the latest Laine-isms

Driving along, listening to a really pretty classical song on the radio, Laine says, "Mommy, this song tickles my heart! Does it tickle yours?"

We went ice skating a couple of weeks ago. Hard to tell from the pictures who had more fun. Walking out, Laine was explaining to us that her feet felt very "weak" (she has really big ears - she's heard a lot of talk about my broken and recovering foot), "and then there was a -- POP -- and THEN...my FOOT had a headache!!" hard to convey all of her very dramatic inflection in writing - try to imagine.

I was pointing out several flocks of geese flying in formation above our heads. "Look at those birds, Lainey," I said. "Aren't they pretty? I wonder if they're going somewhere warm for the winter?" "Mom," she said, looking up at me, and then with plenty of emphasis, "it's called mi-gra-tion."

Thinking about Christmas coming up, she told me one day, "What I don't want for Christmas from my friends is a hot dog. Or...some snow. Or a fish...or a calf. Wait. I do want a calf." Good to know. I was thinking of getting her a package of hot dogs for Christmas, so lucky thing she gave me plenty of time to think of something else!

After getting some cheesy fake watch in a kids meal, she said, "This watch really fits my hand waist." I presume she was referring to her wrist, which is kind of the waist of a hand. I like it. Creative.


Laine started the conversation this way: "Mom. Nana and David have been away from us for a really long time. When are they coming back?" This led to a little discussion, obviously, about when and how we would see Nana (my mom) and David (my missionary brother) again. Laine continued: "When David comes home, let's surprise him with a big birthday cake! When Nana comes home and is res-sur-rec-ted, we'll have such a big party!!!" Amen. She went on to list all of the members of our family who would come, finishing with, "Ben, and Dana! (pause) and maybe their little dog baby."


and just for a little balance, Romney says things I love too, he just is a couple of years verbosity of his sister. here are some of Romney's classic and wonderful lines that just melt: "day doe (thank you) Mommy!" "I love you, too." (sounds a little more like a tax form - "Dub behind the yew too") "um, sure! Sure, Mommy!" I know it's not the same without hearing it from his own mouth, but trust me. they're good, especially if they're directed at you. AND, breakthrough, he has finally learned to give kisses (he used to just give you his cheek when you asked for a kiss.) golden.

the before pictures

per request (are we a full service blog, or what?) here are some pictures of Romney's hair before we cut it. these pictures date from his birthday, which are a full two months prior to the haircut, so imagine a few more months onto those curls and into a mullet. but these should give an idea at least.

front view

side view

rear view

looking at these pictures, you may ask what took us so long to cut his hair! this is a fair question. but in real life, those curls (with a little help) were quite charming if I do say so myself.

haircuts and deja vu

our little wombat is one funny character. his mullet was not helping his image any longer, so at long last we decided to give it a little trim. but then it turned into something of a big trim. and now those golden curls are no more. I almost cried. truly. call me a mother.

jim did a really good job, considering the moving target he had to work with. this boy does not know how to sit still. now romney looks like such a little-big BOY (I guess that's fair, since he is one) but I swear his personality has doubled to match.

note the striking familiarity of this next picture. no, not deja vu. it actually happened again! my good husband knows that I love sleep more than...well, so many things, and on this particular morning he was indulging me and letting me sleep in (actually, that happens on lots of mornings. he's really really good.) and when I woke up, he told me that he'd let Romney play in the pantry for just such a quick minute - but apparently it wasn't quick enough for him to not get into the crisco...again!

this is really funny to me, because after our last post about Rom getting into the crisco, Jim's mom told me that Jim used to climb into the fireplace in his church clothes while she was busy getting the other kids ready for church and get all sooty. I laughed out loud, thinking that it would only take ONCE for something like that to happen to me to not happen again. not so, apparently! but you'll all be glad to know that the crisco has now found a home on a much higher shelf and I, for one, don't let Romney play in the pantry anymore. oh, and I'm crossing my fingers that he doesn't discover the fireplace.

