Saturday, September 20, 2008

I have to say that I was inspired by reading the "These is My Words" series to be more consistent with my everyday, ordinary journal writing. So I am going to try to post even my little non-exciting entries just for the sake of journal writing. If I am successful at doing this regularly, I apologize in advance to anyone who is bored by them. Maybe I'll try to make them look boring too so my gracious "readers" aren't sucked in by them.

Well, I am just getting over my second stomach flu in a month. It really did seem different, with this one being less severe (thank goodness!), but still it slowed me down. I just made sure Christian was fed and that I was awake to keep an eye on him, and otherwise I let things slide. Actually, I still did the dishes, so extra credit for me. I am SO OVER being sick. Oh well. I did finish reading "Breaking Dawn" in 2 days, so I'm all caught up and ready for book club next week.

Today we tried to put Christian down for a nap at a decent time (he's in that stage where he is going later and later but can't really make it until bedtime), but it didn't work at all. He stayed in his bed, but for two hours he talked to himself and sang at the top of his lungs. He just talks almost constantly!! And every word of it sounds adorable. My family just dies every time they hear his voice on the phone. I don't know what it is. The pitch, the animation, the way he can't really say his Rs (My sister, Lauren said once, "Christian, please don't ever learn how to say your Rs right." If you're reading this, Jenny the L., she was kidding.), the funny way he adds a country twang to some things for no apparent reason, or just that he just talks so surprisingly well for a little guy. Whatever it is, it is so cute. I am going to miss that so much. I just wish every day that I had a video camera capturing his every sentence. Where can I sign up for a reality show?

He is really cracking me up lately. Actually, it's kind of freaky. I got him a new Veggie Tales movie for Family Movie Night last week (which occurred while I was at Jenny the L.'s beautiful, amazing, and extremely well-attended baby shower hosted by the fabulous Nicole). It's a take off of "Huckleberry Finn" and stars "Huckleberry Larry and Tomato Sawyer." You should hear him say that. In fact, I really need to get that on video.

Well, on Wednesday, when I started throwing up again, I spent the day on the couch while Christian watched videos. Incidentally, as I lay there, I was astounded at how he does NOT STOP MOVING. I actually was in danger most of the time as he jumped from the couch to the ottoman and back repeatedly, or ran back and forth along the couch at top speed, narrowly missing my head. My mom calls him the "Perpetual Motion Machine." It's hilarious, and just so typical Christian , but it's just too much for a nauseated person to take.

Anyway, he watched this Big River video, and I could not believe it. As he watched it, probably for the fourth time or something, he was able to deliver huge portions of dialogue right along with the characters, and I mean down to every little noise. Without missing a beat. I mean, I have known for a long time that he does that - he is a memorizing machine. But it was just freaky to watch him. The kid is unreal. I wouldn't be surprised if he became some sort of a linguist someday. He has an ear for language that is just beyond my comprehension.

I also don't think I have recorded yet his newest amazing accomplishment. (I am secretly hoping that no one is reading this. This kind of brag stuff is the kind I hate to put in my blogs, but I really do want it down so Christian can read it in the future. Please forgive me.) The first time I got sick almost 4 weeks ago, Eric and I were dying, and I mean, for that first day, that poor little boy pretty much was unsupervised. We both spent the day on the couch downstairs so we could hear him just in case, but we were drugged by the Benedryl that was keeping us from incessant vomiting, so we were semi-conscious most of the day. Christian didn't get anything to eat except cereal and sliced apples. Slicing apples was a Herculean feat for me that day. It was truly a new low for the mother that is obsessed with giving him a meal or a snack every 2 to 3 hours. For that and other reasons resulting from my obsession with nutrition research, Eric calls me the "Food Fuhrer." Actually, he only called me that once, but I thought it was pretty funny. But that's another story.

So, back to the amazing accomplishment. Christian spent all that day (and the next couple of days when he came down with the dreaded virus) watching videos. I'm also really uptight about Christian watching too many videos, but illness is just the exception. There's no way around it. Christian was actually so sick that he didn't even want to watch anything for the first day he was sick. He just wanted to lay silently on the floor in the 15 minutes or so in between every time he threw-up for 24 hours. Poor baby. It was just the most pathetic thing I've ever seen.

But once Christian could stand to watch videos, all he wanted to watch were the new videos my mom sent to us called "Meet the Sight Words" by Preschool Prep. They teach 45 of the "sight words" that kids just have to memorize because they come up so often in reading and typically don't follow "normal" rules for sounding words out (do we have normal rules in English??). Well, by the end of this 3 day period, Christian had pretty much memorized all of these sight words. I was just blown away and ecstatic. It was just so amazing to see him start to recognize words everywhere we go. And I do mean everywhere we go. We can't go anywhere without him pointing out every to, for, from, my, look, play, he, she, her , his, it, some, etc. He is so clued-in to reading now. Like he finally gets that all of those letters represent words. Oh, the wonderful world of reading! I hope he grows up to love it as much as I do. On second thought, that's as much of a curse as it is a blessing. I hope he grows up to love reading almost as much as I do.

