Baby Friday: Did someone see monkey's at the zoo?

Last July we took Elliott to the zoo and he slept most of the time. Can't say it was the most fun experience, but we went. On Monday, because my mom and brother still had Spring Break days to burn, the 4 of us ventured to the zoo to see some animals - along with every other mom and kid along the Wasatch front. It was crowded but good thing for us, we are fast zoo goers. We breeze through, see everything, and spend some time in the gift shop to cool off.

The weather was beautiful and Elliott had a good time. He really liked the monkeys - his brothers - and was so excited when he saw an elephant that he just wasn't sure what to do except point at it, look at me, and point again.



Near the giraffes, he decided that it was his turn to push the stroller. That would have been fine except we were going up hill and I had to hold him because he isn't quite tall enough to reach the handle. So, he held on to the stroller, I held him with one arm and I pushed the stroller with the the other. The best workout I've had in months.



The giraffes were not our favorite, but it was the only time we got the camera out and willie did a good job taking our picture, even though I look like a retard.

In the end, the zoo was grand, Elliott loved seeing the animals and being outside and eating his chicken nuggets and french fries in the care on the way home, with his new monkey to keep him company was all the kid needed to be happy.

Thar she blows!!!

Last night was my first ever cub scout rain gutter Regatta. It was fun to see a bunch of boys, even the cool ones, ages 8-almost 11 get real excited to blow a wooden boat up and down a rain gutter with all their family and friends watching.


I was impressed with the sportsmanship of their parents, the boys ability to cheer for each other, even after they had already been eliminated, and at the general fun had by all in attendance. I was the assigned picture taker so I didn't pay too much attention but I was on the front lines all night.



Yeah, cub scouts.

A few of the things I want to do....

-go to France, again but stay longer this time
-visit WW I & II battlefields in France (Verdun, Somme, Normandy, the Ardennes)
-go to France with my mom
-go to Africa (southern or western, or Madagascar?)
-ride in a convertible on the pacific coast highway listening to "Ventura Highway" on the radio
-write and publish a children's book
-show Elliott a real live panda bear
-enter a photograph in the state fair
-go to Argentina with Ross and watch him eat a lot of meat and do all the talking for me
-draw a mural on the sidewalk
-meet David Letterman and have him be impressed by my wit
-watch my brother play in a NCAA tournament basketball game
-watch my son play in a NCAA tournament basketball game
-take Elliott on a canoe ride
-teach Elliott to swim and splash in the pool
-take pictures of a wedding and actually get paid for it
-visit all 50 states (I've already got 38 under my belt)
-see the redwoods, Yosemite, and glacier national park (Montana) before the glaciers all melt away
-stay in a yurt in the Swiss alps
-ride the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland with Elliott
-teach my boy how to shoot free throws
-have the motivation to clean my entire house in a day, instead of just bits and pieces when I feel like it
-loose weight
-lay on the warm concrete after a day in the pool
-purchase an outdoor swing that I can sit on in the summer with Elliott and Ross and we can read stories and hang out
-tour the white house
-vote for a presidential candidate that is qualified and deserving of the job
-teach in a high school again - if only for a minute
-embarrass my kid by being goofy and annoying in public, just a couple of times, when he is older

Happy Easter

We survived our second Easter. Elliott woke up late but was very happy to see the items in his Easter basket, particularly, well, everything. He loved the trains, and the elmo and mostly the plastic eggs. He loves plastic eggs.

Church sucked and Elliott and Ross got to come home early, eat lunch, and fall asleep. Elliott in his chair, and Ross catatonic, though awake, in front of his computer for another fantasy baseball draft. Ug!

We had a great dinner and good visits with Grandparents even though we didn't see all we set out to visit.

Not a good picture of the day to be found anywhere. This baby mobility thing is really putting a damper on my pictures.

14 months

Happy Easter Little Brother! I know that you are not a little brother, but that's what Grandma calls you and I've taken to calling you that lately, too. I guess you can be Uncle Willie's little brother, and since I call you Willie at least once a day these days, that's okay.

