CHEEEEEESE!

Wha? Mommy has the camera? Let me get right up next close to her and say:

"Cheese!"

"Cheeeeese"
"CHEEEEEESE!"
"I'm so cute."

The window seat

Morgan thinks we have a window seat. We don't. We have a window sill. Our bed is right under a window so Morgan is able to climb up into it. The blinds are usually down when he starts, but to protect them I always pull them up when he decides to sit in his window seat. It's amazing though, how completely concealed he can be between the blinds and the window. He scoots his way over from the bed where he got on, to the other end of the window. Then he expects me to help him down every time. I don't think he's figured out that he can scoot back the other way to the bed.

My book

So, I'm writing a story. A novel. I started it a couple of years ago but lost motivation or something somewhere a long the way. But I hadn't forgotten about it. Now I have resumed in it's writing. In it's completion it will not be a great literary work. Not award winning material by any stretch. All I'm shooting for is an entertaining read. I have 40 some pages and when I read it I am entertained. How vain is that? Plenty. I've wanted to be a published author for a long time and think it would be awesome it this were the first novel to be published. It would need tons of editing and such, of course.
It's purely fiction. No meaning to it, really. The idea of the story came from a day dream that I used to have frequently. I find that my writing goes smoother if I spend time going through more story in my head as a daydream before going to sleep or something, and then I write it down.
I wish I had an editor or publisher or somebody that would be very interested in the progress of the book. Someone to make sure I am making progress and keep me working on it.

So here's the preface as it stands now. It is subject to change as I don't really know how the book will go completely.

I’m 23.
I’m also 34. I have even spent some time in what I believe was my 7th decade.
I’m 17, and I’m married. I have at least one grandchild, probably more.
I used to be only 17; 17 and a senior in high school. I had a boyfriend named Chuck. I never liked his name, but he doesn’t matter anymore. Now I have jumped. Chuck isn’t in any jumps, only Ryan is. But my first jump was when I was 17, a senior in high school, and had a boyfriend named Chuck.

That's it. If you picked up a book and read this prologue would you want to continue reading? I'm open to suggestions and revisions.

Tah tuh

Often when I change Morgan's diaper he requests a bath, by saying, "Tah tuh?" Bathtub. He loves his baths. When it's time to wash his hair I lay him down in the tub to wet his hair and rinse it. He didn't used to like this part at all, but lately he has resisted when I go to pull him up. He likes just lying in the water even though he can't really turn his head one way or the other since it would result in an eye/nose/mouth full of water. He doesn't really know how to get up though.

Dirty hands

Aaron read somewhere that a study was done showing that a large percentage of first born children hate to have dirty hands. Aaron is the oldest child and hates having dirt or anything on his hands. Morgan, even though he's only 20 months and as such has a tendency to get dirty, sticky hands, seems to hate it also. Morgan's not great at using utensils when he eats so often uses his fingers to help. Introduce dirty hands. After a meal I get out the cloth to clean him up. I usually start with the face, but Morgan doesn't care about his face. He squirms away and holds his hands up while saying "hands, hands".
When Morgan trips outside or something and gets dirt on his hands he claps and brushes them together like you and I would do, or wipes them on his clothes.
On Morgan's first birthday we did the thing where we gave him a piece of cake and let him tear into it. But he didn't. He tentatively touched the frosting, got it stuck on his fingers and made funny faces as he tried to un-stick it. He clearly didn't like it. I think it's funny.

'Side!

When Morgan isn't begging to watch Elmo, he is probably begging to go outside. "side! Side?" Today we sat in the shade of the garage and watched the construction of houses across the street, and all around us. Well, Morgan watched the construction. Since I don't find it as interesting I read a book.
I don't really know what Morgan was doing here, but I have been noticing an increased amount of imaginative play. Since he's almost got the right clothes for it maybe he was pretending he was on a safari or something and was using his toy, (a.k.a. rock) as a hiding place from the hungry lions.
Now he's mowing the lawn. Speaking of lawns, that's ours, right there. Big piles of dirt, and trenches perfect for tripping in and collecting all the construction garbage and soda cans. Oh how I dream of grass!

Best shopping cart ever!

