Quinn receives Father of the Year award

Just kidding.

A few things never fail: it rains (or snows) after I wash my car, my toast lands on the floor peanut-butter side down, and if Lauralee leaves me home with Emma for the evening: it's bath night.

Bathing is a chore that is not to be enjoyed, but to be finished as quickly as possible. The same goes for bathing Emma.

The other night Lauralee left for a Relief Society function. Our ward Relief Society is officially in spring fever mode. It's like it kills them to go all winter without an activity, so when the nicer weather rolls around, they have to make up for lost time. Book reviews, recipe exchanges, gardening tips, cooking classes -- all jammed into one month. Oh, and we can't forget the Relief Society birthday social. Happy 168th birthday, Relief Society! What do you get for the Society that has everything?

Anywho, when bathtime came around I took Emma upstairs and started running the bathwater. I stashed Emma in her room, but she eventually wandered into the bathroom with a stuffed animal. Awww...how cute. And then: Splash! She slam dunked that teddy bear into the bathtub full of water. I really just didn't see that coming. Emma has 108 stuffed animals, but of course the one that she decided to "baptize" was a wind-up teddy bear with a music box inside. You know, one that could actually be permanently damaged by water.

Emma's slam dunk form was actually quite good. It was a two-handed power dunk, along the lines of a 76ers-era Charles Barkley (see figure 1). It lacked the showmanship of a Karl Malone dunk (see figure 2), and certainly did not have the high knee elevation of an in-shape Shaquille O'Neal (see figure 3) or the power of a Darryl Dawkins (figure 4). All in all, though, it was pretty good for a 16-month old.

Funny how the first thing I thought of when the bear hit the water was "Laura's going to laugh her head off that I can't handle a simple task like bathing our daughter without some kind of problem."

I rescued the bear, secretly grateful that Laura had rented The Guardian several years ago. Even though I didn't watch the whole movie (Laura kept blocking the screen, a glint in her eyes and a small amount of drool trailing from the corner -- sometimes corners -- of her mouth) everything I learned about water rescue I owe to Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner.

How do you dry a stuffed animal -- in this case stuffed not only with stuffing but with moving parts -- without creating a festering sog-ball of mold? I've never seen a Haley's Hints about that. Since Emma had fled the scene of her dunk -- beating her chest and hot-dogging it back down the court to her room -- I turned around to the bedroom to try to find a suitable place to hang this bear for drying. And that's when I heard another splash. Emma had enjoyed her first dunking experience so much that she had gone back to her room to get some more stuff.

Emma has 763 books of various shapes and sizes. Many of them belonged to her mother, and the book that was arguably Laura's favorite was Love You Forever. It's a heartwarming story about love, loss, life, death, and clingy moms. Lauralee likes this book so much that she actually went to the trouble of buying two copies of the book -- one paperback and one hardback -- in case one of the copies got ruined. To my horror and embarrassment, Emma had picked up only two books and threw them in the bath -- and it was both copies of this book. I've since tried to calculate what were exactly the odds of this occurring, but my poor Casio couldn't even handle the numbers.

Emma skeedaddled out of the bathroom again and I grabbed the books from the water. I knew I needed to separate all the pages so that they wouldn't dry and get stuck together. I started to individually separate each page of each book when I realized that the water was still running in the bathtub. I stopped it before it began to overflow. It was certainly the most water that Emma had ever bathed in. I got her a bendy straw to breathe through. It was all good.

The bath was uneventful, and I put Emma down to sleep as quickly as possible, then spent the evening sitting in the rocking chair downstairs, painstakingly drying each page of each book with a hairdryer, and watching my stories on the television.

Both books are still readable, but many of the pages have a Declaration of Independence-like texture to them.

I'm not sure where this ranks on the list of poor parenting incidents committed by Quinn. I'm thinking it's somewhere between letting Emma eat a leaf and sending Emma out to scare off the raccoons in the backyard.

--Quinn

Playing Inside vs. Playing Outside!

I'm not sure which one Emma prefers, she seems to have a good time wherever she is and does not seem to mind the cold. Inside she played with Easter Eggs this morning. But once the sun was up we headed outside. I needed to start weeding the garden in preperation for some early spring planting. I am determined to get a crop of peas in this year.

