The Blogdens

In good spirits.

2011-11-13T11:38:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago was Halloween. I don't think I know anyone who's not a fan of Halloween.You have to be old and sprouting nose-hairs not to get at least a little enjoyment out of All Hallow's. That day is perhaps one of man's greatest innovations.

It's a guilt-free holiday (unless you happened to make this mistake); here's no need to ferret after the true meaning of Halloween. The true meaning is candy and last-minute costumes and skulls dangling from the bushes outside. Strap some foam on your back and stuff your face with sugar. You won't miss anything.

These are pictures from our Ward Halloween Party, which is a strange monster itself. The children, most of them under the age of four, have no idea what Halloween is. What they do know is they get to wear their dress-ups/pajamas to church and eat candy for dinner. It's as though the known universe has turned inside-out.

Inside the chapel gymnasium you can see Primary leaders shooing knee-high crowds of confused, stumbling princesses, cowboys, and various plush animals every which way--through hula hoops draped with streamers, under broomsticks with bits of donuts tied on strings, and past cardboard villages with phantom hands doling out candy.

That was Leo's favorite part. Every time he was handed a piece of candy, he had a look of incredulity on his face. Yes, they just give this stuff away. Can you believe it.

Everyone loved our costumes best. True.

On Halloween Proper we invited some dead people over.

Actually this picture isn't from Halloween proper. It's from Saturday. But they still came over.

We made a ton of spooky food. Worms, fingers, and bloody cupcakes. We set out all our final Halloween decor, lit our pumpkins, and tucked into our candy while watching Dial M for Murder in the dark.

Left to right: Jordan's demon pumpkin, Alison's Jack Skellington, Heidi's Harry Potter, my Wimpy Kid, and Sarah's spooky owl. Jon's was a little too abstract, and ended up not having a place for a candle to rest.

The decorations I made were spooktacular. And so punny, because that's what Halloween is all about, Charlie Brown.

All in all, it was a decent enough success. We all enjoyed ourselves, ate tons of sugar, and had nightmarish dreams about Hitchcock-esque psychopaths. It was the perfect end to the season of spirits.

I documented the details of our decorations, so if you want to see how festive we were, read after the jump.

That's Jon's pumpkin in the upper left. And some brains in the front.

Jordan's demon got more and more slouchy the longer he sat on the stoop. I think it was a good effect.

Street level.

For nerds.

Punny. On the left.

We really did kill an atheist, though.

That bloody cupcake is giving you the finger.

Made out of jello poured into straws. They were delicious and not that hard to make. Jon brought some to his work Halloween party and no one ate a single worm. Success. He also brought some of the finger cookies I made, which got eaten up like a snap, and won first place in the spooky food contest.

Eating worms.

Carving pumpkins, which we did the week before.

So scary.

Also.

End.

Picketing and Pumpkining

2011-10-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago we traveled downtown to experience Occupy Salt Lake City. We made and brought signs and marched around busy intersections for a while. Leo enjoyed the chanting and sang along from time to time.

He's very informed. And passionate about ending corporatism.

I'd never been part of a rally or protest before. The participants were an interesting mix. Many of those actually occupying Salt Lake (camping in tents at Pioneer Park) were probably scraped from the bottom of the hard-knocks barrel, and seemed to be happy to just have a place to congregate without getting hassled. They were ragged in more than one way (hair, beards, tattered bandannas tied to every odd body part). There were rows of denim jackets, shorts, and jeans strewn on the grass to dry, and a big cardboard sign that said "Weed Draws COPS. Do Your Drugs SOMEWHERE ELSE."

For the most part we kept clear of the campers. We were really just there for the march. The marchers were more evenly mixed; middle class folk, a few retirees, and two or three babies in strollers (Leo included).

There were quite a few Ron Paul supporters there, which I think Chris (our friend who went with us) and Jon were pretty happy about that. I think they weren't so happy about the fact that a lot of them were grade-A nutters.

And by the time we got back to the park, a brawl had broken out amongst the permanent campers. Pretty soon after that we headed home.

This week we went to Estrada Farms in Lehi to pick out some pumpkins for ourselves.

There was a bouncy house.

And a maze.

And a train ride.

And a corn pit.

