Techno Delay

I promised some of you I'd put pictures of Christmas on a.s.a.p. Turns out that it will be later than anticipated. I'm technologically-impaired, so although I have inserted the memory card from my camera into my computer, I have no idea how to access the pictures. :( And tomorrow I'll be back at home, and busy with packing for our 3-mile move. I don't think I've written about that, yet.

One of Jon's co-workers, Becky, is going to England for 6 months and we are cat-sitting for her. We thought moving into Becky's condo would expedite the cat-sitting, and would prevent potential problems that could arise from Becky leaving her condo dormant for 6 months.

So we're moving - again - and in 6 months we will do it again. As if simply being pregnant wasn't stressful enough. . . . Maybe I'm just destined to get really, really good at this. Maybe one day when the Lost Tribes of Israel get found, I'll be the one to help them pack.

New York Christmas

This is the third night of being in Brooklyn. It's Christmas Eve, and not easy to remember the significance of the day in this place.

The important part of Christmastime, however, is continually evident. I am with my family - Jon and Adara and I have been together almost constantly: exploring downtown Manhattan, the Jewish Children's museum, etc. And my brother Ed has opened his home to us. He came down sick this morning, so he's been home more than was originally planned. It's good to have him around more, because that's the reason I came here. The sight-seeing is fun, but there's nothing at all like being with family for the holidays.

So, now that Christmas Eve is finally here, we have taken out the Christmas presents and arranged them in a nice pile. Jon found an umbrella and a tube of wrapping paper, stuck it in a base, and that's our "tree". I'm still toying with the idea of a popcorn chain to make it a little bit more decorative, but I can't decide if it would be an improvement on the fact that our Christmas tree is an umbrella, or would it just emphasize the tackiness of the situation. Anyway, it's going to be a moot point before long. Christmas Eve is practically over, and once Christmas is here, decorating the tree seems rather pointless.

So this is Christmas. I'm happy for a non-traditional Christmas experience, although I wonder whether I should be making more of an effort to remember Christ. It's a challenge here. New York City - too many people in too small of a place. Inside my brother's apartment, it's the same story, only with furniture instead of people. One time since I came here, I have been able to feel quiet for a moment: at dusk in Central Park. But it was freezing outside and we'd been out all day and just wanted to go home.

Yet despite the seemingly negative impact of these things, I've had an enlightening experience. With so many people to observe, there is much that is good to be seen.

At one point today as I found myself alone in a drug store -- well, alone meaning Jon and Adara were not with me, it was 5:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, after all -- I had a moment to ponder. All the people going about their various duties, acknowledging each other in the same way that they acknowledge the shelves in the store. It might seem impersonal, but there is a sense of respect there. We don't just knock into the shelves willy nilly, nor do we push against the other people around us -- when we can help it. In fact, people often make way for others, trying to be as helpful and polite as possible. It brings a sense of hope and a consciousness about the goodness of humanity in general -- perhaps this is the most precious thing I could have experienced for Christmas.

Above it all, it has been a wonderful experience. Three days left to discover and explore. I can't wait.

Merry Christmas.

Tender moments

Has it really been 6 weeks since I posted last? Yikes. Well, today I just had a brief experience to recount here, excerpted from a talk I am writing for sacrament meeting:

"At the end of one particularly emotional day, I could no longer maintain my composure. Partly because Adara was watching me, I tried to set aside my tears and continue cooking dinner. Tears still broke out from time to time, however, and at one point, as I was sitting at Adara's eye level, crying, she put her hand to my head and, with her almost inarticulate speech, said, "It's okay."

Of course, at that point, everything was okay, and my emotional rollercoaster soon came to a smooth stop.

Pictures! (mostly of Adara)

Here are a few highlights from the last two or three months. Sorry, what with being pregnant, going to Utah, and my YW duties, I've been a little overwhelmed. And this blogging stuff can take quite a bit of time! But - on to the feature photos:

On the right we have Adara with Sweetie and Moon, this season's lambs at the Biltmore farm. The lambs were about the only animals she would touch. Getting her to touch anything else, including the baby chickens, involved drama, screaming, and frustration, so we quit trying.




Here is Adara looking fascinated at the geese in Liberty Park, Salt Lake City. Afterwards we went to the model of the canyons in the area. There were signs written in Spanish with advisory notices on them, but I didn't see where they'd posted the notice in English. Since the kids were the ones using the play equipment, I thought they should have put up pictures.

Adara borrowed pajamas from her cousins, Xander and Xavier. The new charge for checking bags on the airplane limited how many clothes I brought, which gave us this cute opportunity.


(Top) Being chased by cousin Carmen. It's amazing to me that the oddly-balanced body of a toddler is able to run at all without toppling over.
(Center) A visit to the Great Salt Lake with Xander, Xavier, Aunt Dolly and Grandpa Hoefer. Trying to walk in the water by herself, she went almost completely under, and the wet clothes were making her colder than being naked. So we went almost-skinny-dipping. The only part of being at the lake that the babies did not like was when they stepped in the thick mud on the bottom of the lake, or on "mud bars" with their tops poking out of the water, and the mud sucked their feet under, sometimes as far as up to their knees.
(Bottom) Back at home with Papa: Saturday morning, Sesame Street, snuggled in blankets, waiting for a large special breakfast.