So, where to begin? The last month has been a pretty exceptional one for you with the learning continuing every single day. It seems that with a lot of milestones in your life, I had nothing to do with them. Grandma taught you to go up the stairs, Haley taught you to come down. You started walking this month - on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 11 to be exact and your dumb mom and dad weren't even around. Haley and Willie were tending you and by the time dad got there to pick you up - you were walking all over the house and you haven't looked back since.

I am so proud of you for walking - almost running - everywhere you go. It is still a little unnerving to turn around and fine you right next to me, or long gone. I'm used to hearing you thunder down the hall like a dinosaur and now you're quiet as a mouse. Luckily, when I call out your name, you usually answer with a grunt so your whereabouts are never hidden for too long.

You are continuing to eat everything in site with the exception of macaroni and cheese and scrambled eggs. You won't touch those with a 10 foot pole. However, you do fancy ranch dip and will probably eat almost anything (maybe even an egg?) if it is covered in ranch flavored sour cream. In addition, one of your favorite snacks these days is peanuts and chocolate chips. You seem to love crunching those hearty nuts and sucking on the chocolate. I think you'd do it all day. You definitely have inherited my chocolate bug, little buddy, and seem to not only know where chocolate is hidden all over our house, but at Grandma Petersen's house as well. You go right for the kisses every time and - of course, Grandma lets you eat them, but she swears it's only a couple.

Lately, you are becoming quite the dancer, singer, and all around shaker. If I say "shimmie" you do with vigor! You shake your maracas every afternoon as we dance in the living room. Yesterday as we were out and about, you started singing along with the radio, and did a pretty good job keeping the beat, too.

You are learning so much every single day that I am always amazed. If I say, "Let's go get the mail" you are at the front door before I've even finished trying to unlock the bolt. If I say, "Where's your belly" you lift up your shirt and point. If I say "show me your teeth" you stick out your tongue. We're still working on that one. You've learned a new animal sound (snake) and the other day, I know you said "dog" even though you haven't repeated it since. We are working on a few key words that will help improve life around our house dramatically: Up, more, help, again, but so far, no real progress.

These days you are very funny, mechanical, inquisitive, and creative. The faces you pull are hilarious, and the fact that you insist on wearing yoru ducky slippers at least once a day is pretty amusing, too. You've even gotten brave enough to finally play with your Thomas the Train, that you got for Christmas. It's been a bit scary but this week you conquered your fear. You still won't sit in it, but by golly, it's in your room and you do push the buttons.


So, Kiddo, as usual you're my favorite person to hang out with and I can hardly wait to see what you've got in store for me next month. You are such a fun and entertaining little guy and I don't know what I'd do without you!

sometimes, it just doesn't happen...

This is me. This is me waiting for my cute little cub scouts to arrive. This is me waiting for my cute little cub scouts to arrive and finish their Rain Gutter Regatta boats. This is me hoping that all my cute little cub scouts clocks are a little off and that even though all my clocks say 4:15, their clocks just say 4:00.

This is me still waiting....
They never came.

Kiss Me, I'm Irish...and some other junk

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Unlike a lot of people, I (well, Elliott too) actually do have some Irish blood in me, so it's okay for me to celebrate, even if I don't care for corn beef and cabbage. So Elliott is sending you a big wet kiss for the big day.

In other news - I apparently jinxed the springtime by blogging about it. I should have known better. In a true twist of irony that only Alanis Morrisette is familiar with, it snowed and was bitter cold this weekend. I think that my tulips survived and the sun is shining today which gives me hope for days to come. However - that's all I'm going to say about that. Sorry to all of you for messing the whole weather thing up. At least I didn't wash my car, too.

On Friday night, Ross made me go to a stupid church party and I had to take along my splitting headache. It was a luau. I didn't dress the part, but I ate the kalua pork. It was tasty. Sent my blood sugar through the roof even w/ a ton of insulin, but it was tasty.

Now, if had been a luau like this one, I would have been pleased.


It wasn't. Not only that, Ross and I got roped into playing a stupid "Newlywed Game." We won, even without a question about Elvis. We even had a perfect score and blew the competition away. I was surprised. We may fight every day, but we're good at trivia, especially when it's trivia about each other.

Signs of Spring

My tulips have poked their heads through the ground.

The flipflops and capris are out (and they still fit).

The toenails are painted.

It is raining instead of snowing.

We get to go for walks.

