"Peanuts in my Pepsi"

When John was serving his mission, he met a guy (one of the other elders? an investigator?) who put peanuts in his Pepsi. "It's all about the crunch, man, it's all about the crunch." Sort of ridiculous--the peanuts would obviously float to the bottom, and "the crunch" wouldn't happen until you're eating wet peanuts after you drink your soda.

Obviously not. I just attempted this (because I always thought it was ridiculous). The peanuts actually float to the top (come on, unless you tried it before, you thought the peanuts would sink, too, just like I did). "The crunch" is kind of fun, but about half of the peanuts floated to the back of the glass when I went to drink it, so there was the "wet peanuts effect" after my soda was gone (I used Sprite--I don't know if that affects anything--Did you notice my proper use of "effect" and "affect?" I'm a sucker for grammar and spelling, always have been.) I also used honey roasted peanuts, which I might change in the future (supposing future "peanuts in my Pepsi" episodes) as the honey roasted goodness is removed by the soda and leaves a gross-looking film in the glass.

Maybe it's better with Pepsi?

Danielle's 6 Month Check-up

Danielle was 6 months old on Sunday. Yesterday we had her well-baby appointment. She is perfect--mostly my opinion, but confirmed by our pediatrician. She weighs 16 pounds 6 ounces, is 25 3/4 inches long, has good head control, reaches for things to put them in her mouth, turns toward sounds, is starting to babble repetitive syllables.

It's fun to read through the check-lists of what she's supposed to be doing. It's sort of like "yep, yep, yep, yep, oh?...huh, yep, yep, yep, yep." The oh? is that we're supposed to be feeding her like crazy--eight foods a day. I'll work on that. (She's not a big fan of food.)

She got more immunizations. She sounded extra sad because she's had a cold (not teething unfortunately--I had forgotten that sometimes babies just get sick) and she was tired. But it didn't last all day this time, luckily. She was extra-cuddly yesterday, but still slept pretty well last night (as in woke up twice but only needed to be held to get back to sleep).

Ins and Outs...Mostly Outs

Today:

Danielle is teething--runny nose and fever and sad faces and not sleeping well.

Jeremiah--takes off his clothes before he pees on the floor.

Isaac--throws up every time he eats, but keeps sneaking food into his room because he's hungry.

After-Dinner Conversation

Alison: What's it called when my head says "eat more food" but my stomach says "don't"?

John: Being full.

pause...

Alison: What's it called if I listen to my head?

John (distracted): Willpower.

Alison: Uhhh...

(written as I'm eating my third bbq pork sandwich)

Eating Toes

John was holding Danielle, and put her little foot in her mouth. She looked a little surprised and pleased, and started gnawing on it. John mentioned how easily her foot reached her mouth.

"Like it's hard," I said. He didn't think I could do it. But I did. I put my toes in my mouth (but I didn't close my mouth--I know where my feet have been).

Isaac walked in the room. "Hey, Isaac!...Oh. Never mind." He bites his nails. All of them.

John can't put his foot in his mouth. He can only get it up to his knee when he's sitting. He demonstrated this to me. I thought it was ridiculous, though he's shown me his inflexibility before.

I just checked. Jeremiah can put his foot into his mouth. Unlike Isaac, he doesn't think that toes are a food group.

Isaac's Birthday!

Today Isaac turned four!

Lots of people came over to see Jeremiah, and so I told each of them it was Isaac's birthday.

Each of them (5 different people) said "Happy Birthday!" to which he replied "Thank-you" very meekly.

Then they each asked "How old are you?" and he said, "Um, I'm big."

And then they would say, "How many years old are you today?" and if he gave a number, it was...

"Ten."

Future Army Enlistees

I have a couple kids who seem to be headed to the army.

First is Isaac. He's obsessed with the "command post." And he refers to himself as the Commander. And he "shoots" the "bad guys" (toilet paper) in the toilet.

Next is Danielle. She's been working on her "army crawl," and has become quite good at it.

Jeremiah...we're still waiting to see where to place him...Maybe in the secret intelligence. He's pretty good at keeping a secret...

