When Jay was eleven, he went to the Tabernacle for the general priesthood session with his father. He remembers standing in the long line terrified that his non-priesthood age would be discovered and he’d be booted from the premises. His worry reached a climax when someone who knew his dad approached them and after the initial words of greeting, Jay recalls him turning and saying, “Well, Jay, I didn’t realize you were already twelve!”
Of course, he was allowed to stay and attend but we laughed as he recounted the story of “sneaking in.” I have my own recollections of stress from trying to pretend I’m an age I am not (um....19....78!) but, sadly, my effort to trespass was under less righteous circumstances.
Seth turns twelve in eleven days. We thought it appropriate that he have his own experience of sneaking in to the priesthood session this conference. It’s quite dumbfounding to watch him with his father and wonder when he grew so tall or when his face became so narrow. He still has a few inches to go, but the distance between father and son is shrinking and I have a hunch the taller will become the shorter before long.
Seth has been tying his own ties for years with the half-Windsor method Jay taught him. It is easy to learn and I can even tie my boys ties so that they’ll look good in a pinch, though both are still usually better than me. In a moment of frustration, he complained that his adult sized tie was too long for him and he couldn’t get the length to look right. Jay interceded and took a few moments to teach Seth the full Windsor method that he himself uses. Sure enough, with that extra loop, the tie was just the right length.
I hope Seth always looks to his father for advice and guidance. I hope someday he remembers the priesthood session he “snuck” into and tells his own son about it while helping him with his tie.
In the meantime, he can practice being a good influence on his baby brother.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Sneaking In
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Lucy or Lucifer
Until about 5:30 this late afternoon, I was a cool mom. Seth, who is so hard on shoes, but legitimately needs a new pair, was given permission to hang out at the middle school playing basketball until I dropped Sam off for his soccer practice at 4:15 and then go with me to the mall to buy a new pair of shoes.
A few weeks ago, I got a $25 off coupon in the mail for Famous Footwear and that was the first place we went. I thought a few pair looked like they would do...not nerdy but not trendy and his sullen response caused me to respond, “Well, I’m not going to buy you a pair of shoes you so obviously do not want.” Still not overly frustrated, I suggested we go look in the newly opened TJMaxx at the end of the mall.
They don’t carry boys sneakers.
So we walked to Bealls. Nothing he wanted.
JC Penney. Nada.
Determined to end the shoe shopping afternoon successfully, I drove down the road to Big 5. I sent him in alone with instructions to come get me when he found a pair he liked, (my shoulder and bicep were throbbing from carrying Daniel around in his infant carrier because I forgot the stroller and he was asleep so I left him in it) but he came out ten minutes later shaking his head.
“What kind of shoe do you want???” I asked completely exasperated. I was under the impression that he wanted a pair of Nike but every single place we went to, minus TJMaxx, had Nikes but obviously not any he wanted.
“Well, Landen has a pair of Freeruns and so do a bunch of other people and I really want a pair of good running shoes that has a built in tongue and.....”
With a certain amount of annoyance in my voice, I said, “O.K. But I’m not going to spend a ton of money on a pair of sneakers just because you only want a certain kind. And you could have told me what you wanted before I spent an hour lugging Daniel around the mall.”
Then, he stopped talking to me.
Just this past weekend, my sister, Emily, asked me if my kids were into brand names. I proudly declared them not and wonder now if I jinxed myself? What’s up with him needing shoes like his friends? It’s not like I was going to buy him a dorky pair of Avias or LA Gear. I’m not clueless. I miss the ease of shopping for young children or, in actuality, I miss buying what I want them to wear.
Is this an exercise in agency? I gave it my all...went to five different stores to support his choice but I’m at a point where I want to command, “Here are your shoes!” because I sort of know best. I looked up these freeruns online and they are kind of wimpy shoes. Billed as minimal shoes (aka no material used for cushion), they should be cheap but, of course, they are not because apparently, boys want them. They come in funky bright colors and you can even build your own pair but it all seems like much ado about nothing. They are shoes. He’ll destroy them from misuse in a few short months. His method of shopping is inefficient and painful. I could free him of that pain. I could choose for him.
