Decisions Made, Directions Given

OUR BLOGGING EFFORTS ARE MOVING to joymeta.blogspot.com. (links on the right)

So we were there planning to go to Nigeria and really wishing there were more blogs from Nigeria that would help new couples like us get a feel for the place and what it's like to raise a family. Joy announced that she wanted to set up a public blog (unlike this half-public, half-hidden blog) where she would talk about Nigerian life.

I was pretty excited. I'm always very happy when I can get Joy to post over here, in part because then this becomes much more of a family blog and less a Derrill production; in part because she talks about things I don't think to that I want to remember and save; in part because none of our female friends are willing to comment on my posts, but you will say something to Joy, so if I want to hear from you, I've got to get Joy to say something; in part as validation of the time I spend on this family journal; in part because I enjoy every time I get my 19th century wife to use a technological device; and a few more parts for good measure.

What I didn't realize was that she only wanted to post at the new blog. I figured we'd talk about "Africa stuff" in the other blog and Hyrum stuff in this blog. Silly man, trying to keep your life separated into boxes like that! The point is to tell people what it's like having kids in Nigeria. How do you separate them?

Hm, good point, dear. I know, I'll double-post anything of particular family interest and ... no. You're right. It's easier to just pretend we have two blogs and leave it at that.

So until further notice, this blog is going on hiatus. We may return to it when we come back to the States. We'll see. Until then, update your RSS feeders and bookmarks to Tender Mercies Realized.

Tender Mercies Realized

Our official Nigeria blog is now up and running. We will be living in either Yola or Jimeta, so the blog address is JOYmeta.blogspot.com. There is also a link on the right. She has promised to take an active updating role in this one. It is possible that that will eventually become the new and official family blog. We'll see. We'll let you know before we abandon this one.

Exciting News: Going to Nigeria ... again!

While Derrill was in Nigeria this week, he confirmed to the president of the American University of Nigeria that he would be coming to work there for the next three years. We have a job to look forward to!

"In Nigeria," says Joy obviously. "So we're moving there."

I was impressed while I was there with the friendliness of the people, how eager my colleagues were to have me there, and the real opportunity to do some good in the world.

We have been quite coy about all this online up til now. We didn't want to jinx anything by sharing too many opinions publicly online before a deal had been made. Up until the decision was reached (D hadn't finalized it fully in his own mind until Sunday night and told the president on Monday) we had been in contact will several other possible universities, each interesting in their own way.

Even though we have been silent online, "we have been thinking and praying about this decision for a long time." It's a pretty big step for us, and not one I think we had predicted going into this job market. But we now feel it's the right step for us now and are looking forward to it.

Baby Lavinia appears to be very excited to share about Nigeria. She's jumping all over inside Mommy.

"I have been feeling like we might end up going to Nigeria since before Derrill went to Nebraska in March. I had told Derrill that Nebraska or Nigeria sounded like the most likely for doing the kind of teaching he is interested in doing right now. Then Nebraska fell through pretty quickly."

Each additional school that contacted me for an interview really disturbed Joy, who wanted the uncertainty ended. "Ya! I kept feeling like we were going to go to Nigeria, and then I would be really stressed about Nigeria for a few days, and then I would feel peace about Nigeria, and then I would feel stress about it again. That's what I did for the last two months."

People have asked us if we're excited. My typical response was that, yes, that was one reaction we had. Fear was another. There were many others. Several of our concerns had to do with the fact that we will be the only members of the Church in Yola. Even if Nigeria is prone to civil disobedience and conflict, the conflict is in other states of the country: Adamawa state where we would be is very peaceful traditionally and calm.

Now that I have been there, however, I can just say "yes." I'm excited. The overwhelming answer from the Spirit as we've prayed about the decision has been peace, and not just general warm fuzzies, but specific reassurances about specific concerns. After all, anywhere you go there will be challenges. If God wants you to learn something, like patience, He can accomplish that in NYC just as well as Nigeria.

"Oh, I don't want to live in NYC! Sorry, but Nigeria doesn't sound too bad compared to NYC. Apologies to anyone who lives there. I am not a city person. Nothing personal. I wouldn't want to live in Lagos either..."

