The Joys of Nursing

Warning: Men way want to skip this post. :)

I found this a couple years ago and thought it was hilarious. I remembered the part about the "sack of squirming puppies" (PERFECT description of trying to feed Nate right now) and so I looked it up again. Still just as funny.

How to Prepare for Nursing

Forget that old advice about "gently rubbing your nipples with a towel." If you really want to feel ready to breastfeed, here's what to do.

Day 1: Gently rub your nipples with sandpaper.

Day 2: At bedtime, set your alarm clock to go off every two hours. Each time it rings, spend 20 minutes sitting in a rocking chair with your nipples clamped in a pair of chip clips.

Day 3: Draw branching lines all over your chest with a blue-green marker, then stand in front of your bathroom mirror and sing "I feel Pretty."

Day 4: Open your already-crowded freezer and make room for five dozen plastic milk bags.

Day 5: Fit the hose of a vacuum cleaner over one breast and set on "medium pile". Turn off vacuum when nipple is three inches long. Switch breasts.

Day 6: Obtain "DO NOT CROSS" tape from your local police station, then wrap firmly around your chest. When your spouse asks about it, say "Get used to it".

Day 7: Tape a water balloon to each breast and squeeze into a maternity bra. Repeatedly hook and unhook the nursing flaps with one hand while using the other to balance a sack of squirming puppies.

Day 8: Dine in the fanciest, snootiest restaurant you can afford, making sure to arrive with a big wet spot directly over each nipple.

Day 9: Record your mother proclaiming "Just give the baby some cereal like God intended, and she'll sleep right through the night." Play an endless loop at 1 A.M., 3 A.M. and 5 A.M.

Day 10: Slather your breasts with peanut butter, top with birdseed, and stand very still in your backyard.

Day 11: Go someplace public--a museum, a courthouse, the steps of your office building--and stuff a lifelike baby doll under your shirt. Use the doll's arm to suddenly hike the shirt up past your collar bone. Lower shirt. Feign nonchalant smile.

Day 12: Suckle a wolverine.

Congratulations! You are now ready to nurse a baby. Maybe.

New Things

OK, so I found that piece of paper with her name written so nicely (see last post). Here it is:

And, just the other day, the girls were coloring pictures for Joe and Natalie wrote this on the back of hers all by herself (with spelling help from Lizzie):
It says "For Dad", with an extra O in there. She hadn't ever written an F or an R before. I was very impressed. (She also decided that her D looked like a door so she drew a doorknob on it :)

Nate officially rolled over all by himself the other day.

He really enjoys rolling over about this far:

Then, he normally decides that it's about far enough and just hangs out like that.

One night he went all the way over:

I thought he was going to be mad....

...nope! Happy as can be!

Here's some more cute/funny things to remember:

-We were battling ants for quite awhile and finally triumphed, thank goodness. During that time, the girls suddenly decided that they wanted an ant for a pet and decided to name one of them New Hampshire (no idea where that came from). I informed them that ants must die when they are inside our house and squished it (this was in the heat of the battle, mind you, so I didn't have time to be sentimental). Don't worry, they weren't broken up about it. But, forever after, whenever they'd find an ant they'd say, "New Hampshire! It's you!" And then I would go squish it. :)

-Because of the princess obsession in our house, we have talked a lot about the fact that some countries have kings, queens and princesses, but in our country we have a president. I have even gone so far as to say that we, as Americans, believe having a president is best since we can just get someone else to be president if he's mean or doesn't do a good job. One day we were talking about something along these lines when Elizabeth mentioned how "King Junior was a good king, though." I had no idea what she was talking about until I finally figured it out--Martin Luther King, Jr. We had an FHE lesson on him on the holiday. I guess they didn't quite understand what we were telling them. :)

-One day, Natalie suddenly announced at dinner: "Well, there's only one thing to say....no." When we asked what she was saying no to she said, "I will never find my hula girl. No never."

Just for the record, she did find it.

Sayings to Remember

(I've been compiling this for awhile)

-As we were getting ready for lunch one day, I was holding Nate and Natalie all of the sudden asks, "Why didn't we buy a girl baby?"

-I was making a dessert one night for a Relief Society activity and Elizabeth asked me,"Are those for the young women or the big giant women?"

-"Foof": Definition: The certain quality of a dress or skirt that allows it to stick out while twirling or stationary. Used as a verb or adjective and commonly combined with "out". I.e. "I can't wear that dress. It doesn't foof out!" or, when asked why she is standing over the air vent, "It makes my dress foofier!"

-Joe was undoing his tie in the hallway when Elizabeth said: "You'd better get dressed in your room, Daddy, because no one wants to see that."

-Whenever the girls want to make a pile of blankets they always refer to it as the "Biggest Jumping Pile Ever" and nothing less, i.e. "Mom, can we make the Biggest Jumping Pile Ever?"

Fun Game

I was looking for something the other day and I came across these little stacks of paper that I had saved. Back in April (I think) we played a really fun game at Joe's dad's house with some of his family. The credit goes to Jordan and Luci for teaching us this game. It's fun to play with bigger groups of people.

This is how it works: Cut up a stack of white paper into quarters so that every person playing has a stack with the same number of papers as people that are playing (or the square of the number of people). For example, if there are 9 people playing you need 81 little papers, 9 stacks of 9, one stack for each person. Have everyone number their papers 1 to 9 (or whatever). Everyone starts by writing a common phrase or a lyric from a song on page 1. Then they pass their stack face down to the person next to them. That person looks at what is written, puts that page at the back of the stack and tries to draw what was written on page 2. Then they pass it to the next person who looks only at what is drawn and tries to write a phrase for what they see. This alternates on until it gets back to the person who started it. Then, everyone can look at the results. So, it's basically a cross between charades and telephone.

Anyway, I wanted to post my two favorite progressions. These probably won't be funny to anyone but those who were there. You'll have to enlarge the pictures. Pay attention to the numbers to see the order.

Funny Video

I had seen this video before but I recently rediscovered it. It makes me laugh hard and gives me a happy feeling in my heart every time I watch it. Joe can watch it over and over. We decided it is definitely blog-worthy. Hopefully no one will be offended. :)

Watch this video