At the local Smith's grocery store they have several shopping carts that have cars in the front. This is awesome. Morgan stays entertained the whole time I 'm in the store, if he has this kind of cart. It's cute too, he makes the noises, "vroom, vroom, beep-beep, let's go!" The car pictured is broken. Usually there are 2 steering wheels, and when there are, Morgan uses both of them.
I've even seen one or two of these carts at Wal-Mart, but have never had success in securing one for Morgan.

Concert and fireworks

I guess I should have waited to post about Saratoga Splash until it was over. Later that day we went back to the park where the had a concert from, somebody and the Rubberband or something. Morgan really seemed to enjoy it. We brought our camp chairs, but mostly Morgan was on the grass dancing, or running laps around the chairs, clapping, and twirling the glow-stick necklaces. You may notice us wearing them in the second picture. Morgan wasn't interested in the glow-sticks at all until it got dark and you could really tell they were glowing. The coolest part about them was that they were free! They were everywhere. Then a poor man was going through the crowd trying to sell them for a buck a piece, and his weren't even multi-colored. Tsk-tsk. I doubt he had much success, since everyone already had one.

(Who knows what Aaron is looking and smiling at in this picture.)

After the band we watched fireworks. I thought Morgan would be mesmerized but he didn't seem to notice them much. Ah well. Once again we got Morgan in bed very late. But it was a pretty fun day.

Saratoga Splash!

This week Saratoga Springs is celebrating it's 10th birthday or something, so they have been having fun things going on through the week, (like that outdoor movie). Today has the most events and the best part is that it's just at the park a block from our house.
This morning we went to the carnival. Everything was free to do and there were lots of free handouts as well. There were a lot of the jump house types of things, obstacle courses and such. I thought Morgan would love the jump house, but he crawled in a foot from the door and sat there looking a little bit unhappy. So Aaron pulled him out shortly.

There was face painting, so we partook. My idea, not Aaron's. He might want that specified. :)

One of the booths were doing fun balloons. We requested a sword for Morgan. They gave him a pink one. Morgan carried it and chewed on it for a long time, then suddenly it was gone. I don't know what happened to it.

I thought Morgan might have fun on this slide thing, but didn't think he could get up or down by himself safely. I took him up, (a much harder task than you might think while carrying a child) and bounced/stumbled down. There wasn't much sliding going on.

One of the little games for kids was throwing a ball into the can. Morgan did a slam dunk and got a prize.

This game Morgan was supposed to throw the ball into one of the holes, but once again we held him so that he could carefully place it in. :) Then he chose his prize.

This afternoon was the big squirt gun fight. How big was it? So big. In fact, this squirt gun fight actually now holds the world record for the largest squirt gun fight. The most people involved in one on record. They even got the firemen there with their fire hoses.

Morgan didn't have the ability to actually use his squirt gun without help, but he liked to hold it and shake it and try to suck the water out of it.
There were several kiddie pools about for people to refill their water guns. This was after the fight was pretty much over, and the water pretty much depleted.

Movies!

Last night there was an outdoor movie showing at a nearby elementary school. We thought we'd take Morgan to see how he might do at a movie theater. Kind of a test run. The movie was Water Horse, but since it had to be dark to watch it on the projector outside, it didn't start till 9:30. Usually Morgan goes to bed at 9:00. We might not be the best parents when it comes to bedtime. Anyway, we brought our camp chairs and Morgan's cushiony spider-man chair and some popcorn. Morgan did great. But we didn't bring jackets and only a baby blanket. It soon was too cold for us so we left pretty early.
Today we took Morgan with us to a movie for the first time in a LONG time. We haven't trusted him in a movie theater, fearing that one of us would have to spend our time out in the hall with Morgan. But today we took him with us to watch Indiana Jones. We enjoyed the movie and Morgan was great! We kept his mouth full of candy, so he wasn't noisy, and the whole experience was enough of a novelty to him that he was fairly well entertained. He even fell asleep for part of the movie! It was nap time, after all. Sheesh, how irresponsible are we? First we keep Morgan up all night, then we take him to a loud movie during his nap... Oh, and on top of all of that we take him to a movie that has potentially nightmare inspiring images. Oy.
At one point I tried to put Morgan in a chair by himself. The theater was a pretty new one with the nice high-backed chairs and very springy bottom parts. I put Morgan in it but since his legs are so short and light it folded up with him in it and everything! He didn't seem to mind much that his feet were inches from his face, but I didn't leave him like that long; it didn't look comfortable. :)

Morgan was tagged!

