Yellow Wallpaper

My sweet baby is 12 weeks old today. She won't really be 'three months old' until Monday so I'll try and get some pictures up on the kids' blog by then. The first six weeks or so of her life really dragged but the last month has flown by. We've reached the point where I feel mostly recovered and she is starting the turn the corner from the 'newborn' stage into being a real baby. This month she has perfected the art of smiling and does it often, especially when she wants food. Occasionally she'll even add some cooing, and the other night we heard our first excited giggle from her. We've set up a little play area for her in the living room with some toys, and one of those is a mirror that I often catch her smiling at. She's also starting to tentatively reach out to grab at some of the toys. This month Baby P has also become a champion sleeper. She is proof that babies are shaped by nature just as much as nurture. Suddenly she started sleeping l...

I can't manage to get my life in enough order to post every day, but I can at least run through this week's highlights -We've had many days of good weather and are absolutely loving the fact that we have a yard to work on. I say 'we', but really Mr. Fob has done most of the work in sprouting seeds, clearing the garden, and creating a compost pile. The kids also spend hours playing out in the back with mud, sticks, rocks, and bricks. -Several mornings this week I was able to get up and ride the exercise bike before kids woke up and needed my help. The baby almost always sleeps through the night, and if we get her down early enough she will wake up to nurse at 6 or 7 and then go back to sleep for a few more hours. I've learned that it's worth it to me to get up then and do some exercise and have a bit of 'me' time before the day gets crazy. She doesn't have a great schedule yet, but we're working on teaching her how to put herself to sleep and ...

And that means it's almost my birthday! I suddenly realized this the other day; I think I'm getting to the point where I spend more time planning my kids' birthdays than my own. Little Dude's birthday is at the end of May and he's already talking about it all the time. If I could have anything I wanted for my birthday I'd go on a trip to Hawaii, but I'm afraid that's out this year (we're hoping for next year--it's been too long since the last time). As far as big-ticket items go I'd love a new sewing machine or a wheat grinder. I could also use cash for some new underwear or other clothes. I think I'm getting boring in the gifts department. Another thing I'm thinking about is attending this writing retreat . I'd probably have to bring either my breast pump or my baby, but I'd love to go. The truth is, I know my family will throw me a nice little party with chocolate cake, and that's all I really need to be happy.

Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. I was a junior in high school; I remember seeing something about it on TV in the classroom of a teacher that my friend and I liked to eat lunch with. The weird thing is that I mostly remember the day because I got my hair cut. After school I drove to the salon and had it chopped up to my ears, my first short hair-do in about eight years or so. During the last fifteen years I've often thought about that day and the particular combination of events. Other tragedies I've experienced have demonstrated the same thing; while we are getting our hair cut, planning our class schedules, eating, sleeping, playing games, someone is suffering. Times like these remind me that that Auden was right. Most of us see the splash and go on with our lives. Or we read about it in the paper and then throw that paper away in the recycling bin. But during the last fifteen years I've also learned that all of us will some day be Icarus,...

I've been pondering lately how to truly change habits. It seems like it is so hard to do, even when I have good reasons for change. For example, we generally have a pretty healthy diet but I've been wanting to change a few things about it. And yet, every time I go to the grocery store I still buy the same things. One of these days I'll get around to posting about the food issue; that's not really what's on my mind now. I've been thinking about our upcoming summer vacation and how I can make it pleasant for everyone in the family. S-Boogie loves school and I think she's going to have a hard time without it. I believe in time for free play and the positive value of boredom, but I'm also trying to come up with a bit of schedule for our days so we aren't always sitting around the house driving each other nuts. The other day I was thinking about television time and how to manage it when the thought came to me "just don't have it at all." No ...

My copy of The Nursing Mother's Companion calls months two through six 'the reward period'. Now that Baby P is about ten weeks old I'm really starting to feel that way. At her checkup two weeks ago she weighed in at eleven-and-a-half pounds, or four pounds more than her birth weight. I checked my records and the other kids weighed about that much at the same age, but she's shorter than either of them were. She is getting nice and pudgy; her arms remind me of little sausages and we think her cheeks weigh about a pound each. Nursing is still going well and I feel like my body is producing more than it did with either of the other two kids. She doesn't spit up often, but I've discovered that she has a sensitive gag reflex and occasionally empties her stomach all over me. The vomiting is kind of scary since it comes out her nose and everything, but it doesn't happen too often and just seems to be due to a combination of sensitive throat and forceful milk re...

Last Saturday morning we packed up the car and headed south. We ran into a blizzard just before Fillmore, ate our peanut butter sandwiches quickly while shivering on a picnic bench at a rest stop, found green leaves in Saint George, and saw beautiful wildflowers in the Nevada desert. When we finally got to Las Vegas, Little Dude and S-Boogie spent an hour running around in Grandpa and Grandma's backyard enjoying the sunshine. They also soaked themselves with the hose while helping to clean and refill the pool. Despite the sun it is still a bit too chilly for swimming in the big pool, but they love playing in the hot tub. We had a nice Easter together and I felt inspired by the Conference talks I was able to watch. It felt ironic to me to be receiving so many good ideas for how to better teach my children the gospel while at the same time giving in to their cries of "I hate Conference" and letting them play in the backyard. I wasn't really prepared for either Conferenc...

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro This was our book group pick for the month; I've read it a few times before, but it's been a while so it was nice to revisit it. I think Ishiguro is one of the better writers out there simply for his ability to so fully inhabit a character's brain and thought processes. He writes characters that really feel like people and not just book characters. The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan Have I mentioned before how much I dislike the subtitles on most nonfiction books? I'm not a big fan of the 'title-colon-long subtitle' trend, and I didn't like the subtitle on this book because even after reading it I'm not sure how the fire 'saved America'. It did save the Forest Service, though, and I enjoyed learning more about that part of American history. Other than the subtitle, this is a good book. I have recently enjoyed reading more books about American history, if nothing...