Obligatory Anniversary Post

We've made it to 7 years of marriage! It sure has been pure magic. (It's like the opposite of breaking a mirror.)

I don't have anything too deep to say right now, but I have a few funny thoughts.

1. One great thing about life is how you acquire important days in your life. Like, the days my kids were born weren't particularly important days in my life before that, but now they are some of the most important days of the year.

The same goes for my anniversary. I use On This Day on Facebook which tells me what I posted that given day for all the years I've had Facebook. The past few years, I post something related to our anniversary on April 23rd, like pictures or poems of some kind. But before that . . .

A pet raccoon? What on earth was I talking about? What kind of strange existence did I live where I had to make Facebook statuses about cows? (That didn't stop after marriage, of course, but I try to talk about less bovine things on my anniversary.) At any rate, things have gotten a lot more poetic since then.

2. We decided that we would keep my maiden name a secret in this ward, just to see how long it would last. It has actually come up a few times, such as when my dad visited, but it hasn't been widespread knowledge the way it was in Michigan.

One time, we were chatting with a couple and it came up that his dad was friends with my uncle. As he and his wife thought about it more later, he wondered why on earth I had the same last name as my uncle.

"I bet she made Kevin change his last name when they got married."

I explained the whole situation later, but the funny thing is, if you compare bits and pieces from these two websites (one from my dad and one from Kevin), he kind of did take my last name. And, even funnier, even if we hadn't gotten married people would have still assumed some relation based on their similar interests. (I guess technically they would have been right, though third half cousins isn't the answer they would expect.)

3. Since it's on my mind, here's another story about maiden and married names. When we first got married we also decided to keep it a secret since we were tired of all the jokes and questions that we got over and over. One time at church, a friend leaned over and asked Kevin if he ever thought it was weird to hear his wife referred to with her married name instead of her maiden name.

"No," Kevin said simply. He gave no explanation or anything. Just, "No." I think it wasn't til several months later that we finally explained that and he was forgiven for being a wet blanket.

4. One time we were talking about death, and I said that if Kevin died and I was over 60, if I remarried I wouldn't bother taking my new husband's name.

"You didn't bother the first time, either," he replied. He had a point.

5. Since this is probably the weirdest blog post ever (see why we kept this a secret from our ward this time?), I'll just end it with something even weirder. It's fake news, but if you can pretend it's real then it puts all our weirdness to shame.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/04/16/story-about-married-couple-discovering-were-twins-during-ivf-appears-to-be-fake.html

And really, we're not all that weird. I promise. We're actually pretty boring. But happy.

Two silly boys

Joseph and Matthew have been saying some pretty funny things lately, and since it's been a while since I've done a post like this I figured it was time again.

Matthew

(After singing the ABC's to him.) "Super why! Super why!" (because they sing the ABCs on the show Super Why, I guess. That's also his go-to phrase whenever he sees the computer.)

"Careful. Careful. Careful." He says that most often when he is tromping around on my bed not being very careful, but he also says it if I happen to lay him down on the couch. He looks at the edge the whole time and cries, "Careful! Careful! Careful!"

(Each time after jumping off the bathroom stool) "Awesome!"

(Earlier this week and last each time I set him in his crib) "Cuddle! Mommy cuddle! Mommy cuddle!" Talk about tugging at the heartstrings.

(After putting a few Legos together) "Rocketship! Rocketship!"

Me: "I like you."
M: "I like you."
Me: "I love you."
M: "I love Daddy."

"Look, there's Elmo on your shoes!"
"Elmo! Elmo! Elmo! Elmo crackers! Elmo crackers! Animal crackers. Animal crackers!!!!!!!"

(At the store as we pass a Batman logo)
"Na na na na na na na na na!"

(Watching animated Beauty at the Beast, when we first see the beast.)
"Dinosaur!!!"

(At every exhibit of a dinosaur museum.)
"Chicken! Cluck cluck!"

In some ways, he's harder to understand than he was a few months ago because he has tried to say sentences that are pretty much impossible to understand. But as you can see, he still has his one word zingers.

