"We'll Praise Him By Day and By Night"

Gordon Bitner Hinckley
June 23, 1910 - January 27, 2008

So I know this blog is usually restricted to the antics of the two boys in the house...but I thought I'd add a note to say farewell to President Hinckley. If you want to know who he is you can read about him here: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/

I've never heard of a busier 97-year-old and I'm sure he is glad for a rest from the physical strain--but I suspect he will still be just as busy as ever! Twelve years ago or so I sang a duet at a church meeting that then Elder Hinckley presided at. He was in town on some church business and decided he wanted to have a meeting with the youth...even though it was Halloween night. I happened to be friends with the lady in charge of music for the meeting which is how her daughter and I ended up singing a duet--and I learned the song in the car on the way there. When we finished we went back to our seats which were behind President Hinckley and he leaned over and said "You girls sing well." So that is my one communication with President Hinckley. You never saw him when he wasn't smiling and to quote the hymn: "When dark clouds of trouble hang o'er us And threaten our peace to destroy, There is hope smiling brightly before us"...

Back into Oblivion

So after our holiday guests left I once again started studying (or started re-studying) for the Bar Exam. I have been averaging between 2 and 3 hours a day, but this is just warm-up mode before my mom gets here and I have to really start studying. I really think my JD ought to count for something on its own! I have concluded that it is not humanly possible to memorize everything in my BarBri study books so I am just hoping that I'll get lucky and the few things I actually know will be on the exam. The point is that there hasn't been, and won't be, much blog activity until after February 27th, but I wanted to add a few things before I forget.

Last Monday night Sawyer was playing on the floor babbling and started saying "mamamamamamama"--now I know this doesn't seem like much, but vocalizing a consonant sound is actually a developmental milestone. As Bryce said, it is fitting that Sawyer started with the "mama" sound because Will started with "dada". Another thing about Sawyer, God bless that child--when he gets fussy I wrap him in a blanket, put a pacifier in his mouth, and lay him in his play pen and he...goes...to...sleep! Usually I don't hear another peep, occasionally if he loses the pacifier he will let me know and I'll return it for him. In the wake of his older brother, this child is nothing short of a miracle.

Bryce had to work late last week and the worst night was Wednesday when he didn't get home until sometime around 2 in the morning. Of course Will decided that he was not going to go to bed that night. I put him in bed at about 9, but he wouldn't stay there. (On a side note it is rather infuriating that there is really no feasible way to MAKE him stay in bed except to physically hold him down which defeats the point of him being in bed so I can do other things.) I put him in bed, walked downstairs, and heard him jump out of bed and run across the room, open his door, and slam his door. I went to look for him and he was standing in the hall leaning against his closed door. I said "What's the matter, Will?" and he replied "I'm scared. There's something in there." Now, he said this perfectly calmly so I wasn't too worried about his anxiety levels. I said "No there isn't, see here is your bed, and your dresser and your rocking horse and there is nothing else in here." Then he said "Momma, you want to snuggle me just for a minute." (He is into telling people what they want to do lately.) I laid down with him for a minute and he just kept staring around the room. After a few seconds he pointed at the smoke detector on the ceiling which has a little green light and said "See. There is something up there!" I said "That is the smoke detector. The green light means you are safe." Will kept staring at it and saying "The green light means I'm safe." After a few minutes the light blinked red (it does this like every 5 minutes), but of course that set Will off again: "There IS something up there!" I thought he had finally calmed down so I left, but about 15 minutes later he was out of his room again. Sometime around 1 a.m. I didn't have the energy to take him back up so I told him he could snuggle with me on the couch for a minute hoping he would just fall asleep. He kept wanting to get up and play, however. I told him "Will here are your choices. You can either go up and get in your bed or you can snuggle with Mommy- which are you going to do?" and he said "I'm going to snuggle Mommy and pick my boogers." Which he did. Gross.

Speaking of gross, yesterday before church Will kept insisting that he had to get in the shower with me. He took off all his clothes and his diaper and climbed in. After a few minutes he was kind of crouching on the shower floor and I thought he was just looking at the bubbles, but all of the sudden he stood up and yelled, "Back away from the pee-pees!" I look down and sure enough he has peed in the shower, but then he takes a step away and I see that he has, in fact, done much worse than pee. Disgusting.

Last Sunday I was talking to my mom via the webcams my brother gave us for Christmas. Will apparently wanted to look at something else on the computer and kept coming over and saying "Let's turn off Grandma- okay?"

Will somehow picked up a new trick where he gives a thumbs up, a big cheesy grin, and says "It's easy!" Probably from a commercial, but I don't know when or where he saw it. The first time I saw him do it he had to use his other hand in order to shape his fingers into a thumbs up.

I was taking down the last of the Christmas garlands from the tops of the kitchen cabinets last week and Will kept yelling at me "Get down. Now!" Hmm, I wonder if he has ever heard that before.

Will keeps grabbing at my hands as I type and yelling "No...no! This is Daddy's computer. It is for working. You go make dinner." (It is not even noon.)

The other night I put Will to bed and he was totally asleep when I left his room. I walked out into the hall and into the bathroom ( = about 4 seconds) and then I hear Will running across his room. He comes out his door looking panicked and holding a stuffed lamb, his stuffed giraffe, a baby rattle, and a washcloth. I don't know what woke him up, but he must have been startled because he bolted out of there and apparently grabbed everything between him and his door on the way!

