True Winter

I went to Midway on Monday to spend some time with my sister and mom on their day's off. We went on a walk up the canyon to get some fresh air, and boy did we get fresh air! Woohoooo! It was WINDY, and beautiful. Rudy tapped out pretty early, and Heidi was kind enough to take him home for me, so I could finish the walk (which felt more like a hike, with all the snow). It was so magical with the sun shining on all the freshly fallen snow, and the little snow flakes floating around in the air like so many little snow fairies, bestowing their beauty on the world. Mutti and I were talking about how this is true winter. This is what makes winter so great...pure white snow dazzling in the sunlight-not a spot of that gross black slush that litters the streets throughout the winter. Anyway, it was a nice nature muffin moment for me. Thanks Heidi, for taking my little man so I could stay out. :)

A New Generation

Kids these days... I don't know, but I'm willing to bet that I didn't ever pretend our remote was a phone when I was a tot. In fact, I don't think we even had a remote! Rudy pretends any small flat thing is a phone, and his mouse maneuvering is impeccable! (I swear, it's only a matter of time till he figures out which icon he has to push to get music to play on the computer!) This is
Rudy and his betrothed, Amy, chatting it up on the remotes today. (Jason and I and Amy's parents decided that she and Rudy were destined to marry when we found out that they were expecting a girl at the same time we were expecting a boy.) And yes, that's my laundry in the background. :)

Dance Yourself Dizzy

We put some Opera on for Rudy, and this is how he reacted. He did twirls for about a half hour straight; this video is in the last ten minutes or so. He was getting so dizzy it was hard for him to stand up, let alone stand up straight, but he just kept at it. We'd even bring him into another room to try to give him some chill time, but he'd just go right back out to dance. Crazy kid-what a hoot!

Rudy's First Public Pool Experience

So. It definitely wasn't love at first sight. I guess I kinda freaked little Rudy out when I whisked him from his cozy nap, plopped him in the car, drove to an entirely different city half an hour away, scurried into an unfamiliar building, entered a cavernous room filled with noise and the pungent smell of sterilized water (chlorine--ick!), stripped him down, popped a water diaper and swimming suit on him, and proceeded to prance into the pool to say hello to the rest of our family who were all giving warm welcomes to my poor, traumatized little man. When he screamed and squirmed in protest, it dawned on me that this was indeed a new and somewhat anxiety causing experience, and decided to let him take things at his own pace by putting him down at the edge of the pool to look at the fountains there. Well, the damage was already done and Rudy would not calm down until he was safely in Daddy's arms and far away from the pool. Needless to say, he was a bit of a Daddy's boy the rest of the outing. Sigh.

Jason (who has his own anxieties about water and babies) handled things much more sensitively and soon enough, Rudy was feeling brave enough to stand in the water. But he was still quite serious about the whole thing.

Woohoo! Our adventurer has bounced back, and he's ready to explore the wet world on his own. (With parents hovering just off camera) ;)

Of course, Rudy's first destination once he found his sea legs was to check out the pool maintenance gadgets. Our little gear-head-you gotta love him!

Aubrey, about as comfortable in the water as a mermaid, was working on helping our little man feel a bit more at ease. She played peek-a-boo with the help of her daddy. This is about as good of a smile as she got.

Anyway, the trip was a fun one for Jason and me, and maybe even a bit fun for Rudy. We plan on taking him to the pool more often, so that he'll warm up to it and feel more comfortable. I really think once he feels a little more familiar with the whole situation, he'll LOVE visiting the pool with his Grandparents, cousins, aunt, uncle, Daddy, and maybe even his Mama. ;)

Toddler Minds are Great!

I think I just put two and two together about a funny little habit Rudy has picked up in the last couple weeks. I love it when his little toddler world suddenly makes sense to me-even if just for a moment. :) A couple weeks ago, Mutti and Rudy spent a good half hour exploring a candle. They lit and relit it, blowing it out in between. This absolutely captivated Rudy. At first, he wanted to touch the flame (of course), but Mutti taught him that it's an "Owie" and taught him he could only blow on it. Well, from then on, when I tell him "don't touch" he bends over (or stretches up-which ever fits the situation) real close to it and blows on it instead. Ha! Up until a couple minutes ago, I was mystified but satisfied with this behavior. After all, he wasn't hurting himself or the "no no" with his blowing, and he still got the satisfaction of interacting with it. Just now, he got his arm caught in a drawer while reaching in for a sparkly wrapper he had deposited inside. After I freed him, I was telling him how he needs to be careful 'cause sometimes the drawer can give owies and then he started blowing on the drawer. Bingo! That's when I understood his correlation between don't touch and blowing on something. What a cool little mind he's got. Oh, and here's a few photos just for kicks. :)

Rudy climbed into his wagon all by himself, settled himself on his football for a seat, and started making car sounds (vvvvvvvrrrrrmmm!) What a cutie!

Rudy's Cingular teeth. "More bars in more places."

One of Rudy's favorite chew toys. (Teething toys, I mean, but whatever. :) ) Don't worry, I sterilize it before giving it back to him if he happens to need some snot sucked. :)

Cute little Toddler Tummy.

