rugrat scuffle

This has been a week of repeat trips to the local Honda dealership. A couple weeks ago, we got a letter from Honda, saying that, given the make and year of our car, we were entitled to a free emissions inspection (along with free replacement of spark plug, and a few other parts). So, we duly scheduled the inspection for Monday morning. Last weekend, it became apparent that this appointment was only too providential--round about Saturday, our car started making noise every time the car sped up or slowed down, and the noise only got worse as Monday approached. So, Monday morning I took the car to the dealership, and after waiting two hours, was told that I could take the car, but that I would need to bring it in again so that they could replace part of the exhaust system (hence the noise). They couldn't schedule us for that day, so we made another appointment for Tuesday afternoon. Not much else happened Monday--because the car was making so much noise, we tried to limit our use of it. I went in to the writing center briefly in the evening for an out-of-season session with a student who was defending her dissertation later that week and had earlier pleaded for an extra session (we're not otherwise open during the semester break). After I got home, Dan rounded up some library books, sans the one that had been missing for about a month. We assumed that the book was another of Andrew's casualties (he has a habit of wandering off with things and replacing them in unlooked for locations). However, while Dan was gone I did one more search of the bedroom--and found it underneath the bookshelf. So, after Dan got home, he returned to the library once again (the book was due that day and he had already used up his online renewals).

Tuesday morning, Andrew and I went to the YMCA, where I worked out and he played. That afternoon, Dan came home from work early to take the car into the dealership. The part replacement, which I had been told would take about an hour to an hour and a half, naturally extended to almost three--Dan didn't get home until after five o'clock, to find a grumpy wife and a grumpier child (hence the grumpy wife), who had refused to take his afternoon nap. And of course, the replacement wasn't quite finished--there was one more part that needed to be replaced (this second part, luckily, was covered under warranty). Andrew went to bed early that night, and Dan, meanwhile, went to Huntingdon, where the young men and women joined in a rousing game of ultimate frisbee. The surprise star of the evening was a short, stocky eleven-year-old girl (she's allowed into the young women early because there's nobody else her age in primary) who proved unexpectedly adept at blocking and causing turnovers.

Wednesday, in anticipation of the weekly day in the park, I got up early (well, when Andrew did) and went to the YMCA. (Usually we go after Andrew's nap, but this would have conflicted with the timing of our park outing). However, fate and the weather conspired against us. The day was overcast and drizzling, a drizzle that turned into a full out shower by the time Andrew woke up from his nap. We compromised by going to Target and buying a baby shower present for a friend of mine. Dan spent a rousing day in lab and worked late.

Thursday, like most days this week, was pretty quiet. Andrew and I walked up to campus in the afternoon to pick some books up at the library and visit Dan at his lab. The weather was nice--sunny, but cool--so we enjoyed our outing. Andrew is fascinated by wildlife of all kinds that we encounter on our walks: dogs, cats, squirrels, rabbits, birds, even the occasional student or two. That evening, Dan stayed with Andrew while I went to a Relief Society book group (I think our Relief Society president got special permission from the stake for the group, because I don't think the Relief Society normally sponsors such groups). In an unusual turn for me, the book under discussion was one that I had listened to rather than read (I usually prefer to read, since I remember details better that way, but the audio copy was more accessible than the hardcopy). We talked about James Ferrell's The Peacegiver: How Christ Offers to Heal our Hearts and Homes. Ferrell is part of the Arbinger Institute (an institute founded, I think, by C. Terry Warner, for those of you who are familiar with him or his work), and this book takes off from some of the principle's in Warner's book, The Bonds that Make Us Free. The Peacegiver is about the ways that Christ's atonement allows us to forgive ourselves and those around us and to achieve peace in our lives, through the story of a man struggling with an unhappy relationship with his wife, who ultimately comes to realize that her behavior should not be the determinant of his, but that each of us are responsible for our own actions and our own redemption. Anyway, I don't think I'm doing the book justice in my description, but I found it an interesting story, and I enjoyed our discussion. Some of the women clearly found the book quite profound and moving--particularly those who were struggling with a close friend or family member who had done something to hurt them. One woman, in particular, is currently struggling with a spouse who has recently decided not to attend church, and I was quite impressed with how honestly she admitted her struggles, and with her decision to continue to do what she knows is right--and to try to forgive and love her husband--in spite of her hurt feelings and disappointment that her marriage (for now) is not what she had envisioned when she got married.



