Fingers

Just an ordinary day of memories:

This is the week that Keenan finally succeeded in getting the thumb to stay in his mouth. A momentous, though somewhat moist, and germy, occasion.

This gem documents Naomi's reaction to the apparently tart apple she was eating. The best part about this is that she makes this face every time she takes a bite. But she doesn't stop eating!

Cute potential. I'm afraid my luck with the camera ran out after the shot of Naomi with the apple. The actual kiss that followed this picture was really cute. The most remarkable part of this picture, however, is that all three babies are awake and relatively happy.

The New Adara

Conversation with Adara:

Me: "We're going home because it's Naomi's nap time."

Adara: "But it's not my naptime."

M: "That's right, because you're getting old."

A: "Is it time to get a new one?"

5 Weeks Old

Jon must have taken this picture today. I thought it was hilarious.

Cornbread Stuffing

On Thanksgiving Day when I was living with my mom and dad, we ate a dinner with plenty of Southern touches. The most memorable for me are the cornbread stuffing, gravy with giblets, and watermelon pickles.

Now we live in the South. Our last two Thanksgiving dinners have been in North Carolina (which I know is in the South, but for me it's not south enough). Of course today we were in Georgia for dinner. And I find it ironic that my Thanksgiving dinners when I was growing up in Utah were more southern than any of the meals I've eaten in the past three years.

(Someone tell mom I miss her cornbread stuffing!)

Anybody out there have a unique regional flavor to their holiday dishes?

More Baby

Another picture post:

It's day 10 of Keenan's life. I'm making an effort to put him in his cradle to sleep. (Grandpa Wilson made the cradle. I'm working on making bed clothes for the mattress and bumpers.)

Jon peeked into the cradle and immediately made a place on our bed for the baby. Our first two babies were in bed with us for convenience (nighttime feedings), but it was understood that they needed to learn, quickly, to sleep in their own beds. As much as I love snuggling a newborn baby, in the back of my mind is the thought that the sleep deprivation won't last forever and I will eventually start waking up when I hear the grunts and snorts of the new baby next to me. (This started happening this morning.)

So, when I accused Jon of changing his tune about babies sleeping in bed with us, he simply said, "I like babies more now."

And, just for random fun pictures -- here is Naomi sporting her new bunny slippers that were a gift from her Poppy. She loves them, as she does most every shoe she comes across. Keeping them on her feet, however, is another story.

The video is random, too. This little girl is obsessed with hats. Anything that she can put on her head is a hat. But, as with the shoes, don't ask her to wear one for longer than 5 seconds.

New Baby Highlights

Keenan Sean Wilson, born 31 October 2010 at 3:03 p.m. Weight: 8 lbs 6 oz. Length: 20 inches. Head circumference: 13.5 inches. Location: In his parents' home outside of Atlanta, GA.

Here are a few highlights of his first 24 (or so) hours of his life.

Just a few minutes old. Jon's comment on the miracle of a new baby is that they come out smelling good.

I know that everyone loves a new baby, but I am nevertheless surprised by Naomi's enthusiasm for her brother.

(A friend from church got our girls new dresses for this occasion. They felt so special. Thank you Cindy!)

Papa, thanking the heavens for the gift of a son.

Adara is assessing the situation

before she makes a decision

about how to behave.

I am sure we are going to find ourselves in this type of situation quite a bit for the next little while.

The End

Toddler Realism

The nursery leader in our new ward related this to me:

For snack time in nursery the children were eating

goldfish crackers. The teachers were saying that the

goldfish would swim around in the children's

tummies, round and round and round.

Adara didn't buy it because she knew better. She told them that after goldfish go to your tummy, they don't stay there and swim, they go down to your intestines. So much for encouraging creative play in young children -- Adara's already all fact and no fiction.

And now, here's a grandma-pleasing memory of Naomi at church: She picked up my cell phone, and as soon as she put it up to her ear, she started saying, "Nana, Nana!" :) Guess who Naomi calls most often on the telephone?

(Intestine illustration credit: http://www.after50health.com/diseases-of-the-colon.html)

Labor Day

More Fun Thoughts

While we were still in Pittsburgh, Adara was having quiet time (in the hopes that she'd fall asleep). After awhile, I checked on her and found that she had been playing with "the light thing" (electrical outlet). She reported that someone had kicked her when she was playing with it. I'm glad she didn't make anyone in there mad enough to do more than kick!

