Reminiscing

Can you believe Eli wore this little "up to 7 lbs" outfit? Abeit, not very long...he weighed about 20 lbs by the time he was six months. But hey, that's fine with me: Come out tiny and get huge quickly. Oh man, I sure hope I get another six pound baby!

Today I am pulling out all of Eli's baby clothes; that boy was well dressed from day one! I am so excited that I get to use all of this darling stuff again. Unfortunately, I am not a laundry wizard like my mom or mother in law yet, and most of the stuff has yellow stains. They aren't bad...but for a newborn baby you just want everything perfectly fresh and perfect you know? I am going through and spot treating all of it and then I am going to wash it in Dreft and Oxyclean. If this doesn't work, does anyone else have any stellar suggestions?

Question

Are you and/or your child(ren) getting the HINI vaccine? If not, why not? I was flabbergasted when I read yesterday that of the thirty something percent of people who said "no" to this question, that 76% thought that it was unsafe...and that reason was only one of like eight different possible responses.

We don't even have access to it yet-except at the public health office, which I have pretty much ruled out since I think there is a greater chance of contracting the swine flu just by going down there than by not. But there has been SUCH an uproar at Adam's school over having the shot mandated; I say it's just an inconvenient part of being a health care professional and people who chose that profession should buck up and take one for the team...I really don't see what the big deal is.

But are any of you who have the option really worried about it?

Somewhat lacking in manners

Does this look like the face of a perfectly polite boy? That is a rhetorical question.

I love this age. Eli is just old enough to have a pretty decent command of vocabulary and ABSOLUTELY zero concept of propriety: A few minutes ago, he walked into the kitchen stark naked-- keeping him in underwear, to say nothing of fully dressed, is my new full time job. He came right up to me, turned around, bent over so as to stick his bare bottom directly at me and commanded "Scratch it my bum mom?"

Burr boys aren't universally known for their manners so I suppose there is a decent argument that he comes by some of that genetically; but I'm also sure that there is a very distinct age where kids just figure out how to talk and are still completely unbound by social decorum. Either way, it's freaking funny.

Boys rock

So we are ecstatic to be having another one! Boys have always made my life more interesting and exciting; I have always enjoyed being the only girl and I am glad that that situation is destined to continue.

The one problem? Adam and I exhausted every possible name in the UNIVERSE last time and already used the one name on which we could both agree. Help! Here are Adam's rules...(seriously, I used to think I was an opinionated person; now I think I am pretty laid back.)

1.NO verbs (so like Chase, which I love, is out)
2.No name combinations or made up names
3.No names that rhyme with anything stupid that other kids will make fun of
4.Can't end in R (our last name is Burr)
5.No names that start with D (initials would be DB)
6.No names of anyone that Adam has EVER in his life known, met, saw, talked to, heard of or imagined that wasn't cool...I double dog dare you to try and get around this last rule.

I tried

Halloween was a little bit tricky this year. My helpmate (and photographer) was in, of all places, St. Louis-and he didn't even get to see Nelly!!!

So these are the most decent pictures I could muster. You can't even see his cute mini football, or that his authentic number 10 jersey says MANNING on the back. I tried really hard...by Friday night, after our ward trunk or treat, a library costume party and an attempted 30 minute photo shoot, I was more than a little bit Halloweened out. But I managed to pull it together and take him trick or treating and to one more trunk or treat party-mostly because they had a bounce house, which I foolishly presumed would mitigate the effects of the time change; it didn't work. He woke up at 4:30 am this morning.





Cheers to no more ASDA conferences over Halloween- a holiday where two parents are an absolute must.

We've reconciled

WARNING: There is a hilarious picture which exaggerates the point of this post at the end; do not scroll down if you are offended by a woman in a bra and underwear.

Anyway, some of you may remember that I was rather upset about this discovery early last year. Finding out that my, obviously, favorite mirror in the house was a skinny mirror was irritating. Being the kind of girl that I am, one who has no tolerance for sugar coating or distorted realities, I generally don't find any satisfaction in seeing an image of myself which is not real: When I ask my husband, or anyone for that matter, if my outfit makes me look fat, I genuinely want to know the truth--why would I want to wear something out in public that doesn't look good on me? So naturally, I felt betrayed by my skinny mirror when I found out.

No more. We are friends once again. It turns out that the awkward image of a midway through pregnancy me makes the fictitious version of myself too compelling to resist. I know, I know. It's not true; I don't look like what the skinny mirror says I do. But it looks so much better than the real version that I have just decided to go to the dark, fake, skinnier side.

So, at least for now, until I reach the "cute" point of pregnancy-you know, that very narrow window of time where your stomach is just big and round enough as to make every other part of your body appear proportionally smaller and cuter--I will take comfort in a lie. Actually, let's be honest, that stage is fleeting as your body gives way to incredible hugeness, swelling and misery; so it could be an incredibly long time before I am prepared to face the real me again. Cheers to the skinny mirror! Ha ha ha...I hope it's not this bad...

The two (mostly) happiest places on Earth

DISNEYLAND: Eli made it through an entire day at Disneyland without a single bathroom incident-what a potty power champ! We took the day, braved the rain and met my cousins (twelve of them!) aunts and uncles at the happiest place on Earth. And only one child, Mr. Sammy the Wimmer, was temporarily lost the whole day. So it was definitely a huge success.

COSTCO: Like most people who hail from the great "This is the place," we are devoted and loyal Costco fans. I am particularly so because it is the only place that my husband enjoys to shop. However, I was wondering if anyone has been irked by the enforcement over the past year of the entrance "card flashing?" Really, it's not that big of a deal; anyone who has ever shopped at Costco knows that it is just standard protocol. Silly, perhaps...unnecessary, yes- since they neither permit you to purchase anything without it, nor do they allow you out of the warhehouse without a receipt to confirm your purchase. And for a while, the employees "guarding" the entrance were either casually engaged in something else or just didn't care if you didn't wish to dig through your purse to find your wallet in order to pull out your card and prove your legitimate membership.

So I have only been mildly annoyed by the recent crackdown in card flashing at the Costco until Monday night. Sidenote: It will shock no one that Eli's primary goal in life is to make it through the parking lot-where he knows full well he MUST hold someone's hand- to the sidewalk so that he can then proceed to run away as far and as fast as humanly possible. I don't know why this fact of life sometimes escapes me, but it does. So as soon as we made it to the sidewalk on our way into Costco the other night, Eli was already inside and on his way to visit the wash and the cold, which is to say the washing machines on display and the refrigerated section. So Adam and I both started to rush inside in an attempt to reclaim our fleeing son, paying little attention to the card guard. He seriously stuck is hand out and said, "Excuse me, can I see your card?" After a brief glance of incredulity passed between us, we silently agreed that Adam would chase the kid and I would pacify the guard. "I got it. Can he go get our kid?" I said laughing.

So apparently the card flashing is pretty important. I suppose once Eli busted his way into the Costco, like anything else inside, we needed a membership card to get him out. Makes perfect sense.


PS Am I a bad mother for throwing away all of the art drawings that Eli creates if he tears them to shreds once I display them on the fridge? I was particularly excited about this piece because it rather resembles a Jackson Pollock, don't you think? But this is what he does to every piece of artwork he ever creates; apparently he is not a modern art lover. I try...I really do.