Someone Is Watching Over My Baby

What mom hasn't left her kid for a minute to run into another room to get something? I think most, if not all moms have done that. A few weeks ago, Jenna and I came back from running some errands. I put her into her walker in the living room, because she actually can't get into much that way versus her crawling around. I then got my groceries out of the car, making several quick trips to do so. The entire time, Jenna was just fine, as she has been on many, many occasions similar to this. I then left for about a minute to move the car from the garage (easier to unload Jenna and groceries) back onto the driveway so that Braden could then pull our car into the garage.

When I came back in, as I approached the living room from the laundry room, I could see that the walker was not moving, and my first thought was that Jenna had gotten stuck somehow, since there were a few bags and her diaper bag on the floor. As I got closer, I gasped as I realized why she was stuck. I obviously couldn't take a picture of it the moment that it happened, but I took pictures after the fact to illustrate what I think happened.

What I later discovered were the wooden kitchen table slats (two of them, to lengthen the table when you have company) had come crashing down onto the back of the walker. Jenna was miraculously unharmed, and was actually grinning at me, although unable to move her head at all, when I walked in. What I think happened, based on her position, was that she was reaching for her diaper bag, which was directly in front of her. To reach for it, she leaned as far forward as she could go, but as she did so, the walker moved backwards enough to push the slats towards the wall, thus making them fall forward on top of the walker. Thank goodness she was leaning forward!!! I cannot stress enough how absolutely amazed I was that she was totally unharmed. It missed her completely, even though she could not move an inch without coming into contacts with the slats. And she was giggling!! You can bet that I was very shaken up, and the first thing I did (after removing her from danger, of course) was to say a prayer of thanks that she was kept safe. The thing that kills me is that before bringing groceries or bags in, I always do a quick check to make sure nothing is left out that she shouldn't be getting into. In this case, what had happened was that the slats *were* behind her high chair, but a couple of days prior to this, I had moved the high chair so we could start putting boxes there for the move. This particular day, a whole bunch of boxes had just been taken up to the new place, and so the room was already different, and for some odd reason the slats seemed to blend into the background very well (even though the wall and the slats are different colors), and I didn't even notice them.

Here are some different views. I kept everything on the floor the same and tried to recreate how the slats were positioned:




And then here is Jenna in her walker, so you can get an idea of how she fits into it. She's leaning forward a bit in the first picture, but in the second one, you can see how she normally sits in it, and she is TALL for her age, so when she actually stands up...you get the idea.



Even remembering it now, it gives me the chills. And just yesterday, when I was waiting to turn left on a busy road, a motorcyclist wasn't paying attention, didn't notice I was stopped (our brake lights *are* working, and my turn signal had been on for a full minute) and had to brake hard and swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid smashing into us. Luckily, he didn't lose his balance, although I saw that he very nearly did, and also luckily for him, there was enough space for him to do so without any cars hitting him from the opposite direction.

We've had a few close calls lately. We're grateful to still be in one piece!

Some Links

This one is a site where people submit passive aggressive notes they've come across. I like the one on the microwave. I also like the nice Christmas card followed by "PS: Get your garbage off the fire escape."

Braden showed me this one yesterday.

Ellen DeGeneres and her Hawaii chair demonstration. This one had me laughing so hard!

And this MMW post was pretty funny. I absolutely LOVED the following comments from "What About Mom?" and "snow white", respectively:

"We once had the most awful singing doll known to man. Our maid Nadia (almost every expat in Cairo has a maid, even the poor professors’ families) gave it to our 3 yr old for Ramadan.

A) it sang awful Egyptian “music,” b) my daughter loved it, c) since it probably cost 50 cents (uh, we paid her like 45/month for 10/week of work) there was no way to turn it off or take out the batteries, and d) we couldn’t get rid of it (Nadia emptied out the trash).

So i drowned it. “Look Sally, Ramadan dolly wants to take a bath with you.” Just made it worse — sounded like a sick cow Ramadan dolly until we finally ‘lost’ it on a trip outside the city."


"Apparently, if you wash a stuffed animal with a voicebox, it makes noise all on it’s own as the voicebox dries, even for weeks. After I gave his stuffed animals a “bath”, my son was scared to death to go in his room for a long time because he claimed he heard a “piggy noise”."


I was in hysterics imagining what a "piggy noise" would sound like. Braden's response was, "You're really easily amused." Yes. Yes, I am. :)

Comida, Glorious Comida!

So...the reason I have Dominicans on the mind is because yesterday I started looking up various ethnic recipes, and I started with Dominican food. Now that is good stuff. And I discovered why that is, once I had read through a few recipes. Let's just say, keep your gallon of oil close at hand in the kitchen, folks. :)

I only partly jest. I did also notice that if you stock up on a few (okay, a little more than a few) key ingredients, you can make ANYTHING THAT HAS EVER BEEN SERVED BY A DOMINICAN. This is actually true for other ethnic foodal items, but I was really struck by it looking through the recipes.

