Nomnomgeria

I thought I had already shared this with you, but I guess I hadn't.

I enjoyed the food in Nigeria. This was my breakfast at the hotel. Starting at the top and going clockwise, that's a wedge of pounded yam (dry) standing in the place of a hash brown, boiled potatoes (teeny), boiled eggs, your standard buttery roll, and fried bananas (yum!).

I think I had fried bananas 3-4 times in the 3-4 days I was there. We're talking staple food. Add to that banana bread and hearing about multiple banana recipes and I know there are bananas in Nigeria. I mentioned once upon a time on my work blog that Ugandans eat about 3 times their weight in bananas every year. I figured that I eat Joy's weight in bananas, but not mine. That may change out there.

The chickens and cows are a lot leaner than ours, so even though there is chicken and beef, you get a leg-thigh combo at it looks like wing. There's a lot of fish. A lot.

Apparently you have to know the right places to shop for food. There are plenty of people willing to sell you meat, for instance: they carry it in baskets in the hot sun all day to wherever you will buy it. So you talk to your friendly neighborhood expats or your cook or someone and they'll get you to the safer, higher quality meat. I was thankful I had brought dental floss with me because the meat was remarkably good at fitting between my teeth.

Or you come here to the University Club (members only) for drinks and dinner. Restaurant meal - $6.50. Two pools and a jaccuzzi, weight room, volleyball, tennis courts. Nice place. Friday is pizza night. Saturday there are vegetables you can't find otherwise, likes broccoli or eggplant. They play some games, mostly just hang out and chat.

One of the trusted places is a store called Luka. Luka's was described as "a Walmart inside a 7-11." The place, as you can see, is packed tight. My instructions from Joy were to find out what foods they had, and I figured the fastest way to do that was to take a lot of pictures. So I went around every aisle taking pictures like these of everything on the shelves.

It's also a little like Cosco in that, if you see something you want, you get it because the odds are it won't be there next week. This candy was brand new, for instance. A month or two ago they got in some Christmas treats.

Cereals, spices, rice
Deodorant, makeup, nail care
Shirts, hot pots, sandals
More bug spray than you can imagine
Bread, eggs, water, juice
Canned veggies, canned fruits
Heinz, Mayo, Mustard,
Bleach, furniture polish, carpet cleaner...
The list goes on and on.




I had to explain to just about everyone I met what in the world I was doing. The store owner behind the counter was also mighty curious. I explained that I was coming back in two months to live and shop there and my wife wanted to know what they had. He was satisfied.

For contrast, the video shows a few seconds of driving through the "modern market." It's modern because it is newer than where the old marketplace was. You pay 20N to get in (~12 cents) and then it's small stalls packed in TIGHT. Food, clothing, fabric, electronics, movies, you name it.

The family I was staying with mentioned that the one time living in Yola is not cheaper than living in the US is food. Particularly if you want to buy all the Western brands from Luca's. Calculating from what they spend, it might be a little cheaper for us overall, but it's also clear it'll be another dietary transition for us: carbs are cheap and plentiful, meat also plentiful, but the fruits and veggies are much further between. That, and you shouldn't use the tap water to wash your veggie.

Good eats

Once upon a time, I longed to know what it was that made some foods palatable for my son while all others were terrible. I looked forward to a time when he would have the language skills to tell me what was important to him.

Well, Moses is finally down from Sinai with the Word of the Hyrum: "Is it warm? Is it soft?"

Those are the two questions he asks us as we try to ply him with new foods. Are they warm and are they soft? The other day he even looked at Joy's food, asked if it was warm and soft, and took a bite so he could get his Hershey's chocolate square (which is replacing sugar cookies).

The thing is, that can't be all of it. We've introduced him to a lot of foods now that are warm and soft, but he doesn't eat most of them without some pressuring or wheedling. Peaches and yogurt are cold, not warm. Chocolate is not soft and chunky peanut butter isn't either. So this isn't a complete explanation.

