Mr. Baby No More

So when we decided to go ahead and have another baby . . . even though we'd just gotten each of the first three in school . . . even though we were old(er) and tired(er) . . . even though we'd started to enjoy sleeping in on Saturday and car seatless road trips and spontaneous family outings to the movie theater, we told ourselves this:

It will go by so fast. And this time, at least, we'll be wise enough to enjoy it. (Mostly). And we were right. Can you believe it's been two years since this guy made his appearance?





There were screaming fits (his, not ours . . . remember how I said we'd matured??) and sleepless nights, for sure (see here and here for proof). But wouldn't you know it? The blue-haired ladies at church are right: life speeds by pretty quick and if you forget to enjoy it--whoops!--it's all gone. To me, the definition of joy is having the wisdom to stop, really look, and see the goodness all around you before it disappears. And having Wyatt in our lives has been a true joy.

This week, he turned two. Here he is, in all his beautiful blondness, on the very day of his birth:





He loves dinosaurs, giraffes and trucks. He used to love Little Einsteins, but this week he made a quick 180, moved on, and now demands Caillou. (I know! The WASPiest, whiniest, liberal elitiest show on PBS . . . and that's saying something.) He loves salsa ("Salsa and Hops!" he says, meaning chips, of course), chocolate milk (addict) and cookies. He eats chili better than any of his siblings. He loves his blue blanket ("warm beebee") and goes to nursery and childcare at the gym with nary a complaint. He loves his Dad best of all (sniff) but I'm in second place, followed closely by Grandma Sweat and his cousin Eli, whom he's at constant pains to impress. When he went to the pediatrician for his 2 year check up, he jumped and jumped and said "Jump! Jump!" for the pediatrician, without being asked. How did Wyatt know jumping was on that doctor's questionnaire? Baby genius? Clairvoyance? He loves to read books, he takes a good nap everyday (praise be), and a couple of days ago, he told his first joke. "Pee pee!" he said to Jonas. "Poo poo!" Then he laughed hysterically.

We couldn't ask for a better boy.

Now here are some pictures from his birthday bash. Family only, since one of the things I've learned in my mature motherhood is that two year olds don't need friend parties. (Friend parties, music classes, flash cards, fortified baby cereals and/or special parenting methods gleaned from special parenting books. All unnecessary. Oh, and toddler beds. Don't let anyone talk you into a toddler bed.)









Mr. Toddler doesn't have quite the same ring a Mr. Baby did. But you can be our Mr. Man, our Mr. Dean, our Wy-Wy, our Wy-dog, our Super-Wy. We love you!

Because I'm a Mormon, This is What I Did This Week

1. I went to the dry pack cannery for the very first time. For my two non-Mormon readers, this is a place where you can put dry food like flour, rice, beans etc. in cans and seal 'em up tight with this cool spinny machine so they'll last for 30 years. That way, when the zombies attack (see previous post), you'll at least have some rice to make you feel better. Lots of people can things like hard red wheat, but since I've never made bread from scratch in my entire life, I focused on canning things like dried apples. No cooking required. And yum!


Bring it on, zombies. Bring it on.
(To clarify, of course Mormons don't really believe in zombies. If we did, would I be tauting them like that? Don't think so.)

2. I sent Ethan on his first winter camp for Scouts this weekend. He held his own. I kept thinking about him that night, all huddled up, teeth chattering, but he assured me that he stayed nice and warm in his double sleeping bag. A friend of his apparently "almost" got his toes frost-bit (according to Ethan, of course, so take this with a grain of rice. I have plenty.)


I've gotta admit, there are some things about Boy Scouts that I just don't understand, but I'd better get my head around it because I'm going to have a Boy Scout pretty much continuously for the next 16 years. For my two non-Mormon readers, the Church's youth program for boys from 12-18 is connected with the Boy Scout program. It's a great program. It's also a lot of work and pressure, complete with papers that need signatures and camps that require tinfoil dinners and badges that necessitate sewing. (I accidentally typed "swearing." Freudian?). Did I mention it's a great program?

3. I started marshalling troops for our Relief Society's upcoming production of Women at the Well in March. For my two non-Mormon readers (and my Mormon readers who tend to stay away from Mormon pop/inspirational music), Women at the Well is a production (not really a play) with narration and music about women during the time of Christ. Although Mormon pop/inspirational music has an undeniably high cheese factor, this particular production is actually pretty good. And somehow--miraculously, amazingly--all seven of the women I asked to sing (and SOLOS, no less) said yes. Enthusiastically. A few even thanked me for asking. It's probably going to be a lot of work, but I'm strangely okay with that. Grumpy about merit badge paperwork, okay about organizing slightly cheesy Mormon pop/inspirational productions. There you go.

