Category: Growing Up

No. 9, No. 9, No. 9, No. 9

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As of today, Brian and I have been married for nine years.  Nine!  Brian gave me a handmade ceramic vase to celebrate the occasion, because he looked up that the ninth anniversary is the “pottery” anniversary.  I find this especially amusing, since he’s never bothered before to observe the other official anniversary gift patterns.

Apparently #10 is the “tin” anniversary.  What, was that list made when Queen Victoria was alive and merchant tinkers still roamed the land?

We spent the evening at a very nice restaurant called The Paris Bistro, and spent part of our meal trying to remember all our past anniversaries.

Know what?  They’re starting to blur.  We can’t quite remember them all.  Here’s what we got:

  • First: stayed at a B&B in Provo, since Brian’s brother’s mission farewell was the following morning.
  • Second: can’t quite remember.  We may have spent it apart, since I flew home to Utah early that year, in order to get cheap airfare, and Brian had to stay behind and finish the semester.
  • Third: Jeffrey was a newborn.  I think we may have traded babysitting with another family, and rushed out to get Thai food.
  • Fourth: can’t remember.  Jeffrey was one.  We do know we stayed in Pittsburgh for Christmas that year.
  • Fifth: We were expecting Eleanor then, and stayed in a B&B in Salt Lake called Wildflowers.  I think we may have eaten dinner at Tucci’s, an Italian restaurant we frequented while dating.  We realized that Tucci’s seemed far more fancy back then, when we were starving undergrads, than it does now.
  • Sixth: Eleanor was a newborn, Jeff was three.  We visited Brian’s siblings in NYC, and they watched the kids for a few hours while we grabbed dinner together in the city.
  • Seventh: Can’t remember.  This may have been the year that my mother guilted Brian and I into seeing Beauty and the Beast at the Pioneer Theatre on our anniversary with the whole family instead of going off on our own, because that was the only night convenient to her.  (Hey, the play was fun anyway.)
  • Eighth: Brian’s parents gave us an early Christmas present — a gift card to Magleby’s, a cute restaurant in Provo.  It was an enormous amount of food, and we can’t remember if we saw a movie afterwards or not. 

So, as you can see, senility is already beginning to set in.  (We blame grad school.)

Movin’ Out. . . Er, In

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Tomorrow is the day — Moving Day!

YES — almost two months to the day since Brian and I first arrived in Utah, our new house is, while still not 100% finished, livable and so we are moving into Retro Acres tomorrow.

Yeah.  That’s the nickname we’ve given the house.  It isn’t stately or charming or anything — I highly doubt we’ll be getting stationery with that embossed on the top — but it’s appropriate.  What else do you call the house with avocado kitchen appliances, a collection of high fluted tapioca glasses, and a “Florida Room”?

Did I mention the ever-awesome built-in sunburst clock?  Oh, Retro Acres, indeed.

The two months of construction have taken their toll, however.  My mother and I spent this entire week cleaning, cleaning, cleaning the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms.  (Floor scrubbing!  ACK!)  But it’s turned up some exciting discoveries, like an Ableskiver pan (mmmm, pancake balls), a hand-cranked kitchen gadget called a “Shred-O-Mat,” and a tiny brass fire extinguisher from what appears to be the 1940s.  Its packaging features a line drawing of a man putting out a flaming Studebaker.

Anyway, we haven’t arranged for an internet service provider in our new home yet, so it will be a while before I’m able to post again (unless I can sneak a trip up to the library or whatnot).

The Adventures Continue!

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The day after Wimmy celebrated his spiffing first birthday, he woke up with a series of big red spots all over his face, arms, and legs.

Allergies? Bug bites? Chicken Pox?

CHICKEN POX?

We still don’t know — they’re fading slowly away, and didn’t seem to bother him — but we are pleased to say that the event has inspired yet another title in the growing catalog of “Jack Norris” imaginary novels.

Didja miss the original “Jack Norris” explanation? Go back here and check it out. Since Jeffrey bestowed this strange little moniker on his baby brother, we’ve been collecting titles in the series based on events in William’s life. The concept is that it’s an action/spy series of novels, a la James Bond or — dare we presume to aspire to it — Christopher Cool, TEEN AGENT.*

So, the “chicken pox” have been labeled as The Enigmatic Spots of Jack Norris!

