The Impeccable Timing of Children

My parents love, as many parents do (I think as their own form of revenge for various humiliations at the hands of their children), telling a story of me as a child. One winter while shopping, they made a stop at the jewelry counter in Bloomingdale's. At the time I was an infant, and my older sister Brynn old enough to speak but not old enough to understand discretion. Due to the leaky nature of cloth diapers, I am alleged to have had... rather unsavory things... running down my legs onto the white marble floors. My sister, eager to point out my act, loudly announced to all within earshot that I had pooped on the floor. My parents, having no other recourse, beat a hasty retreat.

Often there is a debate among parents which accidents are most horrifying and difficult to clean up. Personally, I find vomit most disgusting, but as of a few days ago, had had no first-hand experience with anything beyond heavy spit-up.

New Year's Eve, I have realized, is a holiday for single people and drinkers. Parents, especially those of young children, mostly have no part and are more than happy to go to bed, roll over in the middle of the night, and mumble a Happy New Years, if that much cognizance is present. Having no desire to stay up, but always willing to make a party of things, Brandon and I had a modest party with my cousin Mark and his wife Melodie, who have no children and are always great to invite over. 'Modest' being a deceiving word, and having evidently forgotten the preparations for recent dinner parties and Christmas dinner, Brandon and I spent all day (but only one day this time!) preparing various "small bites."

Dinner was much enjoyed, followed by Boggle and Yahtzee, all to the accompaniment of some nice jazz. Kathleen I am sure dreamed of being in a dicing parlour.

Following fond farewells around 10:30 (we were celebrating the New York New Year), Brandon and I checked on Kathleen, only to discover her face-down in the remains of borsch, having completely soaked all her blankets, her clothes, her sheet, her mattress pad, and her hair, which had by this time dried in spikes.

So indeed we did celebrate New Years in Mountain Standard Time, but I don't think there was much romantic kissing the New Year in, perhaps just a very tired peck.

Having no further symptoms the following day except a reluctance to eat, we scratched our head and did nothing, as Kathleen has shown no inclination to let fall anything from her lips that sounds like English words, and cannot describe any feelings of malaise to us.

Upon waking her from a nap on Wednesday with a loaded, liquid diaper followed five minutes later by evacuation from the other end, we realized that in fact, something was up. A difficulty of having non-communicative children is that, well, they don't communicate very well, including communicating when they don't feel well.

Which returns me to my original subject, that of the timing of children. Not only did Kathleen become sick(er) on Wednesday, but I also had my long-awaited ultrasound. Ultrasounds are supposed to be exciting, the time when you start calling your unborn baby by its name, when you start making plans for games of catch, or polite tea parties. And it was exciting and amazing to see our baby kicking around, moving its little fingers, yawning, and rolling everywhere. Right until Kathleen showed us again what she had eaten for breakfast.

And for anyone who is wondering, we're having another girl, Sophia. Hopefully she'll have better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) timing than her older sister.

I'm Dreaming of a Tropical Christmas

As a child growing up in North Carolina, I loved watching White Christmas with Bing Crosby, where he and some friends head up to Vermont for a wonderful white Christmas filled with snow, skiing, snowmen, and hot chocolate by the fire. My siblings and I would watch the weather report breathlessly around Christmas time, waiting for any small hint of frozen precipitation (even freezing rain counted). I remember one Christmas where a chilled rain almost counted.

After three or four snowstorms since Thanksgiving, I am cured of any desire for snow on, around, or within the three-month vicinity of Christmas, New Years, my birthday, Valentine's Day, or Easter. Perhaps Saint Patrick's day, too. But, as I live in Utah, the most two-week recent forecast includes 7 days of snowflake pictures, and only one day that isn't at least mostly cloudy. And it's been like this for the last two weeks. And the highest temperature on that list is 35 degrees.

If perhaps you are a person of my husband's ilk who spent two winters in frozen Ukraine, and considers the perfect weather to be 33, drizzling, and cloudy, then this Christmas is perfect for you. If, however, you have the soul (if not the appearance) of non-northern European descent, then we can all join together and tell Ol'Blue Eyes (and Irving Berlin, for that matter) to go hang it.

