"That was way harsh Ty"

Ahhh, where can we find wisdom but from Cher and the awesomness that is "Clueless".  Today someone was a bit unnecessarily harsh to me.  I think that this is a problem that I have myself.  In fact, I know it is.  When I have received performance reviews this is usually one of my critiques, especially regarding my coworkers.  So here and now I am going to attempt to be softer.  Sometimes a firm hard is required in life, but I am not sure there is ever a need for harshness.

Spike Update

So I wasn't exaggerating when I said that Spike doesn't want to sit up.  He hates it.  He leans back or forward to get out of a sitting position as quickly as possible.  It is weird, and terribly annoying.  I do believe that he would be a lot happier if he could sit and play with toys.  Yesterday when I took the kids to the park I put him in a baby swing and he just squished down in.  It looked like I had physically squished him in there.  He is making some progress with crawling.  He has entered the getting on hands and knees and rocking stage.  It will be no time at all before he crawls.  I suspect he will be crawling and possibly walking before he sits up.  We have tried a bumbo, which he loathes, and we even bought a high chair to encourage sitting, but no go.  Whatever, I have decided to just let it slide as a weird personality quirk until he has his 9 month check up next month.  I have also started to see a weird dislike of Mae on his part.  I don't know if I can explain it, but he seems really put out by her presence when she is near.  They often hit each other when they are within reach.  This is so bizarre to me cause Max and Mae get along really well.  (Although I suspect that is due mostly to Max's mild behavior.)  Today we went to Sam's Club with both Spike and Mae in the front of the cart, (Spike in his car seat, cause of course he won't sit up,)  and he would not stop pulling her hair.  We are gonna have to stop going to Sam's club.  This kid is gonna be his own different little man.

Little Rock

Headed down to Little Rock this weekend.  My lovely cousin Liz is a speech therapist and was gracious enough to spend some time with me teaching me how to help Mae make progress at home.  I like the therapist she has here, but I wanted some extra instruction.  Every time I go down to Little Rock I wonder why I don't go down more frequently.  Mae did well on the drive down, but didn't nap so she was a bit tired.  We spent some time with my cousins and Mae bonded with everyone.  I was shocked that she slept so well.  It was great watching Liz work with Mae.  I don't get to watch Mae's therapy sessions so it was nice to get an idea of what they do.  It was also a great reminder of how smart and fascinating my family is.  Liz and I talked for awhile about her career and it was engrossing.  I need to take another trip down there just to get some one on one time with everyone else.  My cousin Joe recently went to Washington D.C. to work on a case presented to the Supreme Court.  I also have a long list of questions for my cousin Jacob who is with the Little Rock Police force.  Most of them about traffic laws.   The one downside to visiting the family is that it makes me very homesick for my parents.  You can tell that my father and my Uncle Gareth are brothers.  Mae was not as cooperative on the drive home, but  all in all it wasn't bad.  It was really nice to not have Spike for the trip.  I like Spike, but sometimes it is nice not to have to hold someone constantly.  He still refuses to sit up.  He will be crawling and walking before he sits up.  Good trip.  Max, Spike, and Jeff survived without us.  Jeff had some guy friends over to play video games Friday night.  Stake Conference was this weekend, so free weekend for us. (It must have sucked cause this was the first time in years that everyone wasn't on facebook about how life changing it was.)  I hope next weekend is as enjoyable.

Pretty Fly

For a white girl.  As if you all need a reminder I am white.  Sooooo white. 

I have always been a lover of dance; ballet, modern, tap.  I did showchoir in jr high and high school and modern dance and ballroom dance in college.  I even made it onto the dance team at Logan High School.  I would venture as far as to say I can dance without embarrassing myself.  While tap dancing is the most fun, I think modern dance is a favorite because it doesn't have to be particularly difficult or graceful cause you can chalk any mistake up to being planned and "artistic."  The one area where I fail is Hip Hop.  Oh man I am so white.  I just look stupid.  Now some white people can hip hop, not Julia Stiles, but some white people can.  Not me.  I bring this all up because tonight I did HIP HOP ABS.  Since I have started running and dieting I have dropped and kept off the baby weight but I still can't fit into my old jeans.  My stomach is shot.  I had heard this happens, but it wasn't so bad after the other two.  Now I have the mom pooch.  UG!  So the abs need a little work.  A few of my friends have tried this program and so I decided to go for it.   It took me a good five min to stop laughing.  Then I paused the tape to come out and tell Jeff that he was not to come in the room until I was done.   If he needed to go to the bathroom he would have to go downstairs, cause I don't think our marriage could take that kind of mocking.  If I ever wanted my viral moment of fame I could so video tape myself doing this workout and post it on YouTube.  I mean I really do like getting people to laugh.  But I think that would be a bit too much for me.  (I'll just have to stick to the story of how I accidentally flashed my mom, to get laughs.)  I am determined to get back into my jeans so I will keep at the program and report back on my success or failure, (most likely somewhere in between.)  But for now if any of you are in the need of a good chuckle just picture me in all my white flubby glory out of breath red faced and trying to do a booty tooch.