Watching William slowly reach up from his car seat to grab a cracker:

The Floating Hand of Jack Norris!

In Which William Tosses a Rubber Duckie Into His Father’s Bath:

The Mysterious Duck of Jack Norris!

Remember how Wimmy got a toy wolf puppet at Yellowstone? And it always managed to wind up in the small of his back?

The Vanishing Wolf of Jack Norris!

After trying to feed William while he sleepily pushed everything away, my sister-in-law also contributed

The Creeping Ennui of Jack Norris!

Although really — does this match the Super Secret Spy Agent-type nonstop action that readers have come to expect when picking up a Jack Norris title? I’m not sure. Perhaps this volume comes late in the series, when Jack Norris has retired from the international intrigue business and is coping with boredom on his island villa.

Just one more thing — if you haven’t seen the gorgeous cover art Penguin has commissioned for its reissues of the James Bond novels, GO SEE THEM NOW. They are groovaliciously AWESOME.

*Oh yes, it exists. Go over to Fuse #8 and read the full description of this luscious series. Should I mention that the books include a sassy redheaded “co-ed” whose name is Spice Carter?

Happy Birthday Wimmykins!

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He’s one year old today!

The funny thing is, I was happy that his birthday was in late July, so it wouldn’t ever conflict with major holidays.

BUT — then we moved to Utah, which celebrates Pioneer Day on the 24th.  Oh, well.  At least there will always be parades and rodeos to see on his birthday.  In fact, Jeffrey and Eleanor already participated in a neighborhood ’round-the-block children’s parade this morning.  Their impromptu pioneer costumes were cuuuuute.

I’ve make chocolate sour-cream cupcakes, and he will be given one to devour all by himself.  Friends of ours from Pittsburgh are coming over for a party (we are currently at Brian’s parents’ house).  A candle will be lit.  Bubbles will be blown.  A big ol’ pile of presents will be unwrapped.

It’ll be the greatest birthday he’ll never remember.

sun moon stars rain

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Fantasy vs. Reality!

This has been one of my parenting challenges, as of late. You see, sometimes kids come to you to ask how certain things work (“Why does Dad have to go to work?” “Why do we keep the milk in the fridge?”) and other times they make little theories all on their own.

For instance, this past Fourth of July, Jeffrey was literally hopping with excitement over the fireworks display. (Ella cowered under a blanket during the whole affair, alas.) After enthusiastically joining in the show with his own rocket noises, he turned to me with a serious expression.

“Mom, are fireworks how new stars are made?”

Now, here’s the dilemma: I could correct him, tell him no, stars are born in big glowing gas clouds far out in space. But whenever I do this, I always feel as if the All Powerful Grown-Up Perspective were clamping down its big iron fist on the little flowering Kid View.  There seems no better way to quash a kid’s imagination than to negate it at every turn.  Who says that my world view is all that more valid, anyway?

“Um,” I answer.  “What do you think, Jeff?”

“I think they do,” he says, his grin lit up with sparks.

“Oh?” I ask.  “Just how do they get stuck up there?”

“Well. . . ” he replies, and he then launches into a lengthy explanation that I couldn’t understand very well, except for this bit at the end: “And then all the stars get together around the firework, and use their gravity to swing the new star up into the sky.”  Having finished this little lecture, he then recommenced his tribal firework dance.

I remember a literature prof in college talking about William Blake’s “visionary gleams” — how as a child he would claim to have seen angels sitting in trees, or walking among field laborers.  But his visions continued into adulthood — even at the age of fifty, he claimed to see the rising sun as “an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty.”

Blake knew he was looking at the sun, my teacher explained.  But he was always celebrating the power of the human imagination to superimpose itself onto the world, to see what is there and see what is not.  This is an essential creative power, this ability to create stories, to make worlds.  To see angels in the sun, and stars in a flash of gunpowder.

Now He’s Really Square

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Last Monday Brian graduated from medical school, and “officially” recieved his Ph.D. hood, as well.

Hooraaaaayyyyy!

Seven years of graduate school, FINALLY OVER!

On to five more years of training!

The graduation ceremony went off with only a few hitches. My camera was pretty lousy at taking photos from the back of the Carnegie Music Hall, so this is the only one of the ceremony that turned out. He’s just recieved his medical hood, which is forest green. The deans were all clad in green as well, making them look like a bunch of leprechauns.

