Pool Talk

The Sutherlands took their first family swimming trip of the year on Saturday night. This is was Curtis's first time at the pool (excluding his infant days) and Paige's first chance to show off her swimming lesson skills.

Not surprisingly, Paige can't swim. But she does like to stand up and walk through the shallow end, moving her arms as if she were swimming, and repeat, "I'm swimming! I'm swimming!" Thank you, Murray City for giving our child a false sense of confidence.

Whatever. At least the kids had a good time. Apparently, Traci did as well. Here's an excerpt from one of her monologues of the evening:

I'm officially the whitest person here.
And I'm fine with that.
I have red hair.
It's only society that says I need to be tan.

Maybe it's not Murray City that's giving Paige her confidence, maybe it's her mother.

Hup Holland Hup

Since the Jazz's early departure, I've lost all interest in the NBA playoffs (I am still passively rooting for Kobe to lose). I'm now focusing all of my energy on soccer. It's Euro 2008 time and the Dutch have come out of nowhere to dominant the first round.

Dutch voetbal always brings out the nostalgia in me. It's been eight years since I walked down Dutch streets painted entirely orange in support of their team--Holland hosted the tournament in 2000. I've never experienced such sports excitement and watching the watching the games with my friends the Bloms, Butler, and Wix was one of the highlights of my mission.

It's been four years since I was sneaking out from my job at the Community College to drive to Provo to watch Euro 2004 on TV with my friend RB. That was a life-changing tournament. Not because of the soccer, but because RB decided to have a kid. (Fortunately, his wife was able to give birth without making us miss any of the games.)

RB was the first of our friends to (purposely) venture into parenthood. When we found out they were going to have a kid, it became time for us to start seriously considering the proposition.
Here we are, four years later, with two little kids. It's 4:00 a.m. and Traci is sitting next to me, giving Curtis a bottle.

Paige loves playing soccer. She dribbles the ball from one side of the backyard to the other, kicks it against the fence and yells "Goooooooooooooal!!!!" So we watch Euro 2008 together and we both cheer when Holland scores. (She just likes cheering.)

For the next round, I'll probably bust out my orange, inflatable Dutch crown, Oranje jersey and wooden shoes. RB has promised to find his Snickers Lucky Pants, the orange promotional whitey-tighteys from 2000. Hup, Holland, Hup!

Six Weeks of Curtis

So, little Curtis has been with us for almost six weeks now. We like him pretty good and intend to keep him. (I have a friend who adopted a kid a few months ago. I was a little surprised to hear that you basically have a one year guarantee when you adopt. If it doesn't work, you can just give 'em back.)

In some ways, newborn #2 seems easier than the first one. But it's likely just a change in perspective. We had a tough go with Paige from the beginning. She had acid reflux and would cry and cry. We spent many hours bouncing her and trying to hold her just right so she'd be happy. Curtis is pretty good for the most part, though he still isn't a very good night sleeper. And he barfs a lot.

Curtis probably seems a lot easier to deal with because we are so busy trying to handle Paige. It's nice to have a kid who just lies there and never cries, "No! Bye, bye change diaper" or "Bye, bye, wear Paigey's shoes."

But adding a second kid makes everything harder. Traci and I are back in the stage where going to the grocery store, getting in the shower, or cleaning the house seems like an insurmountable task. Much planning is required for anything.

Paige is doing pretty good with Curtis, or Cur-TIS, as she calls him. She has to climb all the way over him in order to regularly "kiss his head, kiss his head." She likes to hold him. But when she's done, she just pushes him over.

Traci is getting very little sleep. But she likes the kid, too.

word association

Though she never wants to listen to us, it's obvious Paige at least hears the things we say. Now when we change her diaper she immediately says, "Whoa, big poops!" regardless of the contents.

Diapers have become very intriguing to her and she's very interested in what's going on with Curtis' diaper. Yesterday I was just about done changing him when he squirted all over me. Paige watched the whole thing in quiet amazement. After I had gotten him all cleaned up and in a new diaper, Paige declared, "All gone, water poops!" Apparently, we have never taught about urine. But she knows about water and she knows about poops. Water poops. Makes sense to me.

On a linguistic note, I also like that Paige calls motorcycles "motor bicycles" and refers to her belly button as her "tummy button." I loved when I said goodbye to her this morning she replied, "Fax me."

Curtis at Three Weeks

Curtis seems slightly less amused.

Stuck in the Tree

Paige refuses to speak in sentences. But why would she, when she can express everything she wants/needs with two word phrases?