Cue the My Turn On Earth soundtrack...now.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Anatomy of My Memories
Do you ever walk down memory lane? It’s an interesting phrase and one that happens to me almost literally. While the small plane I was in flew over the city of Denver, I looked out of the window and could see exactly where Jay and I lived for four years. I could see the streets and parks my friend, Libby, and I jogged through. I could see the hospital where Jay and I both spent so much time (me as a virologist, he as a med student). I could see the zoo where I actually bought a season pass to walk around with a very young Seth in a stroller before I realized that just because I was now a stay-at-home mom, I still wasn’t a lover of animals nor of their smells (we should have just bought the day pass). So many memories came flooding into me merely by seeing the streets where I used to live.
For some reason, nostalgia transported me from Denver to my grandmother’s home in Cache Valley, Utah. I haven’t been there since I was a very young girl and I found myself running from room to room in my mind. In the living room, I remember the wide red arm chairs with their scratchy fabric and the L-shaped fireplace that faced both the living room and the family/dining room. I see my grandmother’s desk with her felt shaped family tree hanging above it and the long couch with a colorful afghan throw on its back. Straight ahead is the blond dining room table with chairs covered in pink fabric and a decorative needlepoint design, all atop a textured carpet with a variety of oval shaped braided rugs throughout the room I can not only see but feel with my toes perfectly. The kitchen, in my memory, is wonderfully bright and clean, decorated with pink paint and on the table are colorful metallic cups that feel cold to touch when filled with ice water or cold milk. The ironing room in a small annex off the kitchen is decorated with bright yellow curtains and a black rotary phone on the wall. At the back of the kitchen are stairs down to the scary root cellar I always avoided. My grandmother’s bedroom is off the living rooms near the front door and its contents are fuzzy in spite of me knowing exactly where it is located. I walk up the stairs that curve ninety degrees at the bottom to the upstairs landing where two twin beds with green bedspreads fill the room. In one large bedroom to the left, two huge beds with white chenille covers await their guests and another room holds only one bed as well as a mirrored vanity with a painted rock on top which I pretended held my blue eyeshadow and bright red lipstick. It must be summer because the room is hot and the windowsill contains dead flies.
The house is so clear in my memories. White, with a horseshoe driveway with tall, tall trees on either side of the pavement. The roof was dark green and so low to the ground back by the kitchen that you could walk up and down it. Raspberries fill the yard. An old car with a push start ignition stood in the rickety garage. The grass is prickly and patchy.
I walk through this house but as hard as I try to remember, I cannot find the bathroom. There must be a bathroom. It must be on the main floor somewhere but where? Off the kitchen? In the master bedroom? I don’t remember one upstairs.
I ask my mother my first day of visiting and she describes it as off the dining room. I can’t picture it. She describes it in detail, the yellow color, the wallpaper, the half wall and none of it rings a bell. It’s a complete non-memory.
Perhaps I would remember if I saw a picture of it. I’m sure I used that bathroom. When I was telling this experience to my younger sister, Sarah, she immediately told me, “If you walked straight ahead from the front door, it was next to the dining room table. She was even younger than I was. Of course, she also has a freaky memory, but still...it troubled me.
I decided that I never, ever wanted to walk through the halls of my childhood home and not remember where the bathrooms were. There is something very powerful about photos in stirring up remembrance and although my parents have made changes and upgrades throughout the house and it is decorated with much fancier things than my mother dared attempt while we six children bounded through the house, I still delight in mentally wandering from room to room. So many, many memories in each one.
It’s only a structure but it holds the first half of my life.
Recently updated with new siding, garage doors and a fancy vinyl fence (we had the scary wobbly metal one that was probably scary wobbly because my brother and his friends liked to leap over it), I love the quaintness of this home. This ugly March doesn’t capture it well at all as the front always has lovely flowers blooming in beds that run along the entire front. There used to be a pretty crabtree in the middle of the yard and a tall weeping birch to the right whose dangling branches provided exotic doorways to a multi-roomed fort.
