Cloverfield

**I felt our title needed an explanation so I'm editing Tyler's post. This is our reenactment of the movie Cloverfield, incidentally the movie we watched for Halloween. Basically there was a scary monster who attacked and everyone was very afraid. And then everyone died. The end.

In Tribute to Lu's Enduring Patience (Poor Girl Doesn't Know There's Another One Coming in Four Months)

My favorite part is when she periodically glares at me to say, "You remember when you brought me home and promised to take care of me? And I promised to be your loyal and faithful companion no matter what your beliefs were or what decisions you decided to make? WELL THIS CHILD WASN'T PART OF THAT DEAL."

Wienie Roast

I'd Like to Credit This Moment to Hanes Boxer Briefs, Size XS

"How did Talmage do with his new underwear last night?"
"Perfect. He went four times."
"What a big boy. I'm so proud of him."
"We even went together once."
"You what?"
"We both went in the toilet. At the same time. It was going happen at some time in his life. Somebody had to teach him."
"Boys are different than girls."
"The fundamental problem, though, is that I'm so much taller than him."
"No, the fundamental problem is that you are 28 years old."

To Make My Freshman Roommates Proud (Feuz, I'm Writing in Your General Direction)

Talmage's new favorite word is actually. He uses it independent of proper context. Like, "I want some candy, actually."

Which I'm pretty sure is how I use it. And I say it with a strong Utah accent. Because my name is Laura "Actually, I'm from Salt Lake" Paulsen (Howe).

The Play by Play of Events Leading Up To and Surrounding September 24, 2005

I was going to do this for Talmage's birthday, but, you know, life happened full of details that I can't remember right now and I'm a good month late. But with the current state of pregnancy I'm in right now, I'm worried I'm going to forget my experience of labor with Talmage, so I thought I'd document it in celebration of the three year and roughly one month anniversary of his birth.

Credit and props to Dooce, maybe the most intelligent and witty woman in Salt Lake, for the format of this entry. (The writing teacher in me also feels compelled to tell you that she lifted it from someone else, and rather than link you to the original source, I'm just sending you to Dooce's site. Scandalous.) I fully admit to not being the most intelligent and witty woman in Salt Lake, so I apologize if this is not that intelligent or funny. History, people. I'm documenting it for history.

September 9. 37 weeks pregnant. My doctor (heretofore knows as The Classiest 75 Year Old Woman Alive, Excepting Maybe My Grandma Sara) tells me that I'm dialated to about a 4 and that I'm 60% effaced. She also tells me that this isn't necessarily anything to get excited about and that it could be several more weeks before the baby is ready to come. I of course ignore that last part and plan on having my boy the next day.

September 10. While continuing to tell everyone that I'm still not sure about the name, I buy and paint wooden blocks spelling T-A-L-M-A-G-E. Because while I'm not sure about it, that is clearly the most important part of getting ready for a baby. The Pottery Barn style letters on the wall.

September 11. I have dinner at my mom's house. She asks me if my Master's thesis is written. (It's not, by the way.)

September 12-22. Mom continues to ask if my Master's thesis is written.

September 23 about noon. The Classiest 75 Year Old Woman Alive, Excepting Maybe My Grandma Sara tells me at my 39 week appointment that my body is very ready to have a baby. I thought that's what she told me two weeks earlier. But I have Group B Strep, a problem that can be cleared up easily with a round of penicillin, and so maybe I should go home and talk to my husband about when I want to have a baby. I say, "Leave my husband out of it. I want to have a baby right now." She calls the hospital and they are full, so she tells me to go home and wait for them to call me.

September 23, 1:00 pm. I call my mother and tell her "I'M GOING TO HAVE A BABY TODAY!" She responds, "Sounds like you have a couple of hours. Maybe you should get your thesis written." I passively aggressively ignore her and her misplaced faith in my ability to write roughly 120 pages in two hours and instead clean the fridge.

September 23, 4:00 pm. Fridge is clean. Still waiting for the hospital to call.

September 23, 4:05 pm. I decide that maybe if I stare at the phone it will ring faster.

September 23, 4:06 pm. I intensify the staring.

September 23, 6:00 pm. We take Lu on her last walk as the most cherished member of our family. We get Cafe Rio to go. Still waiting for that phone call.

September 23, 11:00 pm. Still no call.

September 24, 3:00 am. The hospital calls with a bed for me. I tell them I'll be there in 15 minutes. I have a momentary crisis, because I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to wear my LDS underwear to the hospital, so I instead shimmy a lacy black lingerie-style thong up over my pregnant thighs and hitch it up under my swollen and stretch-marked belly.

3:20 am. I arrive at the hospital and they direct me to a room. I change into a hospital gown.