I love school

I love Hyrum's school in particular. Mrs. Downes and her assistants are miracle workers. For most of you, there is no need to rehash Hyrum's eating habits that have remained almost unchanged for 12 months. Yogurt, peaches, sometimes cheese and cookie dough -- these are the foods my son is made of. Occasional successes have been heralded and then fallen by the wayside: green beans, peas, peanut butter, bananas, applesauce, grapes ... Fad-like they come and just as quickly disappear again from his diet. His reactions to new foods ... but then I said there was no need to rehash.

Hyrum is eating new foods, and we are begging the teachers to tell us how this miracle is performed.

He eats rice at school - rice he has not eaten since he was 6 months old and it was a mush cereal.
Half a cup of noodles. He has never eaten noodles before in his life.
Mashed potatoes - he ate sweet potatoes as an 8 month old, never since.
They feed him food on graham crackers, which he shies away from and cries when we bring out - but he'll use it as a spoon for them.

Joy asked him the other day how many pinches of grated cheese wanted.
"10"
Okay, then you need to eat 5 spoonfuls of rice and green beans (mixed, but not mashed)
Chomp, chomp, chomp went the rice and green beans.
Yum, yum, yum, he got his cheese.

How many more pinches do you want?
"9"
Okay, and he ate another 5 spoonfuls of rice and green beans ...

Twice now he has asked us for a new food so he can eat another cookie half. He ASKED for cooked carrots, and ate cooked squash when we didn't have any. He ate lettuce for me today.

He has enough vocabulary finally to express some food preferences. He doesn't like crunchy. "Soft" is the key word. But he eats chunky peanut butter and hard chunks of chocolate and he doesn't like soft mashed potatoes. He has said "yummy" to some of his new foods. Not that he'll keep eating them, but he will agree 'yeah, yeah, Dad, it tastes great, now gimme my cookie.'

A marvelous work and a wonder. I love Hyrum's school. He likes it too.

We missed that holiday...

Featuring the artistic talents of all three Watsons: Joy drew the outline, Derrill cut the holes based on themes and variations on the outline, and Hyrum gave chose the number and style of the teeth.

Hy dressed as Buzz Lightyear for Halloween, Joy repeated her role as the romantic Roman, and I came dressed in 22 t-shirts ... for some strange, esoteric reason. If anyone has pictures -- of me being wrapped up as a mummy by the Petersons, for instance -- please send them. There were several other Buzzes among the children.

Hy enjoyed Trick or Treating more than expected. He followed all the other kids around, said trick or treat, and filled his bag full of candy we knew he'd never eat.

Wrong again. Halloween candy became amazingly popular, in no small part thanks to Mario Party 8, which includes characters that eat candy that produces fireworks and changes their shapes. He wanted candy instead of cookies, actually ATE Tootsie Rolls in multiple flavors, and played with all sorts of strange, new, artificially-colored shapes for weeks.


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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.

A Thanksgiving Reminder

In the words of Dave Barry (2004):

But Thanksgiving is also a spiritual time of quiet reflection - a time when we pause to remember, as generations have remembered before us, that an improperly cooked turkey is - in the words of the U.S. Department of Agriculture - "a ticking Meat Bomb of Death."

Please be sure to cook your Thanksgiving dinner thoroughly. The USDA's actual quote is that means 165 degrees measured with a meat thermometer.

Food safety website Barfblog's recommendations: avoid Whole Foods turkey "For the past couple of weeks, Whole Foods has been pushing their turkeys like some form of food porn crack..." Chapman and Powell's advice for a safe Thanksgiving turkey here. The thing we are going to be most pressed to accomplish: "Refrigerate leftover turkey within 2 hours of taking it out of the oven."

The Power of Cookies

Hyrum still doesn't meet many foods. His staples are still strawberry yogurt, applesauce, blended peaches and pears, an eggless raw cookie dough, and cheddar cheese. Normally he eats one of those foods two meals a day and we can convince him to have 2-3 more of them during the day.

Somewhere along the line, though, Grandma Boo introduced him to cookies. At Disneyland, we learned he would quite happily eat 2 or more sugar cookies with pink frosting and sprinkles every meal if we let him. As one of his very few sources of (highly processed) grains, we're happier than we would otherwise be.