The west side. This was the main play yard. Here is where we played croquet, volleyball, and did cartwheels. Jon and I used to practice our backspins on a piece of cardboard placed on the grass. This little area separated by the small walk is the piece of lawn I used to go and sit on so it would get used. I worried it would feel...lonely. The brick fence was a gateway to the roof which we frequently accessed as teenagers to jump down onto the backyard trampoline. My poor parents. It’s hard to see but there is a garden along the fence and house and it always produces a lot of vegetables and strawberries each year. It even looks pretty with yellow and orange marigolds running along its border.
The patio. An excellent place for basketball (obviously) and sunbathing. I can remember being oddly obsessed with making the sophomore high school basketball team and practicing my free throws over and over the summer before tryouts. I distinctly remember my sister, Emily, telling me I was missing a lot of them. On the grass was where the tent was set up when cousins came to visit and always my preferred sprinkler location if I was ever going to run through it. I’m standing nearby the backyard raspberry patch that we called the briar patch. Our cat is buried there. I didn’t like the cat.
The living room wall. I love this wall. For me, it is my mother’s wall. It’s decorated with her past. English things for her time in England. Things from both China and Myanmar from her time there. Books from her studies as an English major. Books from my adolescence. Copies of scriptures and even an old french textbook so I can remember how to conjugate verbs in the subjunctive tense. I’m not sure if I have a favorite thing up there. Maybe the Shakespeare plate that has been up there for as long as I can remember or the girl on the top shelf wearing a blowing pink dress because I would have liked to have been that girl. Maybe the nativity because it is one of many that she possesses and loves. No, I see it now. It is the bell that my grandmother used to call for help on the shelf underneath the mirror.
That mirror is iconic. It was our audience when we performed. Our last minute appearance check before heading out anywhere. I laugh when I remember coming home and seeing dozens of my school pictures decorating it and the other shelves. Over and over and over again. My siblings always got a great laugh watching me take them all down in embarrassment when I’d come home.
The kitchen. My favorite thing by far in this room is the wall oven. I thought it was so fancy. Everyone I knew had an oven underneath their range but we had this wall oven that you didn’t have to bend over to open and it was symbolic to me somehow of how my mother did things differently than my friends’ moms. I wish I could say I have memories of helping my mom with meals and doing lots and lots of dishes but I was pretty spoiled. Sure, I did the dishes sometimes but the memories of me snacking on homemade bread or frozen Keebler grasshopper cookies are stronger than pulling anything out of that glamorous oven.
The dining room. Nine of us sat around this table (which is bigger with a few leaves in it) for a big chunk of my childhood. I sat in the far corner furthest away from the kitchen next to my dad, who sat in the middle of the long side, and my sister, Emily, who had an arm chair next to the sliding glass doors. Maureen sat next to her and I faced my mother, who sat nearest the kitchen for obvious reasons, and Sarah, who never got a hard chair. She had a non-matching squishy brown thing that had to be pushed against the wall when we weren’t eating. My grandmother sat in the chair on the right nearest the living room and my brother sat to her left. Jennifer finished the nine between Jon and my dad. My head is full of plastic tablecloths and fancy lace ones that came out for holiday meals and company. It is illuminated by a glass chandelier that I’ve since learned is quite simple but seemed luxurious to a young girl. I imagined its dangling shards (that have since been replaced by real waterford crystal) as my earrings (I was a bit big earring obsessed as a youth). I still love it.
Looking at the living room from the dining room you can see the large windows that are almost always left uncovered. Many have reported watching us dance or wrestle or just being as they drove past our house at night. This is the room where we gather. It holds no TV and the chairs are all different from the ones I remember but the touch lamps are the same and the crack in the ceiling that my mom always worried about when the frequent dancing would begin remains. More than the things it holds, I cherish the words, the music and the ideas that have been sung and shared here. Sadly, no photo will ever be able to capture those.
The upstairs hallway. Those cupboards contain all the fancy things my mother collected during her travels as a young adult and she waited years and years to bring them out.
