THE BABY

I have no idea who makes up the more consistent readership of our blog, but for those of you who don't live close enough to recognize the signs: WE'RE PREGNANT! There's usually a lot of questions from people at this point in time. I'm sure I won't answer all of them but I'll give a general rundown of how the pregnancy has gone thus far. First, pictures of Mommy and Baby.

Here's the baby at 7 weeks. About the size of a grain of rice at this point, but big enough to see the little heart beating through the transparent body. The dark stripe down the middle is the spine.

Here's the baby at 11.5 weeks (today). The little sucker was little jumping off the side of the fluid sac. In fact, the tech could only manage to get this one still. I can only recall Andrew being as active as this in the ultrasound sessions. Here's Katie today. It takes quite an effort to get her vertical so this pretty much took care of her for the day.

Fortunately, this pregnancy has been our best so far. We've only had 1 week without any food or water whatsoever. After that she has been able to keep down some food or water every day. She has only had IV therapy twice in the whole almost 12 weeks of pregnancy. Pretty good so far. Talking on the phone makes her nauseous as does most everything else and not only does she have the TV schedule memorized, she has memorized half the lines of every show and she knows exactly when to change the channel for food commercials. Foods that have played a significant role thus far include egg and cheese english muffins, bean burritos, steak, baked potatoes, snickerdoodles, cookies and cream ice cream, waffles, lemon squares, and banana cream pie. She's also had some crazy dreams. For example: She dreamt that we were at the beach with a whole bunch of teenagers when it started to rain pieces of fish. So I go all the kids on a bus and told her to go home with her two brothers who, for some reason, were both evil and one of which was a talking, walking baby. Well, the fish were all covered in oil so my bus got in an accident while she ended up getting dragged on a crime spree with her evil brothers. Luckily, they decided to hit the 4 Seasons where, strangely enough, my family ate dinner every night in her dream. While her brothers were inside shooting up the place she sat with my family who were refusing to eat the most wonderful looking hamburgers because of some technicality. Eventually, she went to take Dandy over the grass to use the bathroom where one of her brother got hold of her. They ended up chasing her around the destroyed resort until they trapped her. At which point they held her down, cut her neck, and then pierced her ear with a crossbow. Not that they used the crossbow to pierce her ear, but that the crossbow itself was the piercing. This experience was painful enough that it woke her up from the dream. And so go her nights. We'll post more pregnancy updates as things progress.

Chats with Children 8

So I started jotting down some of the things the kids said and here's what I've collected over the past couple of days.

BEN

Ben: "What's a billionaire?"
Me: "Someone who has a billion dollars or more."
Ben: "Really? You mean it's not a job or something?"

Boy, do I want that job. The other day Ben came down in one of his most tattered shirts wearing jeans with holes in them. "Dad! Guess what?! I was getting dressed for the day and I pulled out my new nice school jeans and I asked Coco [the dog] if I should wear them and she shook her head [he shakes his head 'no']. And then I pulled out my jeans with the holes in them and she shook her head [he shakes his head 'yes']. So then I pulled out this shirt and I looked over and she was shaking her head [he shakes his head 'yes']. Isn't that cool?!"
Yesterday he lost another tooth. Pretty soon he won't have any more to loose. His teeth came in all at once and I guess they're leaving all at once. Anyways, he came into my room this morning with a very serious look on his face. "Dad, truth or dare?" I couldn't guess what he was up to, but I knew which one he wanted me to choose. "Dare." His face fell, he obviously had not even prepared for this possibility. I repented and told him to just ask me what he wanted to know. "Are you really the tooth fairy?" Alas, a piece of innocense lost. At least with Ben I know he'll never tell the other two. With Kallie I'll have to lie through my teeth until I want everybody else in the familiy to know. She can't stand to hold on to a good secret.

KALLIE

Kallie came down one night while I was trying to get some work down and she was supposed to be asleep.
"Dad, I'm scared."
"What are you scared of?"
"The Legend?"
"What legend?"
"THE LEGEND!"
"Honey, WHAT legend?"
"The one that Hailey told me."
"What's it about?"
"I can't remember."
Then she went one to tell me how she had her lips tightly closed and she heard someone open her lips, and there was a shadow floating around her room except when I was there and just about anything else she could think up to scare herself. She's the only girl I know that can fall asleep, have a nightmare, and be too scared to stay in her room all in the space of 5 minutes. So I layed down next to her and we spent the next while making up silly stories and laughing and such, and as soon as I get up to leave... "But, Dad. I'm scared..."

ANDREW

Me: "Did you miss me yesterday? I missed you."
Andrew: "No."
Me: "You didn't miss me at all?"
"No. I missed Joan?"
"Joan?" I asked, surprised that he knew Nini's first name.
"Yeah, she's at McDonalds."
"Do I know Joan?"
"No."

