Milk

Now that Joseph's one year old (which I promise I will blog about for real someday), he can drink cow's milk! They recommend that toddlers drink whole milk so they can get enough fat in their diet.

My only problem with that was that it meant another gallon of milk in the fridge. And we go through gallons so slowly around here. We're the kind of people who consider milk a necessary evil to be used only with cereal and for cooking, so we usually are using it right up to the expiration date

Anyway, while I was lamenting to Kevin about having both 1% and whole milk in the fridge, having to spend twice as much on milk when we won't initially drink it all (and heaven forbid I only get half-gallons, because those aren't as cost effective), he looked at me and said, "You could afford to drink whole milk, you know. You don't have to drink 1%."

And then I felt like this:

Fetal habits die hard

What do all these pictures have in common?

Looks like he's known that he's number one for a long time now.

Languages

I love dialects. When we first moved here to Michigan, Joseph had seemed exceptionally fussy, so we called the doctor to set up an appointment to be safe. The lady who answered the phone said something like, "University of Michigan Haspital, how may I help you?"

Yep. Instead of the 'ah' sound she made the 'aah' sound. And the more I've listened to native Michiganders, the more I hear them replacing the 'ah' with the 'aah.' We live in Ann Aah-rbor, and Kevin is a great faah-ther, and so on and so on. And then they occasionally replace the 'aah' sound with the 'ay' sound, such as when 'bag' becomes 'bayg.'

And I love it. I love how my Canadian neighbor says "aboot" instead of "about." I love when people say that something "needs washed" instead of "needs to be washed" (that's not necessarily a dialect, but it is part of Pittsburgh English). Hearing people talk like this makes me not ashamed of my mild Utah twang. I can drop my 't's without shame (although that really isn't just a Utah thing, folks . . . more people would say moun'ain if more people lived near mountains since they would talk about them more).

Why do I bring all of this up tonight? Well, I'm learning French. Kind of. The touristy stuff that may help on the off chance that not enough people speak English there. I've already forgotten most of what I've learned in the past month, so it's probably a lost cause. My main goal was to at least know how to pronounce things there. And I figured that since I love dialects and nuances so much, French pronunciation would come easily.

But then my mom helped me a little bit and corrected vowel after vowel after vowel, and I realized that I don't have French pronunciation down like I thought I did. And since the library book and CDs are due tomorrow, I'm just kind of doomed.

At least I can appreciate French pronunciation. That ought to count for something.

Balved.

I am not very good at knowing the words to songs. At all. Even choruses sometimes.

Part of the problem is they just don't sing clearly enough for me. Sometimes I am able to figure it out using context clues, but other times I just think they're using a word that I don't know. So I add that made-up word to my vocabulary.

For example, I used to watch Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen mystery videos all the time. They were great. Except . . . what were they talking about with "Here we stand in our trenchcoats. Time's getting balved!" Don't believe me? Watch til 25 seconds.

As a kid, the conclusion I came to was that "balved" was just a word I didn't know. Reasonable assumption, right? There are lots of words in the English language that I still don't know.

When I got a little older, my siblings started checking the videos out again. By this point, I was pretty sure that "balved" was not a word. So what were they saying? "Time's getting bald." You know, like Father Time getting older, so he's losing his hair . . . okay,. it made sense to me. And that's the way it stuck for more than a decade.

Then Leslie told me it wasn't "time's getting bald." It's "time to get involved."

Oh.

Yeah, that makes sense too.



Do you have any experiences with realizing a song has completely different words than you thought?
(I feel like this happens to me and even to Kevin all the time now that we are exposed to kids' songs more often. Maybe as I remember them I'll keep you updated.)

The Great Ann Arbor Free Food Birthday Frenzy

"Ann Arbor knows how to do birthdays," they told us. So I looked around. I found a birthday wiki and jotted down the free stuff. I mapped my route around downtown Ann Arbor. I planned around Joseph's naps and packed his diaper bag carefully.