moving on...sort of

well, as much as I love those bowling pictures, I'm thinking it's time to post on the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend, which was awesome. we left the kids with Jim's parents (thanks Jacksons!) and had our own mini-vacation, which hasn't happened for WAY too long. so that was fun. we did have an almost tragic ending to our weekend when Jim got his head stuck in a shark's mouth, but miraculously he escaped. phew. he strikes a pretty convincing pose there being eaten by the shark, doesn't he? with his hand casually in his pocket... "oh no. aahhh. shark." good thing someone lassoed that sharks head just in time. so obviously, we went to universal studios. neither of us had been since we were kids - remember the E.T. ride where you sat on the bike and flew up over the town? gone. I was pretty disappointed. but don't worry, king kong still attacks the tram on the studio tour, so at least there's that. AND we got to meet curious george, which was really exciting for our kids. I'll spare you the picture of that one.

anyway, the other big highlight of the trip was going to see WICKED!!! holy cow. loved it. I've been listening to the music pretty much non-stop since we got back, to the point that even Lainey is starting to memorize the songs and asking when she gets to go see it. um...maybe when you're eight? really, seeing Wicked was only a small part of our music/musical filled week. we started the weekend before with both Skyline and Highland High's musicals, fine productions both, though I'm grateful Wicked was after those or it could have been rough making it through! THEN, when we came home we went to the Messiah sing-in at Abravanel Hall to kick off our Christmas season, and THEN a few days later went to see Billy Joel thanks to my brother, which was SO much fun. truly. he seriously rocks out on the piano. actually, I had to alternate between listening to Christmas music and Billy Joel while putting the lights on my Christmas tree - it was a break in tradition, but so good.

remember thanksgiving?

it turns out that blogging for me is mostly about what funny pictures we've taken lately, and so instead of telling you the details of our lovely thanksgiving dinners or the movie we saw that night (August Rush - loved it), today's belated blog is all about thanksgiving bowling. I thought that thanksgiving bowling was kind of an obscure tradition until we tried to just walk on to a couple of lanes up at Olympus Hills bowling on Thanksgiving morning, and they said, "we might be able to squeeze you in in about three hours." they weren't joking! the place was packed. not to give up our hopes of bowling so easily (none of us had dinner to prepare - what else were we going to do?) we drove and called around town, in search of other open and available bowling alleys. at long last, we settled on possibly the nastiest, most ghetto bowling alley in the valley which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. but yuck.

you may not know, but jim descends from a bowling dynasty. don't mess.

laine is a die-hard. wanted to do it all herself, so she'd heft up those heavy balls with her little bird arms and hoist it up to the top of that thing and let 'er rip. she only dropped the ball and almost crushed her foot twice. very close. could have been ugly.
due to the children among us, they gave us one alley with bumpers and one alley without. I'm taking kids with me from now on when I bowl. I'm converted to bumpers. Lainey, Jim, and I all bowled strikes on our first frame - no ricocheting off the sides either (although the bumpers are really handy on those times too.) some of us only wished they had bumpers.

some of us legitimately don't need bumpers. this is ben doing the I'm-so-awesome-I-just-bowled-a-thanksgiving-turkey walk.

some of us were barely even aware that we were bowling. are they perfect together, or what? (I will note that ben scored higher just goofing around than I did. figures.)

some of us actually care what their score is, and manage to remain very focused on their scores despite all of the other shenanigans going on.
jane actually took most of these photos, but it was with my camera! so...sorry they're on my blog instead of yours janie! love your form, though.
Rom is working on his rock-star hair and went bowling mostly just hoping to see and be seen.


and me? I'm just grateful to have left my old bowling nickname from college behind. (Thunder, referring to the very loud thunk a bowling ball makes if you throw it more than roll it. not that I'd know, of course.)

Understanding, hide and seek, and trains

I have a lot of things to say today. Some pet peeves and some funny stories and even though I know you will quit reading halfway through this post I’m going to squish it all in anyway.

Chapter 1

I don’t understand anything going on in my house anymore. When we were having our first child and didn’t know if it was going to be a boy or a girl I admitted that I wanted a boy because I don’t understand girls. Who does really? No men that I know. So I thought I would understand a boy better…..we of course had a girl and I of course fell in love with her right away. Lainey is great and although she is pure girl, drama queen central, and all around crazy, I love her. (today we were having an interaction that was – I love you even though you don’t like football Lainey, to which she replied, I love you even though you do.)