My hair has found it's blond.

The fantasy baseball draft is on Saturday. (I'm so enthused. Really, I am.)

March Madness is coming.

Oh, spring. A deep sigh of relief that you are finally coming to visit.

A sad end to a great season

The wolverines lost tonight. No tournament championship. No glory. Just some sad boys and their sad coach and their sad parents. Crappy officials, stupid parents supporting stupid kids on the other team, lost of motivational cheering from our section. It just wasn't enough and sometimes, you have to lose and tonight was our night.

They had a great season, those boys did, and too bad the Monday night game wasn't the championship, because it would have been great.

We all still love Willie, especially Elliott who saw his cool uncle playing on the court and started pointing at him yelling, "Eee...Eeee". Such a smart boy and a great brother.

I'm proud of you Willie. Even if you got stuck trying to make the final shot of the game with five pipsqueak players hanging on your arms.

Small miracles

Occasionally, my blood sugar drops. It drops really low. So low that I should probably go into a comma or pass out on the floor. The low numbers usually happen in the middle of the night. Like last night. I wake up out of a dead sleep soaking wet with sweat and know that I'm in trouble because my head is spinning and my body is shaking, ever so slightly. By the time I make it down the stairs to the kitchen and check my number - I'm in trouble. 50, 40, 30...it's all the same, really. It's all bad.

Even in the midst of the uncontrollable shaking and the dizzy, and the blurry vision and the inability to call for help, and my hands so sweaty they can barely open the fridge, I still have the clarity to do what I need to do. Check my number. Eat something, fast. Climb on the bar stool and sit very still until it passes. Crawl back up the stairs and go to bed.

This usually only ever happens in the middle of the night. Not sure why, but it does. It's a blessing I think. Otherwise, it would really scare the people watching. It scares me. But, every time it happens, I am so thankful that I survived.

just a bit annoying...

...hiccups. I've now had them off and on for 6 hours now. It's really starting to suck.

...cutting your finger nails too short three days ago on accident and having so much "pain" that your thumbs just stop working.

...church, in general but the fact that church is still bugging you 24 hours later and that sometimes people say such dumb things.

...screaming kids outside when your baby who doesn't like to take naps is finally taking a nap but kids are screaming and you aren't sure how long the nap will last because of the screaming.

That's all for now.

Baby Friday: People say they look alike

father and son, originally uploaded by bookemdano1978.

I took this picture of Elliott on Monday. Once I got it onto the computer and looked at it more closely, it started screaming "I look just like my dad!" Immediatley I thought of an image I took when we were in England in 2005. You can see the resemblance. Squishy cheeks, bushy eyebrows, oral fixation. It's all there.

My mom bought my boys t-shirts for Christmas. Ross' says "Me" and Elliott's says "Mini Me". They have yet to wear them together, but perhaps I need to get a photo before it's too late.

Retard

Harsh? Just wait. For the past several months, I have occasionally received text messages (once a week?), calling me "dog" or "g-man", from the phone number 664-5381. I don't know this number and when I Google it, the closest I get is Coeur D Alene, Idaho. I got such a message this morning and instead of deleting, chose to write back.

Here's the transcript:
9:09 am: Yo g dog

11:01 am: I do not know who you are. Please stop texting me.

11:09 am: its Lofgran Dude

11:21 am: Like I said - do not know you. Please make sure you have the right number. I am embarrassed for you.

11:24 am: Ha ha you funny

11:28 am: My name is Ann. I do not know anyone named Lofgren and I haven't a clue who you think I am, but I promise that I am completely serious and I am considering the constant text messages you send me to be harassment. Cease and desist immediately.

Funny, but I haven't heard back. Do you think I was a little harsh?

Almost there...

At his 1 year doctor appointment, the pediatrician asked if Elliott was walking. Nope, I told her. No walking in our house. She then told me that if he isn't walking by 15 months that we need to be concerned. Yikes! That wasn't what I wanted to hear so we've been slowly working on walking.

