Maadi

In two months minus two days, we'll be living here:





(Photos courtesy of Google images)


In the two months minus two days until we leave, we'll be: getting passports. packing. selling everything we own. researching. cleaning. improving our Arabic. learning how not to offend Arabs. buying lots and lots of sunscreen.


Egypt, here we come!!

The tiniest exhibitionist

Every time we get ready for a jaunt in the tub, Atticus LOVES the nakedness. I usually let him roll around a bit and enjoy himself. Luckily, we've never had an accident but I know I'm a glutton for punishment one of these days.


But how cute is that little bum?













And post-bath, nice and clean... and diapered.

To boost or not to boost

Utah lawmaker Chris Herrod is attempting to reverse the current legislation on requiring booster seats for children until they're 8. I'm personally against it. What are your thoughts? Should we legislate parenting?

305th post

Monday night, I nursed walking around Sam's Club.

Today is a busy day. I've already been to work, bathed and napped with The Guy, a few hours there will be a daytime social with the moms in my ward, and tonight is Book Club. It's TWO months worth of Book Club because we missed last month because our organizer was on maternity leave (she had the cutest baby beginning of January). Our books are Count of Monte Cristo and Eat Pray Love. I'm personally very proud of myself for finishing the Count. That is a DANG long book. But who knew it was so good!? We have the old 7-hour movie to watch sometime this week. Exciting.

My baby LOVES avocado. Which means, naturally, that I have to buy them every time I go grocery shopping. Oh darn.

We are singing this little ditty in our home recently. It's one of my new favorites.



Life is grand.

The Haps

Valentine's Dance

Put on by the stake, had an awesome chocolate fountain.

Shrove Tuesday with the Local Episcapalions

The had a pancake dinner to kick off Lent

 

(I have them in black and white because the color was really off on the pictures)

Last but not least, on the way to the Pancakes, we snapped this picture

Thedore laughs on channel 2

We just uploaded Theodore learning how to laugh. Let us know if you would like access to the Theodore channel and you don't have it.

Atticus learning to laugh

In this last one, he wouldn't stop looking at the camera instead of dad, so we had to abscond it.

Caitlin's theme song

I want, I want, I want

We haven't really bought much baby stuff. And the baby stuff we have bought has mostly been used. We've even made money on buying used and then reselling after we're done with it (baby swing, diapers, etc.) Not to mention, Atticus was free to birth, so we're probably going to make money on having a baby this year with taxes and such.

There is one thing, I really really REALLY want recently (probably more than one thing actually, but this is one big thing).

One of these:




This, dear readers, is called a Chariot. It looks like an ordinary bike trailer, but it is not, I assure you. It is bike trailer/stroller/jogging stroller/cross country skier should you want to go. But.... we simply can't afford it right now. Until we can, we'll just borrow the Lee's. Because let's face it, if they had never let me use it once, I would not be addicted. Now they are obligated.

Best friends

Atticus has two best friends. Eliza and Annabelle.

They even share carseats sometimes.

Food

Atticus LOVES (I repeat, LOVES) to eat. He practically attacks the spoon. So far, he's had avocado, pears, peas, rice cereal, and molasses (fed by Annabelle).

Scary

Atticus cut his first tooth today. It was a total surprise, we were just playing and all of a sudden, I felt a tooth!











All I can think about are my poor nipples.... ouch.

Mormon culture

In my history class today we talked about nationalism and the nations form when an "imaginary community" gets together. Imaginary in this sense doesn't mean false, just that it only exists in the mind of the people rather than in any official designation. We talked about how northern Californians see themselves as a different community than southern California. Many students in class were willing to identify themselves as Mormons, or as Utahns, because those designations are pretty indisputable. But when our teacher asked who saw themselves as part of the "Utah Mormon culture" only me and one other student raised our hands. That to me was pretty crazy. When forty percent of the class said that they were Mormons from Utah and only two out the twenty or twenty five students were willing to admit that they belonged to the culture associated with that.

