It's not easy being green

If you want your lawn to survive, it's a good idea to turn on the sprinkler water all the way. If the faucet is hard to turn and so you think, "oh well, that's far enough," there's a good chance most of your lawn will turn to straw before someone points out that the reason the sprinkler heads aren't rotating is because you don't have much water pressure.

I just thought I would pass on that bit of advice to you all.

Rollover Minutes

I got out a rattle for Simon, but Benji has adopted it. It's a phone, yes, but Ben hasn't seen anyone use a phone that looks like this. Everyone has a cell phone nowadays, and even regular phones are just rectangles. Ben's two toy phones are both cell phones. Do you own a phone that is two round pieces connected by a stick? Me neither. Yet he just knows this is a phone. It must be something instinctive.

Children mimic the adults around them. Do I really sound like this on the phone? You can be honest.

Tummy Time

It's baby work-out time! Simon has to exercise his neck muscles, and that means he has to be on his tummy a lot. He has an umbilical hernia, so I hadn't put him on his tummy for the first couple months of his life. His neck muscles were still as weak as a newborn when he was a couple months old. So this is his chance to buff up that neck!



I was trying to figure out why the tummy-time toys are all bent down in this picture. Ben walks on them, that's why they're all smashed flat. Ben's participation in tummy time is to try and stand right next to Simon's face.





Isn't he doing well? Simon's goal in life is to look to the left. His neck muscles favor the right side, so I have to stretch his muscles so he can look left too. He's started looking left all by himself, and I'm just so proud! Look left, my son, look left!

Jumping Ben

He's not even two yet, that's why his feet don't come off the floor!

(Also, he 'speaks' an empty baby-talk sentence, full of liquid vowels and intonation, just waiting for him to learn the words to fill it in.)



Well, if you're feet don't jump, maybe your fish can! (Caution: swallow before watching this, or your drink will come out your nose.)



Sadly, his feet don't come up during his jumps even when he's on a mattress to try and help them along.

Book Review: The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map is the most interesting book about raw sewage I’ve ever read! If you only read one book about poop in your entire life, this is the book to read.

The “ghost map” refers to the map on which Dr. John Snow plotted the deaths from the cholera outbreak in London in 1854. Cholera is a bacterial infection in the lower intestine that causes violent diarrhea until the sufferer dies of dehydration. If the victim can drink enough water, his body can usually fight off the infection. No one knew that, though. Cholera had an extremely high mortality rate in the last century.

Dr. Snow believed cholera was transmitted by contaminated water, but no one agreed with him. Most people agreed that cholera spread by miasma. Stinky air made you sick. With an idea like that, no one much bothered with the cleanliness of the water. London was pumping raw sewage into the Thames about as fast as it was pumping its drinking water out of the Thames.

The scientific method was still in its infancy. The idea that you should test your idea to see if you were right was almost insulting to the intelligentsia of the day. If everyone knew something to be true, there was no need to show it was true by independent research. ‘Miasmatists’ controlled public health measures because everyone had always known that bad smells caused disease. Dr. Snow wasn’t just up against a wrong idea; he was up against an entire way of thinking.

Doctor John Snow and Vicar Henry Whitehead tracked the deaths from this particular cholera outbreak to show that the Broad Street water pump was spreading cholera. With lists of the dead in hand, the two men knocked on doors, asking survivors if they had drunk from the Broad Street pump, or if the deceased had done so. They tracked down people who had fled the neighborhood, and asked them where they got their water. It was a laborious and intrusive bit of detective work, but it paid off. They convinced a government committee of the Broad Street pump’s danger. The committee shut off the pump, and the outbreak stopped.

When the committee had the pump excavated, they discovered that the cesspool of the neighboring apartment building was draining into the well. And yes, a young mother had washed her sick baby’s diapers in water she had thrown into the cesspool in the days before the baby died. There is no hint in the record if anyone every told that young mother that hundreds of people had died because she had cleaned up after her dying baby as best she could in the conditions that existed in London in 1854. I hope they didn’t tell her.

Over the next few decades, the idea that cholera came from sewage in the water gradually spread, and the government started to pay attention to water quality. Bazalgette designed a massive sewer system for London that was so well-done that London still uses the tunnels and design today (although the equipment has obviously been upgraded).