Rudy's so speedy by now, this was all that was left of him after my flash finished its little red-eye reducing routine.

"You wanna piece of ME?"

Rudy's cute scrunchy nose smile. Melts me every time. :)

Remember when...

This morning I was listening to one of my favorite online radio stations, "Martini in the Morning". It's got great stuff...you should check it out. Lots of big band, they play Frank Sinatra every day at 6 am and 6 pm. But that's beside the point.

The point is, they played "Too Close for Comfort" by Mel Torme. It's on my playlist now, you could listen to it if you want. The lyrics brought me back to Jason and my first (unofficial) date. I thought I'd record the memory here while I'm thinking about it.

I'd been trying to get Jason to myself for weeks. I'd say, "let's go to a movie", and he'd say, "sounds great!" And on the way to the car, he'd invite every person we passed to come along! How frustrating! Anyway, one Saturday afternoon, he called and asked if I wanted to go dancing that evening after his work shift was done. I'd been hinting that he should teach me cause I knew he could only teach one person at a time. Plus, I was interested in learning to dance. Anyway, I was ecstatic! I said sure as calmly as possible, hung up, did a celebration dance through my apartment, and then fell to deciding how I should do my hair and what clothes to wear to optimize my chances of attracting this fine young man. My more experienced roommates filled my head with all sorts of man snagging tips and gave me a huge pep talk about how this was the night of all nights.

In the mean time, Jason wasn't thinking about anything but finishing his work. He envisioned two friends hanging out, and perhaps knocking that "You gotta teach me to dance" thing off the list of things I was nagging him about. Sigh.

Thankfully, (and I believe largely because of my roommate's man snagging tips) the evening ended with us watching a movie on the couch together, with Jason's arm around me. Huge progress from the usual situation of Jason in his comfy chair and me all alone a million miles away with a couch all to myself, or even worse, sharing the couch with the 50 million other people Jason had invited to share the evening with us...er, him.

Later, as we remembered that evening as a couple, Jason confided that when I first planted myself right beside him his brain exploded with questions and concerns about me being so close to him when all we were was friends. Then a little something (his heart, I suppose) whispered "And why are you just friends? Why not be good friends, or even flirty friends?" Hooray for hearts! Jason's decision not to squelch my man snagging attempts that night have led to many a snoodly movie night, though I'm still working on the whole dancing thing. Someday. Someday. :)

Jason's New Look

Finally, after (no kidding) TEN YEARS, Jason allowed himself to spend the money necessary to purchase new glasses. His old ones from high school were actually putting dents in the sides of his head 'cause they were too small, not to mention his eyes needed new lenses.

I guess he figured so long as he was making changes to his appearance, he might as well grow a beard, too. Jason and facial hair have a long love affair. I can't tell whether it's the look he likes more, or the fact that he doesn't have to shave. In any case, he's constantly growing his stubble out until I just can't take it anymore. Funny, this time around his beard doesn't bug me. Must be the glasses. I actually quite like his beard, and I've invited it to stick around for as long as it wants. So there you have it. New glasses, new beard, and as always, absolutely dashing. :)

Happy New Year

This post is out of order. I should have written it on January 1st, but it just didn't happen. Better late than never, though, right? ;)
On the first day of the new year our family had a couple of good omens. Hopefully they pan out! (Yeah, I guess I sort of am a bit superstitious; it makes life more interesting, I think.)

Good Omen Number One:

This is the first sunrise of 2009.

How can anything that starts out this beautiful and serene be anything but good?

Good Omen Number Two:

When we came back inside after admiring the sunrise, we found this little lady chillin' in our house. A lady bug in January? That's gotta be double good luck!

Anyway, I hope the year has lots of great things in it for all of you, but as Elder Wirthlin's mom used to say, "Come what may and love it!" That's a great talk by the way; here's the link: http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-947-9,00.html

One Little Monkey Jumping on the Bed...Part II

Remember back in August 08 when Rudy defied time and space but very much so complied with gravity? (If not, you can read all about in my post in that month. Sorry, I don't know how to link it to this text.) Well, he's been turning his tricks again, this time with Mutti. I feel so bad for her! I know how terrible it feels to know a baby you love was hurt and you could have prevented it, but (since it wasn't me) I can tell her things like this just happen, even to the best of us. (And believe me, Mutti, you're one of the best of us!) That said, I will continue on with the story, hopefully causing as little emotional trauma for Rudy's adoring Oma as possible. (Just skip it if you want, Mutti!)

While I was sick on Saturday, Mutti was graciously watching Rudy for me. She was changing him on the air mattress that was set up in the exercise room for me when Rudy defied time and space for the second time in his career and went from the middle of the bed to the floor in the milliseconds it took to turn and toss a diaper into the trash. A little wailing, a few tears, and a thorough check over seemed to close the episode. Not so.

