Monkey Blanket

Below is my accomplishment for the day: the sock monkey fleece blanket, the fabric for which my mother bought when we moved into this house 2 years ago.  Actually, with how long most of my projects sit on the shelf, this one moved through the queue pretty quickly.  Also I did not spend much time trying to make it an even rectangle.  It was just too unwieldy for me to feel picky.  I think I've gotten to the point with my projects where I've officially traded quality for quantity.

I wanted it is a large soft play-area for the Bug.  He tested and approved:

Blankets are so rewarding to sew.  Straight cutting, straight sewing, minimal time, useful results.  So much winning.

Gopher

I'm not sure how I did so much today and don't really have anything to say about it.  Except that as I was attempting to feed my son sweet potatoes tonight, I suddenly realized how much it was like playing one of those arcade games where the gopher keeps popping out of different holes and you're supposed to hit him before he disappears again. Only that game is much more satisfying than trying to get sweet potatoes in a small human's mouth. Also this new version of the game involves more projectiles and usually ends with the gopher/child triumphantly seizing my mallet/spoon. Only to gag themself on it and throw it to the ground. I feel like I need the same cheat we used to do: 3-4 all focused on one hole. Maybe if there were 4 spoons coming from 4 different directions? I'm sure it'd still end with me covered in sweet potatoes and the spoons all thrown to the floor.

Fa-hoo Fo-reys

I'm honestly impressed I got that far into the month (if you ignore my late start) without missing a day.  It as thoroughly inevitable that I would forget a day.  But considering my typical frequency, anyone reading this should know what to expect.  So I'm just not gonna apologize too much.

Today I led the congregational hymns, did the special musical number in sacrament, and did music in Primary with the kids during the last two hours.  Sort of felt like a one-woman show.  Which is all the more impressive when I know we don't lack for musicians in our ward (ok, more so than we used to, but we're still much more blessed than most places given the large music school nearby).  The end result is that I have no voice.  So instead of going to stake choir practice tonight and singing Christmas music, which I would love to do more than most things, I am blogging.

Really though, I love Christmas carols more than any other music (which I feel is truly saying something).  If I ever lost my mind and dove back into academia for a doctorate in music-related things (like I would qualify for anything else...), I would try to incorporate Christmas music into my dissertation.  No idea if that would be possible but it's currently a moot point because no.  I need a looooong break from academia.  But seriously, I collect caroling books.  I get excited about good 4-part arrangements.  And I dream that I'll have one more son and he and the Monkey Bug will together be able to handle any men's parts I throw at them.  Last year (or maybe the year before?  I don't remember?), I sat down and scribed out the vocal parts to Welcome Christmas from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Because they aren't available anywhere (I looked).  And because I've always wanted to carol it.  Of course, now that the sister and I have started having our children, it'll probably be 10 years before I get the chance.  But whatever, we might need those 10 years to find and befriend a bass to sing that low.

Meanwhile I suppose I'll go practice piano because I still have to prove to the people giving me a degree that I'm capable of memorizing a cheesy little piece and spitting it back to them.  I just might get sidetracked by some carols.

And for your Sunday enjoyment, his church duds:

Interaction

I find myself getting on the F-book less and less.  People are always arguing and posting things I disagree with but there's no point in mentioning that I disagree because I don't want to argue.  All I wants is to know what is up with the people I care about who live far away from me and who I would lose all contact with except for the convenience of the technology that is the F-book.  Unlike the people who complain about people posting life accomplishments/milestones/travesties, I want to know who is getting married, who is having a baby (after years of infertility, some of them!), who is moving somewhere exotic that I can both envy and pity, who needs extra prayers because they lost a job/got a horrible diagnosis/lost a loved one/are simply having a terrible time with life.  (I take praying for people by name seriously, which can mess with my and the husband's brain sometimes as we try to remember everybody every night.)

But people posting things about how awful other people are makes me grumpy.  And people fighting over politics makes me want to punch the screen.  That said, I can't imagine how the Obamas think they are raising a generation to their end of the political spectrum by messing with kids' school lunches.  Every time I see what kids are being offered at school, or an article about it, all I can think is, "Michelle should not be surprised when, over the next ten years the newest voters all go Republican because kids still blame her for starving during middle/high school."

Still, as tempted as I've been, I can't quite quit the F-book.  I've lived in too many different places and have friends/family that I care about deeply scattered much too far to keep track of any other way.  Although if I were blessed to have stayed in one place since high school, with the vast majority of my family and friends still nearby, I think I could do it.  Face to face interaction is so much better.

Speaking of which, here is the cutest face to face interaction I saw today:

(Daddy is jumping out from the bathroom to scare us.)

