Somebody stole my title! What the heck!

So I was fiddling around with my blog template and lost some links on the sidebar. When I went to Amazon to get the URL for my book, I typed in "Bound on Earth" and THIS popped up:

http://www.amazon.com/Bound-Earth-Sacred-Feminine-Unfolding/dp/0595490956/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214447491&sr=1-2

Huh. The Feminine Unfolding. Ah, well . . .

And speaking of fiddling with my blog template, what do you think? Now I have to have the cheesy banner ad running across the top of the blog, but I don't care. I still think it looks cool. And blogger now has a new application where it will show you when your favorite blogs have been updated (see sidebar). I think it's great. No clicking through to disappointment!!

Giving Us a Scare

Just a quick update for those of you who don't already know: Wyatt gave us a bit of a scare on Friday, but everything's okay now.

We went to Yuba with some neighbors and on Friday morning Wyatt felt just a little bit warm. But he seemed to be in pretty good spirits, so we dosed him with some Motrin and took off. I've had a cold (see last post!) and we figured he was coming down with it too.

Once we got to the lake, he was doing okay at first--but when we went out on the boat I could tell he was getting hot. I tried covering him with a wet towel and kept him drinking his bottle, but I could tell he wasn't feeling very well. I decided that when we got back to shore I'd just go ahead and take him home (we were already planning for me just to stay until that evening and Forrest was going to camp over with the kids.) So I sat with him under the awning while Forrest got our stuff out of the Tahoe.

Long story short, when I handed Wyatt to Forrest as I stood up to go, he started having a seizure. Now I knew that I'd had a fever induced seizure as a baby (they're called febrile seizures) and that they're usually harmless, but actually seeing one was really scary. The hardest part was that the seizure when on for about three or four minutes--the longest minutes of my life so far, to tell you the truth. Forrest gave him a blessing and held him tight, and watching Wyatt's tiny little body outside of his own control like that was terrifying. We called 9-1-1, and since we were essentially in the middle of nowhere they dispatched an ambulance--and it arrived more quickly than I thought it would (although it's really all a blur.) Wyatt was pretty out of it and lethargic after the seizure, which is common, but once I got in the ambulance with him he freaked out. Being so disoriented and having all these big burly guys poking him and trying to make him lay down was exactly NOT the thing he wanted to be doing.

Once we got him to the hospital they tried running some tests--and also tried, unsuccessfully, to take his blood. Seeing him repeatedly jabbed with a needle after all he'd been through was tough, so Forrest and I decided to take him for a walk around the hospital to calm him down. Once he was alone with the two of us he relaxed and finally started seeming to be more himself. (And I couldn't help myself and quizzed him on what a doggie says and where his eyes were and asked him to say Dad and Hi and ball and he passed with flying colors. They told me the seizure wouldn't mess with his wiring, but I needed to make sure for myself :-).

So after all that, I'm happy to say that besides having a cold and a slight ear infection, Wyatt is just fine. It turns out that around 5% of all kids are predisposed to febrile seizures, and having a parent who had one as a child makes a child more likely--so Andrew, I guess you had one too when you were a baby, just FYI. The seizures can last from a minute to ten minutes or so (and I'm very very grateful that it didn't go on that long because I would have completely lost it there on the beach) and they say there aren't any lasting side effects.

So today I'm grateful to have my little guy sleeping safely up in his crib. It's a good reminder of how lucky we are when our loved ones are healthy and safe, and how quickly things can get turned upside-down. And the next time my baby has a fever . . . I'm not taking him to Yuba!

I have a cold in June

which is really a big fat pain. It's a bad one, too. Head cold. Can't sleep. Sniffing all the time. Although Wyatt thinks it's absolutely hilarious when I blow my nose, so there's that.

We had a good Father's Day (other than the fact that I was really sick that night and Forrest was a saint and got up w/ Wyatt at 6:00 a.m. and for that he wins a Father Award). I had to (got to?) speak in church that morning, so I sucked on some lozenges and blew my nose and did it. I think it went pretty well. One thing is for sure--I know I'm lucky in the men in my life: husband and Dad and Grandpas and all of them. And I recovered sufficiently after coming home from church early w/ Wyatt that I was able to make Forrest some chocolate chip cookies and chicken enchiladas, and we had the Sweats (and G&G Hiatt, too) over that night for dessert. Great time! Stayed up late, hung out outside playing bocce ball and watching the kids run around, chatted. Ah, family. Here are some pics:


Wyatt and Eli in their matching blue shirts (courtesy of Grandma)


Wyatt and Eli in the water feature in their matching blue shirts (courtesy of grown-ups not paying attention)


Crazy cousins


Isn't she delicious? Cute baby Vivi.

Forrest and I also went to a "Mystery" party in our neighborhood where you come as a character and everyone tries to solve the mystery. This particular mystery was 80s themed, and Forrest and I were "Lenny" and "Linda," married members of a rock band. Forrest's eyeliner was a last minute idea--totally 80s rocker, dontcha think? It was the hit of the evening. Now that he's lost so much weight he also has a bit of the skinny Steve Tyler look going, too (although he's much better looking than Mr. Tyler, of course, hon). And my hair was pretty easy to poofify, especially considering I didn't have the assistance of my once-ubiquitous perm. I remember thinking in the 80s that if I didn't have a perm it would have been IMPOSSIBLE to do anything with my hair. But no--some aerosol hairspray, a good brush, and a suitable ratting technique and you're good to go!



Aren't the lot of us totally gitchen? (To explain: Forrest had a shirt that said "gitchen" in the 80s . . . but the "g" was really a "b," it was hard to tell . . . so he told sensitive types that it said "gitchen." I think some even believed him. Mom???) Anyway, it was fun. And I was glad that Forrest got all the eyeliner off before going to church the next day and listening to me extol his virtues during sacrament meeting!