Happiness is Christian

Okay, so this is a video of the song I did for Christian's 2nd birthday party, which was a Luau (I got the cool hula dress on eBay). As mentioned previously, I used the tune to "Happiness" from the musical, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and rewrote the lyrics.

Ironically, I have never owned this song and kind of learned it on the fly from a random internet source, so I'm not even sure if I'm getting it right. I seriously need to nail it down if I'm going to be doing this every year, but for now, have mercy if I mess it up.

At one point off camera, Christian pulled a huge grin with squinty eyes when we sang about his "twinkly smile." So that's why everyone started laughing.

By the way, don't tell Eric that I posted this. He hates how I drag him into this every year. But I tell him that he needs to represent, and he's a remarkably good sport about it all.

Note: I do not consider myself a serious song writer. This is purely for purposes of love and memories. But Christian liked it and had me sing this to him before bed for months afterward. That's reward enough for me!

The Most Sensational, Inspirational, Celebrational, Muppetational...Part II

This is the second half of Christian's Muppet-themed performance. The first song, for those of you old enough to remember The Muppet Show and yet young enough to be on a "blog," is the theme song to the Muppet Show. Notice at the end when it looks like he's tooting a horn. Remember how Gonzo always did that at the very end of the song?

One night for Christian's favorite weekly tradition of "Family Movie Night," (he and Eric spread the sleeping bags and pillows out on the family room floor and eat popcorn or ice cream as they watch a video - I'm usually doing laundry or something equally enjoyable), Eric brought home a video with three episodes from The Muppet Show with Elton John, Gene Kelly, and Julie Andrews as "special guest stars." For days after we all were assigned to be one of the special guest stars. Usually, Christian was Julie Andrews, I was Gene Kelly, and Eric was Sir Elton John. Go figure. On other days, Christian was Kermit, I was Fozzy the Bear, and Eric was Scooter. One day Christian lamented with a sigh when Eric went to work, "I miss my friend Scooter."

I'm swear I'm pretty strict about TV viewing, and I'm continually embarrassed that he makes it look like he's seen it 30 times and never does anything else. Invariably he's on a kick of one video or another and walking around reciting dialogue from it. Once during a Veggie Tales "Dr. Jiggle and Mr. Sly" kick he would go around saying vehemently, "No more namsy-pamsy pleasantries! When Sly walks in, we nab 'im, pure and simple!" Pleasantries? This kid really should not be allowed to watch TV at all.

Oh, and by the way, if you hear Christian say anything really violent, he learned it from our New Testament videos from The Living Scriptures. They have taught me that there are a lot of mean, violent people in the Bible. I thought I would love those videos, and I think I still will appreciate it when Christian is older, but they're not exactly TV-7. Still, it is nice when he really learns the scripture stories, and the other day when Eric was attempting to snooze on the couch in our den, Christian said, "Arise, and walk!" over and over until Eric finally got up. That was a good one.

Anyway, the translation of the second clip is, "And now, PIGS IN SPAAAACE!"

The Wainbow Connection

This is kind of a random video from last April or something, when Christian was going through a Muppets phase. Eric and I loved The Muppet Movie growing up, and The Muppet Show, but now I realize how disrespectful the Muppets are to each other, so I disapprove. Of course, I only realized that after Christian had seen it, and it only takes him about 3 viewings to memorize big chunks of dialogue or songs. That was the case here.

He was running around after his bath one evening, and I walked upstairs to find him sitting on the bed in his birthday suit, with a ukulele, singing the "Rainbow Connection." And miraculously, I got him to do a repeat performance for the camera. It cracked me up.

Backblogged - literally

Okay. So I stole this title from my best-friend-since-7th-grade's blog. Only she wasn't actually behind on her blogging. Just her life in general was crazy. Well, I submit that I am having both issues.

I am getting complaints, so my apologies that my blog is so annoyingly outdated (is anyone actually still checking?!?) I have sooo much to post about that I hope I can get to, but I will just start by explaining where the heck I've been as briefly as possible while still indulging my obsessive-compulsive tendency in journaling.

It all started with Christian's birthday. You see, I have this tradition of making myself stark-raving mad for the month leading up to Christian's birthday. Every year I produce a video that includes all the pictures, and some video from his previous year. Like a video scrapbook. Sounds simple enough, right? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, no. It's pretty much the hardest thing I do all year long. Think finals week on crack, and it lasts at least 3 weeks. Every year I attempt to complete this project without making myself and my husband completely insane. Every year I fail miserably on both accounts. My loved ones BEG me to give it up. And yet I can't. I've decided that there is some sort of mental illness involved.