We were some of the only people there, but we had fun. Leo enjoyed Michael Jackson on the loudspeakers, and the pumpkins we picked were so lovely.

We carved them for Family Night, but that will be in the next post. Halloween is just a breath away. Our house is going to be properly festive, so if you're around on Halloween night, drop by for some candy.

Dear Leo,

2011-10-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

You turned one year old over a month ago.

You won't remember any of this when you read it, so let me tell you about you. Then I'll tell you about us, about me and your dad, about all the people you know (or some of them, anyway).

You love music. Whenever any kind of music comes on--in the grocery store, on commercials, someone's cell phone--you dance. You rock back and forth from side to side, your little head bobbing to the beat you imagine is part of the song, even though I don't think you'll learn rhythm for months yet. Just two days ago we brought you to a wedding reception for some of our friends, Skoticus and Kirsten, and we took you up to the house attic, the stairs hidden behind a bookshelf in the hallway. In the attic a stereo blared, a disco ball twirled on the ceiling, and you hobbled around the room, bobbing and swaying to Michael Jackson, Abba, and Michael Buble, whatever came on.

You love books. Hopefully we will still do this when you are old enough to read, but right now we keep stacks and stacks of books all over the house. Most of them within reach are yours--picture books, board books, some that we've checked out from the library, some that we've bought or been given as gifts. You love Sandra Boynton's books. We read The Going to Bed Book several times a day. We all have it memorized--me, Dad, even Heidi and Allison, because we all live together in this house, and you've come waddling up to each of us in turn, The Going to Bed Book in hand. Sometimes you throw it. Just to be sure we're paying attention.

Really, you love any book. You love How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms? and Are You My Mother? and Hop on Pop! and even Lambs, which is the stupidest book I've ever read. For a long time your favorite book was From Head to Toe, which your aunt Sarah gave to you before you were born. You would clap your hands with the seal and thump your chest with the gorilla. You would even screech out a little mew when we turned to the cat page. We lost the book, though. It's probably here somewhere, but I've just ordered a new one on Amazon because we have free shipping.

Skipping back, you also love throwing. You throw anything. Forks, bowls, bits of food, crayons, toys, blocks, and your favorite, pens and pencils. Heidi keeps a pen jar (more of a pail, actually) on her nightstand. You pull it down and throw the pens everywhere in the room, and then everywhere in the dining room just outside Heidi's room. You love the smack, smack, smack of plastic or pencil on linoleum.

[Ready to throw.]

You walk. When you read this you won't remember what it was like to pull yourself around the room by your arms, or to crawl from thing to thing, pulling out low-reach drawers and shelves. You used to pull all the books from off the bottom shelves of all the bookshelves in the house.

Now we pack the books in so tight, even we can't pull them out. Just the other day I came into the bedroom looking for a book, a biography I wanted to reference, and you walked right up to the bookshelf and pointed to it. It was spooky and hilarious both.

You love to go outside. Often, in the morning when you wake up, you grab me by the finger and pull me down the hall, around the kitchen, through the living room, and straight to the front door. You point and babble and I know you want to go outside, even though it's awful and cold and sometimes raining very hard. We've walked up and down the sidewalk so many times, me holding your finger, or steering you away from the street and busy driveways. We've walked together halfway to the library, which is just four blocks away. I carried you the rest of the way. You're barely bigger than you were at six months, but my arms still get pretty tired holding you.

You love, love, love to be held, and you walk into the room and point up at me or anyone there and hoot until one of us picks you up. We all get tired of it, though. We're glad you can walk.

The doctor told me to start feeding you ice cream. You're not big enough, he says. In fact, 90% of babies out-weigh you, their chubby arms and leg rolls fill up their 12- and 18-month clothes, while you still wear 6-month clothes with ease. You are petite, but your belly puffs out over your diaper, a round little tub that you slap and smack whenever you can reach it. Everything else about you is skinny and slim. You have strange, grown-up proportions. People always say you look just like a little man, which is true. Your great-grandma Layton always says you look so incredibly sharp, and we all wonder what's going on behind your round eyes, your concentrated face.

People also say you're so serious, so calm. I think they just don't know you well enough.