3:24 am. The nurse arrives to hook me up. She spots my lingerie in the corner and very courageously stays composed. I'm sure a career with angry pregnant and soon to not be pregnant women who spend much of the time screeching in pain will do that to you.

4:00 am. They start me on a penicillin drip and hook me up to pitocen.

4:01 am. I ask the nurse if my eyes should be itching and and my lips should be swelling.

4:02 am. The nurse turns down the penicillin.

5:00 am. I feel the first contractions. Kind of a tightening. I decide other women are whiners.

8:00 am. The Classiest 75 Year Old Woman Alive, Excepting Maybe My Grandma Sara shows up to deliver the baby. She is in green scrubs, with navy pumps and a full strand of freshwater pearls. She decides I'm ready and breaks my water.

8:05 am. I came fully planning on an epidural (really, do I need to know what the pioneers experienced when I was born with a full complement of painkillers available?) but the nurse assures me I should wait until I really feel something. Tyler leaves to go get breakfast and I figure I'll wait until he gets back.

8:06 am. The first real contraction hits. I feel something.

8:20 am. How long can it take Tyler to throw down a bowl of Cheerios? I'm ready for a nice breakfast of a stick in the mouth with a side of morphine.

8:40 am. If Tyler isn't back in 5 minutes, not only am I getting an epidural without him, but I am also refusing to change any diapers. For any of our kids. Ever.

8:43 am. Tyler returns. I immediately send him to get the anesthesiologist.

8:53 am. The anesthesiologist enters and begins to analyze my state. On a scale of one to ten I tell him I feel like an eight.

8:54 am. I vomit all over the room. It's a pretty convincing eight.

8:57 am. The epidural is in. I decide drugs are the most glorious invention of mankind. I'm ready for more. Any propositions to ammend the constitution and legalize marajuana? I'm ready to sign.

9:30 am. Tyler and I decide to watch a movie. We pick Top Gun.

11:30 am. Top Gun isn't as good as you remember.

2:00 pm. The Classiest 75 Year Old Woman Alive, Excepting Maybe My Grandma Sara comes in and tells me I'm at a 10 and ready to go. The nurse turns down my epidural so I can feel the contractions to push against.

2:30 pm. I'm sure Tyler could give you more details from this part. I elected not to have a mirror so I could skip over these details. I'm sure you'd like to as well.

3:00 pm (ish). I push Talmage out. He is 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 22 inches long.

3:03 pm. Tyler has taken roughly 163 pictures.

Please Find Me!

Alma 45:18-19

And when Alma had done this he departed out of the land of Zarahemla, as if to go into the land of Melek. And it came to pass that he was never heard of more; as to his death or burial we know not of. Behold, this we know, that he was a righteous man; and the saying went abroad in the church that he was taken up by the Spirit, or buried by the hand of the Lord, even as Moses. But behold, the scriptures saith the Lord took Moses unto himself; and we suppose that he has also received Alma in the spirit, unto himself; therefore, for this cause we know nothing concerning his death and burial.

I feel it is very important that I keep myself from being too righteous, so I never run the risk of having the search and rescue decide I was taken unto the Lord while I'm really wandering aimlessly in the woods.

Poor Alma!

Getcha Head in the Game!

There is no arguing--these are the sexiest legs you will ever see!

Slippery Fish

Thank you, Barbara!

Nine Things I Am Irrationally Vain About

1. My fingers. I have very pretty fingers. Long and lean. I could have been a hand model and made millions.

2. My nailbeds. Totally different than my fingers. When I got a manicure before Homecoming senior year the manicurist told me I'd never need acrylics. And she's right. My nailbeds are beautiful.

3. My salads. I make a killer salad. I'm so obnoxiously proud of this that when someone complimented me about the last salad I made (with yellow peppers instead of red peppers so that combined with the tomatoes the color palette would be aesthetically pleasing and with an array of artfully spread avocados) I said, "Oh this? This isn't even a fancy salad."

4. How big my child is. Talmage is above average. He just dropped from 95th percentile of children to 90th percentile, and I have to say I was a little disappointed. This is a change from when I was panicked that I would have monstrously large children. I was also panicked about having weird looking children because little sister told me my kids were going to be interesting looking because Tyler and I look nothing alike. In your face, Guggy. Talmage is blindingly attractive. And you're going to have children with big heads.

5. How small my feet are. Granted, they're a size 7, but have you ever heard of a woman who's 5'9" with only size 7 feet? I didn't think so.

6. The bibliography at the end of my thesis. It's nine pages long. When I was writing my thesis I used to have a little personal celebration involving Alexander the Grape candies each time I bumped to a new page. It's very pretty.

