101 2

Due to popular consent, (haha!) I will post another 101 word story or two.

All Alone

I often come read at Liberty Park. I'm the one at table with the missing bench.

The little girl that frequents the playground near my bench, always without friend or parent, skips everywhere, chatters non-stop and often erupts into spontaneous giggles. It irritates me.

Almost shouting, I ask, “Why don't you have any friends, anyway?”

Bewildered, the girl looks at me, gestures to her right, and says, “I always have Charlie.”

I roll my eyes. An imaginary friend. With an unblinking gaze, the girl stares at me, then, after a whispered conversation with Charlie, says, “Do you wanna borrow him?”

Hidden Treasures

Wishful thinking. I could hear my wife’s voice in my head as I admired a beautiful speedboat for sale. She’d say that for anything though. When I arrived home with a new mp3 player a few months ago, neighbors two houses away overheard her conniption. Can’t afford…bills…groceries!
I fumed all the way to the storage unit. After entering my code in the keypad I opened the door and placed my new pair of Nike basketball shoes on top of the car stereo box, which was tucked snugly between the Playstation games and my guitar case.
Then I went home, empty handed.


Thoughts?

Tantrum time

Morgan isn't two yet, but sometimes he's terrible. It started about a week ago. At first I thought Morgan was acting up because he wasn't feeling well, but he is fine now, and still the fits. Every afternoon around 4 or 5 Morgan has screaming tantrums that last almost an hour. This is new to me. Morgan has been a GREAT baby, doesn't cry much and very complacent. What has happened? These hour long tantrums are accented by smaller ones throughout the day when he doesn't get what he wants. Last night around 7:30 I changed Morgan's diaper, but didn't put his pants back on him because the diaper leaked and they were wet. I'm not sure if that was the catalyst of his anger, but he lay on the ground crying and screaming. Then he fell asleep and turned into my sweet little angel.

(I don't know why both pictures are so fuzzy. All of them were.)

About a half hour later I picked him up to put him in bed and he immediately woke up and resumed his tantrum. What do I do with him? How are you supposed to handle that? I've kind of been ignoring him when he's like that, but I don't see any good results. Is this the beginning of the terrible twos that I've been warned about? If so, does that mean his terrible stage will end early since it began early? Mmmm?

Aerobics

Our stake here has an aerobics class 5 days a week. It's awesome. A church building on my street, (though it's easy walking distance, it is still not the closest building to us) is where it takes place. There is a closet in the gym full of aerobic steps, mats, and weights. I think it's great that this activity is approved in the church. Anyway, Monday is a step class, Tuesday is a pilates lower body work out with weights (this one impairs my ability to walk for at least 3 days) Wednesday is a kick boxing work out, (especially fun) Thursday is upper body pilates with weights, and Friday, as far as I have seen, is Yoga. But I think they do other things on Friday's sometimes. Yoga makes my me shake uncontrollably. I'm a weakling. But the hour or more workout every week day is just what I needed. I try to do the little exercise DVD's on my own, but usually I go through phases when I just don't. And if I get tired it is much easier to wimp out early when I'm all alone. This keeps me motivated and it's more fun, and I get social interaction. Plus, everyone just brings there kids and lets them play in the back of the gym with a bucket of toys.
It pretty much kicks my butt every day, but I hope that soon I will be more equal to the task. Oh, and everyday we work on abs at the end. I didn't know there were so many ways of doing that. So many painful, exhausting ways. Oy. It's great.

He's done it again

So, I was taking a shower and Morgan was wandering around the bathroom. We have a separate shower and tub in our bathroom. Morgan often plays in the bathtub while I shower. Puts things in it, climbs in and out, etc. Toward the end of my shower Morgan started to make very distressed noises. I figured he was stuck in the bathtub as has happened before, so no big deal. He'll stay out of trouble there, right? Well I completely forgot about Morgan's bathtub experience just yesterday! When I turned off the shower I still heard water running. Oh yeah. Today he learned a few more things about preparing a bath. He learned how to plug the drain, and he learned how to get hot water. Morgan was sitting in a few inches of water, fully clothed, and whimpering. I noticed that the temperature was pretty much as hot as it gets! So I rescue him from his self-made hot tub and take his soaking pants off of him. His poor legs were bright red with heat. Oh, my Morgan! So, with being sick and untimely bathing, by 10:30 this morning Morgan was on his 4th pair of pants for the day. I am quickly running out of clean clothes and I just did laundry yesterday! The joys of children, eh?