I took some toys out with us but Emma preferred to be in the garden with me sitting, crawling and walking around in the mud. She was very happy and content, eventhough her hands, knees and feet were probably a little cold. Here are some great pictures of the fun today.

The Inside Fun:

The Outside Fun:

Bird Refuge and Birthdays!

I need to get this caught up a bit so sorry for the long post. A few Saturdays ago the Elder Quorum held an activity that included a dutch oven breakfast and then an outing to the Farmington Bay Bird Refuge. I had never been there and really didn't even know it existed.

The breakfast was so yummy, especially since I didn't have to fix it. Emma and Quinn both liked it even though it included eggs, a big step for them. Then we all carvaned out to the refuge. We missed the Bald Eagles by one week but it was Tundra Swan day. They had scopes set so you could see them, it was too bad they were so far away. I though we might be able to get a little closer but oh well. Emma had a great time once we let her out of the stroller. She was so happy to toddle after all the kids thinking she was one of them. It was so cute. There was a little hill that all the kids were climbing on and so she just had to do it as well but it was a little steep for her and of course covered in bird poop but what can you do. We just did a good cleaning when we got home.

The Tundra Swans! They really were far away.

Quinn viewing the swans through a scope.

Not a happy camper.

Emma having a blast.

Trying to keep up!

The hill she tried to master.

All of us.

The next day we headed to the Lavenders for Sunday dinner and to celebrate Christian and Nicole's Birthday's. We had a yummy dinner and an ice cream cake. Once again Emma loves to play with her cousins. I hardly saw her all night. But the down side she gets so worked up that she doesn't sleep well on those nights and it's like I have to retrain her on how to sleep again. Oh well I don't want to ban her from playing with her cousins.

Christian (waiting for his turn to open presents) and Grandpa.

Diane, Loren, Shawn, Tanner, Emma and Me.

Great-Grandma, Nicole and Kyle

Someone stole our Camera!

Emma's crazy cousins!

I heart Google

If you're a Googlite, like I am, then you're familiar with the fact that Google now tries to predict what you're searching for and fill in the search bar for you, based on common searches by other people. I've read several accounts where people found hilarious and/or alarming searches that pop up under the Google search bar. I decided to try it for myself, and I was not disappointed.

I started off with this 'softball' search, thinking that if there's going to be anything funny or strange on the Internet, the president would be a prime target (Side note -- I wonder if my name is going to appear on a Homeland Security watch list for using the phrase "the president would be a prime target." I hope not.) "Barack Obama is the Antichrist" of course jumped out at me, but what really perplexed me was "Barack Obama is your new bicycle". What in the world does that even mean? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Here's another good one. I'm glad that the list contains BOTH "Why do I have so much gas" (representing the classier folks in the world) AND "Why do I fart so much" (representing the rest of us). As for "Why do Indians smell", it should be obvious that the ones who think this are the ones who have all the unexplainable gas. Trust me: it's you, not them.

I thought it was deliciously ironic that "What do I do if I miss a birth control pill" and "What do I do if I'm pregnant" appeared on the very same search. Also, there is an amazing number of people concerned about their iPod...and their dog. The wackiest search I found: "I can't believe that someone like Osama bin Laden could ever understand the joys of Hanukkah". Geez, I don't even know what to say about that, other than "No duh."

Where to begin? "Why can't I own a Canadian"? I know that deep down, we all want to own a Canadian, or at least a northern Minnesotan. But -- alas -- we know that it's just not meant to be, for myriad reasons. What are those reasons? I don't know. You'll have to Google it. And, more importantly: "Why can't I just eat my waffle"? Amen, brother. Amen.

Quinn

Things I never thought I'd do

When you become a parent, things change so much. Sometimes, you might not even realize how much your life has changed until you sit down and make a list...

• I never thought I'd be outsmarted by a babyproofed cabinet. We've had safety latches on our doors and drawers for months now. I've opened them 1,343 times, and I still forget they're there and nonchalantly pull them open only to have them yank out of my hand after an inch.
• I never thought I'd do "The Diaper Dance."
• I never thought I'd ever sniff another human being's butt (on purpose anyway). Now I do it just about every day.
• I never thought I'd ever be relieved -- excited, even -- for another human being to have a bowel movement.

Quinn