Then we unlocked the vast incentivizing power of the cookie. Joy made him a deal: he gets half of a cookie for eating 5 different foods during the same meal and another half for 'trying' a new food. Either a pink sugar cookie or one of these 'butter keks' with chocolate and "Small World" pictures on them (castles and windmills are his favorites).

He made his way through a cookie a day or more last week. He actually put a piece of lettuce on his tongue! (before gagging and pulling it off) He ate a little whole grain bread with enough peanut butter on it! He eats 5 different foods for two meals a day! Peas and carrots are starting to sneak back into his diet and peanut butter shows up every time he has a cookie. Huzzah! We got him his own can of sprinkles he can try putting on new foods to see if that makes them more appetizing. We are careful not to overreact during the meal, but we'll dance online here with you.

Five foods gets you cookie
That's good enough for me.
New foods gets you cookie
That's good enough for me!...
Oh, progress progress progress starts with cookie!

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 :)

May Pictures 3-1

I'll give you fair warning: I'm in a very economist mood tonight as I write.

Finland



Scenes that caught my eye in Helsinki.















New York City
There are a bunch of vendors in the park line that winds its way to the boats that take you to the Lady. They all sell the exact same pictures. I confess I spent some time during this anniversary pondering their business model. Are they atomistically independent sellers all crowding into the same area or are they all part of the same franchise? What keeps them from differentiating their products even slightly? I didn't see them in other parts of New York where we went. While I'm familiar with Hotelling's theories about why similar businesses cluster, there are other clusters, other "beaches" in New York City. Whether they are multiple businesses or one, I'd have to think one of them could earn higher profits moving to Chinatown

My brother and I also enjoyed discussing the photoshopping in the pics. The Twin Towers are in the first picture, disappear by magic in the second picture, and return in the third; oversized boats appear and disappear; the island to Miss Liberty's right (our left) disappears and reappears at random... all the same angle, variations on coloring to let you know the sunset is Totally fake.... Strange business model.

Okay, enough economics.

We spent a good deal of time in Chinatown after visiting the Lady.


Our ladies were fascinated by the street vendors and the restaurants that wanted to display their meats. We tried to identify them, but with little enough success (another strange business model?). I bought a pound of grapes for a dollar that were delicious, shared them around our party and gave a bunch to a fellow who was hungry.

We wandered the stores, bought very little, and grabbed some dinner from a sit-down restaurant that only took cash. Another strange business model?



One of the billboards in Times Square featured the leader of Iran. I was mildly interested, so took a picture. Those billboard spaces have got to be EXPENSIVE. Does the UANI really believe this is the most cost-effective way and place to advertise? It certainly has the potential to be seen by millions every day - not bad - but it's one of hundreds of flashing, changing signs in a teeming mass.

The real reason this got posted is that when Hyrum saw it, he pointed and said, "Daddy!" I decided that the best way to respond to that would be to revise upward my opinion of his looks and take it as a compliment.



The New Amsterdam Theater where we saw Mary Poppins has some amazing well decorations. No one complained as I filmed them before the show started. Here is Progress.



Corning Glass Museum


Blocks upon blocks of glass, all of them with interesting shapes, bubbles, trees, designs, and patterns.

Chocolate milk has Iron

I am so glad that I got the sequencing cards. I let Hyrum choose the stories today and we only got to three of the 5 or 6 I had him choose.


The first story is of a boy going to bed with three different cards. The first card shows the sun in the window and the boy sitting on his mother's lap while she reads a story to him. The second card shows the mother tucking him into bed, kissing him on the head and added nice loving things she is saying. The last one shows the boy asleep in his bed with the moon in the window. I tell him the story and give him each card as I tell the story for him to look at and put on the floor in front of him.

After I told the story two times, Hyrum jumped up and ran for his bedroom saying, "Blue blanket". He came back with the blanket and laid down on the floor with the blanket over him. I figured out that he wanted the story told again and so we played the go to sleep game several times. When he had only slightly satiated on that game, I went on the to the camping story that he wanted next.