The Ghost Map is also a story about the history of cities. In 1854, life in a city was a chancy proposition because of poor sanitation, bad construction, and appalling working conditions. Society was holding its breath to see if cities were a viable way of life, or if humanity ought to scatter back to the farm. The verdict is in. Cities are here to stay; they’re going to get bigger; and they provide a better life than rural living does, even in third world countries that still have conditions from the 1850s in their cities.

Johnson wrote a fascinating account of disease, cities, and the scientific method. It was hard to put down, and I don’t often say that about a non-fiction book. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

And I wasn’t kidding about the first paragraph. Johnson explains how poop was handled in London in 1854 before there were sewer systems. It’s enough to make you say a prayer of gratitude every time you flush your toilet.

Yep, we went again

It's starting to look like all we ever do is go to Thanksgiving Point. Yep, that's about all we ever do. Then I put up pictures from every single visit because Dirk needs to see them. Yep, here are more pictures from the Thanksgiving Point fountain. As a special bonus, I remembered to get some pictures of Simon this time!

Simon's muscle tee

Here is my buff baby showing off those biceps! That's actually a chub-crease on his arm, not a muscle-crease, but you already knew that.

Details about Dirk

I keep hoping Dirk will be able to do his own post, but he’s had so many problems with his Internet connection that it just hasn’t happened yet. We have been able to talk on the IM, and swap emails. The webcam has only worked once since he got to his base. I read Susan’s post from yesterday and realized that I do know some details everyone would probably find interesting. So here are a few things I’ve picked up over the past few weeks.

Dirk is living in a new cement building. It was recently built to replace the tents. Because it’s so new, there isn’t a fiber optic cable. He’s relying on wireless Internet, and that’s why it isn’t very reliable. It’s slow. He can load our blog just about every day (and that’s why I update it so often), but it takes a long time.

He has air conditioning. But when it’s 110 degrees, air conditioning only gets it down to 90. However, there have been several cloudy and rainy days, so the weather hasn’t been an unbroken string of heat. (Probably that will happen in August.) There is lots and lots of dust on everything. The dust obscures the view the same way the inversion obscures the view here.

There is a beautiful old olive grove behind their base. He’s promised pictures if he can ever get his connection good enough to upload pictures. There are also lots of mountains around. He says it actually reminds him of Utah. (I’m assuming he means the Beaver area.)

He works from 3 p.m. to midnight. He gets up late enough that he misses breakfast, but says the food is pretty good for lunch and dinner. They offer Baskin-Robbins ice cream with every meal, and he takes advantage of that. Vanilla is his favorite flavor. They didn’t get ice cream once for three or four days when some local Afghans stole the truck. (I bet that sold for a lot on the black market!)

He’s got a very thick black beard. He wears business casual to work, and hasn’t worn his uniform much at all.

The church group is about 20 people or so. On Father’s Day, they got care packages that a ward in Tennessee had sent for them.

The base is small enough that everything is in walking distance, but there is one truck the guys can drive if they want to. Maybe the truck has air conditioning, because Dirk says that truck gets driven a lot. I think it’s funny they do all that driving when the speed limit for the whole base is 10 miles per hour!

After they finish practicing on the firing range, they have to get out of the way of the kids from the nearby village who come collect the brass. The brass gets sold to artisans in the village who melt it down and make artwork out of it.

He can get a Persian rug for cheap, which means several hundred dollars instead of several thousand.

The Wii is doing fine. All the games in the PX are kid games, but some basic games came with the Wii.

His movie projector works fine, and they watch movies on a wall.

He misses us lots. We miss him too. I hope the Internet connection issue get worked out because I’m dying to see pictures.

We love you, honey!

Back to Gospel Doctrine

My Gospel Doctrine teacher maternity leave is coming to an end. So I'd like to offer a commercial for my upcoming lesson:

*cue fun background theme music and video collage*

Inheritance withdrawal fee -- $10.00

Camel ride out of town -- $20.00

A month-long beer bust with your friends -- $50,000.00

Seeing the look on your goody-two-shoes brother's face when your father throws a party upon your return -- priceless

Some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Prodigal Son Mastercard.

(Just kidding. We're studying the Book of Mormon this year. And yes, I stole this post from someone else.)

Book Review: The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood

Just after Ben was born, I picked up The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood by Dr. Sears. Before I tell you the laugh-out-loud funny parts of this book (did this guy not have an editor?), I will tell you the helpful parts.