Great so he misses the girl who takes the order at McD's before he misses me. The other day he came up to me very sober. "Kallie put bubblegum in my ear. That's not FUNNY!" Actually, it was pretty funny considering she convinced him of that without actually touching his ear. When I took the kids to a movie yesterday he was doing pretty good. About a third of the way through the movie he grabbed my arm and asked loudly "Where's the remote?". Him and Kallie picked out chocolate cereal at the store that they were very excited about. When he finally got a bowl of it this morning he said, "It smells like peaches!" We need to maybe get some of his senses checked.

I apologize for the long drought. Needless to say the kids have said more crazy things than I can possibly remember in the past weeks. I'll try to give an accurate picture of how the kids are coming along.

BEN

Ben has been loving summer. Usually the book worm, he has been too busy lately spending all of his time outside to read very many books. He gets up most days and makes his younger siblings breakfast and gets them going for the day. He's also picked up helping me mow the lawn and rollerblading. While he seems to be growing up faster than his due, he still gets emotional some times but it NEVER coincides when he's tired. This is coincidentally when he says the craziest things as well. Tonight, for example, he was very upset so I informed him that if I heard him yell or cry one more time he was going to miss all the fun tomorrow. The next time I passed his room he called me in. "Dad, your my favorite Dad in the whole world and tonight you broke my heart." Half of me wanted to cry the other half wanted to laugh. I can't wait until teenage angst kicks in. He said something really funny the other day when he wasn't upset but I'll have to write about it when I can remember.

KALLIE

Kallie has been extremely upset over the fact that Ben constantly has a friend around to play with and she doesn't. It's really just chance that Ben's best friend is constantly available to play and her friends aren't, but she feels it's very unfair. Part of it is also the fact that Ben enjoys a lot of independence that she can't have yet. Over the last week I've found a telephone hidden in her bed with her with Nini's number last dialed. I have no idea if she's really been making phone calls at night but I wouldn't put it past her. She offers to wash the dishes almost every night even though she can't even turn on the sink without a bar stool and asks me to sing her the "Mother" song every night.

ANDREW

The kid is still nuts. His latest thing is to repeat back to me line for line every thing that I say to him when he's in trouble. It usually goes like this:

"Andrew I'm mad at you."
"I'm mad at YOU!"
"You're in trouble."
"YOU'RE in TROUBLE!"
"I'm going to give you a time out if you're going to talk to me that way!"
"YOU go to TIME OUT!"
"I'm going to spank you!"
"NO!"

At which point he finally gets it through his head that I'm not playing a word game with him. Tonight in Walmart we had a cart with some seat welded on the front of it. He was sitting on the top and then hopping down to the bottom of the section while yelling, "OH! You let me fall!" He thought it was great fun. I eventually said, "If you get hurt I'm just gonna say you had it coming." "Really? You think I do?"
Later on he was being uncooperative and I lifted him up by his arm. I told him if he made me carry him by his arm too much I was going to stretch it out. He thought about that for a minute and then said, "If my arm is longer, when I raise my hand it will be highest." Such an optimist.

Craziness

Ben and Kallie told me jokes all the way to Grandma’s house today.

 

Kallie: What did the house say to the mouse?

Answer: Hey, you ready to cook me up!

 

Ben: What did the cat say to the cow?

Answer: KaMoo!

 

And so went the drive.

 

Andrew played out his joke in church today. I wasn’t paying attention and let him bring his keys to church. That’s normally not a problem except when he picks the keys that have the authentic British Police whistle attached to them. There was 2 baby blessings and a missionary farewell today. We were late and were sitting in the cultural hall where every sound gets amplified and reverberated back up the chapel. Right in the middle of the first baby blessing there was either a Bobby chasing down a thief or a very angry, angry parent snatching a whistle away from a little boy. It turned out to be the later. So just when the long pause in the blessing ended (probably having nothing to do with the whistle) the wailing of “I want my whistle!” started up too. Later, just to get me back for the whistle, he knocked the bread tray across the wood floor in an all-too-loud clatter. I have a testimony that staying home from church can in fact be a more spiritually uplifting experience for me and the rest of the ward. In the best interest of everybody I’m going to go inactive.

The Nerd Conference

A couple of weeks ago I went to the annual meeting for the American Physical Society’s Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (DAMOP). It’s about a 1200 person conference and needless to say it’s a ‘noticeable’ group. The conference was held in the Marriott Marquis hotel in Atlanta which has a 47 story open lobby with glass elevators.

