beware the ides of march

You might just die from a whole year's worth of cuteness:


 Happy March 15th, everyone. And to you, sweetie baby, happy birthday.

a mom hangover

Baby girl and I got sick last week (simultaneously gross and wonderful: baby girl barfed everywhere and then just wanted to snuggle in my lap while I watched tv).

The stomach flu messed with our sleep schedule. Baby girl's back to waking up every two hours—just like a newborn. How on Earth did we function back then? I get up in the morning with a thrumming head and burning eyes. And everything that Christopher does while he's getting ready for work is SO LOUD. He says I have a mom hangover.

Which is fine. I so expected lack of sleep to be part of parenthood that I even wrote an essay about insomnia and mothers while I was pregnant (during which I discovered an incurable form of insomnia that's only made worse by sleeping pills, for real).

A lot of other things have happened around here—I had a birthday, we went snowshoeing for Valentine's Day, Christopher downloaded every free book he's ever wanted onto his new Kindle—and maybe I'll blog about them. But right now, I'll leave you with a picture of the cutest girl I've ever met and then I'm going to bed early. It's the best plan on a day you go to get your hair cut and fall asleep while your hair is being shampooed.

dinosaur burritos and parenthood

 












This might look like another braggy felting post. I'll own it—it kind of is. A three-year-old we know was having a dinosaur birthday party and how could I NOT make him a little brontosaurus with purple dots on the bum?

 But I've been thinking about more than just bragging: After I finished making the dinosaurs and their lake and berry bushes, I rolled them up in their felty home like a burrito and wrapped the whole thing in tissue paper.  

A few days later, I heard that instead of giving the dinosaurs drinks from the lake, or making them fight each other, or any other thing I imagined he might do with them, this adorable kid kept rolling up the dinosaurs and unrolling them—like, what else would you do with them, really? I think that's adorable. And it's one more tiny image I can tuck away in my brain to remind myself of something I keep needing to learn. . .

I don't feel like I adjusted to motherhood very gracefully (and if you ask my husband about our conversation on Sunday, you might get him to admit that I still haven't). I love it, but I keep forgetting that kids put a spin on life that you wouldn't have thought up on your own.

Which is awesome sometimes. Like last night, I made my baby girl laugh so hard she snorted and fell over just because I turned my face every time she touched my cheek. I'm not funny, so it was weird to make someone laugh so hard by doing basically nothing.

Other times, it's not so awesome. Life is a bit confusing for people whose teeth are just coming in, or just falling out, who haven't yet figured out how to walk or read or use the toilet. Babies want to suck on batteries when they have a pile of toys (how on EARTH did she find one when all the batteries are locked away?). Or kids do things mine isn't even old enough to think of yet—like draw with rocks on cars, or microwave their barbies.    

I'm not so good at rolling with punches, but turns out, neither are they! They fall down and do dumb things and don't know how to fix them. Parenthood involves witnessing and assisting in that learning curve—and hopefully doing both with kindness and a semblance of composure. Maybe this won't sound helpful or even make sense to you, but I the next time I feel baffled and all my plans thwarted by the littlest person in my life, I'll try to remind myself to think of things a little differently—to just roll me up some dinosaurs.

One of those days

The used book section of the Sugar House DI is amazing. But wait a week or two for the books to be replenished, because we bought everything.

While we were there, a lady in a pink cowboy hat threw into the garbage half of the writings of every great western thinker since Socrates, because one book in the beautiful series had a little water damage. She said she was afraid that black mold had spread to the other books. I told her that black mold is black, and visible, and cannot be conjured into existence by someone in a pink hat who is scared of books [paraphrased]. She stopped at Milton.

I thought that this is what it must have felt like to watch the first monkey fly into space—look at that primate, with the collective effort and intelligence of all ages combined under her fingertips—who gave her access to that?

When we got home today I had to decide if I should drink out of the blender or a baby bottle. We have a hard time justifying doing dishes on the weekend. Perhaps an outside observer would consider my habits too, to be a bit primitive.

Stand up in SLC

Left Field Stand Up Comedy has some shows in SLC next weekend. It's my buddy Bryson's team of comics. I've heard some of them in the past, and they're worth your bucks if you like to laugh at stuff.

