What to a pooky is the fourth of July?

How much difference a year makes--last year, as part of our July 4 celebrations, I read with my English class some excerpts from Frederick Douglass's "What to a slave is the fourth of July?" This year, far from engaging in philosophical debates about freedom, Andrew and I went shopping for some fourth of July sales at the mall (although ostensibly we were looking for shoes for Dan). I did find Andrew a very cute (if totally frivolous!) felt cowboy hat at Gymboree. Otherwise, our fourth of July this year was notable for the entire absence of fireworks (although we did hear some)--Andrew went to bed at his normal bedtime and slept through the fireworks entirely. And of course with Andrew asleep, we didn't leave the house either. In any case, it was rainy and drizzly most of the day, so I don't imagine we missed much (although don't tell that to the people who plan the big fourth fest here). Earlier in the afternoon we went to a potluck at (now former) Bishop Skinner's place. It was nice to see several friends that we don't see very often (even if we spent considerable time in the toy room with Andrew and his friend Gaby and her parents).




Most of the week was pretty unspectacular, with only a few brief interludes to mark the difference. For example, one of Andrew's new hobbies includes pushing buttons (elevator buttons, wheelchair access buttons on public buildings, you name it). Unfortunately, this also extends to the nice little button that allows us to lock doors in our apartment. Earlier this week, Andrew managed to lock himself in our bedroom. He thought it was pretty funny (I could hear him giggling on the other side of the door), until he realized (probably from the panic in my voice) that I couldn't get the door open. I tried sticking a bobby pin in the door, and a wire hanger. Of course, not having the least clue what I was doing, neither worked. By this point, Andrew was crying in earnest (and I was about ready to join him), so I called Dan and explained (probably somewhat hysterically) what was going on. He, very practically, asked: "Have you tried tried throwing your weight against the door?" Luckily, the door frames in this apartment are not terribly sturdy, and the wood seems to warp a little in the humidity, so this worked. Andrew was pathetically glad to see me.



Friday morning, I went yard-saling (as usual!) and ran into my garage sale buddy Stephanie at the first yard sale I went to--she had been fending off prospective buyers from a nice two-seated wagon that she intended to buy for me because I had mentioned that I wanted one. Since I wasn't sure how we would move it to Utah, she very generously offered some space in their moving van (they're moving to Salt Lake City the same weekend we're packing up for Provo). I also managed to find some princess dresses that I think my niece Julia (who just celebrated her third birthday) might enjoy (some irony here, since Julia, like nearly every other three-year-old I've met, loves princess stuff). Saturday, Stephanie and I (well, mostly Steph) offered our garage-saling expertise to a couple of women from our old ward, one of whom is expecting and one of whom has a seven-month-old. The four of us piled into our car and had fun driving around State College looking for bargains. Well, they had fun during the driving part--mostly they mocked my driving and, especially after Stephanie told them that I was good at navigating and I promptly drove to the wrong neighborhood, mocking my navigating skills. (It's a good thing I have a long history of experience with affectionate mockery! At least, I think it's affectionate . . . )

Saturday night was also significant, as we were able to get rid of some more big pieces of furniture--after Steph's yard sale last weekend, she was contacted by a friend of a family who had lost a lot of furniture in an arson fire last fall, and who were finally moving into a larger apartment (apparently their insurance was slow in paying them back, so they were still lacking a lot of furniture items). Anyway, she told them that we were looking to get rid of a hide-a-bed couch, so we gave them the couch, Andrew's dresser (which we got free in the first place), and some of the excess clothes that I bought for Andrew (mostly at yard sales) in size 2 and 3T (since this family also had a little boy, and I had gone a little overboard with the yard sales--what little boy needs three winter coats? Andrew certainly doesn't, and this other little boy might be able to use one). It was nice to be able to get rid of stuff--and also know that we were benefiting someone at the same time!



The rest of our weekly highlights mostly involve Andrew, who, as usual, is both adorable and aggravating by turns. We finally figured out how to keep him from waking up at the crack of dawn (5:00 a.m. or thereabouts) by moving his bedtime back half an hour (we'd tried that before and it didn't work, but apparently he's finally old enough that he doesn't need to sleep quite as long). It's amazing how appealing 6 a.m. looks when the alternative is 5! (At least, to someone like me who used to think anything before 7 was early).

I gave Andrew a popsicle for the first time this week, with mixed results. It's a good thing he was in his high chair with a bib on, because he never really grasped the concept of what the stick was for, and I eventually had to feed the popsicle to him with a spoon.

Dan is also becoming more and more concerned about his son's manhood, since Andrew has recently taken to adorning himself with as many bead necklaces as his little neck can hold, and wearing his mother's headbands. Both habits I can trace to his friend Gaby--for the last several weeks, every time I went to pick Andrew up, he would be wearing several of Gaby's necklaces. He seemed to enjoy them so much, that I picked up some red fourth-of-July beads at Target earlier this week, and he wore them so much that the red color started wearing off on his shirt. Saturday morning, we found a woman at a yard sale who was giving away free mardi-gras beads, so I picked up a few more, thinking Andrew might like a little variety. What I didn't anticipate was that Andrew's concept of variety meant wearing all of the beads (all ten strands) at the same time! He's actually pretty funny about it, because he will very methodically put all of the necklaces on, and nothing can distract him from his task once he has started.








And last, but not least, we've been working with Andrew on animal recognition and animal sounds, some of which we've captured on video. We're particularly amused by Andrew's imitation of his mom meowing--we don't know quite what it sounds like, but we doubt that any cat ever sounded like this (unless it was in severe pain!).