hands how "half-court" could mean playing only the middle portion of the entire length of court.

The missionaries were very faithful to their rules and we ended up playing the traditional half-court, but we laughed about the suggestion for weeks and how happy the idea of surreptitiously playing full court had made our Branch President.

Besides the Pink

Amidst baby shower, work party, birthing classes, and baby room preparing, you'd think my life is all awash in pink. I just want to tell my boys how much I love them though and how studly they are. Tyler's been working hard on basement repairs. The goal is to get Caiden off the couch and back into a room downstairs and then finish the rest up when the baby comes. Here's the HB post-insulation-installation into the walls downstairs.

Then Caiden started football on Saturday and last night was the first practice in full pads. He's been wearing the shoulder pads around the house for a week ever since we picked them up, but here he is in full practice gear (minus the helmet of course).

I love you guys!

Not so "Yummie"

Recently I read 2 articles that really got me thinking. One was about Yummies--that is Young, Urban, Mormons. The other was about black women's marriage rates rapid decline. The marriage article talked about how black women far outnumber black men who have gone to college. It talked about how their marriage partner choices were more limited because men in their demographic didn't meet their standards and though many of them wanted to be married, they are beginning to believe that marriage is only for white people.

I can't help but relate to how this is happening to Mormon women everywhere and that I believe there is a growing chasm between young women in the religion and other members. It seems that more and more young women in the future will be looking for relationships outside of it due to a lack of place for them within. I'm not talking just about marriage prospects or saying any of these women are clamoring for certain authority within the religion, I just don't think they have people to relate to or men their equals to partner with. (Please insert all disclaimers you can possibly imagine here--i.e. fulfilling marriages don't have to be between totally equal partners or matching demographics, etc. etc.--I recognize and value differences).

I was going off on this idea because I consider myself quite modern and extremely independent and because I see a need for change. However, it was when I shut my mouth and looked at my husband that I realized how ridiculous it must all seem when I'm sitting with him at the table, 9 months pregnant, barefoot, with salsa spattered all over my shirt. I am not Young, Urban, Mormon. I am a defender of individuality and independence, but in truth, I am traditional--I want to stay home with my children, I expect my husband to be a leader and role model for my family. But overall, I hope that together we can encourage our children to think for themselves and expect of themselves what they expect of others to have fulfilling and rewarding relationships.