Six Months

Good heavens! Has it really been six months since Ike was born? Yes, it has.

I still think my kid is the best in the world. He goes to bed at six and wakes up about six. He takes three naps per day. He usually plays pretty happily between naps. He comes to work with me still, and he is my best little buddy. I feel odd when I go places without him.

This month he has really taken off with rolling. Because of that we stopped swaddling him and switched him to a regular crib very shortly after the five-month mark. Whenever we go get him out of his crib, he is found in a completely different position than the one we left him in.

Along with the rolling, if we put Ike on the floor with a toy just out of reach, he will scoot forward to get to it. I'm not very eager for him to crawl, so I don't do this exercise with him much at all.

We've gotten a few giggles out of him this month. He actually does this very funny thing where he tries really hard to control his laughter. You know when something is funny and you are trying not to laugh? That's what he does when we tickle him. It's adorable, but we like it even better when we actually get a chuckle from him.

He's on the verge of sitting up on his own, and I'm excited about that. I also started giving him solid foods this week, and he pretty much thought it was the best idea I've ever had. (Three cheers for butternut squash!) He loves to hold the spoon and suck on it when I'm done feeding him. His spitting up has really abated this month, and it has been very nice to clean up far less spit-up than I used to.

Ike has finally really gotten control of his binky. We can hand it to him in just about any position, and he can get it in his mouth right-side up, as long as he doesn't lose his focus in the process. (If something else distracts him, he will abandon the binky altogether.)

He loves being thrown in the air. He loves staring at people. He loves to grab anything he can reach, especially hair, necklaces and paper. He loves to stand with support; he'll almost always push himself into a standing position when anyone holds him. He loves to stare at mirrors. He loves the exersaucer that I keep for him at work.

His favorite toy is his orange monkey (see below). The below picture is also the one that I think best captures Ike's most regular face. It's the face he makes when he is neither happy nor sad - when he just is. It also happens to be when he looks most like Winston Churchill.

Mother's Best Advice

A few weeks ago while I was on my deathbed with some stomach bug, my mom called me to ask me what the best advice she'd ever given me was. I told her I'd have to think about it and then write a blog post. I'm pretty sure I also told her I was dying. She is familiar with my hyperbolic rhetoric, so she basically ignored me. (And she probably thought to herself, "Where did she learn to be so dramatic? Can't ever imagine who taught her that.")

I've had ample time to think about this and finally am getting around to writing a post about it.

The best advice (or at least the one I try to apply most often) is this: An unsaid compliment is an insult. When I hear things I like or see things I like or somebody does something that impresses me, I tell them.

One time when we were going into a grocery store (the grocery store where I worked as a teenager, actually) my mom complimented some stranger on her purse. I was mortified. My mom had just gone up to a total stranger and told her how beautiful her handbag was. A STRANGER! How embarrassing! And that's when my mom told me that an unsaid compliment was an insult. (I believe that it was her mother who told her that.)

While I don't necessarily agree that an unsaid compliment is equal to an insult, I do think that pretty much everyone likes compliments. Why not brightens somebody's day by giving them a meaningful compliment? It doesn't have to be elaborate, just sincere.

Ike's Friend

This is the stairway in our house. It holds Ike's most favorite light. He likes most lights, but he loves this one. He looks for it whenever we are going up or down the stairs. Once his eye catches it, he has difficulty looking away.

Meanwhile, I need something to do with that large window on the landing. That vacant place is what I stare at when I go up or down the stairs. Suggestions?

Machines

I like machines. "Machine" was one of the first words I learned to spell.* Today my friend asked me when our world was going to catch up to The Jetsons. Interestingly, I had been thinking just a few nights ago about all the amazing machines in my life.

There are the cars, Rusty and Dudley. (They're so beloved they get names!) There are the washer and dryer. Not to mention the dishwasher. I don't have them, but Roombas (automatic vacuums) and Scoobas (automatic hard-floor sweepers and moppers) are delightful machines. (Technically my wood laminate flooring would be ruined by a Scooba, but still I pine for a machine that will sweep and mop my entry way, dining area and kitchen.) Plus, Eric bought me a bread machine at a garage sale for ONE DOLLAR. A working bread machine for ONE DOLLAR! So now I have a machine that bakes me fresh bread.

Some people may worry that machines will one day take over the world.

If I can wake up to clean clothes, spotless dishes and a freshly baked loaf of bread, I don't mind one bit if machines are in charge.

*I had a coloring book which featured a picture of a cartoon-ish cat and a conveyor belt. I distinctly recall asking my mom how to spell "machine" so I could write it on the page after coloring it. Then I memorized how to spell it.

Wrong Lyrics

There is a classic children's song that is popular in the Mormon church. I don't know why it's not popular elsewhere because it's a great kids song. It's called "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree," and it has hand motions, which is mostly what makes it so fun. The only thing is, most people sing it incorrectly. If you're not LDS, you may find this quiz kind of boring. And I apologize. If you are LDS, you might find this quiz enlightening. Fill in the blanks:

I looked out the window, and what did I see?
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree!
Spring had brought me such a nice surprise,
_________ popping right before my eyes.
I could take an armful, and make a treat,
A popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.
It wasn't really so,
But it seemed to ______
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

So, what lyrics did you put in those gaps? Most commonly people say "popcorn" and "me." These are both incorrect. The correct lyrics are "blossoms" and "be." To be honest, I think that "me" and "be" are pretty interchangeable in the context of the song; both make sense. However, mistaking the word "blossoms" for "popcorn" makes the song utterly silly. The whole point is that the blossoms look like popcorn. If you never know they are blossoms and just think it's popcorn then it's really nonsensical.

And also it's wrong.

Music and lyrics of Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree can be found (and heard) by clicking the link.

Spouse Suggestions

Eric and I have an ongoing "discussion." I read quite a bit, and so does he. I have recommended countless books to him, and he has only ever read ONE book that I have recommended.* Granted, we have read several books together that were my picks, but he doesn't seem to trust my opinions on books when it comes to reading the books on his own. As we were talking about this with his aunt the other night Eric said that the problem is that my interests are too broad. I find so many things interesting that it is easy to find a book I like. This, of course, gave me an opportunity to tease Eric about being narrow-minded. (He's not, but he did set himself up for that one.) The thing is, there are plenty of books that I read that I don't recommend to Eric because I know that my interests are more broad than his. Also, there have been a number of times where I've strongly recommended a book, and he hasn't read it until somebody else (usually his dad) seconds my recommendation (i.e. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism).

Anyway, I started thinking about what books I have read at Eric's recommendation. They are as follows (since 2007, when I started keeping lists of the books I've read):

• Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng
• Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (I had read the first half in high school. Eric convinced me to read it again.)
• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

Okay, okay, okay. So when I actually got down to listing them there were only six. Plus I'm reading Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose right now. But still. I've read six of his suggestions. He's just read one of mine.

*The book was Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky. I read it in 2007, and I told Eric to read it. A few months ago he decided he would go ahead and read one of my suggestions. By this time I knew that it wouldn't be something Eric would enjoy, and I told him to read something else. Still, he chose that one. Exasperation.