Rue is for Remembrance

Since this lovely photo of Andrew is our lone photo for the week, we thought we'd post it first, so those of you who are only looking for pictures can get the good stuff out of the way and ignore the rest of the post. It's funny to me how memory lapses work: I know that I must have done things this week, but strangely, when confronted with the blank blogger screen, my brain goes similarly blank. I'm not sure if it's impending old age or just pregnancy, but there's curiously little I remember from this week. Maybe as I write, memory will come back (but probably not. Incidentally, I can currently remember more random trivia about memory studies from my comps exam than I can about my actions this past week!).

I do know that on Wednesday we had another doctor's appointment. The doctor confirmed that the baby is still growing well and everything seems to be on target there--but I have a low iron count and need to take iron supplements (which taste, unsurprisingly, unpleasantly metallic). Apparently Andrew missed me not at all while I was at my appointment: I gather he spent a pleasant morning making a mess of Grandma's beanie babies and was mostly anxious for me to come home so he could tell me he had once more done his "business" in the potty and needed a new item for his tea set.

On Friday, Jeni and I planned a miniature "tea party" for the kids--it wasn't highly organized (or highly orthodox), but we did have hot chocolate in tea cups, along with grapes, mini muffins, quesadillas, and toasted ham-and-swiss English muffins. We made the mistake of letting the kids have the muffins first, since those were ready first, and Jacob ate so many of them that he didn't want the rest of his food. Andrew mostly demanded a little bit of everything but only ate the grapes and some vienna sausage. He just can't stand to see people eating something that he doesn't have. My mom was highly entertained by her grandkids, and she took the kids upstairs to run around while Jeni and I stayed downstairs playing with Enoch and talking. It was nice to have someone else run after Andrew for a change--although I fear that my running days are over, at least for another few months.

Yesterday was a busy day for everyone except Andrew and I. My dad and Dan were both helping out at the Spring Research conference at BYU (undergraduates presenting their research--Dan said 80% of the students he saw in the chemistry portion were Chinese students). My mom went to a stake Relief Society luncheon (which I would also have gone to, had my babysitters not all bailed on me!) and then to a funeral--one of our long-time ward members and former home teachers, Dave Burt, passed away earlier this week. Andrew and I went to the Bean Museum where Andrew pointed out the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, lions, giraffes, bears, caribou, moose, etc., and then we ran some errands and took naps. (I don't know why it never fails to amuse me to hear such big words--like "hippopotamus" coming out of Andrew's mouth).

Today has also been a bit of an adventure. We seem to still be suffering the after-shocks of daylight savings time (at least, I hope that's what it is!): the last three or so days Andrew has been waking up at obscenely early hours (which in my book is anything before 6 a.m.). This morning he was up at 5:20 a.m. (I'd been awake since 4:20, having woken up to Andrew crying out in his sleep and then, a few minutes later, say distinctly "No!"). All of this meant that by the time sacrament was underway we had a very tired boy on our hands. I think we must have one of the noisiest toddlers in the ward, and no amount of talking on our parts has sufficed to convince Andrew that he needs to use a quiet voice in church. I couldn't help but contrast Andrew with one of his nursery compatriots who was sitting behind us. Andrew kept yelling "Amen! Say Amen!" during the sacrament prayers (despite repeated hushing and hands over his mouth), wanted to know who was saying the prayers, wanted to know who was bringing the bread, announced that when he was big he would bring the bread, too, and persisted in asking questions about every two or three minutes (not whispered ones, mind you, but the kind that can be heard two or three rows in either direction). The little girl behind us, who's only a couple of months older than Andrew, sat docilely by her parents and the only noise she made was an occasional cough. Sigh.

We also had a somewhat difficult time getting Andrew dressed to his satisfaction this morning. Despite having considerable input into his outfit (a red fair-isle sweater vest over a light blue shirt with gray pants), he threw a minor fit when he discovered that his daddy was going to wear a suit. He wanted to wear a suit too. (You have to understand that at this point he already fully dressed, including shoes). So Dan decided to beat a hasty retreat, and changed into khaki slacks instead. Only then Andrew wanted to wear khakis, too. We only salvaged his sartorial sensibility by promising that Dan would wear a sweater vest--Dan unearthed a blue one that had been given to him by Uncle Jim (he told me the vest was older than he was) and wore that, which seemed to appease Andrew. Of course, he also took some ribbing for this at church--one of the elders quorum members told him that vests like that had gone out in the 80s (of course, since this was Floyd Tippets, who's never exactly been known for his fashion sense, Dan was able to let this comment ride). (Speaking of clothing, I've been more selective than usual about my own Sunday dress, mostly because I'm playing this silly game with my ward that's called "Let's see how long I can go before someone asks me if I'm pregnant"--so far, I seem to have been somewhat successful, since I'm now six months and counting and no one in my ward has yet asked me if I'm expecting. I highly doubt I can hide my bump much longer--and I'm actually rather surprised that Andrew hasn't outed me yet in that charming way that small children have.)

You'll notice I still don't have much to say about the beginning of the week--I seem to remember going to the library for Family Home Evening on Monday, and Jeni and I went to Sam's club with all the kids at some point, but I can't for the life of me remember what day that was. I did find copies of season one and two of Foyle's War (an excellent television mystery series), which Dan was pretty excited about.

With any luck, I'll be better rested next week and able to remember more (at least, more of the interesting stuff). But for now, this will have to suffice.