The measure of any book about nutrition is the changes the reader makes based on the book. I read the book almost two years ago, and these are the changes that have stuck with me:

1. Blueberries. Sears says blueberries are good because of the anti-oxidants, so I buy blueberries. Ben loves blueberries. It was one of his first words: “bzzbzz!” I thought it was cute he could say the word without using any vowels. He gets really purple when he eats blueberries.



2. Olive oil. Sears talks about how necessary it is to get good fats in your diet. I now use olive oil instead of regular vegetable oil whenever possible. Olive oil doesn’t handle high heats very well, so it’s mostly confined to the stovetop and salads.

3. Fish is good for you. I dug out a recipe for salmon loaf, and try to make it about once a month. Dirk was polite about it. Benji is also polite about it. He chirps a cute little “no” at me and politely asks for a cracker.

4. Flaxseed. This stuff is the best natural way to lower your cholesterol. You just sprinkle it on stuff like cereal, or put it in muffins or pancakes.

Besides the list of things to eat, Sears gives an understandable description of why transfats are bad but regular fats are good, and why high fructose corn syrup is so much worse than plain old sugar. He breaks it all the way down to the molecular level. It was a good explanation.

Now for the parts where Sears really should have listened to suggestions from an editor, or his wife.

Sears has a really good idea for helping kids classify food. He says to label food like a traffic light. Green light foods are foods you can always eat. Yellow light foods are ones you can eat sometimes. Red light foods are foods that you should avoid.

He uses this classification system because you should not label foods good and bad because kids would feel like they were bad just because they like bad food. Did you think you were bad when your mom said, “no, that’s bad for you, don’t eat it”? Yeah, me neither. But to protect the fragile psyches of children, we label food like a stoplight. (I actually think this is a good idea because it gives kids a way to categorize what mom says “no” to.)

But then, while talking about how important it is to not label a kid “bad” for liking “bad” foods, he labels the moms. Moms who feed their kids good food are “Pure Moms” and have “Pure Kids”. Moms who don’t are “Junk Food Moms” who have “Junk Food Kids.” Then he tells stories about PMs with their PKs (he seriously uses those abbreviations), as compared to the JFMs and JFKs. I think he should pass out stickers with Happy Meals that say, “my mom is giving me coronary artery disease!”

The other part that sent me into giggles was the last chapter, where he is determined to persuade all those Coronary Artery Disease Moms that they too can eat nutritiously. He describes taking his own kids grocery shopping. I’m giggling again just thinking about it. He admits that his wife does their grocery shopping, and this is the first time he’s been inside a store with a kid in his entire life.

The reader is treated to fun episodes like, “what happened when Dr. Sears lets the kids pick out their own breakfast cereal” which Dr. Sears then corrects in the teaching episode, “how to rationally tell your children that bran is healthier than chocolate-frosted sugar bombs.”

Then they go pick out meat. I’m laughing my head off again. Dr. Sears asks his kids whether they want to buy steak or wild salmon. “Kids, do you want to eat a lazy cow that ate nasty processed food made out of its own cousins? Or do you want to eat a fish that roamed the wild oceans, eating physically fit plankton, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and regularly doing fish aerobics?” Oh all right, that’s not a direct quote or anything. But the whole string of “wise parent teaching eager children in the supermarket” cracked me up.

Anyway, it’s a decent book. You just have to filter out the real information from the massive guilt trips, condescension, and other pomposity.

The Wrath of the Toddler

Just as Dirk was leaving, Ben started practicing with temper tantrums. He tried throwing himself on the ground, but quickly noticed that bonking his head hurt a lot. Then he tried screaming, but that gets him a quick trip to the crib to calm down.

So he's settled on an "ants in the pants" dance in slow motion. You can see a mild version of it in the first 15 seconds of this clip. He starts with tipping his head, then the shoulders and arms get into the motion, then the hips and on down the body, like someone pours "mad" on the top of his head and it gradually works all the way down to his feet.



He gets mad at all the usual stuff. Not getting a cracker when he wants it; not being able to make the book fit back on the shelf; mom telling him "just a minute, I'm feeding the baby". He's still a good-natured kid though. I have to try not to laugh at his Mad Dance.

Cute Ben pics

Do you want to be the one to tell Benji he doesn't have enough hair to need a hairbrush?