101 word stories

Awhile ago I was introduced to the writing of 101 word stories. The challenge is getting an actual story to fit into that word limit, rather than just having thoughts or something incomplete. Here's a couple stories that I've written. If you're so inclined, feedback would be nice. It doesn't have to be positive. :)

Stream of Consciousness

Her hair in a sloppy bun, wearing yesterday’s makeup and cotton pajamas, she brought the basket of clean laundry to the bed.

I better check when that bill is due. Dishes. Always dishes. Oh good,
the stain came out. We need more milk. Bread? Maybe when the baby is napping, if I’ve vacuumed by then, I can read. Shoot! I forgot to check his pockets again; good, it’s only a receipt. Next I’ll clean the kitchen. Or shower. Maybe I won’t shower today. I’d better take the trash out.

Sighing, she looked out the window. It looked like a beautiful day.

Crazy

It was a delicious secret. All her thoughts were gleefully influenced by her elaborate ruse. They all thought she was crazy. A lunatic. She sat in the corner of the common room and laughed heartily as she pondered her guise.
“Maggie, your pills,” said the nurse.
What would a crazy person do? Maggie considered, started madly rocking back and forth, and knocked the pills to the floor. Yes, that is what a crazy person would do. Maggie looked into the face of the gullible nurse and knew she had succeeded again. Maggie started giggling uncontrollably.
“So funny, Maggie,” muttered the nurse.

Too smart for his own good

This morning Morgan seems to be feeling better mostly. Now it's just horrible diarrhea. Messy messy messy. After the first time I just threw him in the tub. A few minutes after his bath we had another mess. (and another pair of pants) So I got him cleaned up and put a diaper back on him and then set him loose while I continued to clean up his crib where I changed him. Soon I heard the water in the bathtub being turned on. Morgan learned something new. On my way to the bathroom I heard Morgan making little uncomfortable gasps. I found him sitting in the tub in his diaper and shirt with cold water coming out of the faucet. He learned how to turn on the water, but only to cold. That's not going to help him get better!

Sick boy

Morgan's been sick. Poor guy. Monday evening we had just picked up Aaron from the grocery store where his van pool drops him off, and we came inside. Morgan was walking into the living room and threw up a bit. But it was like he didn't even notice. He kept walking and then he heaved again mid-stride. Aaron finally caught up with him during his 3rd go and transfered him to me. I rushed him to the toilet where he finished up. I know this is a gross story. I only tell it because I thought it was funny how he didn't let his being sick get in the way of his agenda.

Yesterday was his tired day. Slept in 3 hours longer than usual, woke for an hour, slept again for a long time and would wake up for a few minutes here and there. That's how the day went.

This is how Morgan looked most of the day. If not on my bed, than in his, or on the couch, or on the ground. Pretty much he was like an infant again. Where ever I deposited him, that is where he stayed.

Wheee!

Morgan loves slides. Loves them. We have a playground pretty much in the backyard, but it's been too cold to play outside. So Morgan made his own slide! He has fun. :)

Balloon fun

My cousin who lives near by just had a birthday. We attended the celebration and were sent home with a giant balloon for Morgan to play with. This balloon is massive and fun.

Looky!

=

HAPPINESS!

The due date is Dec 17. Too close to Christmas. Oh well.

To announce the news to our parents we sent them the pregnancy tests. Nothing else, just the test in an envelope. They are from a completely different generation. My mom thought it was a thermometer and was confused about why I was sending it. My 15 year old brother had to inform her, "Mom, it's Melanie's way of telling you she's pregnant." That night when they showed it to my dad he thought it was a USB drive! Haha! Oy.

