Daddy / Daughter Evening

Last Friday was one of those hallowed occasions that Lauralee circles on the calendar and anxiously anticipates: Girls Night Out. Every time she goes to Girls Night Out, I'm left at home to ponder many things, and it's not uncommon for me to drift off into a philosophical tangent -- when I really should be...you know...feeding the kids and stuff.

I often wonder why Guys Night Out has never caught on in my circle of friends. Perhaps it's because I don't have enough friends to make a complete circle. Still, I wonder why Guys Night Out has not caught on among my arc of friends. I think about this when I really should be...you know...giving the kids a bath and stuff.

If the definition of Girls Night Out is just a night where the ladies don't have to watch the kids, then I guess I do get Guys Night Out pretty regularly. I just don't spend them with other guys. I have Guys Night Out with the lawnmower. Last Saturday I had a Guys Afternoon Out with a new ceiling fan. I really shouldn't be complaining, I guess. Especially since I should be...you know...putting the kids to bed and stuff.

Anyway, I told you that story to tell you this one: Last Friday Lauralee had a Girls Night Out. To her credit, she took James with her, leaving me to watch only Emma. Emma's been around for awhile now and I'm getting pretty used to her.

We're going to be moving Emma into a toddler bed sometime soon, and we thought that maybe it would be a good idea to prepare her for this change. The crib she currently sleeps in has an assembly option to remove one of the side rails to make it seem more like a bed than a crib. We thought we'd give this a try, so I reassembled the crib in the new configuration. I called Emma up to her room. She seemed to love the idea of a "big girl bed" that she could climb in and out of with ease. She would climb in, read a book, climb out, run around, climb in, jump on the mattress, climb out.

Me: "Emma, do you want to sleep in this big girl bed tonight?"
Emma: "Yeah, I do!"

Fast forward to bedtime. Lauralee had been gone for several hours. I had somehow managed to feed and bathe Emma between my Guys Night Out ponderings. We went through the usual bedtime routine: jammies, books, prayer, singing and rocking. It should be noted that up to this point Emma had shown no trepidation regarding the new look of the crib. I stood up from the rocking chair to lay her down in the crib and Emma said: "Put the lid on."

It's not unusual for me to have no idea what my 2 1/2 year old is talking about, so I went ahead and laid her down on the bed.

"Daddy, put the lid on."

Still not sure what's up, but now fearing that this bed transition was not going to go well, I gave her a kiss, walked out the door, and started my stopwatch. 6 seconds. My daughter lasted 6 seconds in her big girl bed before she got out, opened up her door, and came running to me, whining "one more song, one more song." I'm not a good singer, even by William Hung standards, so I knew that something was up. I walked her back to her room, but when I picked her up to put her back in her bed, she turned into Jack Jack from The Incredibles -- just a big, writhing mass of fury. Finally I got it: she pointed to the unused crib side rail on the floor and said "Put the lid on, Daddy." She was upset about one of the side rails missing.

Some people (and some No Fear shirts) will tell you that quitting is not an option. That's a bunch of baloney. Sometimes quitting is the only thing that makes sense, and this was one of those times. I did try briefly to sit with Emma, hold her hand, etc, until she fell asleep. But it became very apparent very quickly that this was not going to happen tonight. I also felt that we would go through this rigamarole again when we moved her into her actual toddler bed. So, I thought, why not eliminate the middle man? Why fight this fight only to fight it again in a few weeks? And that, my friends, was when I quit.

I pulled out the screwdriver and hardware to begin putting the crib back together. Emma was delighted. She just ran around her room in a circle, pausing occasionally to ask "What doing, Dad?"

Here's a transcript:

9:37 PM
Emma: What doing, Dad?
Me: Putting the lid on.

9:41 PM

Emma: What doing, Dad?

Me: Putting the LID on.

9:43 PM

Emma: What doing, Dad?

Me: Putting the LID ON.

9:44 PM
Emma: What doing, Dad?
Me: PUTTING the LID ON.