Julia Child, We Salute Thee

For Brandon's birthday this year, he received Mastering the Art of French Cooking, having expressed a desire to learn more about French cooking, and perhaps even eat some French cooking (there don't seem to be many French restaurants around here to try it out). As discussed in an earlier post, the danger of reading a cookbook is the following desire to eat all of the wonderful food described in the glowing prose of Ms. Child. The problem however, is finding or creating an occasion that warrants the 3 days of preparation necessitated by French food. The French never do anything hastily.

Luckily, Brandon's siblings Ashlie and Nick live just up the road in Provo, and both of them had had a birthday in the last year. And what better excuse for a dinner party than a birthday party, too? To make it more of a party, and being meddling older married people, we made them invite dates, so as to further spread the joy of French cooking (and praise for the cooks).

Having already fixated on roast chicken months prior, Brandon and I took faith in the Child, and prepared her suggested side dishes, ratatouille and sauteed potatoes. For a first course we served garlic soup (once again taking a step of faith) with bread, and to finish we had orange Bavarian cream (not French, strictly speaking, but in the book) with hazelnut cookies and hot chocolate.

Writing down such a meal sounds simple; really it should only take a few hours to cook. Roast chicken? Just stick it in the oven. Garlic soup? Boil garlic with a handful of weeds, and add mayonnaise. Bread? It's no-knead, so no problem. Cookies? Anyone can make cookies in 20 minutes. The problem one always runs into when preparing food, however, is not the complexity of individual dishes, but the complexity of everything together. The ratatouille alone took us (there was no way I was going to do this alone) 2 1/2 hours from start to finish.


However, with combination of Brandon's pessimism and my
experience, we accounted for unexpectedly long preparation times and budgeted the prior two days and Sunday morning before church for shopping, chopping, and cooking. And however long it takes to make the food, the food never quite tastes like the culmination of 3 days of preparation, and nobody but the cooks has any idea.

By the time dinner and our guests arrived, Brandon and I were ready to eat anything, after cooking for 2 days. And as is highly unusual with cooking, nothing disastrous happened and the food turned out as hoped for. Everyone seemed, or at least pretended to have a nice time. But we're not doing this again until... Christmas dinner.

I'd like to migrate south

Our heat has now been on for two and a half hours, and it still isn't up to the temperature I like. I just checked the weather, and it's 19 degrees outside, which might explain why the furnace is having difficulty heating our apartment. Yesterday I complained to Brandon that I am done with snow for winter, and he remarked that we have only had two snowstorms so far. Growing up in North Carolina, however, that's one more than is necessary for each winter. And we're not halfway through December yet.

Our first snowstorm was a week and a half ago, on Saturday. Saturday was also the day we planned to go get our Christmas tree. I had planned on taking the camera, taking cute pictures of Kathleen picking out her first Christmas tree (last year she was only a lump in her car seat and didn't count for anything) and making family memories. However, by the time we skidded our way to the lot, sloshed through the mud, and made one circuit of the lot, we bought the first tree we had seen, dumped it into the trunk, and headed home. So much for memories.

After shaking as much snow off in the carport, we set the tree up inside and let it rain for awhile on towels before we ventured putting electric lights in it. Luckily, Kathleen was in bed by this time and so the tree was unmolested until the morning. So far she has left the tree largely alone, but the other day, I did catch her with the bottom of a glass ornament in her mouth. As long as she doesn't bite down, we should be fine.

She Pretends Very Well

But Kathleen isn't fooling anyone.

Dr. Brown, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the ER

Often family pictures can be stressful, and coupled with those flashing lights, it may leave some with headaches. What it left Brandon with was a migraine. Formerly, in another life, before I met Brandon, he suffered from migraines, mostly in high school. However, with my wonderful presence bestowing goodness at every turn, we thought that Brandon was free of them. He was, until a few Fridays ago.

So we prepared to spend the rest of the day sitting out the migraine, and resting from the after-effects. However, when Brandon couldn't remember Kathleen's name, couldn't see out of his right eye, and told me he was having problems "abling," we decided to head to the hospital.

Thankfully the ER was not very busy, and after and hour or so, Brandon was able to get a potent cocktail of drugs that made it difficult to do anything, much less remember anyone's names. Kathleen was very patient, helped by many, many walks around the ER hallways where she smiled and flirted with anyone who would give her a second glance. After three hours and a CT scan, we headed home to put both Brandon and Kathleen to bed. I think he might have gotten ever more sleep than Kathleen, something that has never happened before, and isn't likely to happen again.

How do they get children to smile?