Joseph

"You know why I don't watch Mr. Rogers anymore? Lady. Elaine." He just has this flat, angry expression as he says her name. She really is the worst. (side note: Matthew used to say "Rogers" whenever he saw the computer, but since Joseph's show of choice has changed to Super Why, so has Matthew's.)

(On St. Patrick's Day)
"In Ireland, it's very, very green," I told him.
"Lots of grass and trees?" He asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Good. Then you can breathe and breathe and breathe there!" he said with excitement.


(Joseph wanted to play in the snow a bit on the way to the car because it would support his weight, so while I was getting Matthew in he walked around on top of the snow. Then I called that he needed to get in.)
"I wish Matthew wiggled more when you put him in his car seat. Then I could have played more."

"I wish everyone in the world had their own computer."

"I'm as mad as the Hulk. Ughhhhhhhhh."

"You need to return Alexander Hamilton to the library."

"[His friend]'s dad is pretty playful." Not sure who taught him the word playful.

(When Kevin was out of town.)
Me: "The butter's too hard to spread very well on the bread. Would you like toast?"
J: "No. You're not a good toast maker."

When Kevin came back:
Me: "Do you want a peanut butter sandwich?"
J: "No."
Kevin: "What if I made it?"
J: "Sure."
So Kevin made the peanut butter sandwich exactly how I would, and Joseph ate it. Then he said, "You're a good maker, Daddy."

(Looking at a bag from Chick-Fil-A)
J: "There are too many lines in Chick-Fil-A!"
Me: "What do you mean?"
J: "It's supposed to be Chick-Filet, not Chick-Fil-A." (I could tell what he meant by where he put the consonants.)
Me: "You think it has too many hyphens?"
J: "Yeah! Why did they do it that silly way?"

"I wish all the grown-ups were 9 years old so I didn't have to try any foods."

Me: "What kind of chicken should we make for dinner?"
J: "Beef."

"I just remembered something! I remember when I liked bananas!"

"Why are toast and Cheerios opposites? Because if you leave toast out it gets harder, and if you leave Cheerios out they get soggier."

Me to Kevin: "Should we make p-i-z-z-a?"
J: "Does that spell pizza? I want pizza!" (Then he and Matthew marched around saying "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!")

(I feel like most of the food quotes are about junk food. We do feed our kids things besides chick-fil-a, pizza, and meat. Like this week we fed them lettuce, avocado, asparagus, peppers, celery, potatoes, quinoa, and carrots. Except Joseph only eats the carrots, so he said this.)
"Matthew is a better tryer than I am."

"Mommy. Some people start counting with their thumb instead of their pointer finger. They're doing it wrong!"

"I think I remember more things than you, Mommy."
"Like what?"
"I don't know."

"How do you remember things from when I was a baby?"

"When I was in your tummy, I was like the Hulk! Punch punch punch!"

(Doing watercolors with him.)
"Mommy, since you're not very good at painting you better do something easy."

(After Kevin spent 40 minutes scraping snow and ice off the car, and Joseph helped him a little bit)
"I wish the snow was back on our car so we could do it again. Or that we had two cars."

"Every day I try to be a superhero."

And you are. And so is Matthew.

Nightly Exchanges

One night I went to bed while Kevin was up working. When he came in, I asked angrily, "Are you done playing Settlers now?"

I have no memory of this.

Nor does he have a memory of what happened the next night. At about 12:45, he got up in bed, crouched down, and began tapping vigorously on my shoulder. "Hey hey hey hey," he said in a strange voice. "Kyra. China. Was I different in China?"

"I don't know," I replied crossly. Then he slumped back down and went to sleep. Luckily, I was able to fall back asleep quickly, too.

It is great to be able to have conversations with the one you love at all hours of the day, even if only half actually remembers the conversation (and is slightly freaked out by it).

Secrets

This afternoon, after Joseph used the bathroom, he came up to me.

"I want to tell you a secret." He then whispered in my ear, "I used soap."

I nodded with approval. Kevin asked if he could hear the secret too, so Joseph decided to whisper it to him, too.

Then I thought for a second. "Do you normally use soap?" I asked.

"Yes. I just don't want to tell you about it every time I do it."