The last picture in the camping story is about sleeping, so I showed him that first. Then while he was laying under his blanket, I showed him the picture of the boy putting up his tent. Next, the boy and his daddy making food at the fire and then the boy sleeping in his tent. In an effort to play this story up. I took a star blanket that we keep in the living room and put it over the back of two chairs, saying "tent" and showing him the first picture. He was still laying down but looking at me with interest. he wasn't far from the tent, so I just tugged him a little closer so that he was under the tent. He did not like that idea and pointing to the blanket tent, said "no blanket". I took it down.

The third and last sequence story was even more successful or just as interesting to him as the first one. This story has 4 pictures. The first picture is of a clear glass and milk being poured into it. Then there is a chocolate sauce contain behind it with part of the milk chocolate and part white and a spoon is starting to stir. Next the milk is all chocolate with the spoon on in front. The last picture has an empty glass with remains of chocolate in it. I told him the story, then I realized that we had chocolate sauce and could actually make it. We did and Hyrum drank it and said again. We did it three times until he couldn't drink anymore. hehehe.

I was really happy to realize that though milk has no iron, chocolate sauce has 9%. Maybe it is a way to get iron into him besides the vitamin that I have been forgetting.

Strawberries

I'll spare you the economic details, but it's a good year to buy strawberries and jam, can, or otherwise preserve them. So many strawberries are flooding the US market at the same time that farmers are getting rid of strawberry plants so they can get an earlier start on other crops.

Bizarro-World Hyrum

I read this post from a friend and could not imagine a better opposite to describe Hyrum. So here is an edited version of a day in the life of Muryh [Murray], Hyrum's not-particularly-evil-in-fact-it-might-be-kinda-nice twin.

[Murray] is pretty passionate about eating. He takes the whole act quite seriously, and heaven forbid anything keep him from his food! Preparing meals is torturous for that little boy. He can smell the food cooking, and he wonders why it's not already in his mouth. He'll pace the kitchen, back and forth, continually asking to eat, and occasionally giving a quick screech to let us know his dissatisfaction at having to wait. Most of the time, I'll take pity on him and hand him a pretzel to munch on. I know how painful an empty stomach feels when you smell good food cooking.

Meal prayers have also been an interesting affair ever since [Murray] started solids. We'll be sitting around the table, all the food set before us, sometimes steamy, almost always delicious, and ready to eat. Never before that moment has the food been so close to consuming, and suddenly he just can't stand it any longer. ... It's only recently that he's started folding his little arms, and it's only recently that he's beginning to show a little patience through the prayer, if only because he's curious about what the heck the rest of us our doing when we should be feeding his face instead.

So now that you're aware of all this, it should come as no surprise that learning to communicate his need for food would be top on his list of priorities....

What would it be like, to have a child who actually wanted to eat and who told us he wanted to eat? Somehow, I can't imagine it.

Weights and Measures

I just finished writing up the chapter on food markets, including a section on the importance of having accurate weights and measures. I would sure appreciate some accurate weights and measures around here, let me tell you.

We got a new scale. The WiiFit scale, as I've complained, is not particularly accurate. Aside from its 2-8 pounds shifts between days, it consistently weighs me one pound less the second time I step on it than the first. Then I'd head to the doctor's office and find they were 6-15 pounds heavier than our scale at home, making every doctor visit a misery.

So now we have a new scale. It measures us both at 8 pounds heavier than the WiiFit. But it randomly changes its weight 3 pounds between times I stand on it. It claims to measure my body fat percent, but all it really does is calculate my BMI (weight divided by height squared), and to tell me the percent that is water weight.

Joy and I were fasting today so I thought I'd have some fun with the new scale. I stepped on just before dinner and it said I weighed the same I did on Monday.

I drank 2 cups of water. Ah! The scale said I gained 3 pounds, none of it water weight.

I drank 2 more cups of water. The scale I lost 1 pound and my water weight went ... down.

