MK Nature Center- Boise

Personality entails "enduring characteristics," as explained in one of my human development classes. I enjoy watching Lo's personality unfold. Lo's personality seems to show a consistent bent toward sociality: He stood blandly by this fish viewing tank until a few other children walked up, and then he leaped into action, chattering to them about what he was seeing, staring more at the other children than the aquatics.

His personality also seems detail-oriented, though I wonder how much of that characteristic is developmental rather than unique to Lo? I thought he would love seeing these taxidermy critters, and he thought they were okay--but the ROCKS! Wow, the rocks. Lo kept wanting to touch and examine the rocks more than desiring to gaze upon the mighty grizzly and salmon.


I keep finding myself surprised by this child. He is his own person.

Home again, home again

Yesterday Lo and I flew from Cleveland to Boise. That route has no direct flight, and doesn't even have many options for a one-stop flight. We touched down in Chicago, changed planes in Portland, and all-in-all had a long day. But despite a rough start (Lo had a meltdown when we wouldn't allow him to carry our 40lb. suitcase down our apartment's stairs on our way out the door), the journey was actually overall enjoyable. Lo napped for a couple hours in the middle of the day as usual, and I even got to sleep during part of his nap. We arrived in Boise just in time to play a bit, eat dinner, shower, and go to sleep. I have learned a few tricks to make flying with a baby easier:

1. Sit by other people who have young children. Firstly, this act makes it less likely those sitting nearby will glare/sigh/resent the noise and activity levels of my own child. Secondly, kids tend to entertain each other, often swapping toys (making our own selection of toys last much longer before boredom sets in) and the socializing offers learning opportunities, which makes me have an attitude of cherishing the time, rather than saying, "oh, I wish it was over already."
2. Bring a few treats. Normally I recoil from anything akin to "bribery," but giving treats at well-planned moments seems different to me. For example, I knew there was a good chance Lo Lo would protest at least one of our ascensions because there were THREE of them. So I had three packs of fruit snacks. I gave him a pack of fruit snacks as we waited to board, telling him, "We will open it when we are in the air." He kept chewing on the plastic wrapper, begging me to let him eat the fruit snacks, but I just kept reminding him, "when we are in the air you can eat them." That way, he was excited to be in the air again instead of saying something like, "NOOO, I cannot handle another few hours cramped in this little seat!" Also, I had a dum-dum sucker in my purse reserved to avert a tantrum if one threatened to erupt at a particularly bad time. It came in handy, and that's all I'll say about that. =)
3. Remember others are watching. I was able to keep calm and cheerful with my child because Jerry and I had a good scripture study that morning that reminded me to be a good example for others. In contrast, I witnessed a few totally irrational parents on this trip, mostly mothers who were traveling with children and had obviously been pushed to their limits. One mom snapped at her infant (the baby looked about 7-9 months of age), "Give me a break! Cut it out! I mean it!" I have no idea what the baby was doing--nothing that was obviously "bad behavior" but I felt sorry for her. She probably had no comprehension of why her mom was yelling at her. Nor was the yelling likely to help the situation. Anyway, on to more happy topics.

When we got to my parent's house, there were a couple deer in the garden. Lo was thrilled to walk close to them. Then we spotted a couple blue-belly lizards, and I had a lot of memories come back about catching them as a kid. My cousin Drew was the best lizard-catcher. I tended to grab too slow and just end up with the lizard's tail in my hand (these lizards would make their tails drop off as an escape strategy). The apricot scent was heavy and ripe in the air--Lo plucked an apricot warm from a tree branch and bit it tentatively. My poor city-boy child has no experience eating fruits of the garden. I am glad to have grown up in the beautiful foothills where Nature was such an accessible joy. It is good to be home. Jerry will soon join us--stay tuned for the tales to come.

Trains, Trains, Trains

I was hoping to have some type of post related to our move, like photos of the new apartment or whatnot. But it is all on Jerry's phone needing uploaded. So I'll take a moment to catch up from activities over the past month or so. Awhile back we visited a train museum (I think we posted on it for the blog?) which was a grand kickoff for Lo's love affair with trains. He recently checked out a DVD from the library which has eductional songs about trains and he gets positively thrilled to point out various parts of it to me while we are watching the show. So we've been visiting all the trains in our neighborhood. The mall in walking distance from us has a train that goes all around the inside of the building, and Lo Lo always requests that we go, "Mall Ride Oo-OOh?" (OO-OOH is his word for "train," spoken in the tone of a train whistle). We rode it once, but it is a little expensive so I am not sure if we'll ride it more than once or twice more in the future. Anyway, we also visited an outdoor outlet mall a ways away which has an outdoor train people can ride. It is pictured above in all its shining glory.

Since the train runs outside, there are real "Railroad Crossing" points where cars and people have to stop to wait for the train to pass. It is pretty charming. And at one portion of this mall, there is a model train set display with several different tracks set up. This circus train was amazing, with all the attention to detail.

Lo Lo was pretty tired when we took him there (note his sleepy eyes and only a few smiles in the video...ok rats, the video did not load correctly; maybe I'll get it done later). Anyway he still seemed to enjoy himself and we were all happy to ride the train.

fyi...lost phone

Hello. I feel like every time I set something down in this new apartment it gets "lost" because I keep forgetting where our new places are for everything. Kitchen utensils in the opposite side compared to our old apartment, towels in the closet down the hall instead of bathroom closet, etc.

So when I lost my phone yesterday, my first instinct was that it must be somewhere in our apartment. But it isn't. The ringer was on loud and it wasn't making any noises when we called it. And anyway, I had it right as we walked out the door to go to the mall (answered a call on it) and then when we got back from the mall, discovered the phone was missing. So after calling it a few times in hopes a person would pick up and tell us where it was, we just had the phone cancelled.

Sorry if anybody was trying to get a hold of me yesterday or today. Try emailing instead! Or call Jerry's cell if you have that number. Thanks.

we moved

sorry for the blogging delay. we moved last week. swimming in boxes. also SWIMMING in sweat since AIR conditioning is broken (the reason I can't sleep). Had billions of people help with the move. childcare, cleaning, lending dolly and vehicle, giving boxes and packing paper, physical moving of boxes, assistance organizing new apartment, etc. WE feel LOVED! THANKS TO ALL!

My sister had a baby yesterday. Congrats.

I'll type a real post later when my keyboard starts working. A certain letter won't type. Gess which one. =)