Phew.

I guess we've sort of got an atmosphere of secrets around here. Christmas time is always like that, and this year Kevin's birthday had more secrets than usual.

I had decided to throw a surprise breakfast birthday party for him in honor of the big 3-0, and it involved a lot more secrets than I was used to.

"Kevin, with your birthday coming up, make sure you don't accidentally look at my email, okay? I'm coordinating with my mom a bit." I mean, I guess that was true, but in the end all he got was a phone case. What was really being protected was all the emails from guys in the ward.

"Why do you want to go shopping on my birthday? Is there something going on Saturday?" he asked once, his eyes narrowing.
"I want you to have Snickers for your birthday, and I may as well get other stuff while I'm out." I did get Snickers, but I also got supplies for his party.

Of course, I had to have reasons for those supplies.
"Did you mean to buy so many eggs?" he asked.
"I'm hoping we don't have to go shopping before our trip to Utah, so I got a lot."

"Why are you asking so many questions about what to make for breakfast Saturday?"
"I just want to make you something you'll really like."

"Why is there so much apple juice?"
"I really really like apple juice right now."

"Why are you vacuuming right now?"
"It has just been so cluttered all week and I want things totally clean for once."

"What are you looking for in the freezer?"
"Peas to cook with the hashbrowns. I can't find them." I eventually did find the secret stash of bacon though.

I had prepared an answer for all of his questions, but I still felt like the spider Joseph brought home from preschool on Thursday. He had had a lesson on honesty, and he had made a paper plate with yarn weaved all across it to look like a web, and in the middle was a spider. "Don't get caught in a web of lies!" it read on the spider. Good thing Joseph had other sources to learn honesty from this week besides me, I guess.

But finally this morning the secrets would be over. After a lackluster birthday for Kevin (I was gone for a Relief Society activity, for example), I was finally going to make his birthday feel special. A few minutes before 8, we heard the doorbell.

I answered it and there was one of Kevin's friends. Kevin looked at him in bewilderment.

"Surprise! You're having a birthday party right now! He's here to play games with you and eat breakfast." Kevin began to laugh. "Okay."

More people began to show up, and before too long there was Lord of the Rings risk in the living room and Dominion in the kitchen. They paused for some food and then kept playing til almost 11.

First time planning an Elders Quorum Activity was a success

He took the game very seriously.

After they left, Kevin turned to me with understanding.
"So that's why you put on jeans this morning."
"That's why you bought all the apple juice and eggs."
"That explains all the cleaning last night."
"That explains why I couldn't look at your email."

I explained that I had originally planned to have the party on his birthday at like 6 in the morning, and maybe arranging things so that he had to drive kids to seminary. Then he'd come back to a bunch of guys there to celebrate. But no one was keen on that idea, so we went for a Saturday party instead. 8 am was still pretty early for a party, but at least he wouldn't have all day to be suspicious.

"I had considered having you run to the store to get some orange juice or something so you'd be surprised when you got back, but I guess it sort of worked for you to just be surprised when the doorbell rang." He agreed.

All that had been secret had finally been revealed. The web of secrets and deception was finally dissolved.

Well, I guess there's still Christmas. And every time Joseph uses soap.

Post dinner conversation

"I'm done cooking for the week. I don't want to bring chili to the ward party."

"Well we never signed up so we don't have to."

"But we've got that corn we should use. Maybe we should take it and surreptitiously put some in someone's chili."

"I don't think that would look very good to just go around dumping stuff in chili."

"We also have this cilantro we could just sprinkle on people's chili."

"This sounds like a sitcom where someone calls the police because they think the soup has been spiked, and as the police are taking the culprit away he's saying 'I just needed to get rid of my corn!'"

Maybe we'll take the corn and cilantro to the ward party. Just in case.

Consanguinity

After family prayer the other night, Kevin and I kissed as we usually do. Instead of the quick peck, we kept kissing for a few seconds.

When we looked up, Joseph was looking at us with a look of utter disgust.

"What's the matter?" we asked.

"It's  . . . WEIRD!" he said after some hesitation.