I ate dinner (half a plate of veggie stir fry) and drank 2 cups of milk. The scale said I gained 2 more pounds, none of it water weight.

... This does not look good for the "Health o Meter"

Hyrum's food

Boy, I tell you, when that boy changes his food preferences, he changes his food preferences!

We started keeping track of everything he ate a couple months ago so we could try to fine tune our attempts at getting a greater variety into him. (Joy chortle-snorts). For a solid month, he ate largely yogurt and milk. Then he had strep (he's all healthy now). Now all of a sudden all he wants are peaches and apple juice.

I mean, one week he ate yogurt 12 times, chocolate 5, and nothing more than 3 times in a week and drank 16 cups of milk; this week he had peaches 20 times (3 meals a day, almost 7 days a week!), peanut butter 4, and nothing else more than 3 times with 15 cups of apple juice and 10 cups of milk.

The doc tells us that somehow this is sufficient nutrition for a 2 year old, but how is it possible to get the micronutrients a person needs from only dairy products or only fruit??

Selling the House on the (South) Beach

Some of you, remembering our earlier glowing reports of life on the South Beach Diet may be mildly confused at how I could be so very disappointed with it. Yes, I lost 25-30 pounds in the first three months, an unprecedented weight loss, May to July last year. Joy also lost about 20 pounds. What's to complain about?

The promise is 8-14 pounds the first two weeks and a pound a week thereafter and that pound a week has not been present since September. That's more than half a year of nothing. Not only nothing, but the 5 pounds I put on around Thanksgiving have never come off, despite spending more than a month on the stringent Level 1 and 'cheating' during level 2 to make it really level 1.5 for the last three months.

There's a difference between maintaining my weight on my own terms and following someone else's restrictions without seeing any benefit. There's a difference between maintaining when that's your goal and maintaining when you ought to be seeing progress. It's just gotten frustrating.

That, and our notoriously variable WiiFit scale pushed me over the edge. It claimed yesterday I had gained 10 pounds. Today, the 10 are gone again. But I have this problem that I believe the scale whenever it says I gain weight and I doubt it when it says I lose. This is not healthy. So when it said I had gained 10, South Beach's days were numbered.

So time to try something new! Another lifestyle. One that lets me have a little more whole wheat each day and more fruit in exchange for a little less meat. Joy thinks she might be headed toward trying a Weight Watchers system. I just want a few months proving I can hold my own on my own and enjoying it.

So, goodbye South Beach. Thank you for the 15 pounds. I appreciate it. Maybe I'll come and visit some day.

3-11-10

Looks like something fun is happening at the Watsons. Derrill's brother and his wife are visiting for spring break, but why all the decorations?







Oh that must be it. The little giant is finally 2 years old. Hyrum is a toddler. I took the day off work to spend time with him and make the day special.




Hyrum usually shows his interest in something by being very intent and serious-looking, so most of the pictures I got are of a very intent, serious-looking boy fascinated by his presents. One present stood out on the cheering and giggling scale, though: Grandma Straw sent him a Sorcerer Mickey Mouse. He saw it and immediately asked to watch and listen to The Sorcerer's Apprentice. He danced Mickey around and showed him to everyone multiple times with great ecstasy. Now he's started sleeping with Mickey in the crib too. Congratulations, Grandma Straw.

Here's a video of his fun with Mickey, starting with a kiss and ending with a laugh-inducing request for milk:



There were many other hits, though. Joy got Hyrum another toy phone. This one is perhaps the most phone-looking toy phone he's had. He picked it up, put it to his ear, and started having a conversation. He even held it to his ear to open the next presents! So far, we know he's talked to Pop and Boo, Daddy, and Bob the Builder on the phone.




Pop and Boo got Hyrum this nifty tent and tunnel set for his soft ball collection. We invited a few friends his age over - so sorry for the others who couldn't come due to illness! - to run through the tunnel and throw balls around. Hy had a lot of fun playing with them. They also enjoyed some homemade play dough and dug through a big container of rice to hunt for presents and tops. Hy enjoyed crawling through the tunnel by himself, but wanted to watch the other kids and throw balls around.