You are almost always laughing, and you inject your laughter into everyone's conversations, because that's what you've learned from us. You cut in after someone speaks with a loud HA HA HA HA. You even do this in public, which we learned when you laughed in the middle of a film Q&A which we went to for one of aunt Sarah's film premiers.

You know where your nose is, and where my nose is. You know who Daddy is, though you won't ever say so. You won't say a single thing. For one day you said "baba" whenever we said "bottle," but because you know signs, you don't see the need to speak. You sign "milk" and "water" and "more" and always, always, always "food, food, food, food, food."

You aren't fully weaned yet, and you used to like all the foods we would give you. Now you eat a few bites and get bored, though you still like most foods.

You absolutely do not like potatoes. Roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, you don't like them. You like french fries and sweet potatoes, but not regular white potatoes, which is fine because we don't really eat them anyway. You also don't like red peppers, but we think it's because of the strange texture. You eat plenty of spicy foods, even though some people don't think you should. We think you should, and I guess that's all that matters.

We eat mostly fruits vegetables at our house, and the vegetables are mostly roasted. Tossed with whole grain noodles or spooned over brown rice.

[Purple berry juice face. At the farmer's market.]

[Spying on chickens at a local farm. And eating pizza there:]

We also love pizza here, with home made whole wheat dough and goat cheese and pesto and we even put figs and plums on a few when we had pizza last. You like pizza, though to be honest, you probably prefer candy and cupcakes, which Heidi is almost always ready to give you. We call her the Candy Aunt.

Heidi watches you all the time. You might think this is strange when someday you're older and Heidi is a grownup with kids of her own, but right now you are the best of friends. When you get up in the morning you walk into the kitchen and beg me for food, but then straightaway you walk over to Heidi's door and pat, pat, pat on it with your hand. She's not always there, but when she is, sometimes I just push open the door and let you play with all the toys in her room.

You also love Allison's room. Allison used to live a few houses down from Nana and Pop-pop back in Seattle. She grew up playing with Aunts Heidi, Hannah, and Naomi. She moved to Utah to take a break from her house. She goes to community college in Salt Lake City. We make fun of her for doing laundry all the time, just like we make fun of Dad for mowing the lawn all the time, or of Heidi for doing homework all the time, or of me for always, always, always being so dang hungry. Allison plays with you every day, and you always go to her when you want to go outside. She's very good at letting you just play and play, even if you make a mess.

Dad doesn't like the messes so much, though that doesn't mean they don't happen.

He likes a clean house, which will probably still be the case when you read this letter. He does the dishes all the time, and always wants to have Clean-Up Hour, which is good after a week of school and letting the dishes and laundry and clothes pile up. The house isn't always clean, but this morning it is. And this morning, he gave you a bath, though this isn't a picture of it.

[This is from your first birthday, right after you did this:]

[Though this is from your actual birthday:]

Dad is very much into politics, and spends lots of time reading and writing and watching news clips online. He's reading the Constitution right now, along with a handful of books about economics and health care and government policies. He's a devoted Ron Paul supporter, and has taken you to the farmer's market several times while canvassing with his friend, Chris.

[This is us at the farmer's market. You're on the phone, apparently.]

Dad works in Salt Lake City as a writer for Allen Communications. He makes a long commute every day, and the hour back and forth (sometimes more) is usually when he gets in a lot of his reading. He likes his job, and we think we might move up to Salt Lake when I'm finished with school if his job still works for us.

I'm still in school. I finished my MA and started my MFA right after you were born (about two weeks after, in fact).

I have classes every day except for Fridays. I get up early (between 6:00 and 6:30) to write, because I have a hard time writing when you're awake. You like to pound on the keyboard and steal the mouse and squawk until I stop typing.

We gave you your own mouse to play with, and sometimes you're content to click around and peer up at the computer screen while I work, but not usually. I write for class and I write my novel, which will be my thesis for my MFA. I just got all the signatures for my prospectus done this week. It's the first step in the journey toward my totally finished MFA, and I'm excited to move forward. The last degree was hard, and emotionally tiring, in part because I kept having to do parts of it over and over and over (I never did get it quite right, I think), and in part because I was heavy and pregnant with you, which sometimes makes you tired and frustrated and you start crying for no reason. I think you'll probably learn this someday, maybe when you have your own pregnant wife. Be sure to hug her lots.