The exhibition for the conference was in the lobby of the hotel and one day James and I were riding down the glass elevator when a business man got in the elevator with us. You know how someone can be “fat” without being round? He was a very squarely “thick” guy which actually made his suit hang very well. When he got in the elevator James was facing away from him and I was not wearing my name tag. The conversation went like this:

Him: “Looks like the Nerd Conference is in town or something. I saw this guy walking around in shorts and sandals!”

James then turned around so that he could see his name tag and immediately the moment was awkward.

James: “Yeah, it’s a Physics conference. Some of the brightest people in the world are here.” (He should have mentioned that included 2 Nobel Laureates and several people who’d made the short list at my last count)

The elevator door then opened and he was itching for his escape.

Him: “At least you two don’t uh…” It was then that he looked at our attire for the first time. “at least you have uh…”

“Shoes?” I offered him.

“Yeah, shoes.” And he was off like a lightning bolt. Seriously the only difference between us and his disdainful description of the other scientist was that we weren’t wearing sandals.

While his description matched probably one third of the conference attendees I’ll mention that Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Prize in Physics 2002(?), only wore sandals during the conference (but never shorts).

Action Andrew

Yes, it’s been a while. Yes, life is crazy. Yes, by now we have already told most of you the stories I am about to relate in this blog. We are now recording them for posterity’s sake and apologize if you feel jaded for having to hear the same story twice. Let’s pretend they’re fables…

ANDREW AND THE POPCORN BAG

One day Andrew was wondering through the pantry when he heard his name. “Where are you?” Andrew asked innocently. “I’m up here” came the reply.

“Are you in amongst the cereal boxes?”

“No.”

“Are you amongst the jellos?”

“No.”

“Are you by the oatmeal?”

“Yes.”

“Are you the popcorn that I have been desiring this long while to keep safe in my belly?”

“YES! Go ask your mother to make me for you!”

So Andrew went to ask his mother. But his mother, knowing the hour of the morning and the necessity of being hungry for a good lunch, said, “NO WAY!”

Andrew related the news to the popcorn bag with tears in his eyes. “Do not cry little one. You can make me yourself when your mother is not around.” And Andrew’s eyes gleamed with past tears and future happiness.

When his mother was in the shower Andrew set out to accomplish the desire of his little heart. He scaled the crags and slot canyons of food pantry. Just when he was about to give up because his toes were slipping off the painted wood he spotted the little popcorn bag tucked into the corner of the second to highest shelf.

With all too much ease he positioned a bar stool in front of the magical box which ate raw food and threw-up cooked food. He placed the popcorn in the box unawares of the screaming bag: “Hey! NOT YET! You have to unwrap me! You have to lay me flat! Don’t cook me too….” Then he pushed buttons until the box sprang to life.

His mother was getting dressed in the bathroom when Andrew walked in with a charred mass of paper and plastic. “Look Mom, I made POPCORN! It doesn’t taste very good.” And with that, he threw it away. His mother burned cinnamon and other spices all day and still the smell lingers.

MORAL: If you are a food item, don’t talk to Andrew.

ANDREW AND ALL THE KEYS

One day Andrew was standing by the front door when he heard little voices (the poor child really needs some help). “Where are those voices coming from?” Andrew wondered out loud. “Up here, Shorty!” replied the keys by the front door.

And so it began everyday Andrew would stand staring up at the keys, and the whole time they would yell down taunts and insults from the perch on high. They felt safe in the knowledge that Andrew could not reach them. No, not even with the help of the accomplice Bar Stool.

One day, the keys were teasing Andrew when Andrew decided enough was enough. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to send my tiger up after you!” threatened the little boy. The keys just laughed. A tiger could not reach them.

True to his promise Andrew returned with his tiger. With a mighty fling Andrew’s tiger leapt at the keys. The keys laughed. The more the tiger came at them the more they laughed, and then something happened. The tiger got one of the keys and dragged it down to the floor to Andrew.

At first the keys were truly frightened but when they realized that it was very difficult for the tiger to get them and that it only happened every once in a while they returned to their old ways. Andrew was very discouraged.

Then one day Andrew was playing with his brother’s retractable stick which measured the lengths of things. Andrew sat and the floor and and pulled and pulled on the stick until it grew longer and longer. Soon Andrew looked up and saw that the stick was as long as his tiger could leap high. As long as the keys were high off the floor.

Now the keys live in fear and Andrew takes them down whenever he wants.

MORAL: If you are a pair of keys, don’t smack talk Andrew.

ANDREW AND THE TOASTER

One day Andrew poured a whole bottle of syrup into the toaster.

MORAL: If you are Andrew’s parents don’t get involved in other projects before cleaning up breakfast.

ANDREW AND THE SILENCE

One day in church it was really quite. Andrew thought that it was so quite that he should do something about it. He started yelling “Honk! Honk!” louder and louder to try to get people to make some noise.

MORAL: Don’t take Andrew to church.