"Especially since Derrill made the decision, we have had continual peace instead of just moments of peace. Satan seems to be a little concerned about us going. I was in a lot of turmoil the few days before we made the final decision, to which I attribute Satan trying to sway me against the decision."

"Some of the reactions we've gotten from people as we talked about this have only reached the fear part. And some people have been very excited for us and talk about what an adventure it will be. We feel the weight of all of it and know that Heavenly Father will help us to overcome any challenges in getting or being there -- known or unknown -- as we know we'd have challenges anywhere we are in the world. With God, nothing is impossible."

Yola is way on the far east on the river that runs into Cameroon. Lagos is in the far southwest. Nigeria is 2.5 times as large as California. There is an LDS temple in the south east near Port Harcourt.

This is a picture of the inner court of the faculty building where I will be working. I'll be on the second floor.

The family I was staying with kept asking me how I was in my decision process after each trek to see something on my list -- housing, shopping, the town, the school, etc. Every time they asked, I had been feeling just a touch overwhelmed. I answered I was still in information gathering mode and needed some time to process. Once I wrote my thoughts down to share them with Joy -- assuming the internet connection would work -- I felt a lot better.

It's not necessarily going to be easy. That's not the point. Knowing a lot more about some of the specific challenges involved, I'm confident we can deal with them and find a lot of happiness there in Yola.

"Havana" Hyrum's Hat Trick

Hi there. Hy here having some haberdashery hijinx. I grabbed Daddy's hat and put my hat on top. This is always great fun. Then I grabbed Pop's hat and Mommy's and stacked them up. I AM the four-hat wonder!

Mwahahaha.

Oops! This is harder than it looks. Let me try again.

Almost got it...



Stay up there, you!

Ta-da!

Of course, Mommy knows how to do it best. She's cool like that.

Conversations with a Toddler

"Mommy, feed me breakfast."
Hyrum, will you feed me breakfast?
"Mommy, feed ME breakfast."
Yes. I will feed you breakfast. Then will you feed me breakfast?
"No. You can make breakfast for yourself."
O-ho-ho! And when will you be able to make breakfast for yourself?
"... When I'm five. But I'm three."

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Today Hyrum spelled out "Toy Story Mania," "Buzz," "Woody," and "Rex" phonetically before running out of O's to do "Slinky Dog"

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Hy and Mommy played "The Book of Mormon Challenge" today, Hyrum winning handily both times. Even though he had won, he insisted Mommy also finish the game and make it to Heaven.

When Mommy landed on the square that says "You forgot to pray," she told Hyrum that they really had forgotten to pray. They set the board aside and prayed. Then Hyrum told Mommy she didn't have to lose a turn because now she had prayed.

2,123 days later...

... and we still love being married. Especially me. I love being married.

Joy is
my support,
my most understanding friend,
my co-conspirator,
the amazingly wonderful mother of my son,
my sleeping pill,                              [no, seriously, I'm very thankful for this!]
my counselor,
my sunshine,
my hope,
my peace,
my joy.

Joy makes me bread and oatmeal cookies just about every week, all just for me. She always makes sure I have time for my calling and scripture study, and keeps me accountable for my home teaching. She keeps our home a safe haven. She encourages me to reach higher and helps me become the man I want to be. While she sometimes redirects me and adds counsel to my goals, she is unfailingly supportive.

Hyrum adores his mother. He may not always listen to her and he's not always very soft with her, but he loves her and wants to be her friend. Almost everything I love about my son I owe to my eternal companion. Without her patience and unending dedication, he would not be where he is today.

Joy has been keeping up with her continuing education credits to renew her certification as a counselor. Even six months pregnant, she has a strong desire to follow Pres. Kimball's advice and learn how to grow more vegetables for our family (coming soon to some food storage cans near us!). She maintains the highest standards of cleanliness in what she watches, reads, and listens to. She loves the Sabbath day and keeps it holy like nobody I know.

I had planned on writing more, but I seem to be out of time tonight. So when you read this while I'm in DC, know I love you, Friendly Friend.

Who is this boy now?

Hyrum has added quite a cast of characters to his list of acting credits. He takes on several roles every day now, announcing rapid fire who everyone is and insisting that we call him by his new name every time we speak to him. Also new this week, he announces "I am Hyrum for a minute" when it's time to change his diaper, and then he reverts to his alternate persona when he stands up again.