Okay, Morgan was tagged, so here are 11 things about Morgan.

1. He has an outstanding vocabulary and adds more words to it daily. When he isn't saying a legitimate word, he is talking in his own language, paragraphs at a time.

2. Morgan loves cheese. He isn't allowed to have much because he is allergic to dairy, but that doesn't stop him from asking for it all the time! Cheese? Cheese?

3. One of Morgan's favorite past times is reading. In fact I just paused with this post because Morgan brought me The Cat in The Hat to read to him. I often find him sitting next to his book case with books scattered all around him and him flipping through the pages of one.

4. Morgan loves other kids. When he sees someone young he immediately wants to be involved with what they're doing and show off to them.

5. One word Morgan constantly says is "Melmo." Meaning, elmo. we have a couple dvd's with Elmo and he is always asking to watch them. He LOVES Elmo.

6. Whenever Morgan sees Aaron and I share a kiss he immediately begs for his own kiss from me. It's funny.

7. Many kids are scared by the vacuum, but Morgan has always loved it. When he crawled he would follow me everywhere when I vacuumed, (which often made it difficult), now he does a funny dance when I turn it on and always wants his turn to push it.

8. Morgan loves animals. He especially likes tackling them and lying on them.

9. He recognizes the letter B and knows what sound it makes.

10. Morgan knows 3 numbers. 1, 2, and 9. Sometimes I'll count down with the microwave when it is heating something for Morgan, and he joins in. "9, 9, 2, 9, 1, 2, 2, 9, 9" It's wonderful.

11. The first animal sound the Morgan could imitate on demand was the elephant.

Okay, Morgan tags Tiffany's Lauren, and Jessica's Ryker and Cooper, and Luke's Noah.

Is it over yet?

Please don't read if graphic details will offend you.