In the hallway behind the door to the downstairs is a cork board that holds all kinds of out of date things. It used to hold the picture buttons of me and my sister Sarah in our sport uniforms made for boosters to wear during our games. The wall phone with the cord so long and stretched out it touched the floor was mounted next to it. I love this old phone contact sheet still hanging. I’m pretty sure that was my sophomore at BYU phone number.
The main bathroom. I grew up with a pink tub so at some level, having one now is a comfort. This is the best tub. Even though none of us used my parents shower, I can’t remember it ever having a rod with a shower curtain to double as a shower. It was just always...the tub. Emily permed, colored, rag tied, braided and hot curled my hair in here. I remember trying to sneak out the window once. It wasn’t this window, it was one that opened at an angle from the top. I think I may have been successful but my memory says there was pain involved....
What I consider my Grandma’s room. Her white leather rocking chair was in the right corner and her bed pushed up against the left wall. Her TV stood diagonally from her chair and her tall dresser right next to it. Another chair stood nearby the door. I loved having her live with us and loved seeing that same felt family tree on the wall above her chair. It also made me sad because it showed the name of three aunts and an uncle who I had never met. All had died. I felt sad for her.
I loved these curtains. I fancied that when I got married, my mom could make my veil out of one of them. So funny. I’m glad they are still on the walls and were never on my head. I know this room was also Sarah’s room for awhile and a TV room for many years after we had all moved out. Now, my mom sews and irons in here and my dad practices the accompaniments for the ward choir on the keyboard but it will always be Grandma’s room.
My parent’s room. If you were lucky and got up early, you could snuggle with my mom in bed and read the paper (never my dad. I have never once woken up for the day before my dad). A comfortable chair fills it now but the space underneath the larger window always held a desk with my mom’s sewing machine on it. I can see fabric on the bed and my mom working on a choir dress or a prom dress or a bridesmaid dress or an easter dress. I loved those dresses.
The view from their bed. I just wanted to remember how pretty the mountain looks from here. And you could see their bathroom which always seemed very private to me. I hardly ever used it. I do remember going in there to look through their records which, for some reason, were in a box on the floor underneath the sink.
The stairs. See that tiny strip of carpet on the left? Can you picture a young girl using it as her balance beam? And the walls were just narrow enough to climb up barefoot. I walked down them several times while I was visiting and I noticed that my descent sounded like my mom’s descent. I could always tell who was coming downstairs by how they walked down. I was a little surprised when my own current sound was so familiar.
The closet at the top of the stairs. The perfect place to hide in a game of hide-and-seek. Also, the perfect place for a lazy teenage girl to put everything her mother told her to take downstairs thinking she would just “do it later.” I wonder if I still have something of mine in there that never made it to my room.
The family room. I wish I had a picture of the orange striped carpet of my young childhood. This was wear the sleepovers were held and the movie nights and even where I got my first kiss (it was yucky and during the movie Christmas vacation even though it was in August). Lots of wrestling. It is completely black when the lights are off because there are no windows. That’s made for some smoky rooms when a fire gets going. We rarely had fires down here.
I love these collage frames. I took pictures so I’d have these pictures too.
When there are five girls and a grandma, the sole boy needs some privacy. Sadly, privacy came at a premium and the fruit room became Jon’s room. After awhile, some carpet, wallpaper and ceiling helped make it less...storage like. Still, my brother slept with the peaches and the pears and the washer and dryer. He made it his own with posters of Van Halen and other glam rock bands on the wall. He did have his own door that led directly to the garage. I don’t know if he used it. Well...I know he did when we used to sneak out to ride our bikes down to Green Meadow Market on Saturday night for a six pack of Cherry Coke to drink before Saturday Night Live. I was in fourth grade when I did this. Fourth grade!!!!!!!
The hallway to the downstairs bedrooms. I think we all liked to climb up these walls and have people walk through our legs. I don’t know how my mother kept the walls clean.