We were very interested during our parent-teacher conference to learn that, though he'll talk about these people and pretending to be them, he only ever goes by Hyrum in the classroom. If he decides to playact with you, it's apparently an honor.

Some of the newer roles I didn't mention in the last post:

Hyrum -- Daddy -- Mommy -- (source)
Pablo -- Tyrone* -- Uniqua -- (Backyardigans)
Tyler -- Aubrey -- Jacey -- (kids in his class who hugged him for his birthday)
Margaret -- [her dad] -- [her mom] -- (friend at church)
Sister McCallister -- just Daddy -- Sister McCallister's Mom* -- (nursery leader)
Kermit the Frog -- TBA -- TBA -- (Muppets)
Joseph Smith Sr. -- Joseph Jr. -- Oliver Cowdery -- (church history)
Rolf -- Capt. von Trapp -- Lisl -- (Sound of Music)
Flick -- Dot -- Princess Ada -- (A Bug's Life)
Buzzz -- Tom Nook -- "the cat in the dark" -- (Animal Crossing)
Buzz Lightyear -- Rex -- Woody -- (Toy Story)

He's also doing more announcing who he will be on a certain day or under particular conditions:

"If Mommy wakes me up, I will be Kermit the Frog."
What if I wake you up?
"I'm Buzzz and you're Tom Nook."

His birthday card was signed by all of us!

*Incidentally, I had to fight to get the Tryone role. He was casting me as Uniqua and Mommy as Tyrone. It took part of my cunning and all of my persistence to convince him to switch us. I get enough female roles as is. I was a touch concerned when he wanted me to be Mary Poppins until we were watching it together. We saw "Feed the Birds" and then "Let's go Fly a Kite." During the latter song, Mary looks out the window as the children go skipping off, her face full of love and longing. It was at that moment that he happily pointed and called out "That's you, Daddy!" ... Okay, I'll be your Mary Poppins.

*Also incidentally, he's never met Sister McCallister's Mom, but he assumes she must have one. Further incidentally, he has a really hard time saying Flick's name properly, so if you overheard him, no, he's not cursing at us.

Matched by Ally Condie - A Joy Post

I am not usually a person that takes time to review books, but Matched is really excellent and I have to share how I feel about it. Ally I really love this book.

My favorite genera of books are romance books, but I am really picky. I will not read anything that is focused on physical intimacy, mystery, murder, or lacks a family focus. I am similarly picky about other media, but that is a different subject. I also don't really get into sci-fi. The book has to have a good plot and characters that grow and change. Many clean romance books have little of quality in them, but I love to find one that does.

Matched is a masterpiece. I have enjoyed some of Ally's books in the past, but I was transfixed for most of the book. It only took me a chapter or two to get into and I could hardly put it down. It has character development and a new world to explore. It has a tender love story that is built as all true love ought to be in tender moments and memories that are priceless to the individuals, but that no one else would see the same. Intimacy is so much more than physical and the relationship is alive with anticipations, and shared dreams and hopes and reality in a world where many have lost touch with what that means.

Matched is so well crafted I can't wait to read it again with my husband and I look forward to the sequel. I only wish I had started reading it when all three were already out. Waiting is hard. I have not been completely WOWed over a book in a long time. Great job Ally. I love it and I think that you are great too.

Family Home Evening this week

I taught Hyrum about the counsel in Heaven today. He did not have good looks for Satan. Then we had put Satan in the forest and that is where he usually likes to put his little spirit person (I have told the part of the story in flannel about us living in heaven and being children of God previously) and he didn't want to put his spirit person in the forest with Satan. Good boy! We removed Satan from Heaven and Hyrum happily went about with his pretend heaven play. He is a great kid and was very willing to say that we should follow Jesus :D

Pop n Boo's Revenge

When you grow up, I hope you have children Just ... Like ... You!

I have an undeserved reputation for being a "planner" at my parents' house. It all stems from the fact that I get hungry for dinner before Mom and Dad do. Left to their own devices, dinner happens around 7 or 8pm. I got accustomed to dinner at 5 or so at college. I quickly learned that the best way to get dinner happening when I wanted it was to go to Mom about 3pm and say, "So, Mom, what's the plan for dinner?" She would send me to Dad. (That gave me permission to invade his office, you see.) "So, Dad, what's the plan for dinner?" I maaaay have also sometimes asked them what the plan was more generally, trying to find out what they thought was happening that night and if there was any hope of gaming. Could be.