Do all the rest of the students feel like they've just completely transcended the cultural influences of the Book of Mormon Belt (Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Nevada) and found some sort of pure Mormonism that is separate from the community in which it is found.

So what do you feel is part of the Utah Mormon culture and do you consider yourself a part of it?

Hooray!

Remember how I said I was dying for a Mac... then we had a baby.... but then we realized we're actually making money (our tax money is far exceeding what little we've bought for him) on the guy, so we have a little extra to spend....


We are officially the proud owners of an iMac.

I am in heaven.

It's used, but I love it.

This much:

Five months old

Atticus continues to be our sweet little boy. He is starting to smile a lot more, and express his feelings either good or sad. He's changing every day, learning new tricks, and getting more attached to us as his parents. I secretly love it when he starts crying when someone else is holding him, so I can calm him down with some cuddles and my face. I probably won't love it when we want to leave him to go on a date, but for now..

At five months, Atticus loves:

- Eating, especially organic baby peas
- Bouncing, he will actually start moving his legs up and down to indicate he wants to be put in his seat
- Tim's Arabic teacher, Mira (she talks to him in Arabic and he will just smile, smile, smile)
- Caressing our faces, especially as he's falling asleep for naps
- Books and paper, he loves crinkling it up
- Other babies, today during church he stared at this baby drinking his bottle of milk
- The State of the Union, he watched the entire hour and a half without so much as a blink or a turn of the head
- Falling asleep with a pacifier and a muslin blanket, he rubs it up against his face as he's sleeping
- Riding in the Chariot with Annabelle


Atticus hates:

- Being taken out of the bath, he LOVES being in the bath with us
- Getting dressed, a newfound aversion
- Strangers/grandma
- Loud noises
- Being woken up prematurely from a nap
- Sleeping in, he wakes up always before 7, sometimes before 5



(pictures pending... we have a new computer!)

A tree that died for me

I look at the enormous stack of papers (that I intend to use for scratch printer paper now that our printer works which) which represent a portion of the paper whose sole purpose was to assist me in my academical pursuits last semester. So all of the syllabi, all of the handouts, all the papers I wrote and especially all of the Arabic homework. I think of the many slices of many trees that fueled my quest for knowledge. I wish for a paperless, electronic world (that's not too hard on the eyes, like a Kindle). And then I remember that an electronic world costs the actual world too. And then I wish for heaven, where hopefully, I'll be free of eco-guilt. Hopefully.

Sleeping Time

Atticus is responding well to our attempts to help him to fall asleep on his own. It has seemed to help a lot as he is adjusting his schedule by himself and sleeping a lot more through the night and not needing as much help to get to sleep, and sometimes none at all . And we've done it all with no crying it out, which makes us happy. It might be a bit harder than it seems now, but it's a step in the right direction.

How sexism affects me

It's seems we've gotten past the point when it was possible to refer to women as "the weaker sex" or any of various other derogatory terms that used to be applied to women. But now it seems like we've just reversed that. Men are the "weaker sex" because they are powerless in front of sexual temptation and missing the necessary moral strength to be sensitive and understanding. A lot of this comes from the world, but I even hear a lot of these lines repeated in Church, such as women need to be extra careful not to offend their husbands because they are not as in control of their tempers as women.

What's crazy, though, is that both of these views result in the exact same gender roles. Before women were supposed to stay home and leave the real work of confronting the world to men. Now women are obliged to stay home because men are too weak to handle the stresses of the day to day tasks of raising children, instead they should just stick to what they're good at: earning money.

I, for one, am not great at earning money and feel like the roles I'm best at because I care the most about it is husband and father, not as breadwinner. Sure, I'm going to make sure that our family always has enough money to meet our needs, as the Proclamation on the Family says, but I refuse to make that my primary task. I don't want to live a life of income, but a life of involvement, involvement in the life of those I love the most.
 

What are your feelings about gender roles? Is there something in women that make them better nurturers or in men that make them better at earning a living? Let us know.