"Watch Bunny." (I want to watch the stupid Baby Einsteins movie for the 1,000th time.)
"Some fishycrackers." (I refuse to eat anything but cottage cheese, pizza, tamales or goldfish crackers. So give me some fishycrackers.)
"Bubbye church." (I've had enough religion for the day.)

Tonight we were playing with her ball in the backyard. She's getting to be quite the little soccer player and we spent a long time dribbling the ball from one side of the yard to the other before kicking it into the fence and yelling, "Gooooooooooooooooooooalllll!"

After she tired of that, she wanted me to throw the ball into the tree so it would get stuck. She would then yell excitedly, "Stuck in tree!" After I'd get it out, she would immediately yell for me to do it again, "You stuck in tree!" Which was then shortened to "You stuck! You stuck!" When she got really excited, the pronunciation lagged and it sounded like she was yelling repeatedly, "You suck! You suck!" She's so loud that I'm sure all of my neighbors could hear her taunting her poor father. Now I'll never get any respect in this town.

Paigey vs. Curtis

My week of being home/at the hospital with my family is quickly coming to a close. The hospital stay went well enough (despite the generally poor service at Intermountain Medical Center) and we were happy that it was much shorter than our first go round. When the time came to leave, though, we were just as nervous as first-time parents. We worked to get Curtis into Paige's old car seat. We had to keep tightening and tightening those straps until it was small enough to fit the little guy. When we got him in the car we both immediately had the feeling of 'what are we going to do with this kid now?'

The first big challenge was facilitating his permanent introduction to his big sister. We took Curtis over to Traci's mom's to pick up Paige. We sat Curtis' car seat down in the living room and didn't say much about it to Paige. She saw him and kind of half-acknowledged him. We were okay with that. When we put them both in the car to go back home, we took away all books/toys that could have possibly been used as a projectile weapon.

Once at home, things went okay. Paige's only real reaction came when Curtis began to cry a bit. "Waaa!" Paige exclaimed. "Paigey's sad."

"Sure you are, sweetheart."

The next morning came the real breakthrough. Paige got out of bed and headed into our room to start her morning routine of watching The Wiggles with Traci. Traci was on the bed, with Curtis lying next to her. Paige walked up to the side of the bed and happily exclaimed, "Baby Brother!" She got up on the bed and had to hug and kiss him. "Oh, it's Curtis!" She then had to hold him, which she affectionately did with her arms wrapped tightly under his chin, not unlike a sleeper hold.

Since then, she's been pretty good about having him around. She only gets upset when I'm holding him instead of playing with her. We'll see how she does tomorrow when Traci's on her own and Paige can't have someone's full attention.

Welcome to the Family

Just 8 1/2 short hours ago, we welcomed little Curtis into our family. He was 7 lbs, 4 oz and 19 inches long with a ton of brown hair.

At about 8:30 this morning Traci said that she didn't think we should go to church because she was having contractions; by 9:30 we had all of our stuff together. We dropped Paige off at my sisters and were on our way to the hospital. By 10:00 Traci was dilated to a 7 and by noon she was ready to start pushing. At 1:24, the little boy formerly known as Max Power made his appearance.

We are very happy that everything went so smoothly (and were incredibly surprised by how quickly) and that Traci didn't have to have another C-Section. Traci is feeling much better than she did after having Paige and Curtis is doing just fine.

This afternoon, Jenny brought Paige to meet her little brother. When she walked in the door, she saw me lift Curtis out of his crib and sit down on the chair. She immediately came over to me and said, "Put him back in the bed, put him back in the bed." It's going to be a rough transition.

Weekend of Mini Me's

I don't spend a whole lot of time blogging about my tender little feelings. However, over the weekend I did wax emotional a bit.

Traci and I spent Friday and Saturday with our friends Bert and Karin and their two daughters at Bert's family cabin. Bert has been my friend since we were two years old, thus occupying the role of my oldest still-friend by about 15 years.

Every six months or so my mom makes a random comment like "Do you and Bert feel old enough to be having kids?" Or "Now, when you were 10 did you picture this would be how you and Bert's life would be?" I think that's just her way of dealing with the idea that her baby is old enough to have his own baby.

But as I was outside playing with Bert and our two, two-year-old girls I thought about how this was the same age when Bert and I would have first started playing together. It was also interesting to look at our little girls, both of whom look just like us.


Bert's Mini Me, Mackenzie

I tried to get a picture of the two of them together but Paige, who was being a little monster all weekend long kept crying and saying "See ya later, picture" (translation: no pictures). They did manage to have some fun together, though. They both loved getting licked by Bert's new dog and getting pulled around in the sleds.


Paige and Izzy

Paige couldn't quite pronounce Mackenzie, or even Kenzie, so she called her "Candies." I thought that was quite a compliment, as "candy" is by far Paige's favorite thing in the world.