Looks like that's all the pictures this post will hold. More later.

Love from the Wilsons.

Siblings

Yes, I'm pregnant, and it's announceable because I am finally (almost) done with the 1st trimester and therefore in the "this kid's really set on going the distance, isn't he?" 2nd trimester, which means I feel much better about announcing it to the world. I just wouldn't want something to happen when the kid still weighed less than 4 paperclips and have everybody saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry." I mean, yeah, okay, a potential baby would no longer have potential to be an actual baby and that's seriously a tragedy. But having the entire world say "sorry" about an unrealized potential (which has the beneficial side effect of me not being sick anymore and not having to go through labor (which, incidentally, was not that bad the first time around. Second time's bound to be different, though. Hope it's not different in a bad way.)) would be a bit much for me.

I can understand Jenna's question about me being pregnant. I pretty much said so on her blog. But Writer . . . you must not be very familiar with Adara's mini-movie series: Starfire, the Unknown Hero and Starfire II: The Unknown Shadow. Otherwise, reading the "unknown hero" comment as "I'm having another baby" would be a very creative interpretation.

And speaking of Starfire -- episode two is now available on YouTube in three parts. It's only part II of the Starfire series, but it was too big to post all as one video. So it's "Starfire II: The Unknown Shadow, part I" and so forth.

And still speaking of Starfire, or Adara rather, that's the original reason I logged on today. Creative vocabulary use is one of the joys of toddlerhood and I wanted to share. Today when we were outside, Adara pointed at her eyes and said, "Eye." Then she squinted and waved her hand ambiguously in front of her face, made the sign for hot, and said, "Hot." In essence, she was saying, "My eyes are hot." Which can also be interpreted as, "the sun is bright and it's burning my eyes." Ve-ry creative, Adara. Very creative, indeed.

Ain't language development the awesomest thing in the universe? I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the study of language and I have yet to become un-fascinated with the subject. Did you know that almost universally, regardless of ethnicity, geographical region, or anything else, most babies' first sound is "ma". Which, of course would explain why, almost universally, the word for "mother" in just about every language that I (in my modest exploration of the world) have come across, is "mama.

Perhaps you did know that, but did you also know that the ability to learn language seems to be actually pre-wired into our brains? Not an actual language, of course, or else we'd all just come out speaking. And if we did, I wonder what language we would speak and if we'd have to learn a new language in order to communicate with adults? Hmmm . . . Anyway, we all seem to have certain parts of our brains that are just waiting to input data into them so they can start processing and figuring out the rules of the language. Doesn't matter what language data you input, the brain's wired up to figure out what the rules are. Cool, huh? Well, it could also be, like, a "duh!" cuz otherwise how would we all have learned to speak. But when you think about it, really, how did we all learn to speak?

Okay, really, I should stop. Hope your reading's been as much fun as my writing.
--Mary

Blog break

We visited some neighbors of ours today.  They had their t.v. turned on to a football game. As we watched, Adara started calling the football players "papa".  We tried to teach her that the generic name for a papa is "man".  Her interpretation was to look at the football players and say "mmMMMmmm!"  It's the same noise she made when we brought out the ice cream, and probably was a good assessment of why a lot of women watch football.  

We have a ton of pictures to post, but I won't be able to get to it until after I'm done with Young Women in Excellence (which I'm responsible for) and the proofreading for the arts magazine I'm volunteering at.  So stay tuned.  Delightful pictures of our trip to Utah, and other random moments from the life of the unknown hero, are on their way.

Ants

A few weeks ago I noticed an ant crawling around my bathroom. Knowing there was nothing there for the ant to survive on, I left it alone, thinking it would eventually give up and leave.

The next day I noticed two more ants had joined the first. These three crawled for days around the bathroom. I assume they explored every inch, top to bottom. After what must have been more than a week, I found all three of their dead carcasses in a corner, as if they had given up all at once and laid down to die together.

I thought that would be the end of it. What colony of ants would send more of its workers into a situation that had already proven to be not only fruitless but also suicide? Well, apparently the ant colony living in the foundations of our home would. A few days later I found a contingent of at least 20 ants.

At that point I thought I should take drastic measures. I killed the ants. But they were back the next day. I ignored them. Soon, a spider moved in. There are considerably fewer ants crawling around the bathroom now, and it appears there is a collection of tiny, dry, ant carcasses in the spider's corner.

I guess I could have the apartment sprayed by the professional pest control people and the drama would be over. But this makes going to the bathroom far more interesting than it usually is. I'll be sad when winter finally arrives and the ants go into hibernation, and the spider goes his way.

P.S. Adara's bathroom is separate from mine. I'd never let a spider stay in her bathroom. She might kill it.