The only other hitch was that William threw up all over his grandfather ten minutes before the ceremony was about to start. I’m not talking about a spit-up — that I can handle — but a full-scale gastro-instestinal assault. Brian’s dad, who fathered six children, took it all in stride.

In fact, he was even good enough to take this picture of us in the lobby afterwards. Jeffrey opted to attend preschool that morning instead of coming to the ceremony (smart kid; it would have been painful for him), in case you’re wondering.  Note the double-hood action on Brian’s shoulders!!

So, Brian is now Dr. Brian, M.D./Ph.D. A Doctor-Doctor, or as I call it, a Doctor Squared. Har har har. Nerd Jokes: can they be any funnier?

The medical school is big on the whole pomp-and-circumstance thing. (Except that they didn’t actually play “Pomp and Circumstance” during the graduation ceremony.) Graduation is a whole-weekend affair. It starts with a big barbeque on Saturday (ribs! ribs! ribs! And we got to take home a gigantic caramel-apple pie!) followed up by Scope & Scalpel in the evenings.

“Scope & Scalpel” is a comedy show put on by the graduating medical school class, making fun of the whole gruelling four-year training process. It’s been a Pitt tradition since the ’50s, and as far as I know, it’s something that is unique to this school. It’s quite the lavish affair, considering that it’s put together by fourth-year medical students, who are pretty busy people.

There are costumes, elaborate dance numbers, and a full orchestra. People collect the posters. And there’s lots of bathroom humor. The shows’ titles usually involve horrible puns — this year’s show was called “The Full Montefiore.” “Montefiore” is the name of one of the hospitals in town. Past shows have titles like “Back to the Suture,” “Thoracic Park,” “Apolyps 13,” and “Crouching Patient, Hidden Finger.”

To tell the truth, most of the jokes fell kinda flat, or were in-jokes that neither I nor Brian got (such as a love song written to Tony Danza). But there was one short film shown that pretty much stole the show. Here it is. . . um, I’ll just say that it’s probably rated PG-13. It’s full of all the thoughts medical students have during their third year of med school, but do not say out loud.

I laughed so hard I cried.  Sobbed.  It was that funny.

For those of you who do watch it, here’s a bit of vocabulary to help you along:

  • WPIC: Western Psychiatric hospital
  • Fecolalia: talking about feces all the time (we think?  Brian’s already packed the medical dictionary, so we couldn’t look this up)
  • Neologism: nonsense word or word used incorrectly; sign of schizophrenia
  • Celiac: the first major artery that branches off the aorta after it passes through the diaphragm
  • Rounding: walking “round” the hospital, waking up patients and asking them about their stools.  Repeat this an infinite amount of times, and you have an internal medicine rotation (aka “medicine rotation”).
  • Differential: list of possible diagnoses that you come up with after examining a patient
  • Retracting: tedious process of holding back skin/fat during surgery; usually the med student’s job
  • Magee: the women’s hospital in Pittsburgh; med students do their OB/GYN rotations there.  This section of the video was filmed at the Magee ballpark in Greenfield.
  • “Next time I think I’ll put a cover on my shoe”: Childbirth is messy.  Some OBs wear face shields.
  • Peds: pediatrics
  • H&P: history and physical
  • “Circle of Bruce” : referring to the Circle of Willis, the circle of arteries inside your brain.

Wim-Ventures

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This morning, all of the muscles on the inside curve of my left arm were stiff — from the joint of my left thumb down to the elbow. I couldn’t figure out why that was, until I picked up William and propped him up on my left hip, as usual.

Oooooooow! The pain! The pain!

That’s right — my arm was stiff and sore because William — who is currently weighing in at around 20 lbs. — is pretty much demanding to be held ’round the clock these days. So much, that my arm is cramping up in my sleep.

It’s all because of his tooth, really. Yes, that’s right. Wimmy has a lil’ bumpy razor-tooth that took its sweet time emerging from his lower gum this weekend. Saturday night was a scream-a-thon; on Sunday he hurt so much that he couldn’t nurse well. He just clutched his gum and howled. Poor fella.

Oh — oh — and did I mention the bad haircut? Yes, another Baby Milestone that we’ve managed to botch spectacularly. Brian was convinced that the long wispies on Wimmy’s head and the downy tufts over his ears were causing him trouble. You know, getting food stuck in them and so forth. Moreover (and I suspect that this is the real reason) people kept confusing Wimmy for a girl. (Oh. No. Not. That.)