Plumbing issues

So, our first full day at the house I went to give Morgan a bath. The water didn't get very warm so Aaron turned up the water heater a bit. Later that day he went to the basement to deposit some now empty boxes and discovered a huge plumbing leak. The ceiling was raining. There were pipes near it's showering, but none of them were the culprit of the leak. Hmmmm. Aaron did all the investigating he could. He found that the leak stopped when the hot water was turned off.
We called property management folks, and they got a plumber in, (even though it was the weekend). The guy was pretty confused about the whole thing as well. Especially when water leaked out of the light switch socket. He ended up going to one of the units that are still under construction to see how the pipes were laid out and everything. Then he came back and cut a hole in the kitchen wall. Apparently the person who originally did the plumbing made a rather dumb error. The clamp on the joint was on, but never tightened. Or something. So when the hot water was run upstairs it came leaking out of the joint, and when the water was hotter it expanded even more. Or something. So he fixed it and then did his best to patch up the wall. Now we are waiting for the builders to come and repair it completely.

Snow in April!

I've been very disappointed with the weather. Too much cold and snow. I hear that the Boise area has been getting it too though, so that makes me feel a little better. :) This is what it looked like one morning a few days after we arrived. I wanted to cry.

The town house

When we arrived at the apartment we had a couple unpleasant surprises. One. There were no blinds. When we viewed the house a couple weeks before all the windows were covered with blinds. The good kind too, not the cheap, plastic, mini-blinds from Wal-Mart that we had in our house, but the big wooden kinds. Also, it was very dirty. The bathrooms were disgusting! and the kitchen had dirty footprints all over. The carpets weren't vacuumed, etc. And our walk-through list thing is full of problems. Oh well.
Here is a virtual tour of our new home.

Here is our itty bitty kitchen and part of the living room. Look close and you can see a very dusty floor. Also, one of the doors off the kitchen is a bathroom.


Living room and entry way


Master Bathroom. There is also a big walk-in closet off of it.


Master bedroom. The other two bedrooms are good sized as well.


The view from our back porch. I can't wait till this is all finished.


We also have an unfinished basement which is great for storing things that don't go anywhere else. :)

The move

It was tiring. We planned on driving away on Friday morning and having the Elders Quorum come help us move Thursday night. But we got the truck on Wednesday, so we decided it would be silly to not pack it up. So we did. Before the elders were scheduled to arrive we had the whole thing packed and ready to go, so go we did. We left around 6:30. I drove the car and Aaron drove the moving van. Morgan slept the whole time except for one hour. The drive took a long time because the truck had a max speed of 70 mph and that was pretty much only down hill.
Anyway, we arrived in Saratoga Springs at 1:30 a.m. and stayed at my Aunt and Uncles house for the night. The next morning we got the keys and could officially move in!

Morgan helping to pack

The big moving van. We didn't need all the space we paid for, but oh well.



Morgan instucts Daddy how to drive the big truck

Ode to internet

We finally have the internet! Two weeks without it is 2 too many. It's amazing how dependent on it I am. It is the source of my communication with family and friends, my means of paying bills, and great source of information and entertainment. Oh how I have missed thee, dear internet!
But we're back, and in no time I will start cursing it again because of it's time sapping abilities.
I have about a gazillion things to blog about, but might hold off until tomorrow for most. Today I will just note that Morgan has finally reached his 18 month mark! Nursery! Actually, to be honest, he won't be 18 months until the 25th, but here in our new ward they don't know that. Our records haven't been transfered and I figured that if we brought Morgan to the nursery room and said we were new in the ward, no one would question his eligibility and I was right. Wicked perhaps, but right. And Morgan did fine. He immediately found a ping pong ball and didn't notice that we were there. Leaving wasn't an issue. When I picked him up he was very happy to see me and ready to go, but had a good report from the nursery leader. Yay! I foresee no problems.