And when the big day came, I jumped into action. When Joseph woke up from his morning nap, I met up with Kevin at Northside Grill for my free lunch. After we left, leaving a tip and a few of Joseph's Cheerios on the table, we headed over to Kerrytown so Joseph and I could start our journey through downtown Ann Arbor while Kevin worked on a take-home final. (We were pretty jealous of him.)

First stop? Zingerman's!

In we went with me trying to maneuver a stroller one-handed while taking pictures with the other hand. "Hi!" I said, trying to remember my script. "Today is my birthday, and I heard that you have a birthday deal involving a free loaf of bread if I buy something!"

"Oh, that's at the other Zingerman's." (No, not the one next door. The one on the other side of the city.) The cashier wished me a happy birthday, and I stumbled out the door. In my master plan, I had accounted for the possibility that I wouldn't get all the free birthday stuff I wanted, so I kept my chin up and headed to the next business, enjoying the first hints of spring along the way.

Next stop? Schakolad Chocolate Factory!

"Hi! It's my birthday and I understand you give out free truffles for that," I said to the woman at the counter. "Yep, take your pick," she said, and I got to pick out a truffle about the size of a quarter. But hey, it was free. I dropped it into the tupperware I had brought along for free food collection and then stumbled out the door again (the world isn't built for moms with strollers). Clutching my printed Google Map and camera in one hand and the stroller in the other, we continued onward to our next location . . .

The Cupcake Station! The entrance wasn't particularly stroller friendly since it had a ledge we had to get up, but we made it in, and I was able to grab my mini cupcake before stumbling down the ledge again.

Not the best picture . . . I was embarrassed about all my stroller antics and didn't take a picture til I was out of sight.

Red velvet! It was delicious!

At this point, I decided to get more free stuff . . . at the library! I picked up my holds there and then took Joseph to the children's section to hopefully take a nap.

Didn't happen. After all, who could nap when there were tropical fish to watch, blocks to play with, and aisles to roam through?

After Joseph had had his fill of the library, we continued our quest, stopping next at Ben and Jerry's for a free scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Yum.

 Next stop, Panera for a free pastry! I forgot to take a picture because by this time I was feeling exceptionally self conscious about walking through Central Campus with a stroller and a baby. But at least I captured a shot of a tree finally coming back to life. Yay for spring!

And that was that. We got on the bus (not an easy endeavor with a baby, stroller, and very heavy diaper bag, I might add) and came home. Best birthday yet!

Monkey Boy

Over the past month and a half or so, I feel like Joseph has evolved from a little puppy into a little monkey.

We clap, he claps. We wave our arms, he waves his arms. We point, he points. We touch our noses, he . . . tries to touch his nose (still misses most of the time). Monkey see, monkey do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl1ilH2igt4&feature=youtu.be

(side note . . . sorry you have to click on the link to see the movie. Blogger is misbehaving right now.)

Why is he pointing in this video? Because I was pointing! (And he even screeches like a monkey, right?)

And this. He hits his hand against his mouth all. the. time. It is so funny.

And yet, I haven't gotten a good movie of it yet. The first three seconds of this movie are the only ones that I've really caught. It's hard to film things in nature, if you know what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhHDzoK46Dg&feature=youtu.be

And he climbs. Oh, how he climbs. He tries to climb up the vertical slats in the crib. He climbs on and off the couch. He climbs all over his high chair. He climbs underneath the piano and puts his toys there. He climbs up and down the stairs when I let him (which is not very often, especially down). He tries to climb in and out of the bathtub and is even able to straddle it now. Whoever heard of a monkey who takes baths, anyway?

Most of his baths are in the tub, but sometimes we like the sink after getting dirty outside.

