Bouncing off the Walls

Today I had my first motherhood experience with the expression "bouncing off the walls".

Adara is not a stable child. Normally, I would only mean that in the context of the inner-ear. If I had a nickel for every time she hit her head on something or fell over nothing, I would use it to buy her a crash helmet. As it happened, she improvised one this morning.

Putting the blanket over her head, Adara ran blindly into the high wooden end of her crib, propelling herself backward for several steps before collapsing on the mattress, then repeating the process ad nauseum before she finally fell asleep for her nap.

It reminded me of football linebackers practicing with crash pads to block their opponents. At least they have sense to use the pads. But knowing that my 15-month-old has the same amount of sense as a football linebacker is a little bit concerning. No offense intended for any linebackers who may be reading this. I know football players are really smart and the stereotype is intended to get people off the players' backs - I mean that figuratively of course.

Look at it this way: a lot of college football players major in philosophy. Every time I tell someone that I majored in philosophy, they say, "Wow, you're really smart." So I guess now we know what Adara inherited from me. Maybe one day she will join the football team . . . or major in philosophy.

P.S. Sorry for not having any pictures. I can't find my camera.

Groovin'

These are just some videos from the last two weeks. The one with Adara on the whale is mostly for the benefit of her Poppy and Nana Wilson. But the one with Jon and Adara dancing together is a tribute to Jon's ability to imitate his daughter. She's got his genes, mostly, anyway, so it's not surprising that he's able to do this. But it is impressive.

Moot. Folks. And Folkmoot

Two weeks ago I attended Y W camp. The YW president, Melissa, was pregnant and could not go to camp because she had been admitted to the hospital the day before camp started. She's been there for two weeks, but today we found out that the pregnancy was lost.

My world has been greatly effected by Melissa's hospitalization. As her counselor, I've been on the phone with her for several hours during the last two weeks. I've taken notes about what she has wanted to do, then been her hands in getting it done. I feel her loss, and as I watch my own daughter, I can hardly believe that I was not the one to lose an infant.

In conjunction with my YW duties, I have discovered, to my surprise, that I have been most Laman-and-Lemuel-ish in my behavior with my husband and my life in general. It is not as easy to stop complaining about everything as Sunday School teachers make it sound! But, thanks to the YW Personal Progress program, I am on my way to becoming a little Mary ray of sunshine, once again. (Adara was looking pretty sun-shine-y in this picture; sorry I haven't posted more pictures, but as usual, there are lots more pictures on my picasaweb page for those of you with desires for such. I usually upload pictures to picasaweb around the same time that I do my blogs, so that's the best time to look for new stuff.)

This resolution to be cheerful was put to the test when, on Saturday, Jon decided he wanted to finish all of the filming for our movie: Starfire Part II (that's the working title; stay tuned for more). We were literally working on the movie for 12 hours - from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., which for us would be all right, maybe slightly stressful. But add a 14-month-old and the occasion approaches what one might call an ordeal.

I am pleased to report that the filming was finished with a minimum of grousing and almost no extended unpleasantness between the director, his star, and his assistant. We even successfully filmed a 60-second scene in a room in the Howard Johnson, thanks to Jon's ability to explain his vision and excitement to an open-minded and fun-loving hotel manager. (We had been denied rights to film at an uppity, to-remain-unnamed hotel nearby, and another hotel had no room for us :) -- so I was ready to throw in the towel. It was a great relief to me when Jon secured a victory with the final hotel we visited.)

Now for a picture break. But stay tuned, there's more blogging to be done after the pictures.

With these random pictures and the journaling above, you get a pretty accurate overview of what it has been like here for the last

two weeks. The coup de grace, well, actually there were two, but anyway, it was the international folk festival that Adara and I attended on Friday afternoon. We drove for 40 minutes to attend Folkmoot, which had one of the most entertaining and diverse array of performers that I have seen in awhile. Of course, I may just be starved for interesting activities that I can do with my daughter. But I don't think so. Here's why:

The French group came out in the traditional French mode, which, if you've seen very many French folk groups, you'll know that's a nice way of saying "boring". However, before long, the male dancers came on stage on stilts. Being 11 feet taller than your partner presents an interesting choreographic challenge, which the French avoided. They just had the men dance as a unit and the women dance as a unit, and the two were on the stage at the same time, but they didn't usually interact very much. However, the Frenchmen doing the polka on stilts, with a brief stint of weaving in and out of the women below, made it all worthwhile.