And this was just a cute picture. For once, I managed to get a picture without somehow washing it out.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day honey! I was reading Benji the book you sent him. I flipped right to the story and he protested, "daddy!" I turned back to the message you wrote him on the inside cover and read him his note from daddy. Then we could read the story.

Benji also remembers you in the pantry. When he wants cereal, he does the sign (or points to it), and clarifies "daddy." This means he wants daddy cereal, like Apple Jacks, and not nasty mommy cereal, like plain Cheerios.

I hope you liked the tie that Benji made for you.

And while Simon may not know you, he does have a dimple in his chin that reminds me of you every time I look at it.

You know that life insurance commercial that says, "life comes at your fast?" Today is the third anniversary of our first date! Three years ago today, I was nervously waiting for you to pick me up, thinking, "I can't believe I gave my address to some guy off the Internet! I never give my address out!" Good thing you turned out to be lovable, and not some weirdo stalker guy.

I love you sweetie!

Ben's new words

Ben is adding new words to his vocabulary. I caught a couple of his new words on video for Dirk to see (since he was surprised at the video clip that revealed that Benji could say, "diiiiirrrr" while playing in the dirt). Since these clips, he's started saying "bus" quite clearly.

We also had a fun time yesterday with his animal sounds game. Instead of me naming the animal and him doing the sound, he made the sound first and I named the animal. He did great until he got to the one where he can say both the name and the sound. He said, "baby" and then paused with a look of confusion on his face. Then he corrected himself and said, "wah". He laughed at getting it backwards, then off he went with animal sounds again.

He has also started babble sentences. Instead of just grunting, he'll produce an entire sentence of nonsense sounds. The sentence typically ends with "kay". (How come adults always end their sentences aimed at children by asking, "okay"? It's not like we're going to change anything if they say no.)

All of this behavior is right in line with the "Scientist in the Crib" book about how kids develop. It's kind of fun to see all that theory about kids play out in real life. Ben's next step should be to make two-word comments more common. Occasionally he'll put two words together, like "more oatmeal", but not very often. That should get a lot more common before he finally gets to full sentences.

According to the book, right now Simon is working on identifying the sounds he will need to speak English. Before a baby is six months old, they can hear any distinction in any language. Like they can hear the different tones in Chinese, the two different "d" sounds in Spanish, and the two different "v" sounds in Russian. They can hear the difference between "r" and "l" important for English speakers.

By the time a baby is about six months old, they start losing the ability to hear the sounds they don't need, and really working on hearing the sounds they will need to speak their native language. So a Japanese baby after six months loses the distinction between "r" and "l". An American baby loses the Chinese tones, and the two different "v" sounds that Russian has. Then the baby takes the sounds that are left and starts practicing them. Baby babble is the baby hard at work leaning how to talk.

The Gardens Again

These are more photos from our first trip to the Children's Discovery Garden. I posted the fountain photos earlier in the week. This is a beautiful place, and Ben had a great time. He got to get dragged away from the fountain, play on the stage, get carried away from the fountain, see the maze, get pulled away from the fountain, see the fish in the pond, and finally, he got to play in the fountain.

Simon wasn't all that impressed with the Garden. The most exciting thing he got to do at the Gardens was empty his bowels. Twice. Great timing, son. In this photo, he gets to wear his hat over a blanket on his head. He is growing some hair, but it's still at the peach fuzz stage, so this kept his head warm.



Ben is less than happy in this photo because Kristen is preventing him from getting back out to the fountain. He's standing in a maze made out of tall hedges. Pretty cool stuff.


This is the Bug Stage, which is a small ampitheater. It sure is a cute little place. Too bad Ben is too young to sit still for a show. I guess we'll have to get a membership again when he's a bit older.


And here I posed Ben next to some beautiful foliage. I must be doing something wrong with my camera, because it was much prettier in real life.

Simon update

Simon went to the doctor yesterday. Yep, he's a healthy, growing baby. His measurements confirmed what I already knew from his clothes - Simon at two months is the same size Benji was at six months. Simon weighs 14 lbs 14 oz (96th percentile) and is 24.5 inches long (85th percentile). Chubby little honey bunny.

He sure has a cute smile. And I love the fat, kissable cheeks. He is a mellow little boy, too. He fusses when he's hungry or tired. He does aerobics just before filling up his diaper (takes some effort to work that stuff through). He stays asleep better if I lay him down and let him put himself to sleep rather than rocking him to sleep (that's sad - it's so sweet to rock a baby to sleep). He falls asleep pretty quickly on his own, without much fussing. He loves car rides, usually.