9:45 PM
Emma: What doing, Dad?
Me: PUTTING THE LID ON! GIVE ME BACK MY SCREWDRIVER!

Because it wasn't difficult enough for me to balance one side of the rail on my knee, steady it with my chin, hold an Allen wrench in one spot and screw a Phillips head into another spot at an awkward 90 degree angle. Nope, I had to have the toddler who was constantly peppering me with questions grab the screwdriver and run to the other side of the room.

After some deep breaths, the crib was finally put together, Emma was corralled and on my lap, and I was singing Shebangs...er, I mean Give Said the Little Stream. The sweat was wiped from my forehead, my blood pressure back down to normal. I laid Emma down in the crib and was just about to walk out of the room when:

Emma: "Daddy?"
Me: "Yes, sweetheart?"
Emma: "Did you put the lid on?"
Me [in a calm voice, but through clinched teeth]: "Yes."
Emma: "Cool!" [rolls over and starts to fall asleep.]

It's totally Laura's turn to put her to bed when the toddler bed gets here.

Where did April go?

I can't believe April is gone already and that James is 7 weeks old. We are all doing well. Emma is more accepting of me taking the time to care for James. James is still a very good baby, not demanding at all. I do feel bad for him though because he just doesn't get the attention and the cuddling that Emma had. Oh well, that's life for a second child I've been told, but I still feel bad for him. He is getting so big, about 12 lbs. now. I just hope he is close to sleeping through the night or for longer periods than 4-5 hours. Here are the pictures from the last few weeks.

My first trip out alone with both kids was up to Mckay Dee Hospital so that James could have his hearing test. He passed with flying colors. We then had lunch with Grandma and Aunt Annie.

Ready for church - the only way to get Emma to stand for a picture was to let her hold the football.

Posing with her bracelets.

Ready for church with her church "packpack" as she calls it.

My precious boy!

James is ready for church with his very cute tie but since he has no neck yet he was really uncomfortable so we just put it on for the pictures.

We are not sure where his big pouty lips come from yet.

We are trying to enforce the binky this time in hopes that he will stick with it and not his thumb like big sister.

Here is James in an outfit that his Daddy once wore.

Real smiles are finally here is you work hard enough for one. I was able to catch this half smile. Soooo Cute!

James' 4 weeks old Photos

I had his picture taken at 4 weeks old. He was such a good baby. So alert and willing to let us do just about anything. They turned out great, it was so hard to choose. Here are the ones I just couldn't live with out.











Here are Emma's pictures from that age. I think there are some definate similarities but he does look like his own person. What do you think?

Priesthood Session -- An Insider's View

There are many reasons to miss the priesthood session of General Conference -- you're not Mormon, you're not a guy, you don't have the priesthood, you're trampled by a horde of lusty women at Sizzler before the meeting begins, your car breaks down, you can't find your tie...the list goes on.

If you've never been to a priesthood session because of these, or any other reason, then this post is for you.

Ordinarily we men are pretty tight-lipped about priesthood session. Go ahead, ask the closest priesthood holder to you *right now* what any of last Saturday's talks were about, and he'll act like he can't remember a thing. It's all a ploy to keep from revealing what I'm about to reveal to you now. I only hope that one of my brothas doesn't stick me with a shiv for being a snitch.

Priesthood holders slowly trickle in to their chapels before the session starts. Those of us who appreciate the feel of a cushioned bench over the cold, hard steel of a folding chair get there about 15 minutes before the meeting starts. To entertain ourselves, we watch a little timer in the corner of the screen counting down the time to start, then yell "Blastoff!" when the clock reaches zero.

The music for the Priesthood Session has an important role to fill. Already the session has two things going against it: 1) it's in the evening and 2) it's attended by men. Therefore, the music is almost always something upbeat, like Onward Christian Soldiers....because if they dared sing Sweet Hour of Prayer they'd have a lot of Sleepsthood Holders on their hands.