Yeah, I have no idea what picture to post with this.....

Things That Must Go

1.  Chuck Todd.  The only t.v. stations we get are Fox and NBC.  I don't have a problem with the NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams is personable enough, but I cannot take Chief White House Correspondent, Chuck Todd seriously because of his stupid goatee.  Now you know I love a good beard, but there is something about a goatee that looks so sloppy and unfinished.  It screams college student.  I cannot listen to this guy talk about the politics of the nation cause I just imagine him going to his frat house afterwards.  He has taken the spot of least favorite news caster away from Katie Couric.  Shave it off Chuck!

2.  The Northwest E.R. Billboard.  Our local hospital has a billboard up on the freeway that has a digital readout of the current E.R. wait time.  I find this morbid and unnecessary.  First of all, we are not a large enough community where there are lots of E.R. options if you are in an emergency.  Northwest is it for Bentonville, so it doesn't really matter what the wait time is, you can drive to Mercy in Rogers, but the time it takes to keep driving will most likely eat a significant portion of the Northwest wait time.  And lets face it people make these decisions based on which system their insurance covers anyway.  Secondly, it makes me sad when I do see that the wait time is long cause then I just imagine all the people in trouble and it bums me out.  I just really don't see the point of this billboard.

3.  People who shush adults in church.  Now I am all for shushing kids in church, and I do not advocate adults being disruptive.  The problem lies in how we deal with them.  Shushing is ALWAYS done out of anger and frustration.  I defy anyone to deny this.  People only shush when they get really annoyed.  It is like how all the parenting articles say you shouldn't spank your kids cause it is only the parent's way of relieving their anger and frustration.  All that shushing an adult does is make the shusher feel like they have done something proactive.  But it hardly ever solves the problem and it only offends the talker.  "Well they offended me by talking/making noise...they shouldn't be offended in Church."  Yeah yeah yeah whatever, look do you want to hurt feelings or do you want to stop the noise?  If you want to do the latter then stop treating adults like children and politely ask them to stop talking or quiet down. 

4.  Tight diapers.  I don't understand the need for people to squish baby tummies by pulling those tabs as tight as humanly possible.  As long as I have had kids in diapers I have noticed that people love to get those tabs close together.  I can understand this if the child had diarrhea, but not for everyday.  I think I became aware of this with Max because his acid reflux was so painful that we specifically left his diapers a bit lose.  But daycare workers, babysitters, and almost anyone who has changed any of my kids diapers likes to squish their tummies.  That can't be comfortable for them.  Who likes wearing too tight under ware?  I suspect that for some it is an unconscious reflex like people who like to flatten pancakes while baking them.  It just seems right to get it as tight as possible, but I feel bad for the kids.  It reminds me of people who put headbands, or as my dad calls them "Brain Squashers", on baby girls.  Sure they look cute, but headbands give me a headache, of course those babies are crying. 

Impulse

Despite what you read in the last post I am not usually an impulse shopper, or atleast not for myself.  It takes me weeks to agonize over a comforter, shoes, or what have you.  So this morning I was scanning pinterest and saw these stunners.  I had to click.  Yup upon further inspection I was hooked and had to buy them this morning.  I don't care how stupid they would probably look on an overweight frumpy housewife. SOLD OUT!  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Not when I was being all Carpe Diem.  That's not fair.  I want/need bunny shoes.

Sucker

Mae found these shoes at the associate store yesterday and I am a total sucker who was high of getting cans of formula for half price.  She can't walk in them but that doesn't really matter.  She sat in her car seat looking at her feet the whole way home.