Virtuous Pet Names.

My friend got a canary for Mother's Day. When I asked her what she planned to name it, she said she wanted to give it a name that would remind her son to behave. Something like, "Don't Say Potty Words." Or "Be Obedient."

If our family were to get a pet and name it some sort of quasi-virtue name, these would be on our list of possibliities:

• Don't Run Away. (Either that, or Stay By Mom and Dad.)
• No Shouting.
• No Hitting. Or Kicking. Or Biting. (That's a new, really weird thing he's been doing.)
• Take It Easy.
• Don't Stand on Mom's Feet.
• Eat Your Dinner.
• Don't Throw Toys Down the Stairs.
• Put It Back.
• It's Okay. He's Just A Little Baby.

If you were to name a pet some with a name that serves as a reminder to your children, what would it be?

Sleepovers

We love to play board games with friends. Now that we have kids it's a bit harder to get together with other couples to play board games late into the evening. For the most part we've had good luck getting Ike to sleep in a playpen in other people's homes. Now that he sleeps in a regular bed and is fully capable of climbing out of a playpen we weren't so sure he'd be such a good sleeper in strange places.

Two weeks ago we went to hang out with our most frequent board game friends. When we arrived at their house their older two kids were pretty much down for the night. We made a few suggestions for what to do with Ike like having him sleep in a room by himself and putting a child lock inside that room, but ultimately we decided to put him down on the floor with our friends' kids. But there was one caveat. The dad of the other family would be the one to put him down.

It worked like a charm. Jon (our friend) told him to lie down and told him that all the kids were going to sleep and he needed to go to sleep too. He had his monkey and his blanket, and he needed to be quiet, close his eyes, and go to sleep like the big kids. No yelling. No getting up.

I suspected it would work because he sleeps on the floor at his sitter's house, and she's only had to send him back to his napping spot once. He's very obedient for people who are not his parents.

We went to play games with another set of friends this past Saturday. This time Ike slept on the floor in a guest room, and again the dad in the family told him to go to sleep and stay on his sleeping spot. He did end up waking up before we were ready to go, but it wasn't a matter of disobedience at that point. He was just disoriented and scared, so I held him while we finished our game. Once that game was over we headed out.

On the way home from our friends' that evening Eric and I discussed how good our little boy is for other people. We're working on a plan to have other people put him to bed every night. Any takers?

Where I've Been

I have felt for a while now like I'm always on the brink of having my life in order. Life is so different with two kids. More so, life is very different when one of those kids is a toddler who used to play independently for large chunks of time but now demands a lot more attention and interaction. And the other kid requires more attention than the first one did as a baby. You would think after seven months that I would be in the swing of things. In reality, after seven months I'm just learning to let go of a lot of things. One of those is this blog. I'm not quitting altogether, but it's just not a priority for me right now.

Cleaning is also not a huge priority. Earlier in the year I figured out that I am capable of working, preparing good food for our family and maintaining a clean house. But I'm not capable of doing all of these things simultaneously. So I basically called it quits on cleaning. I notified Eric, and we've just been doing the best we can to maintain some semblance of tidiness. I try not to beat myself up when it gets chaotic, and Eric has filled in a lot of gaps. (Our house is still not as clean on a day-to-day basis as I'd like, but it's something I'm learning to deal with.)

I'm learning, much to my dismay, that I don't know how to play. When I deliberately set time aside to interact with Ike I usually find myself in a pickle because I don't know what to do with him. We read a lot, but occasionally reading doesn't interest him. We sometimes watch movies or clips on YouTube, but if I'm setting aside time to be with my boy I don't want that time spent in front of a screen.

I'm getting better at playing (mostly by just mimicking the things that Eric does with him), but it gets tedious very quickly for me. I'm not a kid at heart. I'm a grownup at heart, and I think I always have been. When Ike grows up and looks back on the activities we did together they will revolve around him "being a helper" to me as I cook and clean. I'm sure those things are important, but they're probably not as fun. (Especially when the whole time we are cooking I am telling him, "Don't touch that." "Put that down." "Don't stir too much." "No, the oil doesn't go in yet." "Plug it back in." "Don't sneeze into the bowl." "Don't lick the clean dishes.")

So that's where I've been. Trying to balance the responsibilities I've chosen.

Felix - Seven Months

Felix is seven months old. He can sit up (as you can see). He usually doesn't sit up for long, but he is capable of doing it. He can also crawl - sort of. If he really wants something he will stretch and squirm until he gets it. I think by next month he'll be a full-fledged crawler.