And here's a thought I had awhile ago, concerning a discussion I had well over a year ago with some women (young and experienced) in the Church. As the teacher of the young women's class, I felt responsible to teach that the woman's primary role is to champion the cause of home and family. Sadly, I was less tactful with my wording when I was teaching, and conflict ensued.

Although I agonized over the situation for months at the time, it has been only recently (and seemingly out of the blue) that I have formulated a more practical and realistic (i.e., less idealistic) idea of the situation. The new formulation would say, in effect, that the decision to commit oneself to strengthening homes and families need not exclude the decision to pursue academic or professional interests. I believe it is not healthy to repress these desires entirely, but that some degree of modifications to our plans may be necessary if we are to pursue both family and career.

For example, my chosen profession is in publishing (though education has always been a contender for the top choice as well). Because of my individual circumstances and my personal temperament, I have chosen only minimal involvement in this profession for the time being. I enjoy my monthly publishing adventures, however modest they are, and it helps to remind me what my professional goals are.

Sometimes I do long for more time to pursue this path. But I'm sure that time will come soon enough. And for now there are plenty of joys to relish and plenty of challenges to learn from in the situation I am currently in. There will be time for more (eternally speaking, if not temporally.)

Isaiah

We've been reading 2nd Nephi in family scripture study. Straight from the Book of Mormon, without much censoring, but with lots of commentary and explanation. I'm pretty sure Adara understands the gist of what we're reading (which may not be that much less than what Jon and I understand of it). One day when she was playing with Jon, he grabbed both her hands and held her tight and she yelled,

"Unbind me!"

Then, a few nights ago, she offered the family prayer after the scripture study ended. One of the things she prayed was, "Thank you for the nice people and for the mean people and for killing them."

Bahamian Cruise

The pictures will probably speak for themselves, so I'll make this short. Our cruise started at 4 p.m. Sunday and ended at 8 a.m. the following Sunday. We stopped at Nassau, then a private island owned by the cruise company, and lastly in Grand Turk. The cruise itself was relaxing for me -- pregnant mother of two toddlers: I slept a lot. Next time we take a cruise, however, I'd like to stay awake more and participate in some of the activities. The few I was able to attend were quite fun. I think my favorite was the towel animal demonstration. Well -- here are the pics.

Nassau beach. I braved the water, Jon went snorkeling, but the girls refused to get within 30 feet of the gnarly waves (some were at least 6 feet high).

Hotel Atlantis

Naomi actually wearing sunglasses and choosing not to remove them. To Naomi's delight, however, the hat was lost when we left the beach.

Half Moon Cay.

Even the tiny waves here made Naomi nervous. She wasn't happy until I took her into deeper water.

This was Adara's favorite stop -- plenty of water toys, shallow water that she walked into up to her neck!, and nearly non-existent waves.

Bored on board.

Towel Animal.

Adara, on her bunkbed. Every night after dinner she asked if the staff had put her bed down. Simple joys.

Grand Turk.

I didn't take any pictures of the ocean, since Jon and I went alone and were both snorkeling the whole time. But this is an example of what most of the buildings looked like on this hurricane-ravaged island. Apparently, the government / constitution of the area is also currently not in force, which I'm sure makes matters even worse.

Those were the highlights. That's two items to check off the bucket list: snorkeling in the Bahamas and taking a cruise.

Return to Normal Life

I am pleased to report wonderful amounts of relaxation at the end of the Bahamian cruise. As it is late, I will dispense with uploading pictures for now. Except for one, perhaps, which we took on our drive down to Charleston (where the ship was embarking). The picture below is just one example of the types of things we have taken enjoyment in while we have lived here in the south.

And speaking of living in the south; we have finally received confirmation that we will be leaving the hospitality and slow pace of North Carolina. By the middle of next month we will be on our way to the cold and hurried north: Pittsburg, to be specific. How long we will stay there is anybody's guess. As soon as Jon finds a more permanent position, we will go there. And, since he has completed four interviews within the company with no success, he has begun to look at other options.

It's a bit exciting to think of the possibilities -- but stressful for Jon to face so much uncertainty and rejection. So if anyone has any clout with the Man Upstairs, we'd appreciate any good words you might send in for us.