4. Went out to lunch yesterday with the editors of the Mormon magazines represented at The Red Brick Store, our newborn Mormon Pubs blog. So I headed out with Kathy, my dearest compadre and editor of Segullah (of course!), to Thaifoon and ate Pad Thai and lettuce wraps with the editors of Sunstone and Dialogue. It was a ton of fun . . . except I forgot to turn my phone on vibrate and found after dropping Kathy off (3 minutes from my house) that apparently Wyatt had decided to stage a nap strike, today of all days, and my kids (happy MLK Day kids! It's babysitting time!) were calling me every twenty minutes wailing, "He won't go to sleep! Please come home! Pleeeaaaaaassse!" Everyone survived, though, even if Wyatt's diaper was on all skiwompus. It's good for the older kids to deal with stressful situations without mom around, right? Builds character? Thought so!

Now it's time to get the kids out the door for school. Jonas just said, "Hey Mom, aren't you going to do something for me?" "Like what?" I asked. (He's already been breakfasted up.) "I don't know," he replied. "Tell me to go upstairs and put on my socks."

See? A little character building is entirely appropriate.

Slug(ish)

Great news! My metabolism is about as efficient as a mid-level government bureaucrat.

After a year and a half of relatively diligent exercise with no discernible results, I decided to shell out a few dollars for metabolic testing at our friendly neighborhood Lifetime Fitness. So this morning I strapped on a super sexy blue face mask and treaded the mill for 15 minutes or so, and through a magical process that I still don't quite understand (it has something to do with oxygen and carbon dioxide and lactic acid and my heart rate and, quite possibly, the length of my fingernails) I received the following pronouncements:

1-I burn a measly 2 fat calories per minute during my PEAK of working out. Folks with good metabolisms burn 6 or 7 fat calories per minute.

2-(And this one is really a kicker). Most of the working out I've been doing over the last year and a half has been probably making things worse (mysteriously?) because I burn fat most effectively (my awesome 2 calories a minute!) when my heart rate is about 125. But when I'm working out hard--like in my spin class or other group fitness--my heart rate is between 155-170, and I'm burning nothing but sugar, which apparently is a terrible terrible mistake. Unless you're Lance Armstrong and/or Forrest Hallstrom, and then it's okay. Also, because I went from not much exercise to really intense exercise, my "baseline" (again, mysteriously??) is all out of whack and apparently causing my body to hang onto it's "fat stores" for dear life.

But there is some good news:

1-Although it will be boring, the hope is if I work out at a low intensity consistently, 4-5 times a week, my metabolism will change and become more effective. (Mysteriously??). So I suppose more "This American Life" podcasts on the elliptical trainer and fewer push-it-till-you-almost-puke Total Conditioning classes. Although I'm skeptical--it still seems so counterintuitive to me--they tell me that if I work out at this pace I'll start losing weight. It's worth a shot, I suppose.

2-Since it's apparently the end of the world (just ask all the people at the Southtowne Expo gun show), when our family is holed up in the basement, fending off the zombie looters, I'll keep on keepin on a lot longer than those with the super zippy, fancy dancy, extra awesome metabolisms. But come to think of it, that ISN'T good news because it means Forrest will die long before me and his zombie killing skills are far superior to mine. Me and my metabolism, kickin it throughout Armageddon, lonely and hungry and scared. Perfect.

On Thursday I'm doing the second part of the testing where they take a look at my resting heart rate and tell me the baseline number of calories I burn every day. Should be interesting. And if they tell me I must stop drinking Diet Coke I will nod and agree--it's an awful habit, and most certainly indicative of all sorts of failures of will on my part. And then I will ignore them.

No Diet Coke during Armageddon either, I'm sure. And Forrest and his metabolism will already be in heaven, where I'm sure Coke Zero will be abundantly available. Not fair all around.

Glitter on the Front Porch (And this does make sense if you know your 80s lyrics)

A picture of my Mom and Dad, singing "Love Shack" by the B-52s, 11:30 p.m., New Year's Eve. My mom did the Fred part. Rapped it.



And if you look closely, you'll see my sister-in-law asleep on the floor, and her 7 month old baby sent straight from heaven to grace us with her presence staring contentedly at a puzzle piece. At 11:30 at night. She'd been at it for an hour, smiling, cooing, grabbing her toes. Where do these babies come from??? (Oh, yes. Heaven. I guess I already answered that.)

Happy New Year, all y'all! (Okay, yes, a few days late.)