But this is my rationale (defense):

First of all, I am a little bit obsessed with all things personal and family history related - journaling, photos, etc. Case in point, I started keeping a journal in 5th grade and wrote EVERY SINGLE DAY (often for hours) until the end of eighth grade. I had 21 volumes by then. Nice, but not normal. It got to the point that I was practically writing more than living (definitely more than sleeping), and since I couldn't really do it halfway, my journaling kind of got dropped until college. I've never been as good since, but you can see the tendency to go overboard. Yes, it's true. Enjoy the raw honesty, folks. And next time on Dr. Phil...

Secondly, I am even more obsessed with my love and gratitude for my son. The video has become my way of expressing that love and gratitude by doing a yearly tribute to Christian. I simply just have way too much emotion and meaning wrapped up in it.

Finally, it's just cool. When it's finished, in spite of the fact that it's never as perfect as I wanted it to be (or obsessed over), it is so fun to have. And I know that we will treasure it forever. Oh yeah, and one more thing. I just want to capture this time forever and never, ever forget him the way he is right now. The video is my attempt to do that.

So there's my defense to all who are familiar with this unhealthy yearly exercise that causes me to pull at least 3 all-nighters each year and almost kills me. I won't stop, but I do promise to keep striving for balance. And hopefully I'll get good enough at it someday that it will go really fast!

So I got the video completed just in time to head off to Utah for one of the most fun-packed whirlwind trips I've ever had. We celebrated the 4th of July for several days and then had an early birthday party for Christian with my parents, sisters, and extended family.

The birthday party is a whole other stress-filled crazy woman story. Did I mention that I also write him a song every year? Oh, I almost forgot. Just to be clear, I don't compose music. Ever. But I do rewrite lyrics to existing songs. In this case, ever since Christian's first birthday, I have re-written the lyrics to "Happiness" from the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown to include verses about Christian's personality that year, things we love to do with him, funny things he does, etc. Hopefully more about his party later.

After Christian's birthday and my extended trip to Utah, came my worthless surgery and annoyingly long recovery. That's another story as well.

Then it was my Grandma Simon's 80th birthday. I got the brilliant idea to start another major project and design an album online for her full of the heirloom pictures of her parents and and her family, their love letters to each other, etc. To skip the long story, this one didn't really end up working out in the end and was put off until Christmas. But to make up for it, I wrote her a tribute letter and -whatever possessed me? - wrote HER a song. I swear I don't do that a lot. That's another story too. It was kind of embarrassing because I had to sing it for her over the phone, and I was extremely nervous for various reasons, and then it didn't seem like she really liked it, so I felt stupid. But then my sister Lauren told me that she actually cried and everyone did like it, so I felt better. I just wanted her 80th birthday to be special.

And THEN it was my dad's 60th birthday. And I, of course, started another major project. I got all of his 8 siblings and his mother to write a letter of memories about my dad growing up (which involved lots of begging and nicely reminding my busy aunts and uncles). One of my aunts and one of my uncles spent hours and hours scanning and uploading old pictures for me to put in the album, for which I will be forever grateful. I'm actually still waiting for one more letter, so the book isn't completed yet, but it will be awesome once we get it printed. Lots of work, though. Still, how much work has my dad done on my behalf in my lifetime? I could hardly repay.

And now we have just come through a horrible stomach virus. And horrible is really an understatement. It's the worst I've seen in years.

So, travel, projects, insanity, surgery, swimming lessons, illness, various unnamed crises ranging from serious to not so serious but stressful all the same, Eric's birthday, and just run-of-the-mill craziness have kept me away from my blog. In short, I have been so busy living that I haven't had time to blog. So thanks to the two of you who have hung in there with me and still check. And I promise that there is much, much more to come... now that the birthdays are over.

Christian loves Daddy and wants to marry Mama

June 2008 - Christian imitates the "baby kiss"
Today when Christian woke up, he walked into our bedroom where Eric was still sleeping. After he cuddled with Daddy for a while, Christian started telling Eric to get dressed. Eric was still groggy, so Christian said it again, with the further specification to put on his "day clothes." And then he added earnestly, "Don't put on your good-bye clothes!" Eric wears scrubs to work every day, and Christian knows that means he's going to work. Eric assured him that he wasn't going anywhere today.

We went out tonight to buy Christian some new shoes in a size 9, as he has just grown out of all his size 8 shoes from last year. We got him some really comfortable sandal/sneaker shoes from Stride Rite that should be great for playing, and then Eric bought him some Vans, just like the ones he got last year. Christian really loves his Vans and frequently requests them. And he can put them on all by himself!