Golden Monkey

Apparently when I'm sick I'm too brain-addled to think to take pictures.  So here is a video I managed to take... yesterday:

He has long conversations with that little golden monkey.  Most of which sound quite frustrated.  I don't know exactly what that monkey did to him, but it's the one he always focuses on.  I've been tempted to cut it off and give it to him, but then I'm afraid he'll be sad it's not there to talk to/rant at anymore.  So I secretly film his conversations instead.

Sick day

I have razor blades living in my throat, so I get extra props for managing/remembering to do this today.

Monkey Bug also got his shots yesterday and I know I'm not the only mother out there who thinks the day after shots is always worse than the day of.  Meanwhile, he is a tall, weighty kid with a smallish head.  Who likes to suck on his toes:

Sunday

First of all, this micro-suit makes me want to buy my son a fedora, possibly a little fake machine gun, and put '30s gangster slang in captions under the picture:

Second of all, my job at church is to do music with the kids, which is pretty much the best job out there.  But it's like pulling nails to find people to commit to substitute for me so on days like today when I feel like crap, I find that I'd rather go to the effort of just dragging myself to church than find someone who will take care of my job for me.  And so we did the Move Cube.  Which is essentially a giant cube that they can roll like a die and it has things like "spin around," "jump up," "high five," "move right/left," etc. on each side.  And we "moved" every time we sang something in the song that was a blessing.  It was a great quick idea, albeit a not very well-thought-out one, since of course I had to lead said moving.  Oops.  The third time somebody rolled "jump up," I made him do it again.  Even though he's 3.

Naptime

This kid does not want to miss anything.  He's been fighting the whole nap thing for a while.  Although I'm probably just an ignorant first-time parent who gives in too easily.  The only sure way to get him to nap is to snuggle him into submission.  He snores really loud and flops around a lot for someone so small (relatively speaking, since compared to other kids his age, he's quite the chunk).   It makes it kinda hard to sleep in the same room as him...

Yes, he did this position himself.  Little contortionist. 

 The Buddha belly is 90% of why I had to share these pics.  It's so squishable.  

Uninteresting

Part of my problem trying to blog is that I can't think of anything to write about most of the time.  I've tried to start writing about a couple of different things and each time I got about 2 sentences in and had nothing more to say.  Or realized it was completely uninteresting (not that I'm hitting the ball out of the park with this intro either...)

Maybe I've just gotten that uninteresting?

I mean, I did get excited at the prospect of invisible zippers for 89 cents each a few minutes ago...  and I have no idea what movies are currently in the theaters... oh well...

More cuteness!!  This kid is a master scooter.

6 Months!

This kid is so cute it hurts.  The new thing this week is exploring our voice, i.e. making pterodactyl sounds.  But we also get super excited when we see Daddy, love to be tickled, and are completely fascinated with the rotating space heater.  We also chew on everything, drool all over, and are very good at blowing out multiple diapers per day.  Pretty sure we almost single-handedly support the stocking of Oxi-Clean pretreat in all local stores.

Grand Plans

Grand plans, people.  Everyday I have grand plans.  Unfortunately, whereas my grand plans used to usually look like:

• Write grad school papers and read 50 pages+ per day of academic enlightening/nonsense articles/books.
• Make lesson plans and email them to all the other grad instructors I coordinate.
• Teach eager minds the basics of music or the essentials of flute-playing.
• Write my own flute tutor and get it published.
• Pass off extra courses for my degree while enrolled in a full schedule.
• Etc.

Now my grand plans include things like washing poop off things and trying to shower.  And the really grand ones are things like cooking and figuring out how to wipe personal information off an old computer that needs to get out because I can't take the clutter anymore, ack.  (And barring success at the latter, tearing into said computer and removing the hard drive so we can smash it with a hammer, Izma-style.)  But given that I have someone smiling and cooing at me much more often than I ever did in school, it is much more fulfilling.

So having baked cornbread twice this week is a big accomplishment.  (I hate cooking - if I'm going to create something time-consuming, I would rather be sewing.  Or at least trying to get better at piano.)  And I'm kinda sad I didn't try to make gluten free cornbread from scratch before.  Because those dang mixes are expensive.  And the stuff from scratch isn't much more time consuming.  In fact, I'm thinking I'll just make some of my own mixes ahead of time once I know I'm thoroughly happy with my ingredient ratios.

And here's some gratuitous cuteness, since I haven't been able to blog from my stinking phone that has all the pictures:

Accomplishments

So I obviously failed at doing weekly updates. However, I successfully grew a cute human and made it through a year of grad school & teaching. No promises, but I'm hoping to at least get pictures on here regularly. In this first offering, Monkey Bug is happily chirping away at his parents until midnight after a long trip home from meeting the Utah Chapter of his Adoring Fan Club.