ABCs

The Grass is Always Greener . . .

Mom: "So since they can't have another baby, they're going to find a mom and dad who can't take care of their baby and adopt the baby. Then the new baby will be part of their family."

Talmage: "So the new baby has a new mom and dad? That's adopt?"

Mom: "Yes, that's what it means to adopt."

Talmage: "Mom, I want you to adopt me to someone else."

Mom: "You want a new mom?"

Talmage: "Yes, I want a new mom."

Mom: "But I still want to be your mom."

Talmage: "That's okay. You can still be Asher's mom. I want a new mom and dad."

Mom: "Whose mom and dad were you thinking?"

Talmage: "Maybe Jonah's mom and dad. They have a Wii. Or Bryson's mom and dad have a Wii and lots of games. And Bryson gets to play it all the time. They don't even have screen time. Or Jacob's mom and dad. They give him $2.00 every Sunday."

As Seen on TV

Due to my refusal to pay a cable bill and the digital revolution's inability to provide all it promised, we don't really watch TV all that often. You can only wait so many weeks for The Office to come on and only receive digital static before you give up on watching primetime all together. This has had two effects in our family: 1) Tyler and I watch all our TV on DVD, viewing entire seasons of shows in one go (counting down to the September 20 for season 2 of Modern Family), and 2) Talmage views his TV through titles checked out from the Salt Lake County Library system.

I laid down a blanket policy that he could check out any title from the library, which I envisioned would cover Curious George, Arthur, and Bill Nye the Science Guy. I was aware that this leniency might extend to Barney and Ruff Ruffman, unfortunate side effects that I was willing to swallow. However, Talmage promptly discovered Pokemon and dedicated his one video per library visit to watching the entire original Pokemon, Pokemon: Johto Journey, Pokemon Johto League Champions, Pokemon: Master Quest, and Pokemon: Advanced Battles series. This unfortunate side effect was tougher to stomach. Even more unfortunate is the fact that I can sing the theme song from every Pokemon manifestation.

Talmage has mostly grown out of his Pokemon obsession, largely because he now dedicates his screen time to video game playing. However, we've been on several trips recently, and Talmage has discovered the wonderful world of television where five-year-old boys are the target audience. And I don't know if you remember, but the commercials aimed at kids are VERY exciting. Especially for Talmage, the one five-year-old boy whose parents' sheltering TV ways have left him unfamiliar with Hasbro marketing. The camera angles! The sound effects! The colorful packaging! The WWF announcer! Talmage eats it up. There have been at least 10 things rotating on his September birthday wish list, ranging from an airplane mounted with a video camera to Barbie's play-doh palace. Fortunately, he typically forgets about all these things once the commercial ends.

However, last Saturday our digital box was receiving channel five, and Talmage saw his very first infomercial. The wallet made from aluminum is designed to replace your bulky wallet and fit right in your pants pocket. Talmage was transfixed, and promptly, he became a missionary for Aluma Wallet. "Dad, you really should get this," he admonished. "You can drive over it; it can even go through the washing machine, and it still works. Don't you think that's really great? It used to cost eleven dollars and ninety-nine cents, but now it only costs six dollars and ninety-nine cents."

I think we need to watch more television. We owe it to Talmage's consumer awareness.

Orderville Canyon

Asher A to Z

T-Ball

Speaking of the Debt Ceiling . . .

"Mom, how can I ever get two dollars, if every time I get ninety-nine cents I spend it?"

The 4th

Wasatch Back At Ya!

Happy Fourth to You, Too

"Hey, Talmage! Don't wear that shirt! That's for the Fourth of July!"

"You bought him a Fourth of July shirt?"

"Them. I bought both boys Fourth of July shirts. Don't worry. They only cost $3.00."

"So, you're worried about him getting a $3.00 shirt dirty?"

"This isn't about money, Tyler. It's not even about cleanliness. It's about having adorably coordinating outfits to show my love for my country. It's what the founding fathers would have wanted."

Nap Time

Sprinklers

Unnamed Child #3 Ultrasound

The Question Tal Just Asked Me

"How do you get babies, actually? How do they show up in your tummy?"

Talmage's Reaction

"What are you having--a boy or a girl?"

"What do you want me to have?"

"A girl. I want you to have a girl."

"I'm having a boy."

"DANG IT!!"

And This Lamp. And That's All I Need.

Asher just went to bed. He didn't want his pillow, or his blanket, or his cup. He did need a Thomas the Tank Engine board book on which to rest his head. And maybe the pillow, and the blanket, and the cup, but only at the end of his crib, because all he needed was the board book.

Dance Party

More and More Books

October? Really? It's been since October since I updated my book list?

All right, this is for Emily Cummings.