So yesterday for dinner I tried making stewed red beans, or habichuelas rojas guisadas. I thought it turned out pretty well, although a little salty, and it did remind me of my mission. I'll have to try that one again. Braden wanted to marry the fajitas, and those were made from a McCormick packet of undetermined age. But he's not a big bean fan anyway, so...more beans for me!

I'm also looking up how to make authentic refried beans along with Mexican rice. I'm at the point where I get so excited about collecting various recipes that I can't decide which one I want to make, so I've got to be careful. :)

I just made some Phad Thai, also from a packet, and that was a little disappointing. Braden really liked the General Tso's chicken and sauce that I made about a month ago, so I thought I'd try something else from the same company. This one was all right, but it was just missing something. Ah well. At least we know we like the General Tso one. And no, I don't always make stuff from packets (it's actually not that common for me to do so), but they sure are convenient sometimes. This is especially true when you're not all the way unpacked, and you can't find your certain key ingredients. :)

There's a marketplace near here that has an awesome ethnic foods section. We got all excited when we stumbled across it a few days ago. We're talking "hunt for the product name in English because everything on the label is Chinese/Japanese/Thai/Spanish" authentic. Gooooooood stuff. They even have several brands of mango nectar, which is such a mission memory for me. I remember my companion and I each downing a quart of mango nectar right before starting a companionship fast one time. I loved the stuff. The nectar, that is, not so much the fasting while walking miles and miles in the Bronx. Running...out...of...ener...gy.....

Dominicano

If you ask Dominicans where they are from, they will almost without exception say,
"Dominicano" or "Dominicana", depending on gender. Because who wants to say the mouthful, "De la Republica Dominicana"??? I feel their pain. United States = Los Estados Unidos OR you could sound like a monkey and just say, "E.E.U.U." (eh eh oo oo) OR you could say "norteamericano/a", ie North American. I was told that it's generally considered ethnocentric for an American to say "americano/a" in self-reference because usually you're talking to someone from Latin America who may be like, "Um, yeah, I'm American, too." That's if you consider the whole of the American continent, which a lot of Latin Americans do, and that's why they refer to the U.S as just that and not America.

The things you pick up on your mission...

I've just been told that this post is random. And my response to that is, "You knew den. And you did nothing." (Independence Day, anyone? It means: You knew den that I was random...and you married me anyway.) In any case, yes, there is a method to my madness, and it shall be revealed in the next post.

'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy!

This post was originally going to be about my current favorite song, but then I got to thinking about misheard lyrics. You see, Braden heard me listening to this song, and he thought the chorus went, "But it's too late to father a child" instead of "But it's too late to apologize". And anyway, he's already fathered a child, so I think we're okay there. :)

So I thought I would put a couple of other good ones up here for your entertainment:

In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
As heard by 11 year old Ryan: "Oh my, it stinks..."
Actual lyric: "All my instincts, they return..."
(I remember that he and I were in the car in Bountiful, UT when he turned to me with a puzzled expression and repeated what he'd heard)

Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
As heard by 12 year old Ker: "Rubba-da-bubba..."
Actual lyric: "Bumper to bumper..."
(In 7th grade, I took it upon myself to write out the lyrics and, as you can tell, some of them I really couldn't figure out!)

Check out The Archive of Misheard Lyrics for more of the same.

Happy Birthday, Gina!!

It is my sister-in-law Gina's birthday today, and she is the first of the sisters-in-law to take the big plunge! All four of us are celebrating a momentous birthday this year, and I'm next...

We hope you had a great day, Gina!

Move In....Don't Mess Around!

So we are apparently getting internet somehow, thanks to Braden. We are almost all moved in, except for a few scattered things back at the old place.

It has been an interesting day, to say the least. Thank goodness we had a reasonable turnout for both moving out and moving in. All the people that came from the old ward were people I called last minute, because we found out Thursday night that the person supposed to help gather some people didn't know he was supposed to. The elders quorum prez thought he had told this person to, but apparently there was a miscommunication. So when Braden called him on Thursday night to ask if he'd gotten anybody, he said, "Um, no, not yet. You want me to call some people?" Uh oh. So I made some calls on Friday and luckily was able to get some people together. And let me clarify, I don't expect anyone to call people...we'd just been told that someone would do it to help, and so when it didn't happen, we were scrambling. We had about 7 people from our new ward to help out, plus Steve and Devon & Teresa (in-laws). Steve and Devon very kindly offered to drive back the U-Haul truck and the parentals' van, respectively, for which we are VERY grateful, because it saved both of us having to go down south again. And we are also grateful for the use of said van, since our car doesn't hold all that much, especially with Jenna in the back seat.

We had thought that Miss Jenna could play in the living room while we are in the office/dining room, but it's looking like that probably won't work. She wants to be exactly where we are. We've blocked off the living with boxes, and we can watch her, but she can't get over the boxes and...she's not too thrilled with that. It's just a few feet away, but she still desperately wants over! :) Oh, wait, she may be getting more used to it. She looks like she's having more fun now. I know I'm having fun crawling around on the CARPET with her!! Hooray carpet!