I keep entering writing contests, mostly this is because they always give you free food at the awards ceremonies, and I love free food more than anything, especially when it involves several courses. I went to an awards luncheon this past week and brought Aunt Sarah with me. We dabbed our faces with cloth napkins and Aunt Sarah didn't know which forks to use for which parts of the meal. It was delicious and I hope someday you'll have reasons to go to fancy dinners and eat food with french names and artsy sauce squiggles on the side of the plate.

[This was your birthday dinner.]

But award money, right now, also goes toward paying our bills. We've been able to save up some and we're not in debt at all as I write this. Hopefully when you read this we'll have house payments to take care of, or maybe not even that. We like renting this place. I love how old it is, even though the walls are not so good at keeping out the cold. We have a crumbly brick fireplace and a guy buried in the driveway. He was a lieutenant who died in WWII, and his headstone sits right below the driver's side door when we pull into the driveway. Whenever something does wrong with the house, or whenever we hear strange settling noises, we always say it must be Father Lawrence.

We have a front yard and a back yard, which I love, and which I doubt we will have in the next place we live. We have trees in the back and a planter full of veggies I tried to take care of, but that mostly died from the snails that infest the whole yard.

[Our only fruits from our vegetable garden.]

[When I said we ate mostly vegetables, I did mean *mostly*]

When it was warmer (which it was until just Thursday) we used to go outside in our bare feet and pad around the yard. You and Heidi chased and caught grasshoppers, and Heidi swears one pooped (and peed) in her hand.

You don't like to sleep. You used to suck on a binky as you fell asleep, but now if we try and give you one, you pull it out of your mouth and throw it and cry. Sometimes you can get so angry and thrashing. Most nights I nurse you and cuddle up with you until you fall asleep in our bed. Sometimes you stay there until morning, sometimes Dad picks you up and places you gently into your crib at the foot of our bed. You kick Dad a lot in your sleep, so much that he usually has to move to the floor if you don't sleep in your crib. We only got the crib a month ago. Before that you either slept with us, or on a little crib mattress on the floor that we bought on sale at IKEA.

[Gymnastic sleeper.]

We love having you close. I missed you when you stopped sleeping next to us, even though we all got plenty more sleep. You sleep through the night now, mostly, though you go to bed late, late, late. Ten at the earliest, midnight at the latest. You sleep in like a teenager, sometimes til nine thirty or ten. You take about one nap a day, and when you don't, you're an angry wreck. You won't fall asleep on your own. I usually nurse you or bounce you in my arms until you sleep. Sometimes I sing, but that also keeps you awake, too. You love music, like I said. You also fall asleep in the car, almost every time.

I know there is so much more I could tell you, but I worry that this letter is too long already. I wonder if you'll ever actually read it. I hope so. I hope when you read this that you'll know that I love you, and Dad does, and so do all of your aunts and grandparents and great-grandparents. We love to hold you and laugh at your silly things. Sometimes when you sleep I stand by your crib and put my hand on your back or your belly and I feel nervous and calm and happy and curious about how you'll be and what you'll be like. I promise I'll keep writing to you and I hope someday you read this and wonder at how you could ever, possibly have been so small and different. But you probably won't be as different as you think, and I'm so excited to see who you are. I love you. We all do.

Love,

Mom

PS - I hope you love every single birthday, your whole lifetime through.

Leo loves the library.

2011-09-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

I know I should write more about everything. Everything. About the move, about Leo's first birthday, about Leo learning to walk, about me and my MFA program, and Jon and his new job in the city, but I just haven't ~~had~~ taken the time.

I do need to post these, however, for my mother.

So here they are. Grandbaby walking.

It was Leo's first walk. He made it about two blocks and then I carried him the rest of the way to the library where he took down two full shelves of books. Even the librarians were chasing him down.

I feel the boy is made for great things.

In which we vacate.

2011-07-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

We have just built a barricade out of an old cardboard box. It comes up to my knees and wraps around the computer desk and the legs of my chair so that Leo can't stickify my legs and computer. He climbs up the side of the cardboard and pokes his head over the top so that only his eyes are visible. Then he giggles like a girl and pops out of sight again.