Danielle's First Tummy-ache

Today Danielle threw up. Many times. She completely emptied her stomach, and ended up dry-heaving. She had her first truly sad expression, not immediately after she threw up the first time (that was followed by a huge smile--she was still pretty happy) but after half an hour of throwing up and getting cleaned up. Poor little girl. She did get cuddly, which is a sad perk for me. Her tummy is empty--she didn't even act like she was hungry in the past seven hours or so. We'll see how she does through the night.

Days of the Week

Isaac is learning the days of the week. I've been using "church-day" for Sunday, because the only place we go on a regular day is church. (Yes, that will be changing soon. For better or worse.) But we've been using "in x times the sun comes up" and following that with the name of a day of the week.

So of course Isaac is picking up on the names of the days. For example:

"No playing soccer! Play soccer on Tuesday! I want to jump on the trampoline!"

"Danielle doesn't want to sleep! Only sleep on Sundays!" (Oh, wouldn't that be fun?)

Isn't he cute?

5th Anniversary

5 years, 4 dwellings, 3 kids, 2 degrees (and a third on the way), 1 really big argument (and a handful of smaller ones).

Yesterday was our anniversary. John spent most of the day working. I showed up at 11:30 with IBC root beer and a key lime pie to commemorate the occasion. It was fun to remember and share stories from our marriage. We've been pretty happy.

Palm fist ninja strike... of Doom!

So I was eating a piece of cake (Sarah's graduation picture cake sans paper picture) and Alison wanders over to the table. She suddenly stared intently at a spot right above my right eye socket. Her lips curled into a sneer, her brow furrowed with intent, and then she sprang. Rotating from the hip, with her fingers curled and palm up, she executed a surprisingly forceful palm strike to my skull. Stunned (and somewhat concussed) I turned to her with a look that I'm sure was something like cross-eyed bewilderment.

Mission accomplished, she stated tersely, "mosquito."

Interesting Maps of the United States

I like statistics, and I think that maps can tell a statistical story in a unique way. I just saw a map that renamed the 50 states with countries which have similar GDPs, and one of my all-time favorites shows the most-used terms for carbonated beverages.

Snails and Puppy-dog Tails...

Isaac and I were looking through a book of pictures this morning, and I was quizzing him on different pictures. He was doing really well. And then I pointed at the snail.

He said, "Umm, that's a marshmallow-caterpillar." Of course, with his r's and l's sounding like w's, it sounded more like, "umm, that's a mawsmawwocatawpiwwa." So I asked him again, and deciphered his interesting word.

Isaac and I took the book over to John, and I pointed at the snail and said, "Isaac, what's this one?" and Isaac said, "That's a snail, Mom."

Eye Patches

Jeremiah had another eye appointment this past Monday. He's good about keeping his glasses on (finally), which is great, except his left eye still crosses in. It doesn't cross as much when he has his glasses on, but it didn't straighten out as we were hoping it would.

Which means he now needs to wear an eye patch over his right eye to let his left eye work on seeing so he doesn't lose his sight in that eye.

We need to keep an eye patch on for 12 hours a day, every day, for a few months. The little problem with this is: Jer doesn't particularly like having a "band-aid" over his eye. I put one on him this morning, and he kept it on for about 3 minutes, because I was holding him and trying to keep him distracted. And after the patch is removed, it no longer sticks particularly well.

I put it over my eye when he took it off, and I tried to keep it on for as long as I could (as though by doing so I could prove that it isn't that bad and is maybe even fun). I think I might have lasted about 3 minutes. It wasn't very fun, and it was really irritating and obnoxious. So, we'll see.

I figured out that at 3 minutes a patch, we'd only need to patch it 240 times a day. (His doctor did say that 6 hours would be good, though 12 is better. So that would only be 120 patches...) We'll work on it, and probably pick up some tape to make it harder to remove. Poor kid. So many little irritating things to keep on his little body. Glasses, a diaper, a patch...

Trampoline!

Tersity

Jeremiah stuck his hand into the box of Cheerios. He had captured two of them and held them tightly in his fist. He stared one down and said "Bye," then swallowed it whole.