Friday morning, Dan took the car back to the dealership for our third (and final) visit for the week. However, since we only have one car, this meant a sacrice of sorts for me--I couldn't go yardsaling until after Andrew's nap, at which point we drove clear out to the boondocks for a yardsale that, while promising on paper, had sold most of the interesting things before we got there (which was just as well, since we couldn't have moved them!). That evening, I went to a reception for a friend and former roommate, Carey Hendrix Hord, who was in town for graduation (she moved at the end of fall semester to Ohio, where her husband has a job). Originally, we had planned to both go, but Andrew foiled our plans by taking an abysmal afternoon nap (though at least he napped) and was clearly wiped out by the time the reception started.

Saturday morning (of course) Andrew and I went to some yard sales while Dan went up to school early to do research. I was pretty pleased with the morning, since normally it's hard to find nice boys clothes (for some reason, boys tend to wear out their clothes faster--whether that means that they're simply harder on clothes, or they don't have as many as most little girls, so they wear their clothes more often--or a combination of reasons--I don't know). However, I found one sale where they were selling name brand clothes in good condition for low prices--I was particularly excited that some of the clothes were from Janie and Jack (for those of you who don't know, this is a high end version of Gymboree, like Banana Republic is the high end version of Gap--they're owned by the same parent company). Later that morning, Andrew and I went to Carey's baby shower (since she was in town just for the weekend, there was a lot going on!). I'm glad I went--the shower was nice, and Andrew had fun running around after the two cats at the apartment. He also demonstrated that the child-proof covers for the stove knobs did indeed work by pulling all of them off the stove, bit into a ripe papaya that was within reach, tromped through the cat's water dish, splashed in another water dish, and generally caused the kind of havoc an active 17-month-old can do. (Luckily, the woman holding the shower has a daughter only a month or two younger than Andrew, so she was very understanding!).


(Here's a picture of the latest in haut-couture: Andrew wearing his dad's tie as a kind of belt/sarong).

Saturday afternoon provided us with the title of the blog. Friday night, at Carey's reception, I found out that one of the women in the ward had her second baby earlier that day. Another friend mentioned that they might need help Saturday with their older son, so I offered to. After all, Guy is only a month or so older than Andrew, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. We experienced our first slight hitch after Guy's arrival--Andrew was supposed to be going to sleep, but hearing new voices--especially a high pitched child's voice kept him from sleeping. Eventually, I had to take Guy out to our front yard to play ball so that Andrew could finally go to sleep. After Andrew woke up, I gave both boys a snack, and then we proceeded on our merry way to the park just behind our house. I considered using the stroller for one boy and putting the other boy in a backpack carrier, but discarded the idea as too cumbersome. After all, we weren't going very far--what could go wrong? Walking with both boys worked just fine on our way over to the park--once they had the swingsets in their sights both of them trundled towards it as fast as their little legs would carry them. It was once we were actually on the playground that I realized my plans may have been a little short-sighted. Andrew is, as most of you know, a child of perpetual motion. In this, he was well matched by Guy. However, both of them are still too little to play unsupervised, which mean that I was constantly trying to herd both of them in the same direction so that they were both in arm's length. After three times down one of the big slides (which necessitated all of us going train-style down the slide) I decided enough was enough. Unfortunately, the only way I could get both boys to go in the same direction toward home (as neither of them wanted to leave), was to carry both of them, one on each hip. As Andrew and Guy are remarkably well matched in size and weight, this was no mean feat (they're probably about 28 lbs each). Needless to say, by the time our house was in sight, my arms were about ready to fall off. So, I put the boys down in front of a Baby Einstein video of wild animals so I could have a short break. This worked okay for a little while (you can see the enraptured stares below), until Andrew decided that he wanted Guy's chair. It didn't matter which chair Guy had--Andrew wanted it. At this point, I began to realize that Guy was much better mannerd than Andrew was--Andrew would grab Guy by the collar and try to forcibly remove him from the chair. And Guy, who hasn't had much experience with other children around his age, looked at Andrew with mild, inquiring eyes and basically let Andrew bully him! The same pattern repeated itself when I gave Guy his sippy cup--Andrew wanted it, so Andrew took it. In contrast, when Andrew dropped his own sippy cup, Guy very kindly handed it back to Andrew (without trying to promptly take it away again). At any rate, I was pretty relieved when Dan finally came home to help out!





On a final, completely unrelated note, a friend of ours directed us toward a cool website, Gender Genie, that uses an algorithm to analyze whether a particular piece of writing is feminine or masculine. According to this site, our blog is unquestionably written by a woman. However, if I run through a two-page description of my dissertation, the Genie thinks I am male by a margin of 852 (feminine words) to 1299 (masculine words). I suppose this helps confirm a long-standing truism about the academic bias in academia--that even women adopt a more masculine writing style to fit in. Still, it's a pretty interesting site. (Justin, according to last week's post, is male, but just barely--by a margin of about 100 words).