The young girls from Chinese Taipei presented what I thought was the epitome of dancing. Graceful, fun, employing multiple dance steps and formations, as well as Chinese lanterns and other props, the dances were never boring and never repetitive. The music, on the other hand . . . let's just say that, while the Chinese seem to have perfected the art of dance, they have perhaps gone into another dimension when it comes to music. To illustrate, the sound of one instrument made my little daughter start looking around for a dog. As I thought about it, I realized that it did sound like a little mechanical robot chihuahua trying to sing his short little barks.

Finally, if I have ever seen a Japanese drum performance before, the performance at Folkmoot proved that I never had really seen a Japanese drum performance. It was exquisite, if a bit loud. Like the Chinese performance, it was never boring. Unlike the Chinese performance, the music was musical - the flutes and conch shell were wonderful counterpoints to the different-toned drums, and the visual effect of the drumsticks (which we learned are called baci (read with Italian pronunciation) in Japanese) kept both me and my daughter captivated. Since Adara had only watched a maximum of two minutes of the other performances, I believe this made the Japanese performance the best of show.

That wraps it up for the dance portion of this blog. Again, I'm sorry there aren't more pictures this week. It would have been especially nice to have some pics of Folkmoot, but what with holding a toddler, the fact that my digital camera is rather cheap, and the dim light and fast-moving dancers, it probably wouldn't have been worth the bits and bytes and photosensory whatever.

But wait, there's still more to this blog! (I really should post more often.) The second coup de grace, as it were, was during intermission. Adara and I had gone out to the car for a snack and a man had come up to comment on our bumper sticker, "Mormons for Obama". To make a long story short, and an already long blog a little longer, we talked for probably 30 minutes about Utah, North Carolina, Mormons, etc., and he asked where our church was and whether it would be polite of him to drop by, should he wear a tie, and so forth. I thought he was being polite by asking about our church, so when he waved to me from the back pew in the chapel this morning, I was pleasantly surprised.

I guess the moral of the story is, it doesn't matter how you promote your religion, just as long as you do. I'm still shaking my head over that one. Political conversation aside, I wasn't so sure that it was a good idea to put that bumper sticker on the car, mostly because we were moving to "the South" and I wasn't sure how safe it would be to advertise that we are both Mormons and democrats. (Not to say that I am a democrat - I have no political affiliation, but I do drive the car with the bumper sticker, so I am guilty by association.) But my fears were completely unfounded - not only have we not been lynched or ostracized for either our religion or our political affiliation, we have instead been befriended because of both. Just "be yourself" I guess, and "seize the day" "e plurubus unum" and all that.

Ya'll come back now, y'hear?

Hamlet, a Baby, and Some Teens

Apparently, Adara is the star of this blog, as everyone keeps asking for more pictures. I'll post a few here for now, but the best way to see "more pictures of Adara" is at picasaweb. If you need the addy, drop me a line and I'll send it to you.
On the left, Adara is sporting her new favorite expression - shocked surprise. Above, she is taking care of her baby, which she asks for frequently, especially at mealtimes. I wonder why she associates caring for babies with food?

Finally, here is a picture of the playground - the best spot to satiate Adara's adventurous spirit - and a family photo which I thought turned out pretty well.


As for my life, well, that's a mixed bag. In the last few days I have attended the Young Women's camp, talked to the assistant editor of a local publishing company, and attended a production of "I Hate Hamlet" performed by the local community theater. A diverse array of activities, and therefore a satisfied soul at the end of a week.

The assistant editor at the publishing company graciously agreed to answer some of my questions about what his job is like. It was a victory for me, mainly because I have found lately that I dread talking to new people about pretty much anything -- especially if I have to put on the "I've got my life under control" face. I did manage to put that face on during the phone conversation -- even though the ast ed called me back right as I was recovering from Adara's excrementally smelly wardrobe malfunction. Somehow she didn't have a diaper on during most of the telephone conversation, and as I hung up the phone I had to clean the carpet again - although this time it was not as bad.

Another highlight from my recent activities involves a line from "I Hate Hamlet". The brief setup is that Andrew is going to play Hamlet. Deirdre, Andrew's girlfriend, has suggested that she would like to audition for the part of Ophelia.

D: Oh Andrew, could I audition? Would they let me?
A: I guess I could ask them.
D: Would you? And it wouldn't be sleazy, because I'm not sleeping with you! Isn't that perfect?
A: Deirdre, that's nuts. It's like . . . show business for Mormons.
D: It's going to be the best! Good night, sweet . . .
A: Don't say it! If I can't have sex, I don't know why I should play Hamlet.
D: Sweet prince! (exits)
A: What is this -- a test? No sex? Shakespeare? It's like high school!

