Our weekend

Well, we had a busy and interesting weekend. I decided to take Madeline to the doctor since she refused to eat and stuff. I am definitely pro-eating. Turns out she's not dehydrated, which I thought she might be, but she's lost over a pound since her year appointment two weeks ago. I tried to tell her she was going the wrong way, but apparently she's into this crash dieting thing. Which means this week I'm into the force-feeding-your-child-thing. And she's off milk for a few days since she decided to be temporarily lactose intolerant. Problem child. We love her anyways.

We also got to go to the temple yesterday to see Jessie's sister and her husband be sealed to their kids. That was the most amazing experience. I've never seen anything so beautiful as all those kids lined up in the sealing room in white. I'm grateful we had the opportunity to share that with the. Congratulations, guys!

Our lives are very interesting. Promise.

So, when I said Madeline was better, I may have spoken hastily. Turns out she wasn't done puking and being sick. I won't go into the details, because you don't want to know the nitty gritty. But she's doing all right, and being really happy even though she's still sick. Jessie and I both got a bit of the bug too, but we're older and bigger and stronger (or at least our immune systems are), so we're both better now. But all this sickness has kept us from doing anything spectacularly cool this week, and my house is a mess. Anyone who can cuddle a one year old and clean their house at the same time has my undying admiration and a job offer.

So I've had a lot of time to sit and watch kid's television program since Madeline wants to do a lot of cuddling. And I'm sick of learning things. I'm sure in ten years, when my kids are watching more tv than I want them them to and wasting their lives, I'll be grateful it's all so educational. But right now I'm bored. I think every problem on a children's television show can be solved by spelling a word. And then, magically, everything is fixed. Got a broken window? It's okay. Just spell WINDOW and a new one will appear, without any repairman or way too much money spent. Kids are going to think the ability to spell can shrink people, move planets, and trap monsters. I'm a big fan of vocabulary and correct spelling and grammar, but I don't expect it to result in world peace. Give me a few more days of PBS and I might change my mind.

If I'm the one getting sick on candy, why is my baby the one puking?

Hello again. It's been quite the weekend. Madeline busted out new levels of crankiness, which I attributed to teething, but later decided must be because she was sick. My first clue was the repeated vomiting. But she's feeling much better now, so many thanks to her devoted fans who were worried about her health. She'll be well enough to tour again soon. Maybe do some autographs.

On a different note, there is way too much candy in my house. I make a goal every day not to eat too much. Then, after I eat too much, I make a goal to define "too much" when setting my goal the next day. Then, the next day, after I put a number on it, I eat "too much" anyway. And decide it was better when "too much" was an abstract concept and I could lie to myself about the extent of my indulgence. If you want to do a favor that will ease my waistline, guilt, and save me time rationalizing, come steal all my Easter candy. And my ice cream. I'll complain but then I might get you a ribbon or something. Jessie's no help. He's had a chocolate Easter bunny or three and a bucket full of candy lying around for a week and he's had about 2.5 pieces all week. Dratted disciplined husbands. Madeline tries to help, too, but I put a stop to that because she thinks the tin foil wrappers are part of this whole purging process, and I am against pumping balls of tinfoil out of my kid's stomach. Also, the whole throwing up thing doesn't inspire me to let her stuff herself with candy. Alas. I lead a hard life.

Happy birthday, pookie schnookums

Well, you're probably all sick of the birthday talk, but it's not my fault Madeline insisted on coming the same week as Jessie's birthday. She's obstinate like that. And since Jessie's got 25 years to his credit instead of just one, I figured I'd be remiss if I didn't blog about what an old fogie he is. Seriously though folks, that's a quarter of a century. Time for a life crisis or something, don't you think? But no, he has to keep on being all responsible and charming and successful and handsome and stuff. He just doesn't know how to have a nervous breakdown. Here are some reasons I am glad Jessie was born:

He kills spiders. And takes care of dead mice.
He watches West Wing with me.
He produces cute offspring.
He got me to like Mexican Food, cheesecake, and pumpkin pie.
He appreciates Excel like no one else I know.
He makes really delicious empanadas and chicken parmesean.
He's a really good country dancer, and sort of makes me look like one too.
He uses the word "feisty" rather than "stubborn" to describe me.
He got me out of Antimony. Twice. Without anybody dying (although it was close.)
He has built houses that didn't fall down.
He can find a lot of Easter eggs.
He looks good in a tux.
He taught me pinochle.
He lets me blog about some of his more embarrassing life moments. And lack of holiday spirit.
He lets me read and critique his papers for school even if it brusies his ego.
He enables my smoothie bad food addictions.
He does all that boring marketing stuff so I can play with Madeline all day.
He only complains once in a while when I steal the covers.
He likes to hear me sing.
He lets me win at card/board games as often as it takes to keep the peace.

This is just a small sampling, lest you get bored and jealous reading about how awesome my husband is. You should all wish him happy birthday and good luck with his quarter life crisis.


Seriously. Aren't you glad that face was born?

Madeline Update

So Madeline had her year checkup today. Her doctor says she is a star. Mostly because she's always doing exactly what she should be, and has never been in to see the doctor because of sickness. Her stats, for her fans: height is 30 inches, 75th percentile; her weight is 20 lbs 2 oz, 25th percentile; her head is 46 cm, 50th percentile; and her cuteness is off the charts. She can officially face forward in her car seat now (which may or may not be a milestone she had already reached). Also, it's time to start weaning her off the bottle, which will be fun, because she thinks cups are for dumping or holding liquid to stick her hand into. She enjoyed trying to rip up the doctor's books and pulling open all the drawer full of tongue depressors and diapers while naked. That's my girl.