In this video clip, Simon bats at a toy. It looks like he's doing it on purpose. Ben didn't hold a toy until he was about three months old, so Simon is still several weeks away from bonking himself in the face with a rattle. But he can make the little toy spin around.

Book Review: Judge Sewall's Apology, by Richard Francis

Full title: Judge Sewall's Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience, by Richard Francis.

The Salem witch hunt started with a couple of girls playing games with fortune telling. They scared themselves into fits. The minister claimed the fits came from the devil. The girls could only clear themselves from the charge of being witches by claiming they were innocent victims of other witches. And so the accusations started.

In a six month period in 1692, a panel of five judges and a jury drawn from the community condemned more than 20 people to death for practicing witchcraft. The accused who claimed innocence were found guilty, and executed by hanging. The accused who confessed to being witches were spared. Those who died insisted on their innocence even as the executioner placed the ropes around their necks.

The community was deeply divided over the witch trials as soon as they began. One judge resigned in protest, rather than condemn people to death for witchcraft on the flimsy and ridiculous evidence being presented. Petitions were circulated; letters were written; higher courts sent advice that would have stopped the witch hunt in its tracks. But for six months, the judges continued to pass death sentences.

What sort of man would condemn men and women to death as witches based on the shenanigans of children? Judge Sewall, at least, was a good, decent Puritan man, caught by his prejudices and simplistic worldview, who spent the rest of his life regretting his role in the event that became the American catchphrase for injustice.

Two years before the witch trials, Judge Sewall condemned several men to death for piracy. Three of the pirates had friends in high places, and Sewall was persuaded to reprieve their death sentences. He regretted allowing himself to be browbeaten into pardoning men he knew to be guilty. He resolved to do his duty to God to enforce justice. This resolve would overshadow his mercy and good sense in the witch trials.

Sewall’s journal does not contain many entries from the time period when Sewall was involved in the witchcraft trials. But in the months and years following that fateful summer, Sewall writes his efforts to come to terms with what happened, and his responsibility for it.

Five years after the witch trials, the town fasted and prayed to ask God’s forgiveness for the witch hunt and other wickedness. During the fast, Judge Sewall stood up in the congregation while the minister read his formal written apology. “Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family; and being sensible, that as to the Guilt contracted, . . . [for his actions as a judge at the witch trials] he is, . . . more concerned than any that he knows of, Desires to take the Blame & Shame of it, Asking pardon of Men, And especially desiring prayers that God who has an Unlimited Authority, would pardon that Sin . . .”

No other judge apologized. The minister who first cried “witchcraft!” apologized, but shifted the blame from himself to the Devil for deceiving him. The apologies from the jury foreman and several members of the jury, and from one of the girls who made accusations, also shifted blame to Satan and to the general fervor of the community. (The culture of victimhood is apparently not new to our century.) Only Sewall accepted blame without trying to wiggle out from under it.

Sewall’s journal after the witch trials reflects a more complex view of good and evil. The witch trials relied heavily on the assumption that everything is either of God or the Devil. There was no allowance for confusion, mysteries, or garden variety mistakes. Sewall’s shift in perspective is a microcosm of the general societal shift in perspective as a young America settled into the second generation of Puritans and began to let go of its apocalyptic worldview. The fact that a cow stops giving milk is no longer proof that the Devil is invading and the prophecies in Revelation are being fulfilled.

I wish the author had spent more time talking about societal trends and how they changed. The book’s strength, which is the level of detail in Judge Sewall’s journal, also became its weakness. The author stuck to Sewall’s journal so carefully that it got distracting (he interrupted the witch trial descriptions to report that Sewall talked to someone about a business deal, and had dinner with a neighbor) and then boring (Sewall had dinner with lots of people, and recorded what the menu was, and the author made sure I knew about every one of them).

The most interesting thing about reading history and biographies is to see how similar the past is to the present. Our day worries about violent crime; Sewall’s day worried about Indian attacks. Our day worries about moral decay in the rising generation; Sewall’s day worried about moral decay in the rising generation. Our day worries about cancer, diabetes and heart disease; Sewall’s day worried about smallpox, measles and fevers.

I believe that people who look nostalgically back at the good old days just haven’t read enough history books. History repeats itself, both the good and the bad.