In the last few days however, we've made some progress. I am making the little monkey walk around the house, and walk back to the house from the mailbox. He knows how to walk, but definitely doesn't see the advantage to it yet. It appears that this smart little fart knows that crawling, for the most part, is safer than walking and much less wobbly. But, tonight we decided to practice a bit and our practicing was very successful. See for yourself.

random memories

I just started reading, The life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. I'm only about 50 or so pages into the book but already I've been laughing out loud. Even though the book is a memoir of his childhood growing up in Iowa during the 1950's, it has spurred some memories of my own.

First, he talks about how his mom and sister would always go shopping to the big department store in town and finish their day of shopping at the stores tea room, on the upper floor. This just brought memories flooding back of when my sister, cousin and I were kids and my Grandma would take us school shopping downtown to the ZCMI center. After our day of shopping, she too would take us to the "tea room" at the top of ZCMI called The Tiffin Room. At the time, the Tiffin Room was one of the fancier places I'd ever been to and I was so happy every year to eat lunch there. It was fancy and a bit stuffy with lots of dowdy old women drinking tea and us...my grandma and three rambunctious girls. My sister and I were never good eaters and the menu was a bit intimidating - lots of salads and dainty girl food. My cousin always ate salads, like a rabbit, but Haley and I generally settled for a hamburger, on the fanciest bun you've ever seen. Condiments on the side. Oh, the memories.

In the book, Bryson also talks about how when he was young, 5 or 6, and his mom had to hurry to leave the house, she took him with, along with the "toity jar". The jar, which come to find out, was one of any number of jars under the kitchen sink, was for him to, you know, toity in, when he didn't have a chance to go before leaving the house. Now, my family has never had a toity jar, nor would they ever, but it reminded me of a time when I was a university student working one of many part time jobs. I had to travel to St. George to help with an educator conference and I rode down in the white state van with my boss' secretary, who brought her two sons along. The boys were probably 12 and 4 at the time and around Cedar City on the drive down, the younger boy needed to use the restroom. If I were driving, I would have pulled over, found the nearest rest stop, or town and let the little guy take care of business. Not Donna. She told that little boy to pee in the mini toilet she had brought along for just such an occasion. You see, we had to get to St. George in record time and we just couldn't stop?

Luckily, I was in the front seat (silently gagging) and luckily, the 12 year old was so embarrassed by his goofy mom that he refused to let his little brother pee in the car and he begged and pleaded for his mom to pull over. She did, saving little boy from using the van toilet and me from throwing up. This might explain why the 12 year old later asked if he could stay in my hotel room with me. Or not. I didn't let him in case you needed to know.

A pacifier kind of day

We had a LONG weekend. Excessive church commitments, yucky weather, conferences and conference calls, anxiety attacks and mental breakdowns resulting in heads (well, just one head - my head) being banged repeatedly onto the kitchen countertop, diaper rash and baking of delicious chocolate truffle deserts. It was rough on all three of us.



That being said, today was just one of those days. A day you wear sweatpants because you haven't done any laundry. A day you keep your pacifier and blanket close at hand if you've got them. A day where you watch Elmo's world with bated breath on your giant HD TV in your smallish bedroom because holy crap! The picture is so clear.



Because as we all know, Elmo makes everything better.

The Griswalds purchase a Black Hole

Long story short. We practically live in Elliott's room these days. His bedroom has become the familial gathering place. It's where he likes to play and we, in turn, hang out. There has been a televizzle in Elliott's room from the beginning. We had some long nights ya'll and needed something to keep us awake.

We decided to purchase a new TV because the existing was was too close to the ground and the Monkey kept sticking his fingers in every opening (DVD/VCR combo)and since Ross got a bonus at work it was the perfect time.

Well, extravagant purchases, buyers remorse, returns, refunds, and many stores later, we ended up with what got hung on the wall in my baby's room last night. It's hideous and I can't stand it. No longer to we have a baby's room, but we have turned the sweet baby's room into a cavernous black hole. Toys? pushed aside. Cute monkey stickers on the wall (Elliott's friends and family)? Literally overshadowed by the stupid TV, it's cables (soon to go through a hole in the wall?) and the HD receiver.

The piece of furniture we're ordering to detract from some of the yucky is on back order. Ug! For a month! Double Ug! I really am not too fond of television in the first place and now we went out and purchased one (luckily) much smaller than Ross originally intended (thank heavens) and it's just a giant, grotesque, i sore.

Oh, my stomach hurts.