My parents, now Pop and Boo, came away from me asking that every day, all summer and every visit, thinking that I like to plan. Can't imagine why ;)  . Joy is ever so much more of a planner than I am, though. The odd thing is that she likes to plan, but "isn't good at it" and I don't like to plan but I'm good at it -- I think mostly so I can get it done quickly. When we got together with my brother and his wife last year for our anniversaries [right] I discovered that they wanted a Real Plan, complete with time schedules of when we'd arrive at each attraction, compared to my Vague Notion of a Plan that said we'd get there when we get there and do the most important things first. Joy says, "I like Steve and Emie's idea of planning. I'm just not very successful at it. They made the trip much more enjoyable." So I think I'm a flexible guy.

WELL. Enter Hyrum and Joy.

Joy says to me, that she needs my help scheduling her time with Hyrum when he gets back from school. "He does well with structure." So we sat down two weeks ago Sunday night for and I helped her write a Real Schedule, with actual time lines and activities and Structure. She loves it. She lives it. It works. "I'm even becoming a little bit flexible with it."

"At snack time Thursday ... Snack time has become a time to talk about what is going to happen in the rest of our day or things about school.

Hyrum asked Joy if they could play with something. Joy told him, no, not yet. After snack time was Jesus time (when they would read his scriptures and watch a video) and after Jesus time was Hyrum Choose.

"So they he said: 'After choice time?'
"I said, 'After Hyrum Choose is Free Time, and you can play with xxxx then.'
"He said, 'After Free Time?'
"'Is dinner.'
"'After dinner?'
"Family fun time.
"'After family fun time?'
....

And they went on like that through SUNDAY! Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and through Church, he asked "After ....?" and Mommy told him. It was quite the little conversation. She commented at the time something to the effect of - Boy, no sooner do I get a schedule put together but he detects it and wants to know it!

Today we're in church. He asked to eat his lunch. I said no, not yet. It's time for the sacrament. You can eat lunch after the sacrament.
He said, 'After lunch?'
I anticipated: After lunch you go to nursery, and after nursery we drop off the Furies, and you go home and have snack time and a nap, then we have home teachers coming over and ....
He was happy.

"Oh, but you misinterepet. Because there's time between lunch and nursery when we're still in Sacrament meeting and..."
Yes, dear, I am still not the planner you are. I do not account for each minute.
"Yes, but he is expecting to go to nursery RIGHT after lunch, and it's been a problem."

So we have a literal son who cares about scheduling and a flexible Dad who helps schedule everyone else but wants to not have to go into detail and ....

The Curse Works!

A Happy Mommy Post

Sometimes Hyrum's just too much cuteness. I been kinda sick this week and trying to stay down. Friday morning we had decided that I was going to stay down all morning so Derrill was going to take care of Hyrum and get him off to school then come back and take care of himself. I would take care of Hyrum the rest of the day - Friday's he has a short school day.

Hyrum pretending to sleep on our bed over Christmas

It had snowed quite a bit that night and Hyrum had come to say hi to me. Derrill went outside to take care of the car and shovel snow. Then Hyrum climbed up on the couch with me - I was laying down. He said, "I want to sleep with you, Mommy."

He was supposed to be putting on his pajamas...

And he got under the covers and he closed his little eyes and snuggled up by me and didn't even try to make me wake up. And he'd open his eyes and smile and snuggle in and say "Sleep with Mommy." It was so adorable! We just sat there like that for a good 15 minutes, just both content. It was happy.

Then when he came home from school the first thing he wanted to talk to me about was how he remembered sleeping with Mommy "last night" and wanted to sleep with Mommy again. It was really sweet.  He didn't want to talk about school, he just wanted to talk about spending time with me.

Hyrum is not a cuddler by nature, so those cuddling times are about as sweet as you get.

Hyrum Moving On part 2: The Adventure Ahead

Tomorrow is a big day for our little guy.
"Therefore it's a big day for us," says Joy. [As always, Joy is in quote marks since Derrill does the typing.]

Tomorrow we all start school. Caroline Elementary preschool.
"And we are a little nervous."