Well, we have had a pretty horrible couple of days.
Sunday morning, Father's Day, I get up and plan on trying to make it especially good for Aaron. But before I can I discover that I had bled some; not a good sign in pregnancy. I do some quick research on the internet and am quickly more worried. So I wake up Aaron, not with a breakfast in bed, or a Father's Day present or anything, but with a concern. After some stressful failures at trying to get a hold of somebody to tell me what to do, (Sunday mornings are not a good time to reach people) I call a maternity ward at a hospital and tell them the situation. I am told to go to the ER. So, we pile into the car, pass by the church instead of attend it, drive through Saratoga Springs, through Lehi, over to American Fork to the hospital. We aren't a very quick drive away. But because the ER would cost us a $100 co-payment and a quickcare place would be only $15 we just asked the lady there if there is a quickcare place near by. We don't know anything around here. There is one in Orem, she says. So we drive back through American Fork to the freeway and travel to Orem. We guess on which exit to take and drive around looking for State street and end up doing a lot of back-tracking. We finally find the place, go in and are told that they don't have the necessary equipment for an ultrasound or anything. I would have to go to the ER. But wait, they say, if the bleeding isn't heavy and if you aren't in pain you can just go home and wait until you can see your doctor tomorrow. Okay.
So we spend a nerve racking day at home trying to take it easy.
Monday. First thing in the morning I call the clinic where I had set up an appointment earlier to meet with a midwife. I hadn't seen anyone yet about the pregnancy. After I tell them the story and of more blood they tell me to come in at 10:30. It seems to take forever for 10:30 to come around. I drop Morgan off with my cousins and went to the office. After routine paperwork and bloodpressure checks and such I finally get in with someone to do an ultrasound. Gooping up my stomach and placing the plastic tool on it reveals the sweet form of the baby growing in me. "Hi baby!" I say in my mind, a smile at my lips. Ultrasound tech moves the instrument around my abdomen, sometimes painfully, and freezes images and measures things. Then says, "I'm sorry Melanie, I'm not detecting any heartbeat." Oh. I think mine freezes momentarily as well. I rationalize that she must be wrong. Maybe if they get out the doppler thing they would detect one. But I know I'm grasping at straws.
I utter a fear. "What if we would have come in yesterday?" It's hard to know, she says, but then later informs me that the fetus died at 11 weeks and 2 days. That wasn't yesterday, at least.
I'm taken to another room to wait for the midwife. They leave me alone. I can see that being alone is dangerous to my composure so I scrounge for a magazine to distract me. Baby magazine. I don't wait long. A sympathetic stranger comes in. More I'm sorrys are said, I'm offered a box of tissues, though I don't need them. An introduction to my midwife. I note that she wears a pretty, stylish, summery, black dress. Not something I would expect to see in a doctors office. She asks and answers questions, gives information and warnings, everything though, seeps with sympathy. She seems sincere, and the gesture is nice, but please don't let me focus on me. Selfish thoughts also threaten my composure. I agree to call her a week away to talk about the progress of the passing tissue.
The drive home leaves me alone with no magazine to distract or with a promise of a confrontation with another person soon. Ah, but I have to pick up Morgan, my sweet and precious child. I do what's necessary to dissuade any well meant elicitations of my well-being from my cousins and take Morgan home.
Now a short phone call to my husband is what I can manage. He offers to try to come home, but I tell him to stay. He takes a vanpool to work 1 1/2 hours away. How could he get home? I tell other family members via text message. No voice control is necessary for that. My sister called my Mom for me.
A bad day. I manage to be extra productive though. Aaron arrives home at the regular time and we eat our dinner of steaks, potatoes and vegetables in our cleaner than usual kitchen. We watch a movie and go to bed.
Tuesday. Tuesday is easier. I'm doing good. Still productive, but that may be because I don't have any books to read. My dad, who is on a business trip here in Lehi, comes for a visit. Shortly after he leaves a bouquet of flowers from my parents is delivered. Morgan, who usually goes for a nap around 12:30-2:00 takes a late nap, due to having a visit from Grandpa. At 5:00 he is still sleeping. At 5:00 the cramps that started a bit before get worse and worse. I feel like I'm having a constant contraction. No respite. Morgan wakes at 6:00 and watches Elmo, sometimes breaking to show sympathy to moaning Mommy. The ibuprofen I was told to take to help with cramping doesn't seem to make a dent. I dream of an epidural. I find the best position for me is to kneel at the couch and rock. This is how I am when I expect Aaron to walk in. He doesn't. Only a few minutes late, but I notice every minute. I stand up and there is a sudden gush that I know my pad isn't going to be able to handle. I hurry to the bathroom, and the doorbell rings. The physical pain is now mostly subsided, but the worst of the emotional has arrived. My cellphone rings. I'm a mess. The doorbell again, then a voice. "Hello, Melanie? This is your Aunt LeeAnn. Can I come in?" Mom had talked to her and told her about my painful cramps. I tell her to come on in. "Are you okay?" I am unable to answer. Where is Aaron? I hear talking. I clean up and open the door and see Aaron; Aunt LeeAnn is holding Morgan on the couch. Aaron brings me fresh clothes. When I emerge Aunt LeeAnn is gone, after offering assistance with Morgan or dinner or anything we may need.
Aaron makes dinner while I shower. I bleed a lot. I can't manage to end the shower because there is always more to clean. I've never seen so much of my own blood. I finally get out after the water is turning cold, but still have a hard time escaping the bathroom without having to change a pad and clean up some more. I'm a bit worried and light headed. I go downstairs and voice my concerns to Aaron but quickly end up back in the bathroom. Huge blood clots pass. We call the midwife on call from the clinic. They say to go to the ER if you soak a pad every hour. I could barely last 2 minutes.
Nobody gets to eat much, but we have to go. Morgan doesn't seem to mind that we take him from his unfinished food, and is happy the whole evening. My dad had been on the way to our house to help give me a blessing, but we call him to meet us at the emergency room instead. He informs us that eastbound traffic on main street is stopped due to construction work at a railroad track. Thankfully he has a navigator gps in his car and we follow him as it takes us a different way to the hospital. Aaron drives fast which is vastly different than his normal driving, and I experience a return of the painful cramps.
At the hospital we first fill out paper work. I worry about not bringing another pair of pants. The triage nurse sees me, asks questions, takes blood pressure and gives me a hospital bracelet while apologizing that there will be about a half hour wait. I spend a lot of the time in the bathroom. Aaron gets some scrubs for me to wear. Morgan runs around pointing the the fish in the tank and playing on the chairs. I'm finally able to stay out of the bathroom long enough to go to an empty waiting room where Aaron and my dad give me a priesthood blessing. I was blessed with comfort, health and a rapid recovery. Not long after that we are summoned back to a different room. I am given a hospital gown, more pads and the special hospital underwear. When I go into the bathroom this time I notice a substantial decrease in bleeding. No big clots escape, and the pad isn't saturated. Maybe we should have just done the priesthood blessing at home and not worried about coming in.
Dad watches Morgan in the waiting room until my Aunt LeeAnn and Uncle Darrell arrive to take him to their house. Dad returns to work where he works the night shift.
A nurse asks questions, then a doctor asks questions, then someone comes and draws blood for tests, leaving the i.v. in my arm uncomfortably. I feel it all night. We wait. Someone comes to get insurance information. She empathizes with me about the miscarriage, having experienced 2 herself. Vitals are checked. We're told I'll have an ultrasound soon. Soon isn't until 11:00. The ultrasound reveals that all the birth tissue has passed, there only remains blood clots. This is good news, signifying they won't have to do a D&C or a pelvic exam. We return to our designated room and wait some more. The doctor finally returns and gives a little instruction on coming days. The i.v. is removed finally and with a signature we are released to go home. It's midnight, we're exhausted and hungry. We pick up our sleeping child and return home.