"Someday you'll like to do that," Kevin told him. "Someday you'll marry a girl and want to kiss her."

"I want Mommy to have a baby sister," he responded. "So I can marry her."

We tried to explain that that's not how it usually works. We gave examples of his friends with little sisters and told him that they wouldn't get married. He looked genuinely surprised by this news.

"Who can I marry then?"

We listed off a bunch of girls roughly his age to give him some ideas. "Actually, it's probably someone you don't know yet," Kevin said.

"Or . . . I could marry Mommy!"

Or . . . not. I was pretty flattered though.

Threespeak

Three-year-olds don't quite speak English fluently.

Some of them fake it so well that we can be tricked into thinking they do, but the more you interact, the more you realize there are subtle differences between English and what I dub "threespeak" that can cause a bit of confusion.

Every three-year-old will have their own version of threespeak, but here is a list that covers a lot of our particular dialect.

Help (as used in the phrase "I want to help!"): To gently place your hand on the hand of your parent as she makes a sandwich, puts clothes in the washing machine, puts flour in the mixing bowl, or other such activities. 

No (as used in the phrase "No, we're not doing that today."): A mean word. "We don't say that word in our family."

Not tired: a state of being in which you want to put your head on the couch or on the ground and do nothing, but under no conditions do you want to put your head on a pillow.

Hungry: To have an appetite for one particular thing. One can be hungry only for treats and not for dinner.

Lunch/Snack: A type of meal less determined by the time of day it is eaten and more determined by its contents and who is present. For example, if the three-year-old determines it is lunch time, then Daddy shouldn't be there for that meal, even if it's at 6 pm.

Seed: An abomination. A texture that is not smooth which tarnishes foods such as rice, oatmeal, many fruits, and whole-wheat anything. Occasionally refers to the white part of an orange. If a food has a smooth texture but still has the appearance of a seed, it may still be unacceptable.

Bigger: Best explained here:

Never: having not occurred in the past 5 minutes. See here:

Favorite: Anything a three-year-old likes. For example, if a parents says that a child does not need to share a favorite toy when friends come to play, the child will gather up all of his sports cars and hide them.

Based on these examples, it seems that one who wishes fluency in threespeak should become proficient in hyperbole.

Such as: This is my favorite blog post ever and I'm never writing one again.

Talking with a Two-Year-Old

Note: This post might be more enjoyable if you watch this first to get a sense of Joseph's voice.

Right now, living with Joseph is like living with a tape recorder that takes in everything you say and plays it back when you least expect it. Kevin and I have learned the most in our lives about our speech patterns just from hearing him the last several weeks.

Us: "Would you like some watermelon?"
Him: "No, I'm okay."

Us: "Want to go in the stroller?"
Him: "Sounds good." or "Sounds like fun. Let's go."

Kevin: "We're going to play outside."
Joseph: "Kyra, are you coming?"

He's also started playacting with stuffed animals a lot, and that's been educational for us. Granted, sometimes when he's really upset, I start talking to a nearby stuffed animal about why it's sad (it works pretty well), so it makes sense that he does it too. But it goes a little differently when he does it:

"Bear, are you happy or sad?" (Waits for a response.) "Bear is sad."
Me: "Why is the bear sad?"
He starts hitting the bear. (That's probably why.)

"Giraffe, do you need a diaper change?" (Starts moving the poor giraffe's legs into horrible contorted forms.)

He's also got a pretty clear sense of how things are supposed to be in the world, and he knows when things are off.

For example, at Kevin's parents' house, there's a little two-legged table with jeans and boots on each of the legs so they look like human legs. Kevin pointed out the jeans to Joseph, who said, “That’s funny.” Then he saw that the table had boots, pointed them out, and said, “That’s so silly.”

Then, when we were at the airport, he saw that someone's hat was hanging on the person's back. He giggled. "Look! Hat on back!" (I never saw it, so I can only imagine what it looked like.) "That's so silly. Hat goes on head."

Of course, sometimes he's the one who makes things silly on purpose. "Shorts on head. That's so silly."

And then, sometimes he's just funny, whether or not he means to be:

(In the sandbox)

“I’m making a cake.”

“Will it be delicious?”