Weigh In

Joy has lost 30 pounds in the last ~15 months.
Derrill has lost 30 pounds in the last 18 months - 10 last year on South Beach, 10 May-July on not-SB, 10 since the kidney stone in October when I gave up chocolate and then had a stomach flu for Thanksgiving.
And oddly enough Hyrum hasn't gained any weight in the last few months, though he's getting taller and progressing into size 3T pants and 4T shirts. Maybe half a pound.

I also upped my weight lifting today - benching 155 pounds.

Sing Along with Hyrum

We All Go Traveling By


Mickey Mouse Club March - recorded in stealth mode behind closed doors

"Mickey Mouse Club, Mickey Mouse Club. Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E"
He sang this over and over at Disneyland.

Negative Book Review

Written by Joy
The Man Who Loved Jane Austen by Sally O'Rourke is a moral deviation for everything I know Jane Austin to stand for. I could not get more than a few chapters into the book, before I had read more morally offensive material than I could tolerate. I have never given a negative review with this violence of affection. But I value too highly the name of Jane Austin and her clean and decent principles put forward in her own writing, to keep myself from biting my tongue. I think that there could be some marit in the book, but that the liberties of using Jane Austin's name and character reference for such a morally indecent story line in unjust. Jane Austin is true to marriage and fidelity in marriage for all of you heroines and there is not reason to believe that she would have wanted to live otherwise.

Birthday Cakes

Joy has been creative in the cake baking department. My brother and his wife came up to visit in July for their birthdays and then we went down to them for mine last week.

This was my cake: Moosewood's vegan chocolate cake - shockingly good. This was also Hyrum's cake and Steve's. We're all quite fannish. The design is the smiley I most often use online   :?)

Steve and Emie have taken scuba classes together, she volunteers at an aquarium, studied marine biology, and occasionally is goes by the name Monkeyfish. Put it all together and an aquatic theme becomes a natural for their joint birthday party.

This one is banana-spice. It's surprising how easy it is to craft some of these. We got a booklet recently with designs and Joy was eager to try them out.

I should also mention, we froze the leftover cake from their party and had it a month later when we got back from my birthday at their house. The cakes were still moist and delicious! (The bananas were another story.)

Good job, Joy.


Oh, and one of the fun things about all the birthdays: Hyrum sang to me this morning. He said, "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Daddy. Happy birthday to you." Later today, he also sang along with the Tabernacle Choir for a moment during Praise to the Man.

Stawberry Picking - a Joy post

[DW says: you all are so lucky to get 5 posts from the Mommy tonight. Let's hear it for Joy!]

I am so glad that Hyrum and I finally got to go strawberry picking. When Vicky left she lamented about not ever having gone strawberry picking before. Up to that point I had never thought there was a lack of it in my life. Now granted, I am not planning on going again, necessarily, but I am way happy that we went this time. A friend Katie and her son Richard O. were going to a place that had pretty good prices and wasn't an hour away. She was looking for someone to go with here, so Hyrum and I volunteered.

Hyrum has still not forgotten the experience and still with mention it when ever he sees a strawberry. He and Richard started by being helpful and picking strawberrys and putting them in the buckets, but time wore on and they got into running down the isles together or after each other, sometimes they even would hold hands. But the end was worse than the beginning, because when my back was turned not only was Hyrum throwing out individual berry's from the picked bucket, he also upturned the whole thing on the ground. Which I mostly enjoyed the sport of the most. They were both ready to go when we left, but it was a great experience and I was glad I had remembered to bring lunch for Hyrum since it took a few hours. Hyrum has tried strawberrys in their natural form and I blame much of it on that experience. I felt like a good mom that day :)

Sleeping Trama - Joy post

Letting go of naps for my son has been very difficult for me, even if it hasn't been difficult for Hyrum. I think that he was trying to let go of the last nap before we even got him his big boy bed [right], but the freedom that came with the big boy bed was a little more than I could handle perminently at first. I was desparate to hold on to that last nap feeling like when he napped I was a really good mother (for my peace of mind, but I felt for his health too). Well, after a few days or a week, I decided to have him sleep in the play pen for his nap, but I started in our bed room. That was commical, because after a couple of days he learned to tip the bed so that he could crawl out.