Several factors that contributed to the witch trials coincided again in Eldorado when the government took children from the FLDS. Again, the initial accusation came from a girl who invented her story. Drastic action was taken too quickly, based on flimsy evidence and wild stories. Once things finally calmed down and someone asked, “what really happened?” people started to realize that things weren’t as dire as they’d thought.

And, as in the witch trials, at least some people in the Eldorado disaster meant well, thought they were doing the right thing, and might spend the rest of their lives wondering how they could have been so wrong.

Ben in the Fountain

We love Thanksgiving Point. Last week, we went to the Children's Discovery Garden for our first time. It was pretty chilly that day, so we had the entire Garden to ourselves. There are fountains in the Garden for kids to play in. I wisely decided it was too cool to play in the water. Very wise. So there was no need to bring Ben a change of clothes, since we would not be playing in the water anyway.

Ben rode home in a diaper, wrapped in Grandma's jacket, with goosebumps all over his bare legs. But he sure had a great time!

Ben's bike

Ben and his cousin were riding little plastic trikes at Chelle's house. The rest of that day, Ben kept saying, "biiiiii" and wanting to go outside. So I pulled out the trike that Susan and Ed gave Ben for his birthday last year and took him outside. Mostly, he wanted to sit on it and say, "biiiiii!"

After a bit, he started pushing around on it. He only stayed on it for a few minutes before he got off and ran around instead. I called Chelle and told her Ben wasn't as thrilled about his bike as he had been at her house. Chelle said that Ben got off the bike every time his cousin Erin got off, and came looking for someone to ride bikes with him.

Grow up fast, Simon! You've got a bike-riding buddy waiting for you!

Thanksgiving Point Gardens

The Gardens at Thanksgiving Point opened several years ago, and for several years, I have thought, "why do they think it's worth $10 admission to go see a garden?" Well, now I know why they think that. The Gardens are pretty much the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I didn't even bother taking many pictures because I don't have the skill to do justice to that kind of beauty on camera. I just walked around thinking, "this is amazing!" Shawn, you need to come down and photograph this place.

But I did get some pictures of the kids in the Garden. This is Benji in the sea of grass that makes up the Waterfall Ampitheater. I think his overalls and hat make him a pretty cute little summer boy. He had a great time running all over. There must be at least 6 acres of lawn in this ampitheater.



We were there just after a thunderstorm. You can see a rainbow in the center of this picture. You can also see a little bitty Ben on the cement pad towards the lower left.


This is why it's called the Waterfall Ampitheater. It's so skillfully designed that the sound of the waterfall does not drown out the stage. The waterfall is all man-made, and the brochure says it's the largest man-made waterfall in North America. The trail to get to the ampitheater winds through the waterfall. Have I already used the word, "amazing?"


There are about ten separate gardens throughout this place. This is Kristen in the Parterre Garden standing next to a carousel. The horses are iron sculptures packed with peat moss. I'm sure that later in the summer, the entire horse is in bloom.


And here is Benji's first skinned knee. Yeah, it isn't exactly a garden, but since it's his first skinned knee ever, I took a picture so Dirk could see it. He fell down on the bricks in the rose garden.

Simon's suit

Simon got to wear a three piece suit to Church last Sunday. I've decided that it's mean to put a baby in a button-down shirt, but it just looks so cute! So the baby has to put up with discomfort of having his buttons buttoned. This was Ben's Easter suit, but don't tell Simon it was a hand-me-down.



The most adorable part of the outfit were the baby wingtip shoes that my friend gave me. With shoes like that, you almost have to call him Brother Simon instead of Baby Simon. Almost. Those fat, kissable cheeks win out over the serious shoes.

Field trip to Cabela's

Well, Simon took his first trip to Cabela's. Mostly, he thought it looked like a green shopping cart. He did get to wear a Cabela's hat, although I don't think it improved his view any.


Yawn


Simon's tongue is about half the length of his face.


Ben, on the other hand, couldn't run fast enough to see everything he wanted to see. Here he squirms away from me on the bench.

And here he turned into a floppy noodle to escape my clutches in the aquarium. I just wanted to take his picture!


He did hold still when we fed the fish.

And when he got to hold the gun.


Thanks Mel, for being the photographer!