Joy adds, "It was really nice at the party that the kids tended to get tired of activities about the same time. And they all enjoyed the activities that we had and it was fun - kind of busy. We had some fun. It looked like everyone else did too. Emilee did a great job helping Hyrum with the rice and Steve did a great job of helping Hyrum with his play dough. They also helped clean up and helped it all go smoothly. I'm also really thankful for Derrill who organized a lot of it and insisted there be more than one guest - a good thing since several couldn't make it."

It was a major production for us, unaccustomed as we are to multiple kids or throwing parties. We were glad Steve and Emie were around to help out - Uncle Steve dumped the entire tent of balls out on one of the kids, to his delight.

Hyrum successfully blew out his two candles after enough tries.

The big reason for inviting other kids over was because when Hyrum went to James' birthday party, he saw the other kids eating cake and he tried it too. So Joy made the same vegan chocolate cake for this party and when he saw the other kids eating it, he tried some too. It wasn't much, but he ate a little! Woohoo!

"It was really cute to see them gathered around to eat cake. It was like seeing miniature people. They were just sitting there all agog waiting for ice cream and cake. It was like the reason they got together was to eat ice cream and cake and it was exciting and fun. That kind of anticipation is exciting. Hyrum didn't know what was going on, but the other kids did."

In every sense, it was a much more successful party than the traumatizing one we threw for Hyrum alone last year. To assist, we introduced him to some of the activities the day before. They all passed.


The tent came with two "complimentary gifts" that the company wanted us to review. These glasses with silly, flexible ear pieces were one of them. Hyrum opened the glasses, pulled on the ear pieces and in 2 seconds flat had torn both of them out. What a cheap thing! Are they sure they really want a review from us?



Pop and Boo also got Hyrum a truck book he loved and a numbers puzzle he has enjoyed putting together a few times - it goes up to 20.

Uncle Steve and Aunt Emilee gave him a set of Lightning McQueen Cars cars. They were worried nothing could compete with Mickey for attention, but he was quite enthralled with them too. So enthralled, he wasn't interested in opening this great big package in front of him. So Mommy told him it was a ramp for the cars. He played with them for a bit longer, then parked them under the couch in a line.



Imagine his surprise when he opened the big box to discover a truck filled with hot-wheels-like cars. He got them all out, lined them up several different ways. Then he gathered them up in his arms and sat on them to make sure no one stole them from him. I asked him where his smile was, and this is him showing me where it's hidden. A big Mommy win.

We got him a bunch of books, some Handy Manny toys - of which his favorite is the flashlight and my least favorite is the pliers because they are very annoying to get out of the toolbox and they hurt putting them back in - a Bob Builder and a Toy Story memory match game (two parents with one mind), a couple easy puzzles, a slate to draw on, a Bob the Builder video and some other Bob merchandise. Our card to him has Mr. Rogers singing to him, but Grammy's card to him took the cake: Alvin and the Chipmunks singing "Funky Town," changing their tune depending on which of them you press. I think we're going to hear a lot of Funky Town soon.

We opened some of Pop and Boo's gifts the night before and some the day of while they joined us via webcam. This is them watching him open one of our presents to him.

Random Goings-On

Derrill cut Joy's hair. "Yay! I like having cut hair." It's a few inches shorter so it isn't as likely to drag on the ground.

Derrill got a rejection notice on a journal article. He sent it back out the same day to another journal. "Yay, Derrill"

We have broken 4 dishes this month while washing them: three cups and a bowl.

This week, Hyrum met Winnie the Pooh on television. Pooh books are in ascension as a result. Hyrum's Buzz Lightyear stock is down, though it may be making a comeback in heavy playing today. Bob the Builder reigns supreme. "To the point that he has to carry a Bob DVD case everywhere he goes." The Bob the Builder theme song has now had more play time than the Hallelujah Chorus, with "Bob Song" the number 1 two-word request.

Hyrum has begun using the word "more" when he wants more food in combination with the food he wants. Sometimes, though, it's just "m," as in "m Peachy." Today he ate 2-3 ounces of dark chocolate.