Among them is the guy who did the Old Spice spoof for BYU:

The show costs $15. See here for more.

Their website has a promo code for half off.

Good people are for reals

You guys heard of the hobo with a golden voice? Kathy and I watched these videos, and cried happy tears.

Businesses discovered him on the internet and gave him a job right away.

I loves you, teh internets.

ringing it in with a brand new tooth

  We rang in the new year with a teething, feverish baby. Instead of partying, we took her home, put her to bed, and looked at pictures on the internet of Nic Cage as Everyone (go here!) and watched Spy Kids, which had randomly turned up in our netflix queue (it was a lot better than I thought it would be).

Later, long after our new year's bedtime, I got up to rock her while she bawled in her sleep.

And the day after that, we tried watching a movie with Christopher's sisters before they left town. But baby girl didn't want to, so she screamed nonstop for half an hour until we just gave up and went home.

Conclusion: Teething is a terrible idea.

I know lots of you have great advice (which you're welcome to leave in the comments). In return, I'll pass on the best advice I've ever received, which my sister-in-law's boyfriend said teasingly, and which helped me not take myself so seriously: "You know that every time a baby cries, it reflects poor parenting. You should take her screaming very personally."

Oh, I had. I had even worried we had ruined her somehow. I asked Christopher, "Is she normal? What did we do to make her scream like this all day long?"

We didn't do anything. Her tooth did—at least for a few days. And now that it's popped through the top gum, she's back to her adorable self. She even woke up from a nap happy yesterday instead of screaming—a thing she had not done for at least a week.

A happy new year, indeed.

Big and little devils

I've noticed a universal trend: All parents force their kids to eat vegetables.

I should say "try" to force. Kids are notoriously resistant to force, and will sneak, fight, or throw a fit to avoid it, like the cake story from hyperbole and a half.

I have seen this disturbing trend (even among awesome parents that Kathy and I admire and try to emulate) often enough to realize something was wonky. Then Elder Bednar spoke at stake conference a couple weeks ago, and his wife told a story about, you guessed it, forcing her kids to eat vegetables (It goes all the way to the top!). The prophet had come to eat at their house, and, it turned out, he didn't eat his vegetables either.

if you can name the game this picture came from, we can be friends

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This reminded me of an article I read in college by Melinda Sothern, Ph.D. Here's her ten steps to getting your children to eat healthy. My favorite are:

1. Don't restrict food.

3. Don't label foods "good" and "bad."

5. Don't nag.

6. Don't use food as a reward or punishment.

7. Eat family dinner.

9. Give your kids some control.

We may think our kids are little devils for disobeying us. But when we use force to compel people, even children, to do as we want, then we use Satan's tactics. And really, his tactics suck. So when your kids disobey your sucky tactics, they're really acting like little angels, or, more appropriately, warrior-angels who wield the sword of whining and throwing-fits to fight their demon-possessed parents.

Next time at dinner, when you feel like you're fighting a battle with your children, you are, and it began in heaven.

If you want to win the battle, use God's tactics. Allow your children to choose, have healthy foods available, and your children will develop a healthy relationship towards food.

would you like one, too?

When I learned how to needle felt last year, I made a little Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus for Christmas. I set the nativity up on a shelf and made Christopher admire it with me over the span of several days.

I almost posted a picture of that first attempt here, but got kind of embarrassed, both about how it looked and how much it impressed me last year. I've learned a lot since then. Here's one of this year's nativities:

















Remember this contest a while back? Jenny won. And this nativity is hers.

But you can have one, too, if you'd like. I've been told by enough people, "You should sell those," that I am.

I'm late in the game and you may have already done your decorating and planned your Christmas purchases. But just in case you're late, too, I want to say that you're welcome to order one. They're $40 and I need about 5 days' notice.*

And if you're all done with your Christmas shopping, I envy you. I also wish you a very Merry Christmas.



*If you know my real life email or phone number, you can contact me there to order. If you don't, you can still order by emailing me (here: kpetey [at] gmail [dot] com) to work out all the details.

Angry shoes

I got so angry today that I bought a pair of shoes.