Your tiny, pink hands

This morning Atticus and I were laying in bed, contemplating the coming day after a peaceful breastfeeding session. I was just laying there with my eyes closed and he was just staring around all content. I opened my eyes to see him, one hand in the air, just staring at it. He kept closing and opening his fist, twisting to get another angle, moving his fingers one by one. I tried to imagine what he was thinking: "Oh my goodness, I have HANDS, seriously, what the heck?!"

One day, your hands will grow. Grow and grow and grow. And I hope they do good things, my Little Guy.

Teeth

Atticus has another tooth coming in.... but it's not one of the middle top teeth. It's like the next to the middle top tooth. If the others don't come in right after, he's going to look very, very strange until they do.

Car seats in Egypt?

I need a little insight from fellow parents. Especially fellow parents who travel. We are wondering what to do about taking our car seat to Egypt. It seems like we won't be traveling by car much, if at all. Not to mention, Tim's Arabic professor told us that the taxis/buses don't even have seat belts so we wouldn't have anything to strap the car seat in with anyways. That makes me really nervous though, because they also told us that the taxi drivers were crazy/smoking hashish and went really fast. So, what are we supposed to do?! I can't imagine not buckling our seat belts let alone letting Atticus just sit in our laps. But on the other hand, if it truly won't be useful to us, is it worth it to lug it all the way to Egypt? We already got rid of our infant seat so all we have now is a huge Evenflo convertible seat. We can take two suitcases each, which is a lot, but they also want us to pack light since we're hauling everything through the Sinai/Israel/Jordan for the last three weeks.

Also-- anyone ever flown for a whole 24 hours with an 8-month-old? Insight there would also be appreciated. We're lucky in that we only have one short layover in NYC on the way over, but that also makes for a LONG NYC-Cairo trip. I'm just picturing an inconsolably screaming baby for ten hours. Not likely, of course, but scary nonetheless. Atticus is super good at falling asleep wherever, he usually needs help from us but noise and light and people around generally don't bother him as long as we give him the pacifier and rock/bounce/nurse him (good thing we didn't BabyWise him, the last thing we need is for him to fall asleep by himself in a quiet room) .

"A little confusing..."

I just got this email from Tim's Arabic professor about the club that we will be joining while we are in Egypt*. He said their website was "a little confusing" but we could take a look at it and gave us the address. I try to check out the website and realize it's more than "a little confusing." You can see what I mean.








* Life update: We're going to Egypt for Tim's study abroad. It's required for his major... oh darn. While we are there, BYU requires us to pay for a membership to a "club." I think it's the equivalent of a country club in the US, but less hoity-toity and more mainstream.

Atticus Meets the Orange

He REALLY liked it. Unfortunately, I think it gave him a little butt rash so we're laying off the citrus for a few more months.

Hunger Banquet

Ever since I've come to BYU (minus last year, I was in New York), I've gone to the Hunger Banquet. I feel like it's been a quintessential part of my experience here. Two years ago, I was one of the organizers, and let me tell you, it is a LOT of work. This year, however, blew my mind. There were SO many people there. The speaker, Martin Burt, was phenomenal. I don't know how they got him to speak, but he flew all the way from Paraguay to be there. I volunteered so that I could go for free (pathetic) but it was fun to be there. I sat most of the time with Austin and Wills. I took The Guy so Tim could go to the temple, and he just rode on my back the whole time and loved it. I dressed him in his awesome onesie that my friend Bethany sent us when he was born. He ate a lot of beans and rice, which gave him gas and kept him up but he liked them at the time so it was worth it.

310th post

Today:

We bought our plane tickets! And we got a great deal!

Pediatrician visit: 15.19 lbs, he's such a skinny guy.

Last but definitely not least: breast milk cupcakes with strawberry icing. Delicious...






Recipe here.

In which my brain exploded....

So, I was reading on a friend's blog and came across this comment:

"One piece of advice - if you're going to nurse in R.S., seriously, sit in the back row. A few weeks ago I sat next to a lady with a baby because I thought the baby might be more entertaining than the lesson, and she started to nurse RIGHT NEXT TO ME! She had a blanket, but you know what? I saw her boob anyway! I wasn't even really looking. gross."

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHSLDKJH S:DGJ SOIFJ POIWEJ OIJ G:OSDJG NJDSNG:OSDHGPIUh;kjsdf g;hljksda h;klsa dfh l;


I cannot even verbalize my feelings about this. Breastfeeding is NOT GROSS. It is NOT OBSCENE. GET OVER ITTTTTT. Maybe the mom wanted to listen to the lesson and was sick of hiding in the mother's lounge to breastfeed. It is attitudes like these that are prohibitive to breastfeeding. If mothers can't breastfeed except in bathrooms or their house, they won't do it. Then who suffers? Their baby (also them, to some extent). Besides, you are a WOMAN. WOMEN HAVE BREASTS. They are supposed to feed their babies with them. It's natural. It's what Heavenly Father intended. Gross is the last word to describe breastfeeding.

Am I weird about this? Is it because of my relationship with bodies and nudity?

Personally, I'm very comfortable with nudity. Maybe too comfortable sometimes. I attribute this to both my very open family but also to friends over the years. When I danced, we all were naked together in dressing rooms, all the time. It wasn't a big deal, we were all girls, and none of us were fazed by it. Same with cheerleading, not so much naked but definitely in sports bras. Then in college, sometimes I had prudish roommates, but mostly my openness led to their comfort with their bodies. I never pee with the door shut, I never lock it when I'm in the shower, I walk around in my underwear or in a towel. I'm just not a modest person. And then hello, naked hot springs trips.

I realize that maybe I'm on the extreme end of the nudity question.


Good news though.... women in Egypt breastfeed uncovered in public. I can finally do it without worrying about offending people!

6 Months!

Half a year old. Wow. My little baby is not so little. But...

Atticus is so, so, SO cute. He babbles, rolls, and is starting to scoot. He is almost sitting now, but still tumbles over quite a bit. It doesn't seem to bother him though. He has two (very SHARP) little teeth, and was biting me for a while, but I think he learned to stop because it's more rare now.

At six months, Atticus loves:

* Paper, plastic, anything crinkley
* Books, especially when he can rip the pages
* Sleeping in his cradle
* Being rocked in his cradle
* Being sung to (especially when it's Innocence Mission lullabies singing to him)
* Rolling all over the place
* Oatmeal baby cereal and avocado, avocado, avocado (it's about all he'll eat)
* Nursing ALL night long
* Sleeping cuddled up between mom and dad at night
* Going on runs, being outside
* Our neighbor Casey
* Parties
* Riding in his new car seat
* Playing with the bouncey ball

Atticus hates:

* Pears, green beans, bananas, sweet potatoes (at least the baby variety)
* Being left alone and ignored (which happens when we need to pee)
* When we take away slobbery paper, suffocatable plastic bags, etc.
* Being carried in the laundry basket








Happy half-birthday Little Guy!

Family plans for the Brownings

Devany pointed out how spread out our family will be this summer. Caitlin pointed out that if Eric goes to Australia or a Pacific isle, we'll have all the major continents covered.


Devany: China
Tim, Caitlin, & Theodore: Egypt
Charity: London
Josh: Chile
Eric: mission call