Rise and Shout!

Good news! Looks like I got the job at BYU. All the details haven't been worked out yet, but I should be teaching creative writing at the Salt Lake Center Fall semester. They offered me a MWF class at the Provo campus, but I decided that making the commute and dealing w/ child care three times a week would be too hard. But at the SL Center, I'll only teach one night a week--Thursdays from 5-7:40 p.m. I've always wanted to teach creative writing so I'm thrilled.


And the boys wrapped up baseball last night with Ethan's last game. And his team won! Ethan was the very last hitter of the team's last inning and he made a great hit--really hard with a wicked bounce right past shortstop--and he could have had a double, but I think he was so excited about the hit that he didn't want to risk it by trying for second and getting thrown out. But he was able to score two other runners, capping off our best inning as a team with seven runs. (The league has a rule that once a team gets seven runs in an inning, they call the inning). It was a great way for Ethan to end the season, and I think both he and Jonas had a good time. Learned a lot. And Ethan was able to spend a lot of quality time with his dad, who assistant coached.




(I love both of these pics, although I DON'T like how grainy my camera looks with outside shots. I'll have to fiddle with it.)

Now we have two more weeks before school lets out for summer. Trying to come up with things to do. Zoo? SL Library? Parks? In some ways it gets harder as the kids get older. I might sign Ethan up for a cool "zookeeper" camp (the other kids are too young) but I'd like to come up with something for the other two that doesn't break the bank. We keep hearing stories about people our age who've paid off their houses and it's making us feel like the undisciplined consumers we are . . . sigh . . . Discipline!!!

Does not buying myself the new pair of capri pants I lengthily considered at Target count toward some kind of discipline? And getting my hair done at Fantastic Sams? And never spending more than $25 on shoes? It's got to count for something, right? But then we've taken the kids to see Prince Caspian AND Kung Fu Panda--I went to Caspian, Forrest went to Panda. We're such suckers for the first run movies. Forrest said Kung Fu Panda was hilarious, by the way, which is high praise considering we've both become a little jaded about most animated movies. I thought Caspian was good, but I thought the first Narnia movie was better (very moving--I cried). This one seemed to have more battle scenes, which always make me zone a little.

And now that I've rambled from employment to baseball to summer to money to movies, I must sign off. The Irreantum fiction contest beckons (so many manuscripts to read, so little time . . .)

Miscellanea

First, a baseball report. Both Ethan and Jonas's teams are doing just fine. Win some, lose some, etc. Both the boys have improved quite a bit during the season, though, which is the important thing. And they look so dang cute in their uniforms, especially when they keep their shirts tucked in.





I don't have any current pics of Ethan playing. But I will! He has a couple more games left and I've sworn I'll remember my camera to get a few final shots.

Elise updates: She's tan again (already). We had a nice hot weekend and she spent all day Saturday on her friend Tayler's slip and slide. She had a pretty good burn (bad Mom! I let her go w/out sunscreening her up) but it's deepened into a nice tan without peeling. Lucky duck. She looks like an Indian princess.

And Wyatt: His favorite word right now is "Maom." It's like a contraction of "Mom" and "Ma'am". I'd like to think it means me, but it really doesn't. What it means is "Gimme that!" He says it constantly. He's also obsessed with horses ("sissess!" "neeeiiigggggh!") and whenever we got to the boys' baseball games he can see them waaay far away at the South Jordan Equestrian Park and points and points and neighs and neighs until we take him close enough to the fence that he can see them better.

He's also getting really good at feeding himself with a spoon. A little messy, but for a 16 month old he has some excellent dexterity. Here he is, eating sweet potatoes all by himself.
(Yes, he's using two spoons. He's ambidextrous. And Mindy, yes, I think that's Ayva's bib. You left it here lo so many months ago and we keep forgetting to give it back to you! And in the meantime, we let our own kid use it! Isn't that what family's for??)

I'm really enjoying having a break from teaching--last semester just about wore me out. (And no, still haven't heard back from BYU.) I've been busy, though, with the Irreantum fiction contest and some other projects. Another small independent LDS publisher called Zarahemla has asked me if I'll edit a short story collection, so I'm just getting going on that--a big job, but a fun one. And I'm doing a few piddly writing projects here and there. I still haven't been able to get my buns in gear and do more than fiddle around with my next novel though. It's like jumping into potty training a two year old: as the mom, you've gotta be emotionally and psychologically ready and be willing to endure some poop on the floor. So I'm gearing up :-).

Oh, and one last thing. Last night we bought a really fun new Wii game, called Wii Fit.


(and no, that's not Jonas with shaggy hair or Elise and I wearing some kickin' new leggings--the picture is simply to add to the aesthetic experience of reading my blog and is courtesy of Google Images.)

We had a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy, and even though the game is nearly impossible to get right now, last night I felt "inspired" to call our local store (does the spirit prompt you to buy video games?? Hmmm . . .) but anyway, they'd just received a shipment, so we hurried over and snagged one. And it's SO FUN. You'll have to click on the link to see what it does. But all of us have had a ball with it. I even "exercised" this morning for about 40 minutes, and it's a good alternative for days I can't make it to the gym. Not nearly as hard a workout as my 600-calorie-and-hour-wicked-cycling-class (where, amazingly, I can keep my heart rate up as high as 165 and not feel like I'm going to die, whereas on the treadmill I think I'm going to keel over. Why is that, I wonder?). But the program is fun and challenging and even addictive, so I'm glad we got it.

And, lastly, it's raining again. Again! Whats up with the rain? I mean, seriously?