After buying shoes, Christian started asking for ice cream. I was thinking, "Oh, boy. Here we go. Now our son is starting to think of things he wants on his own and ask for them." But he asked so politely, that I couldn't help but be impressed and swayed. He kept saying it over and over, but in the most polite and nice voice, "Please? Pleeease?" Apparently, he was so busy asking, he wasn't listening to us, and didn't hear Eric say that we should go to Joe's Diner for a milkshake. So Christian continued to ask, "Please, MAY I have some ice cream...Please? Pleease?" still in a sweet voice. It was so cute. I really try hard to teach him to be polite, but saying "may I" I cannot take credit for. I'm not even sure how he learned it. (Sidenote: Last night he was wearing his chaps and playing his harmonica, and as he put his harmonica in the little leather pocket in the chaps, he said, "What's this doo-hickey?" I'm also not sure where he got that. But it was very funny.)

We did end up going to Joe's where Eric and Christian shared a chocolate and a strawberry milkshake. As usual, Christian was hilariously friendly with the waitress, Jennifer, and spoke to her several times and said, "Thanks, Jennifer!" without even being prompted. He is such a crack-up. He also asked her where Joe was. I guess last time he went there with Eric, they met Joe.

When we came home, Eric and Christian were sitting at the table, and Eric told Christian he was going to have a P.P.I. with him where they talked about how he was doing in his life. Eric said, "So. How do you feel about Mama?" Christian didn't quite know what to say.

Eric tried a different angle. "What do you like about Mama?" After thinking for a minute, Christian said, "She's gorgeous." Eric has been teaching him to tell me I'm gorgeous for a long time. Sometimes he even has Christian say "We're thankful that Mama's so gorgeous" in his prayer. Not totally reverent, perhaps, but still extremely sweet.

September 2007

Eric asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Christian said, "A big fadder (father)" He asked what kind of wife he was going to have. He said, "A wife like Mama." Eric tried to explain to him that I was already his wife, and that I would be a grandma by the time he was old enough to get married (although that would be entirely backwards, and I hope I'm not a grandma until after Christian is old enough and married . I'm sure he just meant that I would be too old). Christian would have none of it, and insisted that he was going to marry me, and that his wife's name would be Melanie (he frequently calls me Melanie, since he hears his cousins and everyone else call me that).

I asked him if he knew why Daddy went to work every day. Christian said, "To fix hurty teeth." And then he said, "But I don't want you to go to work." And Eric said, "I know, buddy. I hate to leave you every day too. But you know what? It's a blessing to have a good job and to be able to go to work every day." To that Christian replied, "No, it's NOT a blessing. It's a blessing for you to come HOME!" Eric tried to argue that Christian was really lucky to be able to stay home with me all day, and that there were lots and lots of guys that would love to spend all day alone with me (he is incorrigible). But truly, it's just not the same without Daddy. He really brings home the fun.

Christian: A Man of Many Disguises

If there is anything Christian loves, it's a costume. Maybe second only to a hat. If it can go on his head, it's a hat.

Of course, there is the ubiquitous cowboy hat and boots (with spurs...and chaps) from last year's Halloween costume. He wears those almost every day. He has been known to refuse to come downstairs in the morning until he locates and dons his cowboy hat and boots. And the hat has to be just right. Christian carefully positions it so that the brim is propped up by his ears, thereby bending his ears forward - nearly in half. Much to my chagrin. I guess he can see better that way.

But in moments where Christian is not wearing his cowboy hat and boots, he readily creates his own costumes. These creative and unusual undertakings have brought us nearly constant amusement. Several times a day I hear something like, "Mom! I'm a Doctor! I'm a Rudolph Doctor!" "Mom! I'm a MEAN cowboy!" "Mom! I'm MEAN King Saul!" "Mom! I'm MEAN Goliath!" And MEAN is said with impressive gusto. Just recently, he has developed an obsession with mean characters. I'm assuming that this is a typical boy thing. Otherwise, it's those blasted violent Living Scriptures videos we bought. But sometimes he's just a doggy, or a baby bird, and I get to be the mama bird. Or sometimes, I'll just hear him acting out something, like his interpretation of "The Grand Old Duke of York." That's the one with the blue mask jauntily placed on the side of his head. What a character! Anyway, I have tried over the last month or so to capture some of his daily outfits so that we could all share.

Note to Christian: When you read this someday in the future, know that you find a way to crack us up every single day! If I could figure out a way to have a camera running to catch your every antic, and every amazing or hilarious sentence that comes out of your mouth with that adorable little helium voice (that I will miss desperately someday), I would do it. Someone asked me recently if my home was filled with joy every day. Well, you're it, buddy! You're the joy.