“No, it’s yucky.”

(After an exceptionally sweaty workout)

“Hi Mommy. Are you wet?” 

One night we brought him into our bed. When he woke up the next morning, he looked around the room for a minute, then said triumphantly, "We made it!"

(At every stoplight ever)

“Turn green!”

(Driving past a field) 

“Bumpy grass!”

(In the parking lot, he noticed some license plates)

J: “Letters on it!”

me: “What letters do you see?” (He lists some of them.)

J: “Where’s the J?”

Once we find it, “Oh yes. J for Joseph.”

me: “What is M for?”

J: “Mommy!”

me: “What is K for?”

A pause. “Food,” he says seriously. “K for food.”

(Playing with toys.)
"Bird on an airplane! Neer, crash! Neer, crash! Neer, crash!"

(After a Daniel Tiger episode on waiting)

“Waiting is hard. Waiting is hard.” 

(After dinner with the missionaries)

“Missionaries go to the church. And get baptized.”

Joseph helped me finish the phrases for the first several pages of Goodnight Moon. Then I got to “two little kittens,” and when I said two, he said, “I’m two! I’m two! I’m two years old! Mommy, are you two years old?”

“No.”

“Are you three years old?”

“No.”

“Are you . . . two years old?”

“No.”

“Are you three years old?” (Getting up in my face)

This lasted a while.

(Trying to open the front door with just a diaper on)

“Go outside!”

“You need to get dressed first.”

“With a belly!”

(He went outside with a belly . . . and with clothes over it, too.)

(Sitting on his potty seat too soon after a successful attempt)

"It's not working!"

And last, but not least, this interchange this morning:

(An egg was part of a toy zoo, and Joseph pointed to it.)

J: “What is that?”

me: “An egg in a nest.”

J: “Oh, yes. Oh! Egg in a book!”

me: “What book?”

J: “Rooster and an egg.”

me: “A rooster? What book?”

J: “Rooster had an egg in a book.”

me: “What book is this?”

J: “Ummm, pancakes.” (Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle.)

me: “Oh, that’s right! You know, roosters don’t lay eggs.”

J: “Yeah. Just chickens lay eggs.”

(I have no idea where he learned that. Kevin explained later that only hens lay eggs, and roosters are chickens too, but I think Joseph was faking it when he was nodding that he understood.)

Although every day has its ups and downs, he sure is delightful company.

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:

The missing word

Note: This post continues my Proclamation series

True or false: The word "communication" shows up in the Family Proclamation.

Answer: False! It doesn't show up once!

You might be thinking, what? Surely it shows up as one of the principles on which successful families are established! Nope:

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

How could this be? Every lesson I have ever heard about happy marriages talks about communication. Without it marriages crumble. What were they thinking?

I've thought about this the past few days, and here are my conclusions.

1. That list isn't exhaustive. I think communication would be a nice addition to that list, as would trust, kindness, and a sense of humor. We don't have to be told everything that we ought to do.

2. That said . . . perhaps communication isn't the golden key to happiness that we sometimes credit it to be. Let's suppose that the definition of communication is expressing feelings and words to another person so that they understand exactly what you are trying to say. (That seems to be the definition given by marriage books.) Well, what if what you were communicating was, "I don't like you anymore. You are dumb and ugly and lazy. I am constantly disappointed in you." Yeah, you've just been an effective communicator, but that's not going to heal any marriages any time soon.

More important to a happy marriage, I believe, is respect and compassion. If you have this as a basis for your marriage, then I feel like a marriage can withstand a bit of miscommunication.

Story time. That silly story in my last post reminded me of another time that I didn't enunciate very well. It was soon after we got married since I remember that the living room was full of boxes. I don't remember what I said, but I think Kevin gave me a courtesy laugh. Then I thought about what I said and how dumb it actually was. In disgust, I said, "You've got a weird wife," and then stomped over to the other side of the room to unpack another box. Kevin didn't say a word but instead sat there in cold silence with a shocked look on his face. Because he didn't say anything to make me feel better, I felt like he secretly thought I was weird, so I felt a little hurt. We spent the rest of the evening uneasy around each other.