Pictures to come....

'Fess Up!

Who has ever opened and closed his/her mouth when feeding a bite of food to a child?
Yep. This one is hard not to do.

Who has ever jerked the game controller up and away in the direction of an attempted jump/move? Super Mario, anyone?
Again, yes.

Who has ever taken care of business while on the phone? And I think we all know what "taking care of business" means.
No, but I know people who have...I'm thinking of you, dear brother, because I asked, "Was that a flush???"

Who has ever snored so loudly that his/her spouse had to either wake him/her up or go sleep on the couch in an attempt to get SOME sleep?
I know who IS guilty of this, and it ain't me. I haven't had to sleep on the couch yet, though, because I can't reconcile myself to it. It's like I think it's a slippery slope or something. IF I SLEEP ON THE COUCH, THIS MARRIAGE IS ON THE ROCKS. Just kidding. But I still can't do it.

Who has ever decided that it's time for the baby's nap RIGHT NOW even though technically it's probably a half hour from now? Oh yeah.

WHO CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH???!!! Just kidding, again.

'Fess up, peeps.

The New E House Revealed!

But not fully. Sorry that potential internet weirdos have to ruin it all for the rest of us, but...them's the breaks. I will show some of the house, though.

Braden made these pictures spiffy and splendiferous in Photoshop, so be sure to tell him how spiffy he is and how mahhhhvelous the photos ah, dahlinks.

A view from the living room. You can see the stairs on the left.


Jenna having a grand old time in one of the closets.


The recently remodeled kitchen of awesomeness.


The master bedroom.


A view of the living room from the stairs. The dining room is on the left. Be sure not to overlook the *cozy* fireplace.

Lost in Interpretation

It was Jenna's 10 month day yesterday, and we celebrated by telling her, "Happy 10 month day! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!" To which she responded, "Tsssss. Tssssss."

I will now provide a Jenna dictionary so that you can all understand her response:

"Tssssss. Tssssss." = indicates happiness or pleasure. Sometimes accompanied by general exploration or attempts to figure something out.

"Di-di-di-DAAAAAAAH!" = danged if I know. Just noise. But it's funny.

"Dadadadadadada" = Again, just talking. A surefire to get her to say this is to say "Mamamamama" to her, to my chagrin and Braden's glee.

"MMMMMMMMMM. MMMMMMMMMMMM! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!" = Indicates fatigue, hunger, poopiness or just general crankiness. Usually increases in volume until the situation is rectified.

She does have other sounds in her repertoire, but these are the main ones. You have been briefed.

Superbowl

Cleopatra the Cheerleader. What's Not To Love?

I didn't know Cleopatra had a beer/milk belly!

I missed most of the Superbowl this year (I was making my Never-Made-The-Same-Way-Twice-Bean-Dip, which turned out to be scrumdiddlyumptious). And I'm okay with that. I'm even okay with missing most of the Superbowl commercials, which cost an astounding 2.5 mill to run. I can think of a whole lot of other stuff I'd rather buy if I had that kind of money. Just sayin'.

Anyway, it sure looked like the Patriots had it in the bag, and then it all comes down to those pesky Mannings, doesn't it? "I would've gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky Mannings." This particular Manning has a whole lot more hair, a whole sweaty mess of it, as the cameras kept jockeying to show us. I really could have cared less who won, but Braden was rooting for the Patriots, and therefore Braden's dad was all for the Giants. Gotta make things interesting, you know?

The Schmenna was royally bedecked with much cheerleader-osity. Lo, she did exude much cuteness. The jumper is a 6-9 onesie dress, so I was a bit worried that it wouldn't fit her, but luckily it stretched enough. There's also a little blue headband that goes with it, but she liked that about as much she liked the Santa hat of a month and a half ago. Braden put her standing up holding onto my feet (which were on top of the coffee table), and she lasted about a second before losing her balance and slamming her chin on the coffee table. BAD TIMES, MY FRIENDS. She bit something going down, so I was holding her while Braden dabbed at the blood filling up her mouth. I think it was not as bad as it originally seemed, because it stopped after not too terribly long. Poor Jenna was screaming her head off, though, as you might imagine. I held her for a little while, and Braden gave her some Infant Tylenol and little pieces of ice, which calmed her down immensely. Before long, she was her happy self again, and we were all commenting on how quickly babies bounce back from injury.

Here are some pics to commemorate the great event:

Grandpa helping Jenna stand on Daddy.


Nice Blue Butt! Jenna is going through one of Granmom's toy drawers.

A Link that Made Me Cry

No, not sad crying! Happy, happy crying! As in laughing so hard that tears roll down your cheeks.

Now, there are those of you who may not find the following link as funny as I did. And that's okay. We can still be friends. Those who know me well know that I am easily amused. :)

Go here and play the second video (there are three). The first and third videos are somewhat amusing, but...meh.

Braden said that my reaction was funnier than the video itself. I don't know why, but every time I watch it, I laugh till I cry.