Best Friend Gratitude

What's been on my mind a lot lately is how happy I am to have Jon in my life. He has been working super extra hard to do his regular job, plus interviewing for a new position in the company (in 4 different cities around the eastern U.S.). And when he comes home, he often helps make dinner, puts the babies to bed, and washes the dishes. Sometimes I wonder what I've been doing all day when he comes home and does all that for me. :)

So for Mother's Day he bought the family a vacation on a cruise liner headed for the Bahamas. He's never going to be able to top that Mother's Day gift, but at this point I'm not too concerned. The mere prospect of sharing eight full days with Jon in a place where everyone expects you just to sit around and relax sounds fabulous. Granted, the children will be with us, but since Jon's idea of relaxing is much the same as the children's ideas, I won't be too bothered.

The last time I had a truly relaxing vacation (by my standards of relaxation) was when I spent the night in a cabin with five of my sisters. We talked, made our meals, and cleaned up, talked some more, maybe slept a little, talked, ate, etc., etc. Nearly two full days of nothing much more than talking. No need to find adventure in the world "out there" -- plenty of fascinating life experiences to be explored within the realms of our sisters' psyches.

Two of my sisters have featured more prominently in my life lately, probably because all three of us have been pregnant at the same time. (I say "have been" because Dolly's baby was born a week ago.) My sisters have been friends to me to a much greater extent than my mother was, which, tangentially, is probably why I have never felt much interest in Mother's Day. I'm a mother twice over, but often I feel that the beautiful children in my care are more like sisters to me than like daughters. Younger sisters, of course, with whom I have been charged responsibility and authority to discipline, but sisters nonetheless.

I rarely get weepy when reflecting on my relationships, but as I contemplated my sisterhood with my children, it brought tears to my eyes. I wonder if someone has invented "Sister Appreciation Day"?

The Birthday

Well, the big day was a success. We all made princess crowns (or king crowns for the boys). Adara's eye-full crown was a collaborative effort: she told Jon where to put everything and he obeyed her commands. She loved being queen for a day.

One of the games we played involved a favor-

ite pastime of children everywhere: chasing one another around in a circle. To give some structure to this game, we set up a mock bridge, an adult stood with their back to the children and occasionally yelled, "Splash," and whoever was on the bridge was then "out". It was everyone's favorite, from the 2-year-olds to the 10-year-olds.

Evidence of a pre-party mishap by the intrepid Naomi features prominently in this next photo. She wanted to play with a balloon, and I thought tying it to the picnic table leg would help. Apparently not.

At any rate, Naomi slept through most of the actual birthday party (some naps just won't wait), so when we got home I enjoyed these few moments with just the two of us together.

Jon put together a video collage of the party that you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScXs6sLC0SU

There are also a couple of shorter clips of the mini-celebration we had for Naomi on her actual birthday here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axpLot6fUY8

and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddw0jIs0k0w

Testimony of Elder Holland

Check out this dramatized version of Elder Holland's Conference talk about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKblIMfmjI

Crooked Nature

Notice the angle at which Naomi is holding her cup. The sipper spout is at the same angle in her mouth that the handles are to her head. This is always how she drinks. Just an odd twist of personality I wanted to record.

Other unique characteristics of Naomi: she is pretty good at imitating us. I don't have any experience with a young baby doing that. So, for instance, if Jon growls at her as he shows her a toy dog, she will take the dog and repeat what he has done. And today I was playing with masking tape. I put a small piece on her nose and laughed. So she turned around and did her best to put it back on my nose (I helped a little) and then she laughed. So cute!

correction

The information for YouTube I wrote before was wrong, sorry. Here are the direct links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xebk8N54axw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWqmuGma55I

Naomi highlights

A few memories of Naomi for the past month or two:

I love how she counterbalances her belly with her elbows.

Our hill-baby, complete with shirtless overalls and broken-picket-fence mouth.

Am I getting cuter, yet?

For those of you who are video junkies, I've uploaded some more funnies of Naomi on YouTube. Search for "Overcoming Obstacles" jonnypalmseed, and you should find them. That is, as long as my upload is successful.

Enjoy!

Birthday Party

You'uns is all invited (though I know you probably won't make it) to our girls' birthday party this weekend.

Physiology

Ever since the Easter Egg Hunt when Adara ran full-force into a glass wall and bloodied her nose, she has been fascinated with the idea of blood. Looking at a broken baby doll, she asked me, "What's inside the baby?" I told her it was just air. Naturally, she then asked what was inside of her. Bones, blood, muscles, tendons, and other stuff, was my response.