We've had a good summer so far. Most days we run in the mornings (I run. Leo rides in style), then hop in the pool for an hour or so. While Leo sleeps I try to finish things, like dishes and laundry and my epic middle grade novel.

I went to my conference, rubbed elbows with some excellent writers and editors and the literary agent of my dreams (Mary Kole of kidlit.com), and came home with many excellent ideas for rewrites. I've only taken that thing out once in the past month but I'm still a writer.

Earlier this summer we visited Jon's sister in Arizona, where it was too hot to breathe. We went to the zoo and swam and learned about Indians (the teepee kind, not the outsourcing kind). We watched Dr. Who and played games and saw cacti and went on an art walk. Lovely.

There were cousins and monkeys and plenty of dirt-eating.

Just kidding. That wasn't from Arizona. That was from Washington. I meant this one:

But yes, weeks later we went to the Jensen corner of the country, up to Orcas Island by car and by ferry and, for Jon, by little plane. We kayaked and combed the chilly beaches for crabs.

We hiked around waterfalls and walked through the shops on the island, we even treated ourselves to Bumbleberry pie at Passionate for Pies. Of course, we ate far too much, but that is just the way of the Jensens. Fat.

[fat].

Since then it's been Jon's season for work. He was offered a job today. There would be a long daily commute, which he'd probably take by bus, but it seems like a good fit so far. He may just take it.

As for me, I've done a lot of home-maker-ish type things lately. Mostly it's because Leo won't let me sit down at the computer (as soon as I do he's squawking and squealing such awful sounds). He prefers to sit at my feet in the kitchen and pull towels and rubbermaids out of the within-reach drawers while I do whatever it is I can do while he's distracted.

And so I've spent plenty of time in the kitchen. I do the dishes almost, nearly, close to every day (which is a thing I never thought I'd say). But I also have started to teach myself the art of canning (which is also a thing I never thought I'd say). I'm fascinated by the whole process. I think of that crate of apricots from the back of
the fridge now packed away in tight glass jars, stirred up with cardamom and poured through a funnel. I'll pull it out in winter months and try to remember when my feet burned on the sidewalk after jumping out of the pool.

And by then, by then we'll live in a house.

And so we're moving at the end of this month. To a house. A house with a fireplace and wood floors and a yard with rose bushes. It also has a crumbling sidewalk out front and a patch of weeds around the side that could rival a jurassic rainforest, which might be why it's within our price range. Still, I'll have room to stretch and stow my books. We'll finally have a room to use as a study. Right now the computer just hangs out wherever. I'll finally have workspace, a room of my own to tack over with book ideas and pictures of places I want to write.

I've already started packing, but July can't limp along fast enough.

We will, as always, keep you posted.

Eventually.

In which Leo hits his head and claps

2011-05-19T13:13:00.001-07:00

But not in that order.

We're giving you a small update.

We got our wrecked car repaired. We were happy that we didn't have to replace it. Sad, of course, to be parted with our money like fools (for wrecking it in the first place). But happy that we had enough padding in our savings not to miss a meal.

We lately found out we're not going to any PhD programs, acceptance notwithstanding. The pickings are too slim to entice.

We also found out we're not going to Wisconsin, which was off the table almost as quickly as it was on. It's been stressful, but we've decided to stay so I can finish my MFA. Time will tell if we've been fools for yet another year. I'll try to win a few more contests to see if we can make our money back. Or maybe I'll land one of those seven-figure advances that seem to be floating around Utah Valley. I'll keep working on my rewrite (that's right). Try to turn it into cash.

Then again, my novel has neither mermaids nor love-struck werewolves, so probably not.

Leo is blissfully ignorant of all our Decision Making and has not only been crawling, but clapping, sitting, chewing, toothing (there's really just one in there, though we felt the start of another this morning) as well as pulling himself up to stand. It's nerve-wracking and bruise-inducing, but he's not managed anything more than minor brain damage so far.

Kidding, of course. He's fine.

And to prove it, we'll play you this video.

Leo Claps from Becca Lee on Vimeo.

Not a lot, but some.

2011-03-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

Leo crawled.

The Post That Ends With a Smash

2011-03-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, our family used to keep a big ole journal of things we talked about during family night that week.