So, after much cajoling, I agreed to let Brian snip a bit. The results?

Oh, dear.

Let’s just say that there’s a good reason why we’ve never cut Eleanor’s hair, ever. It’s because Brian and I are completely lost when it comes to cutting hair. William now has a too-short fringe of fluff bordering his head that begins parallel to his brows, but then rockets up at a 45 degree angle just to the right of his nose. Did I mention how hard it is to get a 9-month-old baby to hold still for a haircut?

The ear tufts look like they got nibbled on by rats.

Fortunately, the whole experience was cut short (heh) when Brian accidentally scraped the top of Wimmy’s ear with the scissors. So not only did William go to bed that night with a bad haircut, but with his ear pathetically bandaged to the side of his head. Poor lil’ guy.

Why? Why did we do this to you?!?

At least people aren’t confusing him for a girl. Now they just say, “Oh! He got a . . . haircut!” Or if I talk about the fringe, they say, “Oh, good! I didn’t want to ask what had happened!”

Happy Birthday, Ellabelle!

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She’s threeeeeeeeee!

Yesterday we had a Jungle-themed party for our girl, and it went just swimmingly. I got the theme from a book about children’s parties (all of my ideas come from books) but, oddly, all of the animals featured in the book-version of the party were things like giraffes and zebras, none of which actually live in the jungle. Still — it’d be kinda weird to invite someone to a Savannah Party. Like it’s some kinda Antebellum South-themed soireé.

Anyway, our Jungle Party was just ripping. The kids played Animal Charades, followed by an impromptu retelling/pantomime of Caps For Sale (aka “The Hatseller and the Monkeys”) which is a story Jeff, Ella, and some of the party guests know from preschool. (“Se Venden Go-roooooos!”) We then played Pin the Tail on the Monkey, the concept of which most of the kids couldn’t grasp, and then had a Peanut Hunt.

The peanuts had little faces drawn on them, an idea inspired by this Raggedy Ann & Andy book I used to read as a child. Anyway, that’s why Brian and I had spent some of the previous evening drawing on peanuts while watching Duck Soup. And that is considered a standard-style evening in our household.

After the Great Peanut Hunt, the kids had a Wild Animal Feast, with Jungled (aka deviled) Eggs, Red Snakes (aka red pepper strips), Crocodile Teeth (aka cucumbers . . . okay, that was a stretch, I admit, but we were naming the foods as we served them), and Jungle Trees (broccoli). Then . . . the cake!

This cake made me sooooo happy. It’s the “yellow cake” recipe given to me by an incredible cake-baker who used to live in my ward. I am VERY proud of the lettering on the frosting, there.

At the end, Ella opened her presents, with this goofy “Heavy Heavy Hang Over” tradition that my family has always done. Ella was very good about saying “thank-you” before ripping into the goodies.

Brian and I gave Ella this spiffy Lego set I found at the thrift store months ago. It’s this “Little Forest Friends” set, and it looks like a Winnie-the-Pooh set was mixed in with it. It came in this gigantic storage bin, with these great building plates and everything. The set’s been discontinued, which is too bad, because it’s reallllllly adorable.

Jeffrey and Eleanor spent the entire afternoon after the party playing “Honey Village.” In fact, they are still playing that game as I type this. Says Jeffrey: “Winnie the Pooh is a honey bounty hunter.”

Oh — I also made these candy “Tiger Tails,” which was inspired by a recipe from my Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey cookbook. What are they? Marshmallows . . . dipped in caramel . . . dipped in candy coating . . . drizzled with chocolate . . . on a stick. They are inspired by a candy that is made and sold at Disneyland. They are INTENSE. Jeffrey, who usually inhales his treats, nibbled halfway through his Tiger Tail and then declared that he was “full.” Eleanor still hasn’t finished hers.

But she looks adorable eating it, doesn’t she?

Too Big For His Britches

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I was nursing William on the couch a few days ago, and when I looked down, this is what I saw:

william-toes.jpg

Hmm. Methinks our boy is growing bigger. At least, his toes are. I’m a bit sorry to retire this suit — I remember Jeffrey wearing it, and it’s rather snuggly. Even with the added bonus of easy toe access, it’s not worth keeping anymore. Sigh.