Nephew and Uncle

Can you tell they're related?

While You Were Sleeping

I've been spending a lot of time recently holding a sleeping Cooper. Part of the reason I think that he has heartburn is that he seems to sleep better when he's upright. Anyway, I'm online more trying to keep myself awake. (I sit in my dark room so as not to wake Cooper up with the light, otherwise I'd probably read some books that have been calling my name.) I love reading blogs, but I get to a point where I don't really want to read anymore. And so, I turn to Hulu.


Oh Hulu, my good friend.

I've watched at least one full television series on Hulu. You can watch current shows or canceled shows. Bryan had never seen Some Like It Hot, so we watched it on Hulu.

Between Redbox and Hulu, our date nights are totally covered.

The Bread

I've never posted a recipe before. It feels kind of weird. Oh well. This one is worth it. This is the bread I wrote about before. So good. As far as I know this recipe came from a cookbook that my Great-Aunt Cleo wrote. My mom took it and tinkered with it a bit. I've done some additional tweaking.

Ingredients:

• 5 cups warm water
• 3 Tbsp instant yeast
• 2/3 cup powdered milk
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup honey
• 2 Tbsp salt
• 11-14 cups flour (white, wheat, or a combination thereof)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Get a really, really big bowl.
   
3. Briefly mix together water, yeast, and a spoonful of the honey. Let it stand about 15 minutes, or until the yeast has puffed-up.
4. Stir in powdered milk.
5. Add the oil.
6. Add the rest of the honey. (I pour it into the same cup that I used for the oil. The honey slides right out.)
7. Add the salt. (I've forgotten this step a few times. It's not so good.)
8. Mix thoroughly.
9. Gradually begin to add the flour. I like to add about 5 cups at a time.
10. Here's where I've changed the original process a bit. Right around 12 cups of flour it gets hard to stir. So, make sure that your hands are clean and knead the dough right in the bowl to add the rest of the flour. This saves time because then you don't have to clean up a messy, flour-covered counter when you're done. Also, I've discovered that I use less flour this way, resulting in lighter bread.
11. When you're done kneading, place the bowl of dough, covered with a towel, on your warming stove. Let it rise for at least 30 minutes.
    
12. After it's risen, punch it down and form it into loaves. I get 4 or 5 loaves from each batch.
13. Baked in greased bread pans for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.
14. Eat when it's still warm with a little margarine and some jam. Or totally plain. It also makes wonderful toast. And sandwiches. And probably any other food that requires delicious bread.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go have some bread.

Sleepy Song

Cooper makes this noise whenever he's falling asleep. Peter did it too, but his version was much quieter. Cooper gets so loud that if he starts to fall asleep in church we have to take him outside. I had never heard of a baby singing himself to sleep, but apparently it's a normal thing among Bryan's siblings. I wonder if they any of them still sing the "sleepy song" as they fall asleep.



By the way, Bryan's chest is Cooper's favorite place to sleep. That's where he is in this movie.

Brain Dump

I finally have a few minutes to write something and my brain is too scattered to write a real, coherent post about one topic. So, we're going to do a brain dump. That's what Bryan called the last one of these that I did. I thought it was an appropriate name.

1. I'm listening to the playlist on the blog of someone that I went to high school with. I usually don't have headphones nearby when I'm on the computer, so this is kind of novel.
2. Are Bryan and I the only people that think rodents should not be a normal part of cooler weather? I'm sorry, let me correct that. I mean rodents living in your ceiling. All four of us spent a night in Peter's room this week after a rather tense discovery that not only was something skittering about in the air duct in our ceiling, but we have a number of unfinished areas in our apartment. Peter's room was the only one without any holes, entrances if you will, for small things to come into our living space. Bryan and I actually had a repeat of our creepy crawly adventure and spent most of the weekend deep cleaning the kitchen. Not awesome. Bryan spent a few hours yesterday covering/filling holes. I really hope he found all of them.
3. I paused in my writing of this post to hold Cooper for the last hour or so. While lying on my bed, holding him, reading blogs, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was a spider. On my bed. I couldn't jump up because I was holding a sleeping baby so I did the next best thing. I grabbed the baby blanket the spider happened to be walking on and threw it across my room. I meant to squish it, but as soon as I realized I was holding a blanket with a live spider crawling on it, my natural instincts took over. So yeah, I just sent a spider sailing across my room. And now I'm afraid to walk on the carpet.
4. I think Cooper has heartburn. He hates to sleep lying down. We've known for a long time that his digestion had some issues, but I'm afraid it may be getting worse.
5. I'm really excited for my brother and sister-in-law to visit us this week. They'll be here on Saturday. Good thing we just deep cleaned the kitchen. (That, my friends, is what's called the silver lining.)
6. I've thought of other things to add to this brain dump, but I kind of want each of them to have their own post. Which means I'll probably never write about them.
7. Bryan really wants me to start using tags. I'm trying, I just have a hard time remembering. There. I just tagged this one.
8. I'm really excited for the Office season premiere tomorrow. Or would that be the The Office season premiere?
9. My apartment has cooled down to 76.6 degrees. I miss having control over the thermostat.
10. It's officially Autumn now.