I read this book for Halloween, mostly because I'm not tough enough to stomach actual horror. I'm am summoning up the courage to read Devil in the White City, though. I'm keep you posted. I've heard of a lot of people who thought that the history portions of this book dragged and that it didn't focus enough on the plot. However, my profession is to read long, boring history books, or at least to teach people about long, boring history books. I never really felt that bogged down by the history and was really interested while learning about the historical Dracula. I was thoroughly engaged the whole time. I also found myself wondering if there are fewer really, really bad guys now because the interconnectedness (yes, I'm pretty sure I just made that word up) of society keeps people from amassing so much power. I mean, most of history is fully of pretty atrocious bad guys worldwide. On the other hand, maybe the interconnectedness of society gives those fewer people the means to exert badness on a larger scale. I'm not making any sense.

Bad guys are bad. That's my point.

Also, I checked this out on CD but ended up reading it while I misplaced the CDs. Which means I gave the library an obscene amount of money to replace them. You're welcome, Salt Lake County Library system. It's tough being me.



This book was fascinating. I really wish I had written about it closer to the time that I read it, but I can't remember all the parts I found fascinating. It's premise was that very little is known about the female brain, because science has spent most of its history assuming either that the female and male brain were exactly the same or that the female brain is a smaller lesser form of the male brain. But the author argues that the female brain is entirely different, in part because of the different hormones it produces and is subject too. I bought her argument hook line and sinker when she started describing toddler boys and teenage girls. For toddler boys, she explains that boy and girl babies get along very well until age three or four, when boys start taking what they want and girls start talking for what they want. They become two entities that approach things so differently that they have a very difficult time spending time together. This difference stays in place through elementary, when boys hurt each other with their hands and girls hurt each other with their words. She also described adolescence so accurately that I felt I finally felt closure on being a teenager. Boys are awash with testosterone, and spend most of adolescence feeling guilty. Girls are just subject to such a flux of hormones that they feel dramatic constantly.

Anyways, this might all seem like common sense, but she describes all the physical reasons for such changes and I guess I felt validated in being a social, emotional creature.

The other thought I had was about my testimony. Looking back in life, I think being a teenager was by far the most difficult period of my life.. I always thought that this was because I didn't have a stable worldview in place in which to center things. As I developed my testimony through my later teenage years and early twenties, I've felt much more constant. However, now I think I was just hormonal.

Don't get me wrong, though. The church is still true.



Marissa gave me this book for Christmas. She loves Ernest Hemingway, and I didn't realize until I read this book that I had never read anything by Hemingway. Hemingway writes this book fairly late in his life about the time that he spent in Paris after WWI, hobnobbing with other expatriates like Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a fascinating insight into that time and I could see why Marissa found the period so excited.

What I found most interesting, was how idealized this period became in Fitzgerald's life. It was a time of being loosing one's ground, of being part of a generation who drank for a living and was disenchanted with society and themselves. However, Fitzgerald seemed to look back on the time as a romantic period of his life, a time of being in love. He writes about his first wife in such glowing terms, that you are certain he still loves her. But the memoir ends with him cheating on her, ending his own paradise.

It was an interesting paradox. Can the groundless, listless times of life be that romantic? Is it like being a teenager? So dramatic, so rollercoaster, but when I look back, I seem so naive and circumstances seem so blessed. Is that part of growing up?



You should read this book. Even if you don't like nonfiction. Really. Even just for it's section on the history of sewage. You'll never flush with an open toilet seat again.

I'm going to read it again. Right after I steal it back from Marissa.




I still think Wallace Stegner is downright amazing. I've lost a lot of the thoughts I had on this, which is sad.

I do remember wondering why Stegner is my favorite author, when he writes so many clearly depressing books.

That's all I have to say for now.



Delightful read, one that deserves making book club circles. I found myself irritated with the social gossip in the book, just like I would be in real life. Don't get offended, people. Ever. That's my lesson for the day.

I forgot to review The Sun Also Rises here. Mental Note: do that.



I read these books a couple summers ago, but Tyler's finally getting around to listening to them, so I joined him. Very helpful when you're driving in central Utah at 3:00 in the morning. Read the books, though. The narrator is irritating beyond belief.



Ditto.



Fantastic love story. Rhett and Scarlett are well worth being the iconic couple they are. But man, the Southern idealic views on slavery sure are uncomfortable. Especially she describes the Ku Klux Klan as a gentleman's club.



We're reading Harry Potter with Talmage right now. It's really fun to read it with someone who's reading it for the first time. So I got a craving to read Book Six, which is my favorite.



Well, you can't read Book Six and not read Book Seven. Please.

On a related note, Marissa hasn't and refuses to read the entire series. Everyone send an angry email her way.

Whew! I've read a lot of brain candy lately. Time for something more meaty. Like 1776.

"If You Were a Mouse, the Snowflakes Would be Pretty Big"

The title of Talmage's latest book, to be self-published in the upcoming months. Look for it on best-seller lists.

For Those Of You Who Know Him

Talmage just asked me how to spell "keef." I regretted to inform him that the word is actually "if." I can only imagine he'll be similarly disappointed when he realizes the truth about the Easter Bunny.