Last Friday, Brandon and I completed another milestone: first family picture. Having had no official photographic record of Kathleen as of yet, and desiring to have one with only three of us (without #4 making its presence know yet visibly), we went to the photographer. We all arose bright and early Friday morning, washed, dressed in our best, combed our hair, and prepared for photographic immortality. I had visions of endless portrait studio ads with sweetly smiling angels, displaying to the world their cheerful temper and cherubic smiles.

Kathleen will never be featured in any of those ads. In fact, I wouldn't even count on her being a model as an adult. Kathleen loves the camera, smiling and cooing whenever we bring it out. One would think that the camera is her next-best friend (after the toilet and perhaps the telephone). Evidently that love doesn't extend to cameras that want to take her picture for hanging on the wall, not just computer screen savers.

After suffering through half an hour of trying to get Kathleen to smile instead of cry inconsolably while sitting on Brandon's and my lap, the photographer then had the Herculean task of stemming the even-louder sobs while again trying to catch a smile that might be hidden behind the runny nose and tears. Brave soul. Eventually cheerios saved as much of the day as possible, and we have hopes for at least one picture that will make it past the digital trash can. If not, there's always digital manipulation, right?

Next time: what happened after the photo session.

The Love Affair Progresses

Until yesterday, Kathleen kept her passion for the toilet restrained and chaste, only banging on the lid, and occasionally lifting it for a more... intimate... view of her beloved. However, as small children enjoy showing off for strangers, Kathleen decided that Aunt Ginger's visit would be a perfect time to unveil a new skill, a new level of her relationship - taking the plunge one might call it. As Brandon, Ginger, and I were cheerfully discussing Thanksgiving plans, I heard a gentle splash splash. Afraid someone had inadvertently left the lid open, I raced to the bathroom to discover Kathleen's newest skill - lifting the toilet lid while simultaneously splashing in the water. She smiled, and I spanked her. A few minutes later, and a repeat, followed by a third time, with punishment each time. Hopefully third time's the charm, but I'm not holding my breath.

Kathleen's Toilet Envy

First children live a strange existence, babies living in an exclusively adult world without any reference to other babies to take their cues from; instead their only reference for what is normal is their parents. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when all Kathleen wants to do is pull books from the shelf and read them, not knowing what all children know - scriptures are boring - it's the books with pictures one should really like. And when she pulls out a book of Arabic sayings or Russian folk tales, well that's what dad does, too. There's no one to tell her that you're only supposed to look at one kind of funny squiggle.

So again, I shouldn't be surprised when Kathleen gets upset about my trips to the bathroom; after all, she has no mental connection between wearing diapers and not using the toilet. If mom and dad go in the room and shut the door, then she should too. Mom and Dad, however, disagree and enjoy the privacy of alone time in the bathroom.

So, Kathleen is stuck outside, furiously curious about, what goes on behind closed doors. And as Kathleen has never been accused of being a quiet child, she lets her displeasure be known by banging on the door and wailing loudly, begging to be let in. But lest any of you worry that she is distressed by separation from her dear parents and not separation from the dear toilet, don't worry. As soon as I open the door, she runs in, arms open, straight to her great love - the toilet, never giving me a backward glance.

A Note of Explanation

There are times in everyone's lives when some things, like blogs, get left by the wayside for a time. Big changes are often the most likely culprit, whether it be moving (we're not) getting a new job (not yet), receiving a new, intense calling (still no callings yet), sickness (we're all healthy as horses, save Kathleen's new bout of teething), divorce (not likely), death (see sickness above), and perhaps one of the most disruptive events with eternal repercussions, pregnancy.

Some of you might have suspected, as my posts have dropped off dramatically in the last two months, and I am now confirming those suspicions. We have tried to tell Kathleen, too, but as her ability for non-literal thought is limited, she hasn't really understood yet. However, she will around May 14, when her life drastically changes and she is no longer the sun around which Brandon and I orbit. Which is a good thing; everyone needs to realize at some point in their life that while intrinsically full of worth, they don't deserve to have to world rotate around them - nobody here does.

Friends have asked if this pregnancy is better or worse than the last one, but I honestly have to admit that the memories of the last one are quite fuzzy. I now understand what my mother said about selective memory having something to do with more than one child. Brandon asserts that men's memories are better than that, and if the childbearing were left up to them, everyone would be an only child, and the world would have a big problem with dwindling population.

But as he only has to provide for them and my varied and constant food cravings, the world has no need to fear on my behalf.