This room housed my Barbie mansion. I loved barbies! It stood where the bookshelf is now and it was pink and glorious. I had the convertible too. And that mirror was a teenage girl’s best friend. It helped me with many an outfit ensemble.
Jen’s room or Sarah’s room or what I call the green room. This was my room too for many, many years but I never think of it that way. For a long time, Sarah and I shared bunk beds and my sister, Jen, had her own twin along the other wall. This was the room I slept in when I had the worst nightmare of my life after my cousin was murdered and her killers were still on the loose and I was so scared I couldn’t move. It is also where my final destination was when I had to sneak back to bed after trying to catch Santa on Christmas Eve. As a young girl, my dad would tuck me us in and then, as he walked back upstairs, we would call out, “Goodnight! I love you! What’s for breakfast tomorrow?” We said it so regularly and predictably I can still hear the rhythm of the chant and our intonations.
Emily and Maureen’s room. Any girl with older sisters can attest to the tendency to worship them during their teenage years. I loved their room. I loved their pink and mint green reversible comforters. I loved their boy posters on the wall. It was also my room. For my entire high school career, this was where I read books until the middle of the night and where wet towel after wet towel stayed on the floor until my mother came to either rehang them or wash them. I would have slapped me! FYI, this is the one and only quilt I have ever made. I wanted it in my parents house so I could always see it. I think it’s beautiful but it was so hard, I’ve never wanted to try another.
I wanted a view of the other wall. It was my room after all.
The downstairs bathroom. Picture five girls all getting ready at the same time. Picture us all sharing a sink, spitting toothpaste over another’s head and trying to get that space between the toilet and the sink that got you up close to the mirror to put your mascara on. I took the longest showers as a teen. At least 20 minutes. My dad hated it. Not only did I use up all the hot water but I’m sure I upped the heating bill.
I love this house because it holds many of my favorite memories. I hope these pictures help me to always remember them.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
He or She?
I love the color orange. After chocolate brown, it is my favorite color. I think it’s as cheerful and warm as yellow, as vibrant and bold as red and a happily gender-neutral option.
So, it surprised me today as Daniel and I flew home how frequently people asked me how old “she” was? I’d respond with a friendly, "He is three months old.” Then, I’d abate their apology by empathizing with, “It’s hard to tell by the orange outfit.”
I know it’s hard to determine a baby’s gender by appearance and that we rely heavily on what they wear or what color of blanket is swaddling them (his was blue) and I truly didn’t mind anyone calling him a girl because that’s really a silly thing to mind but...could no one just assume Daniel was a boy?
Monday, March 26, 2012
Daniel - 14 Weeks
Kissing your grandma in Montana
This weekly counting is getting a little more difficult. Today was the first time that I had to think, "How many weeks old is Daniel?" At some point during the last two weeks, I have switched over to aging you in months, although I'm going to continue to take your weekly photo for your first year. At 14 weeks, you are getting closer and closer to consistently sleeping through the night. I have stopped dreading evenings, wondering how your mood will be and how many hours of sleep I will get. I'm noticing your pattern and you like to sleep! If only we didn't have anywhere to go.
You nap best in the morning. Unfortunately, that's also when I like to exercise but during this week, when I haven't made it to the gym, you took a long three hour nap every morning after being awake for nearly two hours. You also like your afternoon nap but it's length is less predictable. You love your thumb. In fact, you have a chapped index finger from it sitting against your wet, slobbery lips while your thumb gets all the attention. I hope your skin adapts because it looks like it hurts. Still, I love that you have a means of soothing yourself to sleep.
You had your first airplane ride! We flew to Montana to visit your grandpa and grandma for four days. You really woo those around you with your infectious smile and coos but watch out when you're mad. Even when you're mad, sometimes I still smile because your mad face really resembles the bitter beer face from those commercials of old.
I think I'm your favorite person. It's easy to be when time and food are on my side but it's still heartwarming to watch you track me across the room and smile and laugh when I catch your eye.
At 14 weeks, I'm a pretty big fan of yours.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Book Review #8 - Faith
It's been so long since I've had the luxury of reading an entire novel in one day so that fact alone must contribute to how much I liked this book.