Romantic Vacation Getaway: SLC in January

Our friend Rhett and his girlfriend Liz spent the weekend at our house. When we heard the doorbell I said, "Paige, let's open the door."
"Open door!" she parroted. But then the second she saw them, her eyes teared up.

Over the next three days, every time she made eye contact with Rhett, she'd either say "bub-bye friends" or "open door?" She finally decided to warm up them about 30 minutes before they went back home. When they really left, the sad "bub-bye friends" were replaced by happy "see ya's," kisses and hugs. She then napped peacefully for the next two hours.

I don't know how much fun Rhett and Liz had, but I had a great vacation. In just one day I ate at both the Chuck O' Rama and made my first trip to Benihana. I kept thinking of that episode of The Office when they go to Benihana and Dwight can't hear anything anyone is saying. And Michael brings the Asian waitresses back to the office, but has to mark one of their hands with a Sharpie because he can't remember which is which.

There was one really sad part of the weekend. Liz shattered my entire world view when she told me CSI:Miami, with all of its white, linen suits and aviator sunglasses, is not really filmed in Miami. It's actually filmed in Long Beach, California, right around the corner from Liz's college. I wonder if Snoop Dogg knows what kind of shenanigans are being pulled, right in his hometown.

Recent Paige-isms

Paige is learning new words and phrases all the time. Here's a few things she's cracked me up with lately.

The Birthday Party

Paige turned two a couple of months ago. All of my family came over to our house to celebrate. Paige generally gets upset when everyone's around, as she doesn't like losing out on any attention. She'd been practicing the happy birthday song for months (always singing "Happy Birthday, Dear Ryan (her cousin)" for some reason), but when everyone started singing to her, she went into hysterical crying. She had finally mellowed about right about the time everyone was ready to leave. As all of the cousins were getting into the car she stood on the porch and waved to everyone. "Bub-bye, party! Bub-bye party!"

Amen, Brother

Church isn't really Paige's thing. She throws toys at kids at nursery and sneaks out of the chapel during sacrament meeting. She does, however, love saying "amen." One amen never really suffices, though. At the end of each sacrament prayer, the whole congregation hears one little voice saying, "amen, Amen, AMEN!!!" You can only imagine what testimony meeting is like.

Last week we went to Traci's parents' ward for baby Maika's blessing. Paige was actually pretty good during the whole meeting. During the closing prayer, she broke rather significant wind and proclaimed "Toot!" While we were a bit embarrassed, we were more impressed that she got the word right, as she's been referring to that sound as "burp" lately.

Uh, Number 4

Traci bought Paige one of those Christmas calendars that is filled with a chocolate for each day. Paige loved it. The problem, of course, was that she never wanted to settle for just one chocolate. We kept the calendar on top of the fridge (theoretically out of reach). At random times throughout the day Paige would stand in front of the fridge and say, "number seven?" Meaning, "can I have the candy in door number seven." When I'd tell her no, she'd say, "uh, number three?" I never fell for it. Well, sometimes it was too cute so I had to fall for it.

We have also noticed that Paige is already trying to play us. Whenever she falls down, gets hurt, or is crying for any reason, through her tears she'll always manage to propose "uh, can-dy?" If that doesn't work, she'll just wait a little bit and then present the request as a brand new, great idea. "Can-dy?" If we say no, she usually rattles off all of the other acceptable options, one after another. "Snacks? (fruit snacks)" "Elmo? (brushing her teeth with her Elmo toothbrush)" "Toot Toot Chugga" (a Wiggles movie.) She's nothing if not persistent.

christmas yights

Paige has been loving the Christmas season. She's learned all sorts of words - Santa, reindeer, tree, snow, and snowman - and says them incessantly. She loves yights (er, lights) the best so we were excited to take her to Temple Square - even though we knew it would be a huge battle to get her to wear her warm weather gear. She prefers to wear no clothes at all.

We were given a little Christmas miracle when she didn't put up any fight about the clothes. She even wore her mittens. Though the mittens only inhibit the use of her fingers, she thought both of her arms were also immobilized. She spent the whole night moving her arms in robot motion, without bending her elbows.

Despite the millions of lights at Temple Square, she was most intrigued by the one light we could have seen from our house - the moon. "Paige, look at those pretty pink lights." Nope. She was too busy looking into the sky and saying "Moon! Moon!" I tried to get some good pictures of her in front of the lights, but almost all of them turned into neck shots as should couldn't stop staring into the heavens.

New Ward: Week Two

Our second week at the new ward brought my turn to go to nursery with Paige. I was curious to see to what degree Traci had exaggerated in saying that "everyone in the ward hated us" because Paige was so bad.