Smoke Poop

Isaac's new potty training involves going around naked. (Unfortunately, the transformers are fun to play with but he needed a little extra motivation.)

So he was naked in the kitchen with me and then he raised his eyebrows and said, "Uh-oh!"

He looked behind him...

Then thought about it...

Then said, "Mom! I had a smoke-poop!"

Pause.

"Ex-cuuuse me!"

"Can" and "Should"

Sometimes you should do things just because you can. Other times, even though you can do something it doesn't mean you should.

For example...

This morning I was getting dressed. (Something I should do because I can.) I decided to try on some capris from a couple years ago, which used to be very loose. (Arguably another thing I should do because I can--spend less money on new clothes, consider progress my body has made at returning to normal proportions, etc.) When I sucked in my stomach as much as I could and stretched out like a cat, the pants no longer made me look horrible, but only slightly roll-y in the wrong places (not like there are really right places to look roll-y).

Wearing those pants was definitely something I shouldn't do, even though I could.

Another Nudist Joins the Crew!

Isaac has joined the ranks of our nude-loving family. He's taken this to an extent unprecedented.

His potty-training is the cause. I decided to let him go diaperless, under the (correct) impression that he wouldn't pee all over everything, but would wait to use the toilet. He just didn't care if his diaper was soaking wet or poopy. I take full responsibility for his nudist ways.

He at least had a shirt on this morning, but after bathtime, well, he doesn't anymore.

"No Eating Spaceships"

Isaac and Danielle like to play together. Right now they're both playing with spaceships. Isaac's spaceship is coming down for a landing...wheee! Danielle's spaceship is going into her mouth...Mmmm!

"Noooo. Noo eating spaceships. Blech! Noooo eating spaceships, Danielle. Nooo eating spaceships."

Isaac wipes off the wet part of the spaceship, and gives it back. "Noooo eating spaceships."

Nudist Colony

Yes. It's true. We have a secret nudist colony surfacing over here now that summer is upon us. It appears to be growing, as well.

A relative (who will remain unnamed) stopped by at an unreasonably early hour (around 8 a.m.) a few days ago, and let herself in. Which would have been fine had we been a normal family and awake. But, we weren't. I awoke to somebody opening our front door and made John put some clothes on (no, neither of us were actually naked, just inappropriately dressed to have company--but appropriately dressed for sleeping on a hot summer's night).

Rather embarrassing.

Jeremiah has a notion to become a stripper. This morning as I changed his diaper, he kept saying, "No die, no die." (As in "diaper," not death. Duh.) But I put it on anyway. Only to find him completely naked 5 minutes later. I let him be in his heroic altogether for quite a while before I dressed him again. (And yes, "heroic altogether" was my favorite term from Humanities 202. It cracks me up. Actually, our textbook was rather entertaining and well-written, which happens to be completely off-topic.) Jeremiah stayed dressed for an hour or so...

But as I was saying: a nudist colony. Call before you come over. Unless you like surprises...

So, I have a several point disclaimer before I post this photograph. I am a pretty opinionated guy when it comes to politics; Alison and I talk quite a bit about news stories etc. Everyone is entitled to their own rational opinion, however, and we rarely align perfectly in our policitical beliefs and because it can be such a passionate subject and can cause conflict I will, for the most part, keep the opinions I consider rational to myself.

I will say, however, that there appears to be a lack of reasoned discourse on politics at the moment. I think talk radio had a lot to do with that; it is really powerful to take language that the opposing side applies to itself and turn it into a dirty word, "liberals" "neo-cons" "elites" are examples that come to mind. I think using this as a strategy is effective in the 1984 newspeak sense; one can limit thought and discourse to the strawman that is linked to the word. So Michael Dukakis => liberal => bad, Hillary Clinton => liberal and liberal => bad, therefore Hillary => bad. So we can find the worst example attached to a broad political category and get the general public to associate the worst with the rest, all without much thought on anyone's part.

This is probably an overly personal view into how my mind works, because that whole long- winded worldview critique is just helping me resolve the guilt from posting this (now quite hypocritical) photo to our blog.