That night in bed, he spoke carefully. "So . . . you think I've got a weird laugh?"
"What? No! I love your laugh. Why would you think that?" I responded.

Then I realized that "laugh" sounded like "wife" and that he must have misheard me when I snarled, "you've got a weird wife."  No wonder he seemed so hurt all evening -- he thought I had made fun of him! When we both realized our mistakes and misperceptions, the hardness in the room dissipated. We both laugh now every time one of us brings it up.

On the surface, this is a story about communication. And it is. If I had spoken more clearly or if he had asked for clarification, we could have enjoyed that evening a lot more. But I think the real problem was that we didn't yet have foundations of respect and compassion. Since we hadn't been married long, he didn't yet know that I would never have spoken so cruelly about his laugh, or anything about him. Likewise, I didn't know that had he actually understood me, he wouldn't have let me sulk in silence and self-pity.

What am I getting at? Communication is important, but just spouting words back and forth isn't going to lead to a successful marriage. They need to be kind words and backed up with kind actions and feelings. They need to be words of repentance and forgiveness. They need to be words of love.

Still working on it . . .

Okay, so my Proclamation series is sort of at a standstill at the moment. I wanted to talk about fatherhood, but then I couldn't organize my thoughts about that the way I wanted to. I wanted to talk about motherhood, but I've had so many thoughts on that recently that it's all still a mess. And I wanted to talk about those before I talked about equality and stuff, so that's on the back burner too.

Wow. Writing is hard. Especially with a baby. And a messy house.

So instead of a proclamation post today or yesterday (or maybe even tomorrow), I'm going to share two quick, great things with you.

First, this.

Second, while Kevin was in the kitchen making breadsticks (talk about equality, right!), I called out to him, "Hey, I just read an article that said that too much microwave popcorn can cause lung disease!"

"Really?" he asked.

"Yeah, because of the diacetyl in it," I replied. He seemed sort of confused but just let it be.

Then ten minutes later, he called out to me for clarification,

"So popcorn really causes lyme disease?"

bahaha. This is a lesson about miscommunication in marriage. Which is sort of related to the Proclamation. Yeah.

More on Primary songs

I mentioned a little while ago that we listen to lots of Primary songs. Between those and the "you're okay" song (it has the melody from Jingle Bells), we are usually able to calm Joseph down. So we like them.

Even so, we still shudder sometimes at how out of tune the kids can be, and sometimes the songs bring back interesting memories from childhood. For example:


(During "Oh What Can You Do in the Summertime")
 Kevin: I never liked this song. I spent my summers outside working in the heat, so I never got to do any of these things.
(As the song progresses): "Do you fish in a stream"
Kevin: "No!"
"or lazily dream"
"No!"
...
"or drink lemonade"
"NO!!!"
Poor guy.

(During "Shine On" or some other song)
Kyra: I didn't like this one so much. It didn't have a good picture.
Kevin: good picture?
Kyra: You know, the picture on the page. Didn't you judge the Primary songs based on their pictures?
Kevin: . . .
Turns out not every kid looked at the Children's Songbook regularly.

(During "Popcorn Popping")
"Spring has brought me such a nice surprise, blossoms popping right before my eyes"
Kevin: Blossoms? Did they change the words?
Kyra: No, it's always been blossoms. We all just sing it wrong.
Kevin: No wonder I never understood that song. I just thought it was a stupid song. Why would popcorn grow on apricot trees?
Thanks, Mom, for bringing apricot blossoms to Primary when you were chorister. I think it cleared up a lot of confusion.

(During "When My Mother Calls Me" or "Pioneer Children Were Quick to Obey" or "When We're Helping We're Happy")
Kyra: My mom used to sing this to me a lot.

(During "Fun to Do")
"Cleaning my room is fun to do, fun to do to do to do . . ."
Kevin: These songs are full of propaganda.
Another time . . .
Kevin: We're going to make sure this is Joseph's favorite song.

(During "My Flag")
Kyra: This was my favorite song. I used to do that one thing with the translucent pegs where you would stick them in a screen and make a flag and sing this (I know this from family videos).
Kevin: Lite Brite?
Kyra: yeah!
Kevin: I always wanted one of those. Also Power Wheels.
Kyra: I wanted Easy Bake.