Here and There

Want to know the newest malfunction in our house? On one wall of the kitchen the electrical outlets suddenly don't work. There are a lot of electrical outlets in our kitchen, so I think it is 5 that are down. These are the ones that I want to use the most too. Both myself and Aaron have checked and switched the circuit breakers and that didn't repair the problem, so who knows what will.

Today for the first time Morgan went potty in his potty! Yay Morgan! I often sit him down on it right before his bath while the water is getting ready. Usually he makes a cute effort of pushing and then declares himself done. Today he didn't do much pushing or anything. When I lifted him off I was surprised to see that the potty wasn't empty anymore, but had a bit of yellow liquid! I didn't know he actually went! I don't think he knew either. I tried to make a big deal out of it and praised and hugged and congratulated, but I don't think he knew why I was doing it. Oh well, it was a victory and I'm counting it.

Things

Now it's the washing machine. Today, being my laundry day, I put the first load in the washer and started it and left. I went to aerobics. I returned and was going to switch that load to the dryer and start another. But wha? Why is there water filled to the brim of the washer still? I'll tell you. It's broken. It won't drain. The other parts work. Like, it will fill, it will swish, but it won't spin and drain. Very troubling indeed.

Currently Morgan is in his crib calling my name. It is better than the crying he was doing earlier. He is refusing to take a nap and I am refusing to take no for an answer. Am I horrible? When I go into his room to remind him that he's supposed to be sleeping he lays down, requests his blanket, which I put on him and he cuddles with his teddy and make a convincing case that he is finally going to nap. But then I leave and he cries and we start over again.

The other day Morgan snuck the bottle of Ketchup out of the fridge when I had it open. He managed to open the top and was trying to drink the sauce out before I confiscated it. He does love his ketchup, but this is a level that I never hoped to see.

Food. When I'm not pregnant I have for lunch nearly every day a package of Ramen Noodles. Pork flavored, if I have it. When I am pregnant ramen sounds gross. And when I eat it anyway because that's all we have, it IS gross. When I'm pregnant I love macaroni and cheese as well as Spaghettio's with meatballs or canned ravioli. Some people think that's disgusting. It's okay if you do too. Oh, and fruit. Fruit it wonderful. Another strange change is my sweet tooth. When I am pregnant I only have one. When I am not pregnant, they are all sweet teeth. We have had a package of Oreo's for at least 3 weeks. It's only half way gone! That would never happen if I didn't have the crazy chemical imbalances that go with pregnancy. By the way, today I am 13 weeks.

My helper??

Morgan learns quickly from watching. He observes, learns, and puts to practice. It's usually fun to see. Sometimes it's not. He has seen me cleaning toilets. He observed that I retrieve Comet from under the sink, sprinkle it into the toilet, then get the toilet brush from under the sink and swish it around the blue water. A pretty fun way to play in the toilet, no? Well I don't think so, but apparently Morgan does.