On Friday Will got into the pantry and found a cookie mix and said "I want to bake these!" I didn't think I could turn him down because he was so excited so I put the ingredients in a bowl and he did all of the mixing and then scooped it into a dish. He kept saying "Mmmmm...these are gonna be great!" and "I'm a chef!" Here is a picture of him stirring and one of him enjoying his handiwork (chocolate peanut butter bars).

We took Will sledding for the first time. By the time we got our act together and found a store that still had a sled available for purchase it was pretty much dark. Unfortunately, Will got snow in his face on one of his first runs and was reluctant to go again. Then we switched spots on the hill and avoided the trees and after that he had a great time.
Sawyer tried green beans for the first time last night. He didn't seem to enjoy them much, but he was a good sport. He just kept looking at me like "Why are you giving me this awful stuff Mom?" but he didn't start screaming or anything. Will was watching and decided that he wanted to try. He took a spoonful and his face immediately sank into this perfect "Mom, I thought you liked me?" disappointed-you-tricked-me kind of face. Then he kept gagging until Mollie got him a drink. I wish I had his reaction on camera because it was much more entertaining than Sawyer's.

Sounds like Sawyer is up from his nap. He has his 6 month check-up tomorrow.

Baby (and Parent) Milestones

Here is one more picture from Christmas. Aunt Michelle and Uncle Anthony brought Will this neat plate that you can write on with a wipe-off marker and leave out for Santa. Bryce helped Will fill it out. Of course all Will wanted for Christmas was "cars" and he definitely did not want elephant poop...please see a previous post for how that conversation came up. Bryce kept teasing him by saying he was going to get some elephantine manure for Christmas so it ended up being written on the plate as well.
In other news: Sawyer had his first taste of solid food on Wednesday, January 2nd. I gave him some single grain oatmeal mixed with a little warm water. The pictures of that event came out blurry so this was actually taken during Meal #2 the following day. As expected, every spoonful came back out as quickly as it went in, but he was quite interested in it. Both times he threw up the entire amount that he had managed to take in immediately after I took him out of the high chair.

We had another first a few weeks ago. A very important milestone in any parent's life---our first call to poison control. It was Friday, December 21st (I think) when Will came down the stairs with an open bottle of rolaids and proclaimed "MMM- I like these!" I said, "Did you eat some of those?" and he said "Yes! I did eat some of these!" I said, "How many?" and he said his usual answer to any 'how many' question: "One...Two...Three...Four...FIVE!" I looked at the package and it didn't say anything about what to do if recommended dosage is exceeded or anything like that, but it did say "Keep away from children" so I figured I better call the doctor. So I called the doctor's office and asked to speak to a nurse...who turned out to be the girl who lives down the street from us and knew it was me from caller ID. She said I needed to call Poison Control and gave me the number. I called the very helpful gentleman at Poison Control and he told me "It is no big deal...at worst he might have a bit of an upset stomach." From eating Rolaids...how ironic.

To be filed under Erin's black list (it appears each of my family member's has one): Ikea. Although I can't write them off completely. Because I still want their stuff. But I'd like to! What a dilemma. Let's just say that even after speaking with a manager and spending 1/2 hour debating the question we still did not succeed in getting a knob for my new bookshelf. Even though Ikea failed to include the knob in the package in the first place, they WILL NOT give you a knob without a receipt...which obviously shows nothing other than that you at one time did buy a bookcase. Clearly they must prevent all those would-be scammers who would lie about having purchased a bookcase, load two unwilling children in a car, drive a half hour, spend another $120 on more merchandise that may or may not have all the parts in the box, spend another half hour waiting in the customer service line, another half hour dealing with a useless customer service representative and waiting to speak to a manager, and then make up a story about not having received a knob for the bookshelf that they didn't purchase in the first place--all in an attempt to scam Ikea out of a pathetic 10 cent wooden knob. Never fear oh weary consumer! Ikea will not allow such deception! They will keep their knobs close to their hearts at all costs.

Following the afore-mentioned Ikea incident we stopped at Lowe's to buy some paint. Sawyer was hungry and fussing in his car seat and some helpful lady came over and told us "In my country--Sweden--they say not to leave babies in those seats for longer than 2 hours because they will get a back ache. That is why he is crying. It amazes me that America is so big and beautiful, but they know nothing about childcare! I just thought it might help." And then she walked away.

As Bryce said "I'm done with Sweden."

We drove down to southern Utah to visit Bryce's grandparents last weekend. On the way down Will was screaming because he wanted some licorice. I offered him some licorice, but that was not sufficient because he wanted the entire bag. He was throwing a major temper tantrum and I was trying to appease him by saying "Look Will! You can have 5 whole pieces of licorice!" and he just kept screaming and I kept offering the licorice until Will yelled "NO....THANKS!" and instantly stopped his tantrum. It was pretty funny. I wonder where that came from.

This morning Will walked over to me and said "Hi Stupid!" Well hello yourself.

A few weeks ago I was sweeping the kitchen floor and had accumulated a pile of dirt and the majority of a box of Nerds that Will had dumped on the floor. As I was trying to sweep it into the dustpan Will came over and was trying to pick out the candy and eat it. I said "Will, that's disgusting...this is garbage." Will looked up at me and yelled "No, this is not garbage! This is what we eat!"

Will woke up crying the night before last and when I went to see what his problem was I discovered that he was totally soaked from a wet diaper. I was in the middle of changing his diaper and getting him in new pajamas and Will was about half awake and started saying "Mommy, I'm so proud of you!" over and over. I'm pretty good at changing diapers if I do say so myself.