I am encountering a problem understanding my daughter currently, but it's not at all the kind of problem I anticipated! Laine is a great communicator. Thanks to sign language as a baby and very advanced speech pretty early in life I’ve been able to understand everything she says. That has all changed now. I no longer understand anything she says to me. Why don’t I understand anything? Laine now only speaks to me in Spanish. We started Lainey in a Spanish immersion preschool that ONLY speaks Spanish. For three hours every day she hears absolutely no English and she thinks it is awesome. Marie also thinks this is great and has recently dug out her Spanish dictionaries from AP Spanish in high school and she and Lainey carry on and on in Spanish. The only problem is that I don’t speak any Spanish. One Spanish class in 7^th grade is just not cutting it. Lainey also has no patience or understanding for the fact that I don’t speak Spanish. The other day we were driving home and Lainey was in the back of the car munching down some chicken nuggets. “yo quiero mas catsup por favor papa?”

“What?” I said. “yo quiero mas catsup por favor papa, por mi pollo.”

I don’t speak Spanish but I’m not totally dumb so I could hear the word ketchup in there somewhere (not sure if she was using a real word or just spanishizing the word) but anyway – I knew she said something about either wanting or needing ketchup or NOT wanting or needing ketchup, I couldn’t tell for sure. So I asked –“Do you need more ketchup?” “si papa, gracias.”

This morning we were having breakfast together and Laine kept saying over and over something I couldn’t understand. I knew she was asking for something but EVERYONE knows I don’t speak Spanish so I assumed no response was expected from me. I assumed wrong. Finally Marie said , “Jim , will you please help her with that?” “sure,” I said, “but I have no idea what she is asking for.”

Marie started to laugh like she had just realized for the first time that I don’t speak Spanish and explained that Laine was requesting some juice. I’ve tried retaliating and only speaking Swedish to everyone but they just ignore me and act like I’m not there. Not very effective.

Chapter 2

We have been playing hide and seek a ton with the kids lately. It has been really fun. Rom has a couple of favorite hiding spots but the absolute best spot for him is in the pantry. He can stand in there in the dark for the longest time and think it is just great. So this morning this was what was going on in our house. A little pre-church, try not to get to dirty or mess too many things up round of hide and seek. Rom went straight into the pantry. Finally the game ended but he wouldn’t come out. He just kept shutting the door. I didn’t really care because it kept him occupied while Marie and I were trying to get ready for church. Finally I was about to walk out door with Laine, and Marie and Rom were going to follow a few minutes later. It occurred to me that Marie didn’t know Romney was in there so I let her know…”oh, hey, Romney is in the pantry if you are looking for him.” She laughed at the silliness of this statement and went to get him out. I was almost out the door when I heard Marie scream.

Obviously I had to go back to see what had happened and found Romney sitting on the floor of the pantry with both hands in the Crisco. I swear I had checked on him just minutes ago!

Chapter 3

The kids and I were on our own yesterday morning and decided to head out for a bike ride. Lainey has a new trail-a-bike that she FINALLY is willing to try and it turns out she LOVES it – which is awesome and will lead to great fun next summer I predict. Rom however still needs a spot and we only have a bike trailer for him. So how do we do this? BIKE TRAIN! We hooked up the trail-a-bike to me and then the trailer to Lainey. I was officially the engine, Laine the dining car, and Romney the caboose. They rode like this all the way to my parents house (3 or 4 miles) hung out for awhile, then rode back. Lainey was a super trooper. It was awesome.

I tried to find a Jerry Douglas song "We hide and seek" to add to the playlist in honor of this post.....but the service didn't have it - so go check it out and buy it. Great song.

We did add Besame Mucho (laine tells me this means kiss me a lot) for your spanish enjoyment

a contender

this picture brings back an old challenge of catherine's: funniest or ugliest picture on a blog.

game on. I dare you to beat it.

let us know in the comments where we can find your entries in this auspicious contest. can't wait!

catch up

well here it is, a week past Halloween and we haven't posted any pictures yet. very rude. apologies all around. Lainey had multiple costumes, depending on her mood and the current alignment of the stars, but this one is my favorite, even though she also wore it last year, so it gets a photo. It was even worth spending $20 on another pink dress...just so she could choose to wear this sometimes too. LOVE IT. officially, she called herself a "japanese princess" just in case you should be tempted to mention her "geisha" costume to her and be met with completely blank stares.

Romney was a monkey, frequently mistaken for a mouse. oh well. to see him in action, though, was to know, and I'm talking absolutely without doubt, that he was a monkey. he is a monkey. what can I say? always in motion - this photo is as good as it gets. something about this costume increased his propensity for running around in circles, which is what he is doing in this picture. around and around and around and around.

a few funny moments from the last week include Laine asking about a lifesize cutout of Dave Buhler (mayoral candidate) by the side of the road with a bunch of other signs in what looked like an old fire truck or something. Laine said, "Who is that boy and what is he doing over there?" I told her he was running for mayor and without missing a beat Laine said, "you mean he's driving for mayor?"