I feel like seven months is a magical age. This kid sleeps really well now (mostly). He has so much personality and is so interactive. Ike is even starting to engage with him a teensy bit more. He loves to eat, and he loves paper (to eat). Felix is incredibly squirmy, but I usually don't remember it until somebody who is not used to holding him comments on how wiggly he is. If you are holding him while you are sitting down, he will probably try to stand up. He also loves to flail his arms when he is excited. Or when he's not excited. He just likes to be moving all the time. (He gets it from me.)

Even though he's fairly short and light for his age, (third percentile for weight at his last checkup), he has pretty chubby thighs. Felix wears clothes meant for babies aged 3-6 months. Most of those clothes still have plenty of room. He's also really bald (like his brother). (In general he's looking more and more like his brother as he gets older.)

This past week he went to the sitter's with his older brother, and he seems to have adapted well to that. I sure did miss him while I was at work, though.

Saturday in Zion

Eric and I went to St. George and Zion National Park for our honeymoon (almost eight years ago). We went back to Zion just for a quick day trip a few years ago. We went down there for the third time this weekend.

Eric had work training in St. George all day on Friday, so I drove down with the boys on Friday afternoon to meet him. (I think Ike interpreted my frequent statement of, "We're going to St. George," as "We're going to see George." When we got to the place where we were supposed to pick up Eric he just kept looking around and asking about George.)

On Friday night we walked around the St. George temple a little bit, and then we took Ike to a park where he played for a while. After that we headed to our motel in Hurricane. On Saturday morning we were off to Zion!

It was beautiful weather, and I'm ridiculously happy we got to go. (We really weren't sure if we were going to follow through with our trip because Ike, Felix and I still have pretty nasty colds. Ultimately I decided that I didn't care about my cold, and I desperately needed some warm weather.)

Eric Sherpa took us on a hike to the Emerald Pools. We went all the way to the top pool (of three). Eric was a champ to lug forty pounds of his progeny up the entire route. (It's not a particularly difficult hike, but it was a few miles.)

When we got to the top we decided to put on sunscreen, which we should have done prior to starting out. Ike thought it would be fun to splash in the water. It was fun, until he fell in and became drenched from the belly button downward. The water was really cold, and he was really unhappy with how wet he got. He kept saying, "I wet. A mess."

We took his pants, shoes and socks off and set them on some rocks to get a little dry while we hung out for a little while. Another family told us their boy (now about 15) did the exact same thing about 13 years ago. We were in good company.

Of course, it wasn't warm enough for Ike's clothes and shoes to dry off completely, so I created a clothesline on the hiking backpack from a strand of yarn that had been tied there previously to prevent binkies from being dropped and lost forever. Ike didn't seem to mind riding down without any shoes or pants. I was rather proud of my impromptu clothesline. Next hiking trip we'll be sure to bring safety pins so we can add the socks to the line too.


We went out via the Grotto trail, and it was really sunny and lovely. After that we rode the bus again (the highlight of the entire trip, if you ask Ike) to the Riverwalk Trail. We had a bit of a meltdown when somebody insisted that he couldn't walk and needed to be carried, but that meltdown was mysteriously overcome when said tantrum thrower discovered he could run the whole way. (I did end up carrying him toward the end when we were going back to the bus.)

I'm looking forward to the next time we can make it down there. It's truly a stunning place.

Domesticity

Here are some very domestic things I've been doing lately.

• Regularly making my own whole wheat bread. Although, I could sure use some suggestions on a good recipe that works well in Utah. The one I'm using is only so-so, and I haven't figured out how to modify it for our climate and altitude.
• Keeping my vegetable tidbits in a gallon-size bag in the freezer, and then using it to make vegetable broth. In the most recent time I even had Eric add the boiled vegetable bits to the compost after the broth was made.
• I washed my pillows. They took ages and ages and ages to dry. But they sure smell nice now.
• On occasion I manage to put away my boys' laundry on the same day it gets washed. (Okay, that's pretty much a lie. I don't think that that's happened since January. We regularly have conversations like this: "Where are Felix's burp cloths?" "In his drawer." "There are none there." "Oh, check the dryer." Sometimes these conversations are repeated for about three days.
• Sweeping. Always sweeping.
• I made a giant container of "refried" beans to use instead of the canned kind we usually use for burritos (one of our go-to meals). We have several freezer bags of beans at the ready.

Wow, that's only six bullet points. I feel like I'm more domestic than that.