7. My knowledge of 60s and 70s music. This was my only selling point with guys in high school and college. I was never the cool girl who could play a game of pick-up basketball or throw a football with alarming accuracy. But I knew all about Keith Moon's death from elephant tranquilizers and that all of the Eagles members majored in music in college. And that was COOL. (Didn't get me too far with Tyler since he didn't care about this knowledge in the slightest. Good thing I had more than a working familiarity with Billy Joel.)

8. My ability to pound candy. I can eat a large size bag of Starbursts in one sitting without breaking a sweat.

9. My hair. It's long and thick and fine and, well, maybe that's not irrational. I have GREAT hair.

Sugar House Hill

Talmage the Biker

This video is a contribution from Talmage's great uncle Kevin--and I do mean "great!"

Announcing the Gender of Ebeneezer Ichabod Paulsen Paulsen Howe

It's a boy.

Taken Verbatim From Tyler's Student's Homework

"I pledgealieigens to the flag of the United States of America. And two the repubic with istand on nation to gon whith liberty and justise for all."

Your homework assignment is to use the word pledgealieigens in a sentence today.

Look Alikes

In my life I've only ever been compared to two celebrity look alikes.

One, Helen Hunt:

And two, Leelee Sobieski:

I like to think that both of these comparisons are connected to my full mane of long blond hair and rockin body, but if I'm honest with myself, I'm sure it has more to do with the thick straight eyebrows and bumpy nose. However, Helen Hunt was one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1998, an issue I didn't just browse through at the supermarket, but purchased and kept as an homage to my vicarious beauty.

Tyler usually gets compared to two actors.

Jim Carrey:

Or Kevin Bacon:

I think the Jim Carrey comparison comes from Tyler's sheer enthusiasm, which if you haven't witnessed in person, I think that a quick glance at the Corny Collins video posted below should give you a pretty accurate picture. He didn't become an elementary school teacher for nothing.

The Kevin Bacon comparison I find a little more alarming, as I affectionately refer to Kevin Bacon as the Scariest Man Alive. I'm not really sure where this comes from, except that I must have some latent Footloose associated nightmare kicking around in my subconcious, similar to the Michael Jackson nightmare I had when I was eight when Michael Jackson kidnapped me and a bunch of other kids in a large white van, taking us to an office space where two of the kids were laminated.

Talmage, however, has found some more creative look-alikes for Tyler. When he was younger, we used to walk by the Abercrombie and Fitch store and Talmage would shout out "Daddy!"

I let him know that Daddy is not quite as ripped as this guy and that he uses significantly less hair gel. And significantly more clothing.

And then, today at the zoo, Talmage looked at this brute and said with confidence, "This guy like Daddy":

I couldn't agree more.

The Insomnia. It's Back.

I suffer from a very select form of insomnia. I call it reverse insomnia.

Other people have a hard time falling asleep. I can fall asleep almost instantly upon lying down. It's when I wake up four or five hours later that's really the issue. Come two or three in the morning when I can't fall back asleep is the highly-irritating, insanity-inducing problem.

This is another condition (and I mean that in the literal, clinical sense) that I inherited from my father. I add it to the list with the poor dressing, the incessant historical marker reading, and the nose (which my Great Aunt Bergliot informed me this weekend actually originated with my Grandpa Finn. I knew the Norwegians were involved somehow). My dad deals with the issue by going running--not because it helps him sleep, but because you need something to do or else you might go crazy. I once looked at a list of his GPS clocked runs. This is information from the GPS system Dad attaches to his wrist that clocks his distance, calculates his speed at all times, and is downloadable to a satellite map to track his route. (This is opposed to the GPS system that he attaches to his car so he can see where he's going as he's going there: "Look, Laura! You can see my digital car on I-215 heading south. No, wait; my digital car is turning southwest now. Isn't that helpful?" Almost as helpful as noticing that your actual car on the actual freeway is turning right.) The GPS system, in addition to recording information to make a pretty map of his runs up the canyon, also saves the time he did these runs. And the majority of them happen at 2:45 AM.

I told him that it's very difficult to go back to sleep when you're outside in the cold running around the neighborhood. The front yards on Twinbrook St aren't very conducive to early morning napping, particularly when you're the bishop of Twinbrook St. The Petersons probably won't look at it too favorably when they wonder, "Who's that homeless guy in the red sweatsuit with socks on his hands sleeping in the driveway? Oh wait, that's just Bishop Paulsen."

I'm pretty sure he thought I was funny.

I deal with my reverse insomnia the way the Internet taught me to. One, I get out of bed and go sleep on the couch. Staying in bed just trains your body not to sleep when its in bed. Two, I don't (or shouldn't) read in bed. Same thing--trains your body that your bed is not for sleeping. Three, I don't get pregnant (and this is one I just picked up on my own) because pregnancy wakes you up all the time, what with the discomfort and the lack of breathing and the frequent unavoidable urination, giving your mind greater amount of time in which to keep you from going back to sleep.