Laine also complained to Jim that she was "tired of being so small...I can't do anything. I can't even drive a car." Jim told her he would let her drive the car (what was he thinking?) but she wouldn't go for it. "No," she said. "I'm too small. I can't reach." Apparently the next worst thing about being small is that she also can't sit in the middle seat in the back of the car. She has to sit in her carseat for about another 12 inches of height or so, and probably another 40 pounds, so that should only be about...ten years or so? She still tries, though, and buckles herself in the middle seat at any opportunity. Oh, the trials of a four-year old. at least you can still let loose and play in the leaves, though. that's a good thing.

remembering

warning: taking a little break here from our normal brand of posts (completely trivial) to indulge in a little remembering of my mom.

this picture cracks me up. notice the strained smiles - it makes me wonder if this was the eighth try or something to take this darn picture with squirmy kids goofing around. I relate.

the sisters with mom in Italy, 2003. this was the early summer after my mom's diagnosis and completion of her first round of treatments (hence the hat, covering up the bare head.) my parents and other siblings had just finished touring through europe with my sister's college choir when I joined just the girls for a few more weeks of talking, train rides, good food, beautiful country, and getting walked into the ground by our mom.

mom and dad at alta (the true happiest place on earth).
love those smiles.

"Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story."
Don Snyder, from Of Time and Memory

the whole fam (dad is taking the picture) in cabo, Jan 2006, just before David left on his misison. our last big family trip all together.

We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

Thornton Wilder, from The Bridge of San Luis Rey

love you Mom!

4 yr old gems

our little hurricane is so funny - we've been trying to do better to write down some of her good lines. following are my favorites from the last week:

she had the flu last week, and kept asking me why she was sick. I told her I thought she must just have a little bug in her tummy. She really didn't want to be sick anymore and woke up one morning telling me, "Mom, I think the bug just flew out of my mouth last night!"

we were explaining to her that my new job at church was in the primary instead of in the nursery. she looked at me, a little aghast, and said, "they kicked you out?"

the david wilcox song that says, "we are the sunshine of the land" was playing, and she stopped jim in the middle of singing and said, "DAD. We are NOT the sunshine of the land. That guy is telling a lie! The sunshine is up there!"

and this morning, listening to the Lion King song "Hakuna Matata" where they say, "it's our motto!" "What's a motto?" "Nothing! What's a matta with you?" and Laine asked me what a motto was. I said it was something they believe in and she looked at me sternly and said, "but they should believe in GOD."

Poll results

First I'd like to thank our 3 dedicated readers for taking the time to vote on our recent poll where my wife slandered my good name....or at least suggested that I might somehow be responsible for putting a pink headband on Romney.

Now that I have thanked the 3 of you, let me now say how disappointed I am that you know us so little. Here are the results:
Responsible for putting a pink head band on Romney:
Jim - 6 votes, Laine 4 votes, Romney 4 votes, Tomten 0 votes.

I can't believe you all think this is ME! Are you crazy? I'm doing everything I can to teach him the ways of trucks and trains but no matter what, he still loves wearing princess shoes. I'm not sure who was responsible for the headband...but really either Lainey or Romney could win that one. I just assumed it was Laine. Romney is like this great, living, breathing doll to Lainey.

Responsible for restraining the kids in a boot:
A grandpa - 4 votes, Marie - 4 votes, Tomten - 3 votes, Jim - 2 votes.

Okay - the grand dads were thrown in there just to throw you off. Really, if they had been in the area they probably would have done it and then something else like hanging them upside down on the swing or something. But Marie? How on earth did Marie get the same number of votes as Papa and/or Kingfish? Are you people crazy? Have you met Marie? She is really a very nice, sweet mother. Plus she couldn't even walk with the boot off so how the heck was she going to catch them and tie them up? And the tomtens.......we blame everything in our house on the tomtens. They make messes, steal toys, eat furniture, you name it. About once every other day or so Laine says, "Dad, are the tomtens real or are you just teasing me?" I used to say they were real but then I decided to take this approach,
"yes Laine. I'm teasing you."
"Are you teasing me now, or teasing me that they are real."
"yes, I'm teasing you that they are real."
"dad, I think they are real why are you teasing me?"
"huh?"
"stop teasing me!"
"huh? I'm not teasing you."
"why are you teasing me?"
At this point we are usually both so confused that we both give up sure that we are being duped one way or another. That girl really does not like to be teased. Beware.
In the end - I tied up the kids. Who could blame me? All that velcro and just the right sized cylinder of that boot? I couldn't resist.