Sunday morning, as I was nursing him, I noticed that a large spot on the right side of his head was squishy. Red lights were flashing all over the place and I summoned the resident nurse (Mutti) to investigate. We decided it must just be a doozie of a goose egg, and waited for it to do its thing (get all purple and green and then bow out). Well, by Tuesday, nothing had changed. Rudy still had a squishy bump on the side of his head, and there had been no color show. Curiouser and curiouser.

I brought him into the Dr.(The forth time in four weeks. ugg!) and was told my little guy has a skull fracture. A SKULL FRACTURE?! WHAT?! Aren't those things usually accompanied by emergency room visits and extremely pitiful looking bruises? Many questions and soothing reassurances later, I left the Dr.'s office feeling pretty ok about the whole thing. Rudy's fracture is pretty minor, and there was no internal bleeding (the thing that brings emergency rooms into the picture) His squishiness is NOT his brain (The conclusion my motherly hysterical mind of course jumped to the first time I felt the squish) It's just blood pooling between his skull and the membrane that's kinda Saran wrapped around it. (Hooray for anatomy class!) Anyway, the Dr. says it could stay squishy for about 2 months, after which it will calcify (his body will turn it into a bony patch) and ultimately reabsorb into his miraculously self healing little body. The whole thing will probably take about 6 months.

So. There you have it. Rudy actually "fell off and broke his head" just like the song says. Only his Dr. didn't wag his finger at him and say "NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!" Too bad. It would've have incredibly witty, though perhaps the kind and sensitive Dr. realized wit wasn't exactly what I was looking for at the moment. :)

You can kinda see his lopsidedness if you hold your breath and squint your eyes...it's on Rudy's right side.

I think you can see the bulge pretty well, here. It's just above his ear.

Anyway, Rudy's fine, I'm fine, Jason's fine, and we still trust you with our baby, Mutti!

Tender Mercies

Our family has had a bit of a bumpy landing into the New Year. Rudy just got over Croup (which was at least as scary to Jason and me as it was to him- it killed us hearing his pitiful little hoarse voice, and his croupy cough and wheezing was 10 times worse!) During this ordeal, Jason picked up a mean stomach flu. Rudy and I fled to my parents house so that Rudy, in his already immune weakened state would be safe from the stomach flu. (I got Jason all set up before we left, lest you think we just abandoned the poor man.) Well, a day and a half later, my face was way closer to the toilet than I wish to admit. After all that trouble, I had brought the flu with me.
Anyway, I'm simply telling you all this so that the background is sufficiently set up for the awesomeness that next occurred.
The evening that my belly was beginning to rebel, Vati (dad in German), wisely asked me if I'd thought about getting a blessing. I hadn't, but the idea sounded great to me. I needed every bit of aide I could get as I faced a night which would consist of a croupy baby needing comfort nursing throughout the night plus a belly that seemed to want to pack up and move to the Bahamas.
Vati gave me a wonderful blessing, and I could feel it's power as he spoke it. I knew that the blessing was approved of by God, and that He would follow through on the promises my dad had spoken. A couple of the things Vati blessed me with was that the sickness would pass through me quickly, and that I would have the strength I needed to be able to provide for Rudy's needs through the night.
Within 5 minutes of the blessing, I was retching my heart out (or so it seemed at least). I'll spare you any more gory details; let's just say that it truly did pass through me quickly and that I was able to attend to Rudy when he needed it, even through all the queasiness and its consequences.
My parents taught me a great lesson that night. After Vati had blessed me, they did not just say to themselves, "There, now it's in God's hands". They still did all they could to help me along the way. Vati went out and bought Ginger ale for me, and he actually slept on the floor next to his new puppy so that Sam wouldn't bark or whine and wake Rudy unnecessarily. Mutti (mom in German) set me up a nice bed on the couch so I could come and go as I needed without disturbing Rudy (we were sharing a room before) and she checked on me through out the night and got up with Rudy when he decided that he would not be sleeping anymore at the agonizingly early hour of 4:00 am. I think it was Pres. Hinckley who talked about getting on your knees to plead for help and then getting on your feet to do what you can. My parents showed their faith in the Lord's blessings by being willing to do their part. They truly were His servants that night. I'm so grateful for the gospel in my life, and I'm grateful for the examples my parents have always been to me. I love you guys!

The End of an Era

R.I.P. Maggie Mae

It's official. There are absolutely no pets in our home. Our sweet, feeble old rat, Maggie, died last Tuesday. I've had pets since I was something like four years old (with brief sabbaticals for dorm life and mission life), so its kinda eery not to have a little life form hanging out in our house. A few people have told me that Rudy should count, but he's on a whole different plane. I guess it's ok to treat your pets like your kids if you HAVE to, but turning that around is just WRONG! :)

My first reaction was to procure a fish tank off craigslist, but the sweet deal I found fell through (bummer!) and left me with only mildly cool alternatives. This gave me a little time to think things through and realize I'm really just on pet rebound. I gotta chill for a bit and see if I really want one more thing depending on me right now. Jason's school schedule is just gonna get more demanding as he nears graduation (Hooray!-about graduation, not demanding schedules), and Rudy's gonna get to be more and more of a handful as he learns to open doors, climb gates, and undress himself. Do I really want to try to remember if I fed the fish on top of that?