Also, he plays like never before. He still giggles when we play hide-and-seek, but usually he's the one hiding himself now, pulling the blanket up and down over his face. And then when Kevin or I hide ourselves, he comes and joins us under the blanket instead of uncovering us. We didn't even know peekaboo could be this fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRaua5IRiTc&feature=youtu.be

Another fun part of this stage is that he's expanded his interests beyond destruction. Sure, he knocks down block towers, empties book shelves, and throws all the tupperware on the floor. But he also builds block towers, tries to put the books back, and refills the tupperware drawer. There is hope.

Of course, not everything is fun and games.

Getting him to eat is always an adventure, as he's discovered that it's just as fun to throw food as eat it. (Monkeys do that, right?) Also, some things are just not allowed, like climbing on the piano. Commence head bonking on the wood floor. Actually, it sort of calms him down to do that. Dunno why.

Maybe it's a yoga pose which restores peace to his inner being.

He can calm down pretty well, to my delight. 

All in all, it's a pretty chill life for this curious, funny little monkey Joseph.

We sure like him.

Bursting bubbles

A few weeks ago, I talked about a quote by Sister Hinckley.

Only, there's no evidence that she ever said it. The pearly gates quote has been attributed to her since 1997, but this blogger did some asking around and learned that even Sister Hinckley's daughters couldn't find any citations. In fact, "knowing her mother, she would not want to arrive anywhere without her hair combed and nails cleaned." So we don't have to feel guilty for not wanting to show up to heaven with peanut butter smeared in our hair.

While I'm on the topic, President Hinckley wasn't the one who originally said

"Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is just like an old time rail journey...delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride."

What? I know! There are so many pictures on Facebook which claim that, so it must be true, right? Nope. As Middle-Aged Mormon Man reminds us, President Hinckley quoted Jenkin Lloyd Jones.

Nelson Mandela didn't originally say "Our deepest fear is that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." That was Marianne Williamson. President Packer never said people would bow down when we said we lived in the time of President Hinckley.

And "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it?" Nope. Not the Savior.

Sorry. They're all still good quotes, I guess.

Oh, one final rant. If the SAT or ACT included a reading comprehension page based on Facebook, I think a lot of people would fail. Guys, when someone says "don't write your address here, click on the link," don't write your address on the event page! I'm tired of getting notifications for my sister's upcoming wedding! Also, when someone says "don't like this picture here, go to the page to like it," go to the page to like it!

And don't post quotes that aren't attributed correctly.

The end.

Another reason why my mom is great

During Christmas break in 2010, my mom, then Primary chorister, enlisted my help one afternoon in putting together binders with new Primary songs for all the parents in the ward with Primary kids. Since the current Children's Songbook is older than I am, I guess they've started using lots of newer songs in Primary Programs, and she wanted parents to know them. She also decided to make a binder for me, though I was in the middle of my married student ward and could scarcely conceive of a time when I'd be back in Primary. In a letter at the beginning of the binder, she warned, "Sometime you'll be in Primary and want to know them."

Well, that day has come. I am now the Primary pianist.

So far, it's been pretty fun. I haven't yet mastered the art of biting my cheek when the kids say something funny, so I'm laughing kind of the whole time (but at least I'm hiding behind the piano, right?). The problem right now is that I laugh at things that I know I shouldn't because the kids are just looking for attention, like when a kid in Senior Primary asked, "Are we singing about Aphrodite" during Joseph Smith's First Prayer ("It says 'the God of love' in the song . . . isn't that Aphrodite?"). How does a 10-year-old even know who Aphrodite is anyway? (Also amusing is that some of the kids thought that the prophet before President Hinckley was President Bush. Ha.)

But I digress. Back to the binder. It has already saved my life a few times already. Like today when I remembered I was accompanying someone in Sacrament Meeting and didn't know til 8:20 this morning what song I was even playing. "Life is O'erflowing with Beautiful Things"? Good thing I had the binder with that song in it, otherwise I would have been totally lost. Or how they sing Scripture Power every week? Good thing I have the music for that.

So thanks again, Mom, for being awesome and organized. I'm happy to be yet another Sister Moon serving in Primary music. Even if it still feels like that name belongs to you.