a girl after my own heart

we are reconsidering our current practice of limiting lainey's reading strictly to while she is awake. she clearly enjoys her books just as much while she is sleeping. see how she turns pages even in her sleep? she frequently sneaks out of bed after we tuck her in at night and brings over piles of books to her bed. my sister frequently comments on how flexible laine's sense of reality is, and this is a perfect example. "Laine, how did all of these books get into your bed?" "I don't know!" "Lainey, come on..." "Mommy, I think they just FLEW!"


speaking of Laine's sense of reality, she watched the movie "Matilda" today while she was feeling a little sick, and afterward tried to use her mind powers to make an elastic fly up into the air. After trying and concentrating really hard for a few minutes, she started to laugh, and looked at me and said, "it's not really working!" but then, almost immediately, figured out how to really harness those powers (namely by using her other hand to manipulate the rubber band while using her first hand to direct) and felt really satisfied with herself.

I can walk!!

Well, the doctor gave me the green light on Monday to start walking without my crutches. Hallelujah! This means that my foot has progressed from the very clear black line of fracture to a more fuzzy space, which apparently means that it's healing on its own. So, no surgery for me!

After eight weeks of walking on crutches, though, it was surprisingly hard to give them up! I know that may sound counter-intuitive, but I actually walked back to my car from the appointment and then into my house using crutches. It's a strange thing to build up trust again with an out-of-use appendage. besides that all the muscle in my foot and calf have completely atrophied, it's a little bit of a mental hurdle to tell myself I can walk again after not having walked for two months.

In memoriam, here is a picture of my nasty broken foot back at the beginning. The swelling is kind of out of control, you'll notice my ankle is gone and my toes look like sausages. You don't really get a good feel for the lovely bruising, so just imagine.

My kids noticed immediately when I stopped walking around with crutches. Romney kept looking at me quizzically and saying, "Mommy crutches? Mommy crutches?" and Lainey said, "MOM! Where are your crutches??" and when I explained that the doctor had told me I didn't need to use them anymore, her eyes got really wide and she kind of whispered, "does that mean you don't have to do surgery?" and then cheered.

Here's the post-crutch breakdown: I get to the phone slower hobbling in the boot than on crutches. And the door. I can't chase my kids as fast, either. BUT once I catch them, I can actually hold on to them now that I don't have crutches! AND they don't run away as often, since I can hold on to them in the first place! Big bonus. I feel like I'm walking like Grandpa Curtis (who had polio) now, especially when I don't have a shoe on my non-booted foot, which makes me smile. I can now carry my own drink of water all the way across the kitchen, without having to set it down in between steps. I don't have to balance on one foot in the shower anymore. And probably the best thing so far: I get to hold hands with my kids again! I can hold Romney's hand while he's going down steps and help him get straight to the car without being sidetracked by our neighbor's giant dirt pile. And I got to hold Lainey's hand on the way to preschool for the first time yesterday, which was very fun. (you moms who don't have crutches - don't take this little thing for granted! it's too good to not really appreciate.) I didn't realize it at first, and then all of a sudden, it dawned on me that it's been such a long time since I've been able to hold her hand! Anyway, it was one of those great "I really love my kids" moments, and she looked up and smiled at me, unknowingly buying herself a little more patience the next time she is completely out of control and making me crazy.

quirky side note of the day: I like blogging because I can start as many sentences as I want with words that I never could when I was writing papers in college (and, but, so, well...) and by the way, I don't really know about that pink headband on Romney's head. Laine's subliminal efforts towards procuring a baby sister for herself? all I'm saying is that it wasn't me. Jim?

Happy Birthday Rom-dizz!

worth noting today a happy birthday to Romney! Romney turned two today. There was very little celebration today, just a little mini cake after dinner that read Happy Birthday Rom-dizz! The girl in our ward that christened Rom with the name Rom-dizzle also happens to work at granite bakery so thus the cake had the personal touch.
Romney is exhibiting more and more the behaviors of the dreaded two year old. There will need to be more discussion of that later. For now here are some pictures of the joy of frosting.