Faith, by Jennifer Haigh, exposes the title's opposite power: doubt. Art Breen, a Catholic priest, has been accused of molesting a young boy. His family members - a devout mother, sympathetic sister and estranged brother, all react to the news quite differently. The author employs a powerful plot tool in forcing the reader to also examine our own faith or doubt, not in catholoisism, but in mankind by keeping the truth covered until the very end.
The narration is also very, very interesting. It's written from the sister's point of view but she writes it as the recounted memories and an unfolding expose of those she interviews and knows so, oftentimes, each character - her mother, Mary, her accused brother, Art, and her brother, Mike, are all known much more intimately than as often depicted when seen through another's eyes. She also frequently leaves the present situation to add understanding with a backstory or memory. It's complicated and murky and I really enjoyed it.
For such an icky topic, it's not an icky book. There is quite a bit of language as it is set in working class Boston and those inhabitants are fond of the F-bomb, but each character is so well developed that you are able to sympathize and celebrate with their various flaws and triumphs. Above all, you see how there is no such thing as simple faith. Our experiences and choices make us who we are and influence what we believe, even if who we are is not how we appear to others and what we believe is not how we live.
Interesting and haunting, I'll be thinking about this book for days.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Book Review #7 - The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
I think I underestimated this novel. After finishing it two days ago and dismissing it as nothing more than a romantic fable, time and discussion with my mother have made it uncomfortably clear that I didn't appreciate this story for what it is: a juxtaposition between eastern and western thought and the probability of an alternate reality.
In spite of those complicated layers, it IS also a romantic fable. Tin Win is a poor boy in Burma, forced to accept the fate the astrologers gave him on the day of his unlucky birth. Through acceptance and humility, he enjoys a peaceful and satisfying life of education from a Buddist monk and is surprised by the unfamiliar joy he feels when he falls in love with a local cripple, Mi Mi. While certainly no expert, I would guess it falls at least partially into the magical realism genre with the unbelievable happenings and quite fantastical plot development.
However, as the story unfolds via story telling from an easterner to a cyncical westerner, Tin Win's New york daughter (you'll have to read the book to unravel the mystery of how Tin Win became a New Yorker), the reader is unknowingly exposed to his or her own bias. I am thoroughly western. I could scarcely believe anybody could think and act the way the Burmese people did in this story. My mother, who lived in Myanmar (Burma) for nearly two years assures me that there is indeed a great difference. So, I can say there is no way this story could happen, that it is fantasy, but perhaps I am seeing only with my eyes (again, you'll understand that reference if you read the book).
Translated originally from German, this is a beautiful and, yes, romantic story. I wish I could fully appreciate its beauty but with my nearsighted sensibilities, I'm afraid its truth is beyond my ability to grasp.
Friday, March 23, 2012
The Star Of The Show
There is nothing quite like knowing someone else loves your child. It's more than nice or sweet or reassuring, it's somehow a powerful affirmation of everything that is good and kind. My sister, Emily, arrived today, there were suddenly four of us watching, admiring and laughing at a certain dramatic little three month-old. He could go from laughing to complete fury in a matter of minutes. I'd like to attribute it to travel and his uncertainty in a new place, but...who am I kidding. He's my son. Moods will abound.
Other than an outing to Staggering Ox, the day was spent discussing books, movies, food, parenting, memories, our callings and nuggets like what eternity might be like. You know...just some chit chat.
Love this picture of my mom and Emily reading the same book. I read it the next day after they were both finished.
I was also told that Daniel is much smaller than he appears on the blog so maybe the above picture will help return him to his actual size. Not a very action packed day but one that takes its rightful spot in the blessed column.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Glory of the West
After hearing one disgruntled man sitting in front of me on the airplane say as Daniel and I settled into our seats, "Great, we're next to a baby," I was relieved that he aced that leg of our travels. He cooed and smiled and flirted with everyone around us and when people started deboarding the plane, several admirers including old fussbucket himself, complimented him. "What a good baby!" they admired.
