Oh deer!

Max is now talking to the deer on his little phone, and talking about them in his prayers. He was afraid the first time he saw deer at his Nona's house -- now he's fascinated with the whole subject. Every day when we arrive or leave he peeks around to the backyard looking for deer. He asks me driving down the road to point out exactly where I saw a deer one day too.

A couple of times he mentioned in his prayers at night, "Help the deer not to hurt me." But I think he's getting over that fear. Now when I help him by saying, "Thank you for my nice day" he adds "And the deer." He asks me where the deer are now and I say they went back to the mountains.

But the kicker came Monday night. He scampered off the couch in the middle of a story, found his little phone (JB's old deactivated cell phone) flipped it open and proceded to talk to the deer: "Hello deer, how are you. Are you in the mountains? Oh. Ok. I'm just reading a story with my daddy." Then he held the phone up to JB's ear and said "Talk to deer." He even did it to me and to Ben (Ben just tried to eat the phone). Max kept going but we said, "Can you tell the deer it's our family night right now and you'll talk later?" He said ok, told the deer a gracious goodbye and hung up!

Some observations

1)I love semi-sweet chocolate chips. I've stopped closing the bag in the pantry because I know I'll be back soon for another small morsel of goodness. I should save some for baking because I love JB's choc chip cookies even more. I did make a pie from them once, with a recipe from a yummy book my sister gave me for Christmas.

2) Why does a visit to the doctor take so long? Those with ties to the medical profession, please enlighten me. Our appointment this week for Ben's 4 month check-up took two hours from start to finish. The actual visit with the doctor was about 20 minutes of that, and the shots took five minutes. Yesterday I had a post-op check. It took an hour and a half before the doctor came in, and she was done in 2 minutes. The stuff with the nurse (weight, blood pressure, etc) took about five minutes. I get there on time but the doctor never does. Is it the office manager or receptionist not scheduling the appointments right? Or not rescheduling patients when the OB-GYN has to go deliver a baby (like yesterday)? Is it other patients taking too long with the doctor? Is it the nurse forgetting to tell the doctor that we are waiting with a hungry baby in the room? Or did the nurse forget to tell my doctor I was waiting on the exam table FOREVER, while feeling an increasingly strong and uncomfortable need to feed my baby waiting at home?

3) This girl cannot park! The first time I saw her pull in I thought, wow, maybe she thinks those yellow lines are suggestions. The second time on another day I thought, maybe she's crazy. The third time I thought, "I've got to take a picture." Perhaps she doesn't want anyone to park near her so the Mustang isn't dinged by car doors? This is almost as good as the Jeep I saw over the winter parked halfway up a snowbank in the last parking stall. One good push and that Jeep would have toppled over.

4) I sure shed a lot of hair these days. After Max was born I was shedding a lot, and my hair stylist said it's because when you're pregnant your body holds onto it all. But these last four months I just pull out handfulls of hair when I comb or brush. If you want to find me, just follow the trail of quasi-blonde hair.

My kitchen helpers

I sometimes put Ben in the Exersaucer while I cook (when I cook). He's still wobbles a little, but he loves to attack the toys.

Here's Max trying to climb in too. He thinks all of Ben's toys are his toys.

Then Max wanted to help cook, and saw Daddy's new apron. Instead of that one, I gave him this one in case he made a mess, because we were making tacos. It turned out he just wanted to eat cheese.


"How do I get out of this thing?"

Doctor, Doctor

My darling little (big) baby Benjamin is now four months old! At his appointment yesterday he weighed 17 pounds, 3 ounces and measured 27 1/4 inches long. That beats Max's four month measurements and I thought Max was big. It's 89th and 98th percentiles respectively. He was such a trooper for his shots but the doctor found an ear infection in his left ear. It surprised us because he's been happy like normal. Both boys have runny noses and Max has been sad at night so we had the doctor peek in his ears -- sure enough, Max's right ear has an infection again. We go back in 2-3 weeks to check how they are doing. Max was ticked when his ears were checked. He thought he was just going along to the appointment to support Ben.

Hip Hop Happy Birthday

It's my sister Rebekah's birthday today! Or as Max calls her, Hoombetah. This is one of the most recent pictures I have of her, showing off her new haircut. Hang on there Beckstar, I'm right behind you in the age department.

A fun memory of a past birthday was when I made a cake for her in college and decorated it with M&Ms. I think I may have walked from the dorms down to her duplex to give it to her. Or wait, was that my birthday and she made me the cake? Either way I remember walking and cake. I also remember she gave me the movie "Sneakers" and a special bowl for cereal with a straw attached, but I think that was my birthday a few months later.

My clothing

I bought two new shirts recently. One is bright blue, the other bright purple.

Last week I wore the blue one to work. A co-worker said, “Wow, that’s a bright blue.” I took it as a compliment and said, “I got it at Target!” He said, “That’s OK, sometimes I find clothes at Wal-Mart.” Apparently such shopping is something one does not admit. Or he’s saying we need to be paid more.

Today I wore the purple shirt with khaki pants. (That's a picture I took of myself in the mirror just moments ago.) The sports guys told me it reminds them of the colors of the Washington Huskies and Weber State. Then in a flash of horror I realized it’s also the colors of the Basehor Middle School Bulldogs, my middle school. All of a sudden I went from being a smiling, confident, 28-year-old news reporter, mother-of-two, happy wife -- to a painfully shy, awkward, pimply 13-year-old girl. I need my blankie.

Baby in the Hallway part 2

I wish I had a third bedroom upstairs sometimes. I'm too worried about Max's sleep to put Ben in with him, so he's still in his bassinet next to my bed. Maybe I should be more worried about my sleep and JB's sleep. Most of the time Ben is fine -- he's just about 4 months old now, so I'm still fine with a middle-of-the-night feeding or two. But occasionally he's just awake and talking to himself in the wee hours, and it keeps us up. I put the bassinet out in the hallway twice. Maybe I should do it everynight. But friends tell me their older child adapted and slept fine when the baby moved in to their room.

So is Max over-energetic or are other toddlers just like him? Some evenings when JB and I are tired after long days and drape ourselves on the couch, Max is still eager to play. JB says he wishes he could bottle some of that energy and sell it. It seems like we tell Max not to jump on the couch every day around 6 PM. I'll tell him, "If you want to jump, you can jump on the lovesak downstairs." He'll say, "Want to come too Momma?" I think it will be great once it's finally dry and warm outside and our swingset is hammered back together. He can get out some energy in the backyard.

Also, I'm finding other toddlers like to carry around little things too, and even take them to bed. I thought it was odd until I asked my mom and she said my younger brother would carry around small cars in his hands. Other moms say their toddlers take toys to bed, and I read in Parenting Magazine that this is normal -- it helps in a child's transition from play to bed or something like that. So I guess Max's empty containers (chapstick, floss, mints) or whatever he's loving at the moment are his comfort objects instead of a blankie or stuffed animal.