I wonder if the author of this play knew about the plan of salvation . . . ?
Which leads us to the Young Women's camp. All I have to say about that is, the combined personality of the Young Women in my new ward is more than my entire graduating class at Westminster College. As Westminster prides itself on being the "only non-denominational private liberal arts school" in Utah, with ties to, but no official affiliation with the Presbyterian Church, you would think there would be a lot of interesting personalities. But these young women beat that, hands down. It's going to be an interesting year at church . . .

Digital Music

Just a brief photo sharing for you digital-age junkies.

Southern Living

Here's a sample of life in our new home:  every time we go outside, we meet a new dog.  Think about that.  I'm in a small, let's say infinitesimally small corner of suburban America.  I go outside to walk around with Adara several times a day.  After a week or two in our "old" home, we basically knew all the animals that were out during the day.  But not here.  Two weeks and we've only repeated a dog meeting two times.  (Meaning we met two dogs more than one time each.)

It's incredible!  How many dogs can one place handle?  I wonder what the total dog population is when you leave my immediate neighborhood?

Survey

So to start, I should probably give everyone a little update.  We're pretty much settled into our new place here in North Carolina.  For those of you who didn't know, or don't remember, where we were moving to, and if you're just dying to know, send me an e-mail.  This is a public blog so I don't want to get into too much detail.

I hope to get some pictures and/or videos uploaded soon, but I can't find the cable I need for that.  Hopefully Jon knows where it is, but he's in Cleveland for job training for another day or so.

Now for the fun stuff.  I got a survey awhile back and decided, rather than inflicting useless information on unsuspecting souls, I would post the highlights here.  Anyone who voluntarily visits my blog has no one to blame but themselves if they're afflicted by useless information about me!

Here's the survey:

What is your favorite ice cream?

I like nuts and caramel in my ice cream.  One type is called Moose Tracks.  It has nuts, caramel, and chocolate (I think).  But, like my dad said before me, pretty much all ice cream is good.

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

I used to, but now most of my communication is with a one year old.  I'm afraid of what kinds of disasters would happen if I tried using sarcasm on her.

If you were another person, would you be friends with you?

I'd like to think so.  I think I'm a generous and a forgiving person.  So at the very least, I would try to sympathize with myself and see how I could justify why I was such a whine-y baby, so I would think that I was my friend even if I didn't really like myself very much. (I love these kinds of questions.)

Do you have a special talent?

I think I'm more sympathetic than most people.  I mean, I just naturally try to understand the person I'm talking to, and it seems to me that most people aren't like that.  Seems like most people have their own opinions and decide whether or not they agree with the person they're talking to.  If anything, my sympathizing is my weakness as well as my strength, because it keeps me from having really firm opinions about things.  And how do you ever make any decisions if you don't have an opinion about what's right or best to do?

What color pants and shoes are you wearing?

My pants are off-white, my shoes are gold.  I bought them at the Goodwill.  They're a funky kind of knit material that makes me feel like I'm almost not wearing shoes (except for the clunky plastic soles that thump around every time I take a step).  Anyway, I bought them as house shoes to keep the carpet cleaner.  There's no way I would wear these out of the house!  And when I have my own house, we are *not* having carpet everywhere. I'd rather freeze my bare feet on cement floors than wear shoes all the time!

What was the last thing you ate?

A homemade burrito: the refried beans were made with pinto bean flour (just ground up dry pinto beans).  No lard, no salt.  Just our favorite seasonings and the joy of eating healthy!

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

I'd be a "chocolate pudding" crayon.  By itself, the color isn't that appealing.  But calling it chocolate pudding makes it more enticing, even if it does quiver at the slightest touch.

Hair color?

Dark brown with a few strands of gray.

Last movie you watched?

The Bourne Supremacy.  It was quite well done.  Interesting plot, believable and like-able characters.  It was very race-y, and the downside was that it had more than its share of violence, and a light amount of gore.  Very appealing to male-type people who, in addition to the obvious appeal of watching a guy who can beat up 6 people at the same time, also like mysteries and think that having a conscience is a good thing.

What is on your mousepad?

The little finger pad that lets me move my cursor without needing an actual mouse has become so worn that you can almost see my fingerprints on it.

Favorite sound?

A choir singing in close harmony: dissonances resolving to harmonies, expressive crescendoes and diminuendos, etc.  I also really like bluegrass music: fiddles and banjos goin' to town! Yee haw!

Ya'll don't forget to tell me stuff about yourself when you post a comment.