A harbinger of things to come?

I've heard parents who have older children talk about the fact that they have to keep their child's cell phone somewhere in the main part of the house at night to avoid having them talking/texting with friends all night.
This wasn't a problem when I was growing up. We didn't even have a cordless phone until I was ... well I can't remember how old, but it was a while.
However, I imagine Lydia will one day want to make late night phone calls to her friends — I just didn't think that night would be tonight.

I'm sitting at the computer working with her baby monitor near me. Suddenly I am pulled out of my concentration by a conversation taking place on the other end of the baby monitor.

Lydia: Hi Amy. What doing? Your house? OK.

Various pauses punctuate the conversation as though she really were on the phone. I look in the video monitor and see that she is laying in bed with her hand up to her ear — as though holding an actual phone — having this little conversation. Then she reaches over and deposits her imaginary phone against the side of her bed only to retrieve it a moment later and call Amy's mom.

Adorable.

It's certainly not her first pretend phone call. Far from it, of course, in fact she loves to call all kinds of people including Daddy and grandparents and pretty much everyone in my family. She also calls her friends a lot — mainly Amy, her favorite — and strangely she likes to call Amy's mom and Amy's dad. She addresses them with those titles too "Amy's Mom" and "Amy's Dad" since she probably doesn't know their first names. Usually she is calling them on Sunday mornings to check and see if they are coming to church.
It's hilarious.

It just makes me wonder when the real late night phone calls will come since she is growing up way too soon.

Shiner

It was a harrowing outing Friday when Derek and I took five 8-year-old boys and Lydia to the St. George Art Museum.

Derek and I are the den leaders in Cub Scouts and this is only our third field trip with the group. Before we'd even loaded the vehicles, one scout tripped in our driveway and skinned his knee. Perhaps that blood was a bad omen.

We arrived at the Art Museum and realized neither Derek nor I had brought Lydia's stroller.

Another bad omen?

We'd been inside maybe 5 or 10 minutes when an excited Lydia was scampering to keep up with the group of scouts and she tripped and caught her face on the corner of a bench.

So suddenly she is screaming, I'm trying to get her into the bathroom while Derek corrals the group of excited scouts. There's no paper towels in the bathroom — not that she'll let me put anything near her face anyway. The only thing she wanted was her blanky, which I had failed to bring.

What kind of a mother am I?

After obtaining some first aid supplies from the front desk and determining she didn't seem to need stitches, we decided there was nothing else to do but proceed with the museum tour with the scouts — whimpering Lydia in tow.
It was terrible — for Derek and I anyway. The scouts seemed to enjoy it all.

Lydia seems OK now, though she talks a lot about the fact that her cheek hurts. It's really sad when she lays down to sleep and can't put that side of her face against the pillow. This caused a little bit of crying in the night last night.

And boy did she get attention at church today!

For our extremely shy little girl, this is not necessarily a good thing. But who can blame people for coming up and asking? I would. She looks like she's been in a brawl.

Poor thing.

And apparently the incident made the outing much more memorable for all of the scouts. I'm told they were talking all about it at church today.

Excellent. She's 2 years old and already living in infamy.

January clean

I love the start of a new year.
I know there are many out there who loathe the idea of New Year's Resolutions and the so-called dreariness of January, but for me it's like a breath of fresh air.

It's the chance to get back into a routine after the chaos of Christmas.
It's the motivation and desire to tackle a host of cleaning and organizing projects.
It's a re-commitment to goals left by the wayside sometime around Halloween.
It's fresh.
It's new.
It feels clean -- January clean.

And better way to put your best foot forward in a new year than with a freshly polished set of toenails? Lydia got the biggest kick out of her first home "pedicure."
She loves to show off her new purple toes.


Unfortunately my enthusiasm for these January projects -- like the intensive cleaning and organizing -- typically lasts only about as long as the month itself, sometimes a little less. So I have to move fast.
Here's hoping my resolve to tackle a lengthy list of tasks aimed at bettering myself as a person doesn't wane.

It was time...

For Christmas to come to an end.

I think the state of my Christmas tree speaks for itself.

Don't get me wrong. I love this holiday of holidays, but for a variety of personal reasons this year just lacked some of its usual spark.
Strangely, nearly everyone I've talked to had similar feelings about this year too.
But don't worry — we had plenty of good times to draw on, mixed in with the lack-luster ones.


This year was the Christmas that kept on giving — in terms of celebration and the generosity of our loved ones — alternating between raucous extended family gatherings and quiet moments with just Derek, Lydia and me. We even extended the holiday to the week after Christmas so we could celebrate post-Christmas with my parents, my brothers and their wives.
I absolutely love spending time with our families, but I have to say the highlights of this year were definitely the quiet moments with the three of us at our house, singing Christmas carols by the tree and watching Lydia's eyes go wide with excitement at the magic of Christmas morning.

I adore her.

Live nativity at Tuacahn — one of my favorite family outings this season.

Magical Christmas morning

A quick visit from Grandpa and Grandma Grady

More presents at Grandma and Grandpa Larson's

"Christmas morning" round 2 — this time at Grandma and Grandpa Grady's

Loving on cousin "Cahn" (Colin) and Grandma

I tried four times to get a picture of Lydia here that looked decent... not really into cooperating with the camera these days.