Now, if you ask her what's inside of her, as Jon did this morning, she will reply:

"Bones and blood."

Taking it a step further, Jon asked her, "What's inside your head?"

"Air," she said, without even pausing to think.

Being the compassionate parent that he is, after Jon had caught his breath, he supplied Adara with the correct answer: "Blood and brains."

Black Holes

Okay, totally unrelated from the post I just barely published, but I remembered that this morning our little Adara was completely fixated on black holes. She might have gone to bed the night before talking about it, too. She kept talking about how she was afraid of falling into a black hole, and something about a black hole in the middle of the earth. "Are we going to earth?" she asked this morning. "I don't want to fall in the black hole. You're not going to fall in the black hole, are you mom?"

And, random association here -- just remembering wonderful things my child has said recently. A few weeks ago we were driving to church when Adara asked, "Mom, why do we go to church?" (This was the beginning of her "why" phase. I'm looking forward to the end of it.)

I tried to think of a good answer. "Because it's Sunday" was the winning idea.

As it turns out, Adara had a better answer, which she told me as we were walking towards the chapel, "I like church." Maybe when I no longer have to police my children during sacrament meeting, and when I can attend a meeting where I can focus on feeling the Spirit (let's just say I'm the primary chorister and I have a pre-nursery age child), then I, like Adara, will also be able to say, "I like going to church."

Not that I don't like primary. I do love to spend the majority of my Sunday worship time doing wiggle songs and music games. What could be more fun? (No, I'm not being facetious.) I just feel remarkably un-spiritual. And I know it's not because of the calling. It's just that I'm not used to bearing 100% of the burden of seeking and retaining the influence of the Spirit in my life. It'd be really nice to have an uninterrupted hour or two when someone else could lead me into that state of being. . . . Oh well, I guess it's time to grow up and learn some personal responsibility.

Parental Guidance Recommended

I'm apologizing in advance for the graphic content of today's post. This was just too fun not to share.

Adara came down the stairs today and announced, "I have to use the bathroom." I put her on the big potty but I did not expect anything to happen. (Potty training has been a slow process for us.)

A short while later I heard, from behind the closed door, "This poop is hard to get out!"

Then, after we sang a short song to help her relax, "Wow, it looks like a hot dog!"

Needless to say, I was very pleased. In retrospect, it seems almost depressing that this was the high point in my day. However, yesterday's high point was watching Adara play with a caterpillar. I rather wished she'd have left it alone; I was afraid for its life. But it survived, and she had a great time discovering.

Reality

(Inspired by a friend's post.) Adara knows, intellectually, that monsters aren't real. But she's still afraid of them. And she knows that toys aren't real because they can't talk, but cartoons can, so that makes them real, right?

Subtraction

Today at the breakfast table we were discussing the size of our family. Adara said, "When Naomi dies, I'll just be one baby again."

First Time Walking

This girl is super fun. She loves learning new things and she gets so excited. You can't help but laugh and rejoice with her.

Snow, continued

These are 6 week old pictures by now. They're still fun, though.

Shrinking -- those are two eyes on the snowman's face.

I like the mystery implied by the empty leash.

Adara almost looks Amish . . . or Mennonite. :)

Naomi wanted to join in the fun. I don't think this is quite what she had in mind.

Snow in the South, Baby!

It actually snowed here. We haven't left the house all weekend. I'm pretty sure the city doesn't own any snowplows, and now the roads are all covered in ice.

Other Tidbits:

The following is an actual conversation that Jon and I had the other night.

Me - "What are you watching?"

Jon - "It's called, 'Left Behind'. It's about the rapture."

Me - "Is it a documentary?"

Think about it for a minute.

Shifting gears completely -- the pictures below are the result of a gardening project. Jon bought a mushroom growing kit online, and, when he left town for a couple of days, I kind of forgot about the project for awhile.

Real Genius

I'd never seen this ancient Val Kilmer classic, but was sure I'd heard about it. It brings back memories of jr. high GT. What I especially liked was the moral: don't take yourself (smart kids, especially) too seriously. But don't get so lost in having fun that you fail to consider the impact of your actions on the world around you.

Personally, I'm still trying to lear that lesson. Anyone else need a refresher?