Location, location, location

I was in a craft store a couple years ago (no, I don't browse craft stores anymore with two little kids in tow) and saw a sweet little kid-sized chair in unfinished wood, just waiting for a mommy to buy and paint it for her little cherub. It had "Time Out" carved in cute little letters across the back. How would a kid feel about his mommy making his time out spot so attractive? Hmm? Mommy's a bit weird about punishment if she's going to toll-paint the Naughty Spot, I'd say.

So I was thinking about this for Ben's time-out location. "Son, that's unacceptable! Go stand in your bookshelf!"

Simon in the bumbo

Simon isn't too sure he likes the bumbo, at least not yet. He's longer than Benji was, so the bumbo doesn't support his head as well.

Morning at the Museum

We went to the dinosaur museum again, with Becky and her three girls. The girls had a great time. However, I'm beginning to suspect the dinosaur museum is not Ben's favorite place. The first couple rooms are dark, and full of big monster-looking squid and other ocean-dwellers. He is not a happy camper in those rooms. Then there are lots of dinosaur skeletons, which are more big monster-looking things. There is one fish tank that makes him happy.

Ben's favorite place in the museum is the exit, where there is a quarry of dirt set up for the kids to play in. He brought home half the quarry dirt in his diaper.





There's a mural upstairs, so we went up and I got a photo to prove that Simon was there too. He mostly slept through the rest of the museum, except for when he cried and wanted to be held at the same time Ben wanted to run off. Becky was also outnumbered by her girls, but at least her two oldest girls understand, "you come here." Ben and I are still working on the idea that saying, "you come here" is NOT the checkered flag that sets off a game of chase. I turned green with envy every time Becky told her girls to stay somewhere, and they actually did it!



The museum was made even more enjoyable by the fact that about 18 schools decided to have a field trip to the museum that day. Lots and lots and lots of teenagers. When we were in the quarry, a teacher stuck his head out and warned us that the group was on its way out. We vamoosed, and left the dirt to about a hundred thirteen-year-olds.

Book Review: Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher

“Every night, Shahrazad begins a story. And every morning, the Sultan lets her live another day – providing the story is interesting enough to capture his attention. After almost one thousand nights, Shahrazad is running out of tales. And that is how Marjan’s story begins . . .” (from the dust jacket)

Shahrazad’s need to find a thousand and one tales pulls Marjan into a desperate search to help Shahrazad find a new tale, and continue her brave ploy to save the lives of the women of Persia from the Sultan, who was killing a new wife every morning because he had been betrayed by an adulterous wife. It isn’t enough that the tale be amusing. Shahrazad deliberately chooses tales to teach the Sultan about human nature, in hopes that he will learn not to judge all women by one woman’s betrayal.

Shahrazad’s ambition exploits a major purpose of fiction. We read fiction because it tells stories about us, about people like us, and about people not like us. Fiction may not be true in the sense that the stories really happened, but the stories are true when they honestly explore motivations, actions and consequences. Through fiction, we get inside others’ heads in a way that is impossible in real life. Understanding others’ motivations leads us to see them as individuals, instead of as members of a group that we can judge, dismiss, and despise from a comfortable distance. That is Shahrazad’s goal. If she can only tell the Sultan enough stories, he will understand that not all women are the same. Not all women will be false to him, as his wife was. Then the killing can stop permanently, even if Shahrazad runs out of stories.

All those long paragraphs, and I haven’t even mentioned the main character! Even while risking her life for Shahrazad, Marjan struggles with her fear of a blighted future, and with forgiving someone she loved for not protecting her. Her story works like Shahrazad says a story should work. Marjan’s story holds up a mirror to let the reader look at her own fears or grudges.

It’s only fitting that a book about a storyteller would be so well told. The characters are strong and consistent. They confront moral issues and motivations we see in our own lives, but they do it without sounding like twenty-first century women plunked down in ancient Persia. The plot keeps you turning the pages. It takes a good author to bring both a tense plot and well-rounded characters together in the same book.

Book clubs would have a good time discussing Shadow Spinner. Young adult readers would like reading it as well.

Smiley guy again

Here's our happy little guy again! He's eight weeks old in these clips.

Brother chat

Simon smiles at Ben! And then he just gazes at him in hero-worship while Ben does the ultra-cool head flip thing.



Then Benji joins Simon in the baby chairs. Ben has really taken a liking to the bumbo chair. It might be a problem when I start putting Simon in it.

Ben at the park

We spend a lot of time at this cute little park by our house. Our cute little boy likes this cute little slide. It's in two pieces because my finger slipped off the recording button.