Okay, that's enough for now. Goodnight!

Yarrrrrgh

Oh, and happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Absent

The boys have decided to adopt wildly different schedules. Peter has started waking up between 6 and 6:30 in the morning. Not cool. Cooper, on the other hand hasn't been settling down until between 11 and midnight. This makes for a very tired mommy. Oh, and no time to blog.

Hope to be back soon.

One More Week, Folks

Today multiple people at church referred to "this beautiful Autumn Sunday". Fall begins September 22. It's still summer. Not that there's anything wrong with Autumn, but I really love Summer, and I'm not going to give it up until I have to.

That is all.

Domestic Diva

I totally made this.

By "totally made this" I of course mean that a nice woman in my ward invited me over, provided the apples, grinder, canner, and expertise. I brought the jars and did whatever she told me to do.

I really did make this.

I make ridiculously good bread, did you know?

Just a Thought

Do so many people have blogs because they secretly want to be famous?

Cleverness of Others

My last two posts were all about the funny things that Peter says. Lets be honest, most of what I write has to do with what Peter says. I include his verbal gems on here for three reasons:

1. It's funny.
2. I know that the grandparents (my parents and Bryan's parents) read my blog and love getting Peter stories.
3. I want to remember them. I tell myself that whatever he's said is so funny that of course I'll remember. But I don't always. And that makes me a little sad.
   

But today I started to wonder if doing this follows my original goal for this blog. Does including these things really help my intellectual prowess?

Yes.

Being clever isn't just saying funny things. I think a major part of it is recognizing the cleverness around you. So, by including Peter's quips, I am being clever, because I realize and choose to document just how funny he is. And I think I'm a little smarter for it.

Grandparent's Day

Yesterday was Grandparent's Day. This is kind of a funny holiday because, really, isn't everyday grandparent's day? Nevertheless, I am glad that we have a specific day to let our grandmas and grandpas know how wonderful they are.

Peter and I made a card to take to Bryan's grandparent's. After I wrote the text I told Peter he could color it. After using his blue crayon all over the inside of the card he held it up and said, "I wrote 'Your Secret Admirer.com'."

My mom told me that in her education classes they were taught that the people of her generation are immigrants to technology, but their students are natives. Peter is definitely a native.

Playing House

Last night we went to Bryan's grandparent's house for Sunday dinner. Peter loves going and especially enjoys playing with the toys in the basement. Bryan was down there with him last night when Peter and his cousin Oliver (who is two years older) had the following exchange:

Oliver: I'm going to play the daddy. Peter you be the mommy.
Peter: No, I'm a boy. I will be the daddy.
Oliver: No, I'm the bigger kid, and that means you do what I say.
Peter: I have the duck. (Holds up duck decoy.)
Oliver: Okay.

I tell you, with those persuasion skills, he should be a lawyer.

Photo Shoot

My sister-in-law Amanda is in the Navy and sent Peter this cute shirt. We wanted her to see the fruit of her shopping labor by sending her a picture of Peter standing and smiling and showing off his new shirt. Much like his dad, he doesn't perform on command. I'm including all the pictures we took because I think it tells an important story about how hard it is to get a two-year-old to be still for more than a moment.

Thanks for the shirt Amanda!

To Tell the Truth

Last night my visiting teacher came over. I had purposely made the appointment for late in the evening hoping that Peter would be asleep. No such luck. I thought he had nodded off because I hadn't heard ANYTHING from his room for an hour. When I put Cooper down and went to make sure my house was presentable before the appointment I looked into Peter's room. I think he might have been right on the verge of sleep, but my intrusion pulled him back into a fully conscious state. I told him that my visiting teacher would be there any minute, so I was going to pull his door closed so we wouldn't bother him. His room is between the kitchen and the family room (not an ideal location for a boy who has trouble sleeping anyway) so he heard when she arrived. He kept calling out from his room. "Mommy, are you on the rocking chair?" "Mommy, is your visiting teacher sitting on the couch?" "Mommy, what is she saying now?" I finally went in and got him. He got to sit with me in the rocking chair for the visit. My VT asked Peter how old he was.

VT: How old are you Peter?
Peter: I'm 4.
Me: What? No you're not. How old are you really?
Peter: I'm 5.
Me: Peter! How old are you?
Peter: I'm 12.

He thought this was terribly funny. To be honest, so did I. It reminds a little bit of my brother Ian. He tells funny, funny stories. Once when he was telling a particularly tall-tale I stopped him, asking if it was true. He exhaled, cocked his head to one side, and said, "Margot, sometimes I say things that aren't true. That doesn't mean it's a lie. It's just not true." Hmm... I think I may be using a different definition of true. Anyway, I still tease him about this. (Which is probably what I'm doing right now.) Maybe that whole spinning-of-yarns thing is genetic.