We finished books!

• Harry Potter 6 - the family book
• Talking for Two - a romance novel about a shy ventriilogquist who wants to do the Lord's work.
• By Love Restored - a romance novel about a remodeler hooking up with a former beau whose house she is working on.
• Doctrine and Covenants - family scripture study for 2009
• Moving in His Majesty and Power - Elder Neal A. Maxwell's last religious book - finished the manuscript days before he died.
• Finding Light in a Dark World - A collection of Pres. James E. Faust's talks, including some really 'political' material
• The Infinite Atonement - Elder Callister describing many ways in which the Atonement is infinite and has the power to bless our lives
• Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson, a unique fantasy work - unique world, unique magic setup, intriguing characters, minimal reliance on blatant archetypes, very difficult to predict
• Joy is 1 week away from finishing the Old Testament and I'm thirdway to halfway through "Scoop," "Mansfield Park," and Easterly's "The White Man's Burden"

We both decided that we won Facebook's Cafe World and have largely stopped playing them. Joy has also given up on FarmVille and I've abandoned 3-4 FB games as well. I've also been enjoying (once a week) my new Tropico 3 game.

We really enjoy teaching a temple prep class for a couple friends getting married soon. It's fun to spend time with them, it's fun to spend time talking about temples, and I've been learning a lot of new scriptural insights as I answer questions. Our sacrament talks for two weeks and the temple prep classes have really dominated our scripture study lately, Joy notes.

Joy has returned to the Wii My Fitness Coach for exercise, leaving Hyrum to the VeggieTales Dance Dance Revolution or putting him in his playpen for getting impossibly underfoot.

Derrill has been greatly disappointed by the South Beach Diet the last month. We've been on level 1 - the fast weight loss section - for 3 of the last 5 weeks and I've got about nothing to show for it. We're back on level 2 and I'm kind of discouraged. "Joy is not discouraged."

We decided to start adding in-season fruits and vegetables to the diet "so that we might obey the Word of Wisdom more fully" and had three grapefruits. We enjoyed them with a few drops of vanilla and some Sweet and Low. We think the pink grapefruit won out over the white or red, with the red being Joy's least favorite. Tomorrow we will eat fresh beets and beet greens.

Nastiest Cracker Award

When I last went to Sam's Club (aka my new best friend) Joy - my forever best friend - told me to get some really whole grain salty crackers.

"It said Wheat Thins. You just didn't notice" she avers.

It looked like it said Things as the heading of the list and below it, wheat crackers. And we had talked about it.

So anyway, I bought these Crunchmaster Multigrain Crackers, certified Gluten Free! All Natural! Crunchy Oven Baked! 100% whole grain! Cholesterol Free! Low Sodium! Ingredients: brown rice meal, sesame seeds, potato starch, quinoa seeds, safflower oil and a few more seeds. Good stuff.

"If they're good for your health, our health wasn't ready for them." Joy told me the other day she had tried them and that they weren't agreeing with her - that she was still tasting them, in fact. So I figured this needed a man's stomach as well. "Your stomach's worse than mine!" Yes, it is.

I tried one. It wasn't that bad. It had a very distinctive taste. Quite a focaccia bread flavor.
I tried a second. It wasn't that good. There's this funny aftertaste....
I tried a third. It was NASTY. I threw the fourth one I had grabbed away.

Joy ate five. Hooray for my discerning palate. The crackers spoke to us both, from every orifice "and woke me up in the middle of the night!" And both of us happily bid them a fond farewell today as they were introduced to a watery grave.

Joy's best comment was, "If we don't return them, I want to set them on fire ... only the fumes would probably be toxic."

We are not paid by the yummy Wheat Thins, nor by the rip-your-guts-out Crunchmasters.

Hyrum's other December adventures - a Joy post

Meal time has really progressed into something fun which I had never supposed possible. Hyrum will go to take a bite and then wrinckle up his face and say “oooooooo” . I will then laugh, he will give me an adoring grin and laugh too. What comes next is just as funny. He will purposely try to get me to laugh again, but his laugh becomes more fake the more times he tries it. But, although fake sounding it still produces his desired affect, because I will laugh even harder at the fake laugh than I did at the real one.