The times they are a changin'

From this:

To this one year later:

Happy Birthday Madeline!

I twittered. You twittered. We all twittered.

So I recently decided to sign up for Twitter, because I had been hearing about it and wanted to know why everyone was abuzz with excitement. I hate it. I don't understand what you're supposed to do with it. I don't know why you would want to tell everyone what you're doing every second of your life, and stalk them back. Maybe I'm using it wrong. So far, I'm following a handful of people I used to know back when I had a life, a couple of news entities, and my husband's call accounting company. And no, I don't know why my husband's company is Twittering. Probably because Ryan Seacrest wants to know about hotel phone software. I'm following him, too. I don't know why. Maybe because my twittering feed thing looked really lonely and I needed someone who reliably Twitter random, meaningless things often to fill the space. It's like an endless Facebook status stream. I hate writing my Facebook status. And now I don't know what's meaningful enough to be twittered. Does Twitter care if I gave me kid a bath? Wrote a new blog? Watched Sid the Science Kid? I'm clueless. So I'll probably give it up in about a month. Or get irreversibly addicted. For word on how that goes, check Facebook. Good old safe Facebook.

A year ago I was really really fat.

Madeline is turning one in two days. Sometimes I wish she was as excited about it as I am. Basically, we'll sing happy birthday and she'll rip some paper off some presents, but she'll have no idea why we're letting her stuff herself with cake or breaking out a brand new outfit to wear. I could have given her a Twinkie and let her play in the dishwasher and she'd be none the wiser. For Jessie and I, however, it will be a significant event, so I'll make a special cake and wrap her presents in cute paper and make sure she does her hair, so that they'll be pictures to put in a scrapbook. (Like that's actually going to happen.) Then in twenty years I can show her I was a good mother who gave her memories. Jessie and I had fun shopping for her presents last night. She's seen each and every one of them, and tested them too, but she'll be surprised anyway. I love one year olds.

It's kind of weird to think that a year ago was my due date. I remember it well, because I sat around crying most of the day, cursing other women who got to have their babies two weeks early, and wondering how bad castor oil tasted. (Horrible by the way. But it's not as bad as being nine and a half months pregnant. So I'd take it again in a heartbeat.) I'm glad Madeline didn't take too much longer to make her debut and prove to me that yes, it was possible to be more sleep-deprived and that there are things that will make you want to cry more than being heavily pregnant. But we got through the first week, and life got better and Madeline got steadily cuter, and I'm glad we went through the whole mess and now have proof that Jessie and I have awesomely good-looking genes. I think we'll keep her.

Conference hijinks. Don't you love the word hijinks?

For those of you who were wondering, I enjoyed Conference weekend. So did Madeline, although being with her uncle Bryce and a dog for 48 hours straight made her really unwilling to sleep, lest she miss anything. Because they were freaking hilarious. If the dog chased a ball, that was funny. If Bryce tossed a stuffed animal in the air, that was hilarious. If Bryce made a face, she was giggling insanely. Basically, I wish I was that funny. But she managed to survive her merriment, and eight hours of Conference, and the rest of us did too.

Well, almost. Turns out my husband was thinking (a recipe for disaster, here, folks) and realized that in the whole time we've been married, he's only said the prayer at my parent's house like twice, or some such ridiculously low number. This is highly unusual, because anyone who has visited my parents house around prayer time knows that my dad is always looking for fresh meat. It only takes one visit from a friend, neighbor, relative, or delivery guy to be initiated into the prayer club. (I might have exaggerated about the delivery guy. But only because one has never been at the house at prayer time.) How Jessie got away with two years is a mystery. Probably my parents didn't want to scare him away because they were just amazed I managed to get someone to propose to me. But since he said something, everyone made a big deal about how it was Jessie's turn to say the prayer. With high expectations and a lot of pressure, the poor man choked. Instead of praying, he busted up laughing for twenty minutes. And then of course no one else could keep from giggling, and there was high mirth at the Lundstrom household, culminating in an incident where my mother fell over laughing and nearly broke a glass cabinet. So you can guess if Jessie is ever going to get asked to say the prayer again.

Words of Wisdom from Bryce: Part II

Well, it's Conference weekend. And to celebrate, I'm crashing my mother's house in a bid to keep mine clean for more than an hour. (Removing Madeline from the scene of the crime is the primary strategy here.) So, in honor of my visit, today we have a guest blogger. Welcome to my youngest brother, who has words of wisdom for all of you. Saith he:

"I am going to teach my sister Robbo. Robbo is a computer game that got resurrected by Dad and it's pretty cool. And I'm having fun with Madeline. I'm outta here."

So, apparently I'm going to spend the next hour playing an ancient DOS computer game from my youth with my little brother. Awesome. You should all make a point to do this sometime this weekend as well. If you don't have a little brother, you can borrow mine. He's very good at video games. He's conquered Poptropica about twenty times. Don't know what Poptropica is? Neither did I before I babysat him for three days. The joys of sisterhood. Well, to quote the master: I'm outta here.