I'll have to go ask my 12-year-old about it.

What's In a Name?

Bryan asked me the other day if I liked Cooper's name. I didn't answer right away. Bryan, while holding a sleeping Cooper, said that he did. I feel kind of bad that I didn't say "Yes, of course, I love his name!" I know that we're not going to change it at this point and that I will probably be used it to it eventually, but I'm not quite there yet.

We had a terrible time coming up with the names of both of our boys. With Peter we had a great girl name picked out (we still have it and still like it) but no boy name. We chose not to find out if Peter was a boy or a girl until he was born, and because we couldn't agree on a boy name, I joked that that meant it must be a boy. Peter was due on Christmas Eve. On December 23 we went to see The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I love the books and while sitting there watching the movie I started thinking about what a wonderful character Peter Pevensie was. You know, great older brother, strong moral compass, High King of Narnia, etc. Anyway, it was there in the movie theater that I really thought that the baby's name might be Peter. I floated the idea to Bryan and he didn't like it at first. Neither of us like Pete so much, so we were apprehensive to use the name Peter. But it wouldn't leave my mind. About an hour before Peter was born Bryan looked at me and said "I think the baby's name is Peter." I said I thought so too.

Brand new Peter

As far as the Pete thing goes, if he chooses to use the nickname Pete when he's older, then that is up to him, but we will call him Peter. And we will let other people know that it's Peter. Except for my Grandma Bonnie, who's the only person allowed to call him Petey, as in sweetie Petey.

The funny thing is, even though I'm the one that suggested the name Peter, it took me months to be used to having a child by that name. Is that weird? Peter was a name that I had always liked, but not one that I had ever had on my short list of future children's names. Of course, now I love it and I know that it suits him perfectly, but it took me some time to get to that point.

When we found out we were having another boy we began looking for names again. The only boy name Bryan really likes is Jack. I like it too, but he has a cousin named Jack and I'm not a fan of repeating names within a family. Yes, lots of people do it, I just think it would be too confusing. Also, Jack has gotten fairly popular, and I try to shy away from the trendy names. Anyway, I would spend hours searching baby naming sites and looking through our baby name book waiting for inspiration to strike. Nothing. The Sunday before Cooper was born I was at it again. This time I had a pad of paper to see how the various first names looked with the middle and last name. (We had already agreed to use Bryan's grandpa's name as the middle name.) I wrote down two names: Conrad and Cooper. I don't remember why I put Conrad on the list, but I liked the meaning of Cooper. Not so much the denotation (barrel maker) as the connotation (someone who understands and is willing to work hard to accomplish a task). Bryan looked at them and didn't really say anything. I thought that meant he liked both. Turns out that he only liked one of them. A few days later when Cooper was born and the nurse asked us if we had a name picked out Bryan looked at me, shrugged, and said "Cooper?"

Brand new Cooper

I do like his name, really. It's just the same thing that I went through with Peter, I simply never imagined myself having a child named Cooper. I can't imagine not having him though, which I think is a good step toward being completely comfortable with his name.

Story Time

Our bedtime routine consists of family prayer, two books, the Peter story, and two songs. I do nap time and Bryan does bedtime. It takes no more than ten minutes and helps Peter calm down for the night. Usually.

Recently Peter has started asking me to sing the books that we read before sleeping. We have some books that are illustrated versions of songs, so I thought maybe he was under the impression that all stories had music that went with them. I had been telling him I didn't know the music to the book in question and then just reading it.

I discovered the real reason behind his requests. Apparently Bryan has been turning all of their bedtime stories into rock operas. Some are more rock, some are more opera, all are highly entertaining as you can tell from the picture above. In this photo Bryan is singing the book I Love You, Mommy. Can you tell that both boys are enjoying it?

Today when we were doing the nap time routine, instead of just asking me to sing, Peter asked me to "make up the tune" for the book. He must know that his nightly concert is improvised. Honestly, for all of my vocal training and experience it's not always easy to come up with a "tune" on the spot.

Bryan, you're a tough act to follow.

In Case You Were Wondering What Happens to Peter When He Eats Eggs

Sorry about the food in his mouth. He was eating during our little photo shoot. Also, I just realized that his head, which is quite large, looks even bigger in this picture than it does normally. Sorry Peter.

Peter accidentally ate some mayo on Sunday before church. I realized this when he was almost done with the offending sandwich. Benedryl was quickly administered and I grabbed the camera to document the reaction that the eggs had on him. He can't say the "v" sound, so he kept saying that he had "hibes".

On a side note, giving your child Benedryl right before church is one way to keep them from acting up during the meeting. I don't recommend it, but it's certainly effective.