Month: December 2004

Not quite. But Elijah will be turning 3 in March and he is starting to say those cute things that three year olds say.

Elijah’s vocabulary and speaking ability is improving by leaps and bounds at this point, and it’s fun to listen to him try out his new found language.

It’s common for toddlers to mix up questions and responses, such as, “How old are you?” “I’m fine.” Elijah’s daily mixup is so cute. Every morning when he wakes up I say to him, “Good morning. How are you today?” He always responds, “I’m Elijah.” I’m afraid the kid is going to have an identity crisis wondering why he has to introduce himself to his mother every day. But this week he has started to ask me how I’m doing, so hopefully he won’t confuse that question for too long.

Elijah is at a stage where he loves to draw and I often find him drawing on my walls. This morning as I ate breakfast it sounded like he was drawing on the fridge so I asked him what was in his hands. He and Joshua (10 month old) were on the other side of the island playing. Elijah came around the cabinet looking at his hands and said, “UUMMM, fingers?” For once he was innocent and his response was truly classic.

Today is our anniversary. Ten years ago today Matt and I were married on a very cold day in Idaho Falls Idaho. I don’t know that we noticed the cold weather as much as everyone else in our wedding pictures. We were so young and in love that the cold wasn’t all that noticeable.

So today I look back on the last decade and think, “Holy Cow. We’ve survived a lot together.”

There have been tons of hard times, and plenty of good times. Here’s a few things that we have done right in our marriage that has helped us to be survivors:

When we first got married we set some guidelines. We had our first fight and we both felt like crap so we decided these things. 1. Never raise your voice to the other person. We have discussions. They’re much more productive. 2. We never say hurtful things to the other person. 3. Never bring up past occurances during current discussions. 4. NEVER involve family in our marriage difficulties. 5. Always give the other a kiss before leaving the house and when arriving back home.

Despite really hard times, we have survived for a couple other reasons. We’ve been willing to work through the hard times and not just give up. We’ve watched other couples who have been close friends and had similar marriage troubles, go through ugly divorces because they refused to try to work it out.

We have also found that other people’s advice won’t always work for us. For example, when we got married everyone told us not to go to bed mad at each other. Most of the time we found we were upset with each other because we were tired. Sleeping on it and discussing problems when we’re cooled off a bit is much more our style.

So here’s a small tribute to Matt: Thanks for putting up with me all these years! Including my emotional roller coasters. Thanks for being such a great dad. Thanks for understanding that I need a break from the kids on a regular basis to keep my sanity. Thanks for remembering that I have desires and goals outside of being a housewife. Thanks for letting me go on vacation without the family once or twice a year. Thank you for being willing to work through the hard times. That is what has kept us together! Thank you for loving me for who I am.

So for those of you happily married, what has helped you stay together?

I got my acceptance letter last night from Georgetown Law. Now I have 9 months to figure out how I’m going to pay for it!

Yep, it turns out that using a laptop computer on your lap may reduce your ability to father children.

I have four kids. Maybe I should compute with my laptop in my lap rather than on a table more often?

Hey everyone. Time for Dad to brag, my little girl has been walking, she took 12 steps today on her own, walked all the way across the living room without any help from mom or dad. We are so proud of her, I was just beaming when she did it. Anyway dad just wanted to brag about his precious little girl.

I am off on another business trip. This time it is not so bad except for the 5 hour time difference from the East coast. When i get up at 6am here it is almost lunch time back home…

I thought i would share some of the pictures that i have taken so far. I will be adding more as time goes on. I will be here till the 17th, so i have lots of time to get sight seeing in.

Talk to you all soon..

JB

So here’s the question of the day: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Yeah, I know, I’m thirty-one years old. It’s probably a little late to be considering this question. But I think of all the people who’ve done great things with their lives well after age forty, and keep doing them up until their dying day. For instance, I think about Arthur C. Clarke, still writing great science fiction and pushing the frontiers of modern science to this day. (For those who don’t know, Clarke was the discoverer of the “Clarke Belt”, that special zone of space about 28,000 miles from earth where a satellite will appear stationary from a given point on Earth. You owe Clarke for your television broadcasts, many radio programs, and other inventions which rely on geosynchronous satellites.)

So what do I want to be when I grow up? Among other things, a philanthropist, a scientist, and a PhD. Not sure what in, really, but I’d like to involve law and sociology in there.

If you think that’s one of the farthest things from UNIX systems administration (my current career), you’re right. I’m taking “the long view”, and thinking of what I’ll be doing once all the kids are out of the house twenty years from now. I’ll be fifty, and, with luck, looking at thirty more years of fun, adventure, and pushing the frontiers of human knowledge. Looking at that perspective, though I’m probably at least 1/3 done with my lifespan, I still have plenty of time to make my mark on the world.

I heard two great quotes today, that are only tangentially related:

We do not inherit the world from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.

Power does not corrupt. The corrupt seek power.

What about you? What do you want to do when you grow up?

It is so hard to be a single mom. Some people don’t understand that you have to stay home with a sick child. Because they themselves have a significate other to share the responsibility. But for me, I have no one else but me. My roommate helps out when she can. But in this circumstance, I had to stay home therefore making it tough at work the next day.

Genna woke up at 2am on Thursday morning with a migraine. Then about 20 minutes later the screaming increased but this time her ear was hurting. For those who know me, they know she just had surgery to fix her ear infection problem. So what can be causing the pain.

After 20 minutes of screaming I told her that we are going to the hospital. I can’t wait for the doctor’s office to open at 8am. She jumped off the bed and ran for the door. Ok, Mom are coming. Let’s GO NOW. Normally I would hit the ceiling for talking to me that way. This time I didn’t care. The look of fear in her eyes was enough for me.

The doctor was so sweet. He took very good care of her. She did have a migraine which they gave her some strong mediciation for it. But she also had swimmer’s ear. Ok, it is 30 degrees outside and bitter cold but yet she has swimmer’s ear. They said she probably got it while taking a shower.

But we came home at 4:30/5am. She was bouncing off the walls and I was totally exhausted. Being a single mom is not easy at all!!!