Then I tried putting him in the play pen in the bathroom. He would rock it something awful and still not go to sleep some days. Then I finally just had him stay in the play pen in his room (I don't know why I didn't try that in the first place. With this method he was getting more naps, but he stopped going right to sleep at night. Finally I acknowledged that I had done all that I could (durring those time I would also spend over a half hour singing to him and holding him in my arms or making him lay on the bed-it was really tramatic for me as well as a little for him-sometimes it was just a game for him).  He was showing by not going to sleep at night that he was really not needing those naps that I was just positive that he needed.  So, after trying some disapline techniques at night, we finally just gave up on the nap and started calling it quiet time and let him deal with wether he slept at night. We just let go of the control and it was peaceful for us too. He took a little time to readjust his schedule in the evenings, but without unneeded naps he finally got regularly to sleep at the normal times again. We just started putting him to bed a little earlier for night on days he didn't get a nap.

He does take a nap durring quiet time now, but it is his choice and we all seem to be happier about it now that I have let go of feeling trama about it. The letting go times have begun. Let the good times roll.

So it's not a unicorn - a Joy post

I've always liked horses. From afar anyway. Used to draw them, like the unicorns. I thought it might be nice to ride a horse someday. Last year when I got some birthday money from Grammy, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do more than get some horse riding lessons. That's the first time it ever happened. (Thank you, Grammy!) So I planned on it.

I didn't get around to it until July. I'm doing English style riding. It was kind of weird the first time, though I wasn't scared of the horse. Second time was okay - learning a little bit more. The third time I started feeling a little bit comfortable riding. That's good.

When I get there, I groom the horse: I brush its face and legs with the soft brush, and with the coarse brush I brush its mane and its back and its tummy and its tail; then I have to pick and brush its feet (this picture) - it only has shoes in the front, so I don't pick the feet that don't have shoes, but I brush all of them - you only pick around the shoe and not the inside of the foot (called the frog); and then I put on the saddle and my helmet; and then we put on its bridle - I put the bridle on on my own for the first time. And then I ride the horse. I lead it out, walking on its left side, holding the reins with my right hand because all their horses are trained as if people are right handed. And then I ride the horse. And I bring it back and groom the horse again, clean up after it if it poops (which she hasn't let me do yet: if he pees you have to bleach it and all this kind of stuff). And then I give him treats! While I'm grooming him the second time, sometimes he sniffs at me cause he expects to find a treat, but I don't give it to him until after I'm done grooming him.

The biggest problem I had last time I rode, my feet kept trying to go farther into the stirrups and you're supposed to keep the balls of your feet on the stirrups so your heels can sink down as far as possible - helps with balance.

I'm learning that you have to look where you want to go, not at the ground or at the horse - keeping my arms at an obtuse angle. And I'm kind of excited that next time I will get to ride a different horse - not the gentlest one.

After having horse riding lessons three times, I would counsel anyone who has horse riding lessons to not skip a week. It's been going well. It's interesting: it's not all dreamy and floaty like I thought it would be; it's some hard work. And that's the reason you shouldn't skip any lessons because every week you gain some more muscle. I could see progress between my second and third lessons because I hadn't skipped a week, and didn't between my first and second because I had to skip one. When I tried posting, I actually got my bum off the horse this time. It was amazing. This time I could almost do the half-seat ride while last time it was ridiculous.

It was funny - this list time when I was done riding the horse, I felt like I was trying to get my sea legs back. I didn't feel like the ground felt quite right, like there should have been a horse beneath me instead of the ground. Does that sound like a convert? I dunno. I'm probably not going to have any lessons beyond my fourth for a long time.

So it's nice to have a little dream come true. It's nice to have Derrill and Hyrum come and watch sometimes. And I don't know if I'll get back to it or not. Might be kinda nice to know a horse all of its life and then ride it, might be kinda cool, but ... I never know if I'm in for that kind of work. Maybe once I've had all my kids I'll know.

Hopalong Hyrum

Hyrum got to take part in Mommy's horseriding lesson last week.

Hyrum remembered this week that he was promised he could ride the horse again. He was sad not to accompany Mommy on her lesson. While I got him ready for bed, he was looking for her, then remembered where she was: "Mommy? Mommy? ... Mommy ride a horse."