Fun new words for Hyrum are ‘clean’ when he wants his hands clean, and Fanm for Farm (old McDonald) He loves that song. Additionally Hyrum now says song as a way to request music, which is great, because music is his most requested item, besides Buzz Lightyear or Bob Builder.

So speaking of Buzz, a new game that Hyrum has replicated a few times is to put a toy on dad’s office chair (stand it up or put it in a specific place) and spin the chair. The game started by Hyrum being in the chair and mom spinning him, then he progress to spinning balls and now the special subject is Buzz. Buzz have only one rule the he is supposed to follow. Hyrum wants him to remain standing. As you can imagine, this is a little difficult for Buzz, but they are sometime successful in playing it according to the rules.

Yesterday Hyrum took apart his spiral ball toy. We didn’t stop him, but I didn’t rush to fix it for him. Infact I didn’t rush so much that Derrill got to putting it together before I did. It's the toy Derrill mentioned in the other post about frogs.

So now that the holidays are finally over it has been time for me to sanitize the house again. This means putting all of his toys in plastic bags or something so that he has to interact with me to get to them. It encourages social and language interactions and make me look like a big ‘chocolate chip cookie’ as the behavioralist that was over a couple conferences that I went to explains. Every time we spend time together we have fun and it has really improved our relationship. If he has free access to all of his toys he just plays and ignores me a lot. This technique has really stoked up his language quickly.

Hyrum has become a very persistent counter. He sits in his crib during nap time and practices saying ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOne-ah, Twoooooo’ and he uses all his little energy in each word and spits with the Two. He is also quite fond of 9 and 10. When we finish time out we always count out the last 10 seconds and about 7 or 8 (or during the whole thing) Hyrum with say, ‘ni, ni, ten!’ by the time he say said he is in a pretty good mood no matter how bad timeout was. What I find fascinating is that he has already generalized counting into conducting. Because when he conducts the Halleluiah chorus, he says ‘1, 2….. 1, 2’ but when he points each object gets both a 1 and a 2 in quick succession.

Another fun number thing with Hyrum is while eating. He will tell us his word for each food that he likes to eat as his request. The beginning of December Derrill started a new game with Hyrum that he loves. After Hyrum lets us know what kind of food he wants to eat, then we ask him how many. He usually responds with ‘TWO!’ and we give him 2 spoonfuls. Sometimes he will just say the number and not type of food, but we wheedle it out of him.

Two new favorites for Hyrum of books are Hands are Not for Hitting and Germs are not for Sharing. There is book that we read with Hyrum that he almost always giggles when we read it. It is ‘Red Hat, Blue Hat’ and because of the book he has started to say Ooops all by himself. It is a riot, as you can see in the video.

And news flash, Hyrum will finally wear a hat, on occasion. Some of the necessary requirements are that it is HIS idea and that the hat go on and off when he wants it to. He is pretty proud of himself for putting it on. He is mostly interested in hats that dad has been wearing recently.

Playing with blue play doh has also become a must, infact at the beginning of a meal yesterday he was so determined to play with it he told us he was all done eating after only a couple of bites. We told him he could be all done, but he was going to a nap and not playing with playdoh, he finally was willing to eat his lunch, but it took a while to convince him we were firm on that decision.

Snow time is fun too. Hyrum calls it Sonow. I go out to shovel and he goes out to tromp, fall, and get hit with the snow that I shovel over his head. It is all in fun. It really started out as a technique to keep him close to me and out of the road and has turned into a game. I get a large shovel full of snow and say ‘up…. And over’ as I pick it up and thrown it on to the nearest pile. Well, Hyrum started trying to get close to me as I was doing this so I would throw it over his head, which he get the biggest kick out of . But he likes it even more is a little snow falls him on the way over. He also helped me sweep some snow off of the car.

He is a fascinating kid in every way.