(and p.s., for my Mom's sake, yes I realize a posted a picture of you with your hair standing up on the back of your head . . . but I'll make sure everyone knows that you'd been lying on the ground and you smoothed it back down a few seconds after taking the picture. Lest they get the wrong impression of your impeccable grooming. :-).

(and another p.s., speaking of 80s lyrics, Forrest and I took this 80s lyrics quiz a few days ago, during a snowed-in day last week, and our score was deemed "scarily good" at 109. Can you beat us??)

Christmastime--A Photo Spread

Mama got a brand new camera for Christmas--a Nikon D40, a lovely digital SLR. Hooray! I'm still trying to figure it out and have lots to learn, but I'm already excited about having the ability to press a button and, click, take the picture I want. I can't tell you how many good shots I missed on my old digital cameras because of the infuriating lag time. The quality of the shots with the new camera is lots better too (as it should be!), especially in low light.

So here are some photos from Christmas '08. Not all of them are taken with the new camera, though. Can you tell which ones are which?

Christmas Eve shepherds (and the shepherd that lives in my house kept the get-up on just long enough to snap a picture):

Three Girls in a Tub. Although not specifically Christmassy, any time you get three nieces born within months of each other together, you have to strip them down to their diapers, put them in a tin washtub, and have a photo shoot. (Well, if they're under the age of one, silly):


The Nativity! (And a terrible picture. Sorry. I'm tipping my hand on this one):



Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma's:


The Annual Kids-At-The-Top-Of-The-Stairs photo. (Can we go now? Now? Now? Yess!)

Guess who got a cell phone? Sigh.:

And guess who caused Santa's elves to hunt high and low for specific Bakugan-related items? And yes, we are Bakugan-ed UP!

Much of the morning was spent with hand held electronics:


And plastic animals (we loooooove the plastic animals):



And we especially love our cute blue-eyed boy:




And cozy, snowy (super extra snowy) Christmas Day:

Our niece Lillian and her Uncle Forrest on Christmas Day (and note the black Utah shirt I searched hither and thither to obtain):


And more darling shots of the other three nieces at the extended family Christmas party later that week. (Because if cousins aren't be-diapered in a tub, they should be dressed in identical Christmas finery, under the tree):

The aforementioned extended family Christmas party:

Ethan, during the talent portion of the night, performing a few magic tricks to the astonishment of the crowd:


And that's all the photos I have the wherewithal to upload. Merry Christmas, and on to 2009!

Almost Here . . .

I still get so excited about Christmas. I just do. It's 7:45 on Christmas Eve day and I should probably be doing something productive . . . but instead I want to post some pictures (and a video! I'm so high techie today) of the fun we've had this week.

Wyatt playing in the snow:


Holiday decorations, courtesy of Jonas. (And photo courtesy of Jonas. He also took the next one. Then he made me take the one after that.)





Wyatt's vision of the nativity:


Christmas Baking Extravaganza (with closeup shot of Forrest's chocolate crinkles. So pretty. And yes, the kitchen was a ridiculous mess):




Elise's elementary school choir performance. She's the fifth one from the right on the top row. I'll include a close-up picture, too, so you can see how cute she is.





The Original Handmade Amazing Murial W. Christmas village--under the tree! We figured Wyatt could handle it this year--last year it was on top of the piano. He's done pretty well with it, but we have a few horses missing tails and trees missing tips.


The Dining-Room-Table-Full-o-Gifts. Although Wyatt does okay with the village, I don't trust him with wrapped presents. So for now, this is where all my wrapped presents go. Who says a formal dining room doesn't get used??


And now it's onward and upward to Christmas Eve! I finished grading yesterday (hooray!), the presents are all purchased (but not all wrapped), and it's time to have some fun.

Ten Things I Miss About the 90s

1. Pants with zippers longer than two inches high. You could wear them and not look like a dork because, well, those were the only pants available. And your pants stayed up! And you didn't show anybody your underwear!



2. Looking forward to the next episode of The X-Files

3. My creaseless forehead

4. Truly believing that one could eat as many mini marshmallows, gummy candies, Hot Tamales, bagels, and platters of spaghetti with red sauce as one wanted because they were low fat and therefore ABSOLUTELY HARMLESS

5. Commercials for the Health Rider on TV



6. Our convertible Jeep Wrangler

7. Kurt Cobain


(I still blame Courtney.)

8. Owning a house that cost less than $100,000

9. Being blissfully unaware that I was supposed to pluck my eyebrows.
(Once you go down that road, friends, there's no turning back.)

10. Sleeping in (circa 1990-1996)

What do YOU miss about the 90s?