Because that's really the problem. My mind. I can't turn it off. Not like in the Einstein couldn't stop thinking because of all the important discoveries he had to make, unless you consider these things that occupied my mind in the last hour vitally important (and trust me, my mind thinks they are VITALLY IMPORTANT, enough to keep me awake thinking about them for hours):

1. Did I shut the car windows on the car before I went to bed? Because the car smelled like pizza and it would maybe be a good thing if I didn't do it, unless it rains like it did last night, in which case it would be a very, very bad thing.
2. What am I going to teach on Thursday?
3. Are my students nervous for the test they have tomorrow? Are my other students ready with their drafts for tomorrow? Are they awake preparing these things for tomorrow?
4. I forgot to buy ginger.
5. Are those car windows still open?
6. Tyler is very large. He takes up a large portion of the bed. Next time I get married, that husband (the one whose hand I will only hold and who I will only very occasionally kiss) will be 5'2".
7. "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." What does that mean? Is that a cheesy Paul lyric or a drug-induced John lyric?
8. Due to the pregnancy, I'm breaking out like a fifteen year old teenager. Maybe I can go a whole week without popping this zit on my forehead. Yeah, never going to happen.
9. What about those car windows?

And finally,

10. This blog entry. Which meant I had to get up and write it. Feel free to notice the time it's posted. Also feel free to forgive me for any lack of coherency.

And feel free not to point out how, like running, it's very difficult to go back to sleep when you're typing at the computer.

Don't Turn Around

A special thanks to Talmage's uncle Clark for lessons in Child Abuse 101:

How I Know I'm Pregnanter Than Last Time Around

I regularly use the excuse, "I can't take care of your child anymore. I have to go work on your baby's eyebrows."

Save the Animals. All of them.

I'm a frequent attender of the zoo, frequent enough that when you ask Talmage what his favorite animal is, he'll say, "The rides." See, the animals are all old-hat, and Talmage's preferred path through the zoo would start with the giant granite globe-shaped fountain, then hit the playground with the green slide, head on over to the gift shop (a mysterious place full of marvelous wonders, made even more mysterious by the fact that I've never let him linger there for more than 3.7 seconds), a beeline to the carousel, a hot dog by the tigers (not that he has any interest in the tiger, just the hot dog. And while we're at it, we might as well get a lemonade and an ice cream), then head on back to the entrance for a train ride before we go. Unfortunately for him, I'm the tender-hearted animal lover in my family, and I was raised by David "Don't worry that we're going 78 mph, I can just turn right around to read the sign accompanying that historical marker" Paulsen and I like to read all the text placed by every exhibit several times a week. This also makes me the foremost non-zoo-employee expert about the Hogle Zoo, and if you want to hear something fascinating (read, listen to a 20 minute lecture) ask me about the giraffes some time. (They have a 25 lb heart. TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS.)

The zoo achieved special status this week in the "People and/or Organizations That I've Said No To Because I'm Not Yet Ready to Commit to A Position Strongly Enough to Post Your Campaign Sign in My Front Yard." There are eight other members of this club. This says several things about me. One, I really need to figure out what the issues in the upcoming campaign are. Two, I really need to figure out what I feel about these issues. Three, my yard must look KILLER due to the regrown grass I planted last spring (see here) if so many people want me to showcase them. Or at least I like to think so.

Hogle Zoo is seeking approval for a 33 million dollar bond to be given and used over the next 30 years to improve the zoo, including a polar bear exhibit, an new African safari exhibit and other various projects. Interestingly, Tyler's only comment when I shared this info with him was, "They don't even have any polar bears." He apparently isn't a three times a week zoo lover like I am.

Tracy Aviary is also seeking additional funding. I have two thoughts about these campaigns. One, though I'm not ready to display my commitment through lawn signs, I think these are valuable causes and worth studying out. Two, as their website points out, the Tracy Aviary is a valuable, valuable gem that needs to be preserved:

"Tracy Aviary is a jewel unlike almost anything in the nation – right here in Salt Lake County.

One of only two public aviaries in the entire country

The only public aviary west of the Mississippi

The oldest and largest public aviary in the nation"

As noted above, it is one of only two public aviaries. TWO. Also, it is the only public aviary west of the Mississippi. As it is only one of two, the other public aviary is located east of the Mississippi. Tracy Aviary is the oldest and largest public aviary in the nation. Meaning that the other aviary--the one that is located east of the Mississippi--is newer and smaller.

Okay, maybe I'm the only person who finds that funny.

Boundin'