This is how I found him.

I hope that the white on his chin doesn't mean he sampled the bleach before dumping the entire can into the toilet. What you can't see is that his shorts are also completely covered in the detergent.

Ah, the toilet. I wasn't planning on cleaning it today, but now it is sparklingly clean.

Though it's now empty, Morgan even put back the can of cleaner. I found it under the sink where it belongs. I hope this means that Morgan is going to be a clean person. Someone who picks up after himself and doesn't mind helping mom with chores around the house. :)

Another video

Despite the same outfit on Morgan, this was taken a different day than the last video. In fact probably a different month. And on my computer some of it is really dark, but that isn't a problem on the video camera. I hope it's just my computer screen and that it will be viewed as it should on yours. Enjoy.

Morgan shows off

Let's try a video! You can see how cute Morgan is for yourself.

You mean I have to wash them by HAND?

Horrible news. Our dishwasher broke. Devastating. And ridiculous! It's brand new with the house. Only a couple months of use and now it won't work at all. By the time I finally accepted that it didn't matter how many times I pushed the start button, it was broken, I had quite the pile of dirty dishes. So Aaron and I tackled them together this evening. I have always had a dishwasher, save 2 semesters at college. A dishwasher is a necessity. Much quicker. My in-laws are probably thinking I must be quite the pansy, they still hand wash, and maybe I am, but I quite enjoy being a pansy in that way! Oh, and we're now out of dish soap. I predict misery for a long time. It takes forever to get anything repaired around here. Woe is me! Maybe I'll stock up on paper plates. Hand washing dishes is no way to spend your day.
While we're on the subject of self-pity, let me just vent a bit about these town houses and the property management. Already a terrible renting experience and only gets worse. For one, we have a $100 a month HOA fee. First of all, I didn't think renters were supposed to pay the hoa. It's home OWNERS association, right? And secondly, $100 a month is ridiculous! In our other neighborhood there were grumblings about the $300 a year. When we asked what the money goes to we were told that it's so high because we have a clubhouse which needs maintained, and all the landscaping is done for us. Like, we don't need to mow our tiny lawn, they do it for us. Fine. But the clubhouse isn't available for use yet, and our yard is a big pile of dirt right now! Where's our money going? No doubt it's helping build the rest of the houses out here. Which seems to me should be illegal.
Also, our air conditioning was only turned on on Thursday. For all the very warm days we just had to have windows open because the builders wouldn't come and TURN ON our air conditioning.
There was a huge issue regarding our blinds. They were originally stolen from our place before we moved in and weren't replaced until a couple weeks ago. And that's only after Aaron gave them much trouble about it. They hate us now. But we got our blinds!
The workmanship here is extremely shoddy. 4 of our doors don't shut properly, one bathroom won't close at all, (a repair request has been put in for this over a month ago) you can lock people into the master bedroom, but not out of, the stucco is already flaking and cracking, our back porch isn't mounted very well to the wall, there was that plumbing mess, and now the dishwasher. But what can we do? Apparently what I do is complain about it on the internet. Avoid J. Ballard homes! Don't let the general authority last name fool you. There must be no relation.

Hike

Yesterday we drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon in search of Donut Falls, a nice little waterfall that my family went to a couple times when I was younger. But we never found it. So we just took a hike on a nice easy trail. It was paved. It was actually a road that was closed to cars for the winter, but lots of hikers were on it.
The temperature was in the 70's and plenty warm for the clothes we had Morgan in, but that didn't mean the snow wasn't a few feet high in places.
Being out in the forest made me excited for camping this summer. We plan to do a lot of it. I just hope the snow melts soon! I don't want to pitch a tent in a snow drift.

Goodbye to the old, hello to the new

Behold our loveseat. We have a matching couch. This set was given to us when we first got married and has served us well. Though old and frayed and stained, they are pretty comfortable. Nonetheless, we have been wanting to purchase something new and attractive.

Behold the something new and attractive! I guess the attractive part is subjective, but we like it. It actually really doesn't fit very well in our living room. But we learned today that it is great for Sunday napping. We finally could afford it after getting the stimulus check from the government. The problem is nobody wants the old set. We put them up on Craigslist for free, but have no takers. :( They are living in the garage for now. Hopefully not for too long.