(During "You've Had a Birthday")
Kyra: This was also my favorite song. Also, it was the only birthday song I really liked. The rest were weird.
Kevin: Yeah, I didn't like them either. Did you not like them because they had weird words like "zippidy"?
Kyra: Yeah, or "children." You know, "Happy happy birthday, children dear." It was so formal sounding. We were kids, not children! Also, "Feliz." Why did they make us sing that song? The chorister would just mutter some gibberish and we would repeat it, but then we'd forget it.
Apparently we're opinionated about our birthday songs around here.

Anyway, those are some of our reactions to Primary songs these days. Do you have any memories or strong feelings about any songs? Also, did anyone else care about the pictures?

Babies and Balloons

I'm having a boy!!! Kevin and I went to the ultrasound, and besides impressing the technician with our vast array of knowledge from our one day of MRI class (using terminology such as "axial cut" and "frequency"), we got to see our little boy!

And suddenly it became a lot more real. Oh, we've been having discussions about kids and how we'll raise them and whatnot (poor little guy . . . it's already been predetermined that whatever he wants to do in life, he'll have to major in engineering first), but now there's a  . . . body to put with all those ideals and discussions.

Am I ready? Of course not. Will I ever be ready? Doubt it. But at least today, I learned that there's one aspect of motherhood/domesticity that I'm improving on -- looking for bargains.

After we found out, we went to Macey's to pick up a blue balloon. On the way in, we also remembered that we needed to pick up some mayonnaise. As we were coming through the doors I saw a little girl walking out with a pink balloon. Then I saw balloons tied to all the cash registers. Something clicked in my mind.

"Kevin," I said excitedly. "I bet if we asked, we could get a balloon for free."
"No, just go over to the back corner to buy a balloon," he responded.

"No, let's get the mayonnaise first and then go through the line and ask if we can have one of them."

He rolled his eyes but walked over to the condiments aisle. He continued to protest, saying things like, "How are you going to ask for one?" or "I'm pretty sure those are just for little kids," to which I responded, "There's a little little kid inside me, so that counts." We picked up the mayonnaise and then got in a line.

"What are these balloons up for?" I asked eagerly, noticing a little boy walking away with a blue balloon.

"Oh, just for fun. Do you want one?" the cashier asked (perhaps she had heard my conversation with Kevin at the front of the store). I nodded happily. After explaining that I wanted a blue balloon and not an orange balloon (and telling her why), we left with one small bottle of mayonnaise and one free blue balloon.

"Cheapskate," Kevin muttered.

"Brilliant," I corrected him.

So, despite all my fears and inadequacies, at least I know how to get free balloons.

Our ever after is so happily we don't even DISAGREE--our opinions slash preferences . . . may DIFFER, but we defiantly don't disagree . . . we VARY.

Sometimes it's uncanny how similar Kevin and I are. Same major, same interests within the major, same interests in general (piano, reading, nerdy stuff, movies, etc.), similar senses of humor . . . we're even basically the same height.

But just when I start to fear that we're too much alike, we have conversations like the one we had yesterday:

*Lunch time*

Me: "Did you ever watch Fantasia?"

Kevin: "Parts of it. I could never make it through the whole thing."

Me: "Because of the dinosaurs? That was so boring! I mean, it was lame music and then a mud pit would bubble. I hated that part. I'd always skip it."

Kevin: "No, the part I couldn't stand was the Sugar Plum Fairy part."

Me: "What??? That was my favorite! The fairies, the dancing flowers . . . "
Kevin: "I thought the dancing flowers were stupid. Come to think of it, that was the part I always hated in Alice and Wonderland, too."

Me: "That was the only part I liked!!! I can't believe you didn't love those talking flowers."

Kevin: "I really didn't like them at all."

*Stunned silence*

Conclusion: We are not exactly the same. Shocking, huh? Who would've guessed I liked fairies and flowers more than Kevin? Oh well. At least we agree on the things that matter in life, like tacos and chocolate donuts.