It couldn't last.
He fussed and cried and screamed off and on throughout the entire hour and a half flight to Montana and the man sitting in front of us this time put in ear plugs. I was glad he did. In fact, it should be a rule on airplanes that everyone have some sort of noise cancelling device on their ears to lessen the guilt mothers who must travel with children have when their littles aren't perfect angels.
Now we're here and I'm calm. My parents fixed up a baked potato with chili, a meal I never think to make at home, and it was perfect. Easy, warm, comforting and no trouble. (We use Nalley Chili. I suppose it would be quite a bit of fuss if the chili were homemade just to top the potato). Daniel is sleeping in Grandma's portacrib and I'm itching to read one of the three books I brought.
There is absolutely no reason for this trip except my parents wanted me (okay...Daniel) to come and it worked out with my sister-in-law around to help watch the older boys after school and get them to their various places. Sure, a state bordering Canada might not make many people's got-to-go destinations in March but I'm completely content to be here anytime. I'm looking forward to sharing my glory of the west with you for the next few days.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Book Review #6 - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
I am only starting to catch on to the joys of audiobooks. While I definitely prefer holding a book and turning pages, I admit it was very pleasant to listen to Mindy Kaling read her book in her own voice. Almost like listening to a really funny friend tell you stories. Only, that friend would also have to be kind of annoying because she never let me get a word in edgewise. Thus, my problem with audiobooks.
Still, I did enjoy this short (less than 5 hours!) and funny memoir. A few times, she left her I’m-so-funny voice for a pretty thoughtful take on marriage and being nice to people but most of the time, it felt more like reading a funny blog. Lots of jumping around from story to story with no beginning-middle-end arc. Most of her antidotes were lists of her favorite or worst things, lists of her ideas and lots of commentary about how funny and fat she is and she IS funny (but not fat. I hate it when her big reveal is her whopping size 8. Hollywood people have zero perspective). She’s also a good writer which makes sense since that is her job (she is more of a writer on The Office than actress Kelly Kapoor).
There is some language that could have been avoided but I think funny people like to swear. I kind of get it in stand-up, where they have that single moment to make an impact but when writing, and editing and reading etc...I just don’t get it. You have time to find a better word! Use a thesaurus if necessary!
All in all, I enjoyed it. I am a girl who likes to laugh and I laughed. A lot.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
At Three Months...
Still seth, me thinks. But those pensive eyes have a lot of Sam in them.
Now for the laughing pictures.
Because I look at them so much, they really just look like themselves to me. It’s fun to hear others give me their opinion of who Daniel favors. Today, I got a “me” vote. I never get votes. It’s funny because he does bear a strong resemblance to Seth, who is a mini-Jay. I think they’re all adorable. How fun.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Daniel - 13 Weeks or 3 Months Exactly!
All of my other boys have a three month studio portrait. Even though I know photography has exploded and these kinds of pictures are the equivalent of school photos, I wanted Daniel to get studio portraits so I could compare each boy’s looks at three months. Because we do not even have a studio portrait place in my town, I had to travel an hour south and spend way too much money to get my hands on these very mediocre pictures.
It was not a pleasant experience. I had to talk the photographer, who, I believe, was still in training (I was eavesdropping on one of her phone conversations) out of using all sorts of gaudy props. All I wanted was a clean, white background and she used this horrid beige blanket and that was to cover up the even more horrid white pillow with a ring of frilly lace around it. Seriously. I can’t imagine that pillow being suitable for any kind of picture. Daniel wasn’t even smiley (probably because the photographer had exactly ONE trick - clapping). He did smile in the above shot which is probably why the package I chose is loaded with this picture but I also splurged and bought the CD with all the pictures. I just uploaded it to my computer and I feel like I need to edit them. The lighting is bad. The picture is often off center. Sigh.
I’m going to dig up the other boys' 3 month pictures and we’re going to see who this little man looks the most like. In the meantime enjoy these cute shots...
And these not so cute ones (unfortunately, there are a lot more where these come from).