The first speaker of the session is always one of the Apostles. He gets what I call the "sweet spot" in the program, because everyone is still alert and attentive when he speaks. Our Malibu Chicken platters have not had a chance to fully settle in our stomachs and make us sleepy.

The second two speakers are usually drawn from the 70s or the Young Men's presidency, and they always address their talks to the Aaronic Priesthood holders. And the second they say that, there's this big, palpable exhale that goes through the chapel as the Melchezidek Priesthood holders all think to themselves "This is for the kids? Okay, I'm just going to relax..." and sink down in their seats.

By the end of speaker number three, there is definate need for a boost, and that's why there's always an intermediate hymn. Again, this is usually something to get the blood going again, like Behold! A Royal Army! This is also a great time to unwrap any noisy candy wrappers that you might have.

If it's a Spring Conference, at this point Lloyd Newell will interupt and throw it to Greg Gumbel for an update of the March Madness game(s) we're missing.

We may even get to see the last couple of minutes of a game if it's close. Oh, yes...it happens. Why do you think the churches have satellites? Do you think the church really puts a satellite in each stake center just to host a few conference a year? Nope, they need them to get TV feeds from various sporting events. (Note: at the Fall Conference the feed goes to Chris Fowler and Lee Corso for an update on college football. As it turns out, there's not a Saturday night in the whole year where we're not missing a sporting event to go to Conference.)

The next three speakers are always the First Presidency. President Uchtdorf will tell a story about airplanes. President Eyring will get close to crying without actually crying. President Monson will quote from the play Shenandoah. It's a guarantee that one of them will tell us to stop looking at pornography and stop hitting our spouses.

After the meeting is over, you've never seen a quicker, more organized mass exit from a building in your life. Fire officials should come and study just how we manage to evacuate so many people from one building without a single trampling.

I'd like to tell my wife how much I love her.

Amen.

James' Blessing Day!

Well it is official. James' blessing day will be on May 9th, Mother's Day. We are so excited to share this day with all of our family. Sorry if this disrupts any of your plans and we completely understand if you are not able to make it. Our meeting starts at 1:00 pm. We would love to have everyone come.

Here is our 4 week old James!

Happy Easter!

We had a nice Easter Sunday. Emma was very excited about her basket and to look for Easter eggs filled with candy. James didn't show any real interest except in sleeping, eating and being held.

The day before we visited with Great-Grandma Lavender as it was her birthday. Happy 93rd Birthday Grandma.

Emma checking out her and James' baskets.

Hunting for eggs!

Emma has decided that her bike is now a horse. She is showing off her new trick for us.

Reading a book in the laundry basket.

Singing and doing the actions to Popcorn Popping.

Emma loves to do puzzles.

She is also going through a yogurt phase. Anytime I ask her what she wants to eat it is either a blue or pink yogurt. This is good in a way because these go-gurts are about to expire.

Better Wizard Match-Up; The Results Show

As I typed the phrase "The Results Show" in the title, it kind of made me think of this post as an American Idol results show, which is totally appropriate, because this post will have about 58 minutes of time-wasting material followed by 2 minutes of actual results.

This was one of the best-received random match-ups we've had at the Worst Blog Ever, and I'm really pleased to have been the source of the healthy debate. In fact, we had more comments on this post than we did on the one detailing the birth of our boy. But don't worry, readers: I'm not judging you.

My vote on these random match-ups doesn't usually matter unless there is a tie. It doesn't carry any extra weight and I'm a believer in letting the majority rule these votes, even when the majority is wrong. This is one of those instances.

I vote for Gandolf for the simple reason that if Dumbledore is such a great wizard...why is he dead? Gandalf wins by default if for no other reason.

However, the official results came back thus: 6 votes for Dumbledore, 5 votes for Gandalf, 2 people who made a few comments but didn't actually pick either of them. And therefore, by the slimmest of margins, Dumbledore wins the title.

One final note: the voting for these wizards was split almost exactly down one particular demographic: college graduates almost always chose Gandalf. 100% of voters with advanced degrees voted for Gandalf. I'm not sayin....I'm just sayin.