Paige and I were some of the first to arrive in nursery. I greeted the old lady nursery leader and she said hi to Paige.

"Well, we're hoping things going a little bit better this week," I said. "Paige, she kind of hates nursery," I smiled.

"Yes," she replied, very matter-of-factedly, "she does hate nursery." Uh oh. Maybe the people in nursery really don't like Paige.

The first half hour went pretty well (that's the part where you just play with toys). Paige was good unless any other kids even thought about getting up in her business - i.e. either trying to play with her, or with her toys.

By the time singing time came around, she was very upset. She was happy during the songs, but had to be crying and trying to escape in between each of them. I was trying to keep my cool with her, though it was 8,000 degrees in the room. I kept chasing after her and trying to bring her back to the singing circle, all while trying to make sure to not cause anyone to hate us.

I thought I was doing a good job until right in the middle of singing time, as Paige was singing and dancing away, her diaper fell off. Fell off right onto the ground. Though she didn't mind at all, I was quite embarrassed. I was already sweating profusely and had to find a way to calmly collect Paige and the detached diaper without making much of scene. I think the leaders saw it, but didn't even crack a smile. Maybe they do hate us.

I got Paige re-diapered and then we just hung out until lesson time was over. We went back in for snack time (goldfish crackers, my favorite). She happily ate away and then took two sips of her water and then dumped the rest on her dress and on my lap. Church is hard.

New Ward: Week One

Moving into a new ward is a pretty big deal for us Mormon folk. Here's the first in an installment of posts on our transition.

Week One

We celebrated the first Sunday after moving into our house by skipping church. My plan to become inactive didn't last long. The next week we made our first appearance at the new ward.

Knowing that there was no way that Paige was going to make it through nursery on her own, Traci volunteered to go with her. That meant I had to be a grown up and go to elders quorum.

Opening exercises was fine. The only person I know in the ward is the bishopric member that lives across the street from us. He saw me and quickly made his way over to shake my hand. “Hello Traci, it’s great to see you.” Well, at least he remembered one of our names, kind of.

Elders quorum was exactly as I thought it would be. Someone made a reference to the Three Nephites within the first two minutes and there was a lot of the teacher asking us to share experiences, followed by long stretches of silence.

I met up with Traci and Paige in the chapel before sacrament meeting. “Was she good?” I asked. From the look on Traci’s face I already knew the answer. “Everyone in the ward already hates us.” Hmm. That must have been one bad day in nursery if everyone in the whole ward already hates us.

Apparently, Paige was quite a handful. Despite Traci being there, she cried the whole time. She kept pushing the little boy who wanted so desperately to be her friend and she (accidently?) kicked another little girl in the head.

The nursery leader is a mid-70s-ish old authoritarian lady. Crying is basically not allowed in her dojo - er - nursery. Traci said that several times she said, “Who’s crying now? Oh, it’s just Paige again.”

"Paige, were you a monster in nursery?" I asked. Her evil grin said it all.

Looks like we’re getting off to a great start in the new ward.

I dance, I dance, I dance around the Mexican hat

Traci and I celebrated our five year anniversary this week. Looking back, I didn’t think that much had really changed. Then yesterday, as we were packing up for our big move, I discovered a memory from 2002.

When Traci and I were setting up our wedding registry I didn’t really have a strong opinion about much at all. I didn’t care what type of silverware we bought or what color our plates were. There was only one thing I wanted – a nacho hat.

Target sold a plastic nacho plate that looked like a sombrero. The brim of the hat is for the chips and the top of the hat has a secret compartment the salsa that can only be opened by pushing a button that plays the Mexican Hat Dance. I told everyone how much I wanted one and I think we ended up getting three of them.

As I looked at nacho hat yesterday, though I did smile, I thought ‘I would never buy a nacho hat now.’ How’s that for maturity? I am sure that I have a similar reaction when I start packing up the basement and I find our tiki hut cookie jar that plays the theme song to Gilligan’s Island.

I am not sure that I am ready to part with either of these items. I let Paige play with the nacho hat yesterday and I now I have heard the Mexican Hat Dance 50,000 times, so maybe I will get rid of it.

Chef Boyar-Don

My mother is out of town, which means my dad has full reign of the kitchen. Last night I saw him put the following ingredients into a frying pan:

• Hamburger
• Onions
• Vegetable Beef Soup
  
• Mushrooms

Was he making a soup? A casserole? A sandwich? That's the great mystery of my father's cooking. It could be anything, really. Normally he would offer - nay, strongly encourage - me to partake in such a creation, but Traci and Paige were with me. He doesn't want to poison them. Just me.