I remember that part of this was complaints or Issues that the family had to Deal With that week. I suppose now that this was our parents' attempt at involving all the kids in a sort of democratic problem-solving real-worldy situation, but it tended to end in nothing but blood and tears. And some pretty brutal passive aggression.

If you flip through the journal, you'll find some inspiringly snottish entries that we came up with all by ourselves.

Sarah thinks that we should all take our dishes to the sink after we eat instead of leaving them on the table because it's polite and proper and it saves people time when it's their night for the dishes.

Mom thinks that we should make sure to flush twice if it doesn't go down the first time, or go get Dad as soon as there's a problem.

Rachel thinks that people should ask before taking other people's clothes especially since they always stretch them out anyway.

Becca thinks people shouldn't make implicit comments about other people's body types during Family Meeting.

and so on.

It got to be such an awful moment during family night that eventually we banned the practice altogether.

Instead, we started family night by filling in good things that we'd done that week. These are far more entertaining, and just about as uncomfortably revelatory as our Issues entries.

Sarah played a great game on Saturday [code for: she didn't win, but we all took the time to go and watch, so we better write it down].

Becca finished Little Women this week. [code for: Becca has no friends].

Heidi went poop in the big girl potty. [code for: well, you know].

A few years ago, before I married Jon, I was home for a few weeks in the summer. We had a family night and just happened to take out that ole journal again. Having wised up, we went straight for good things and skipped over The Issues.

We started with the youngest and worked our way up the sister list.

As it turns out, that was a very productive year for me. I'd won first place in the best paying fiction contest on campus, was awarded a scholarship for academic excellence, had a paper accepted at the Wordsworth Summer School in the UK, was granted two scholarships to attend and present at the conference, plus I received my BA in English.

And then it was Rachel's turn.

Rachel is The Oldest sibling and tends to suffer the most from my insatiable over-achiever mentality (again, read as: no friends). She is a sweet and charming person who has always been in high demand in our shared social worlds. But on top of that, she is perhaps the best person to have around when you need someone to take charge in a crisis (as you will see later on in this post).

But as it turns out, this year was not as kind to Rachel as it was to me.

Her entry was:

Rachel got a great base tan this year.

No I am not even joking.

So I confess that as I started jotting down our family achievements for the week I was worried that Jon would not even have a good base tan to record, but since then he's outdone me on several accounts, as you will also find out later in this post.

I was inspired to write down a few good things that have happened in the Ogden pod recently. Mostly because I've never really outgrown that desire to enter in, point by point, all the little things that tickle my chin with pride. But also because this was a week for firsts for us, and these are firsts worth recording.

For starters, I just found out that I won:

3rd place in the Elsie C. Carroll Essay Contest
2nd place in the Mayhew Specialty Short Story Contest
1st place in the Anne Doty fiction contest

I also presented a chunk of my thesis at the English Symposium on Friday, and I went to see Markus Zusak at the Provo Library on Saturday, which meant that I heard him speak at around 6:00pm and waited until about 12:15 am to get his signature on my dog-eared copy of The Book Thief.

For Leo this week, I have this to say:

He eats Cheerios like a maniac
Is fun to party with (we really can bring him anywhere, and he is a total delight, as we discovered at our lemon-flavored dinner party this week).
Scoots like a maniac
Didn't even cry as we painted him yellow and orange at this year's Holifest

And Jon:

Was accepted at University of Texas, Dallas
Has discovered that Leo laughs when you say "cat" to him
Didn't even cry when we painted him yellow at this year's Holifest

Nor did I, now that you mention it. In orange.

Though there, Leo looks less convinced.

Yes, we had a great time at Holifest. We smeared our family with colors and ate delicious vegetarian food and enjoyed the reactions of the crowds as we wandered the temple grounds. Most of them thought Leo looked cute, and a chorus of "awwwws" and "cuuuuutes" echoed after us where we went. A few crusty mothers shot dirty looks our way, but we figured that was because they must have forgotten their babies at home and so were jealous of our technicolor babe in arms.

Heidi came with us this year. It was such a spooky delight.

We had a lovely time, dusting each other with rainbowed corn starch and trying to remember not to lick our painted lips or scratch our powdered noses. After a few hours it was time to head back to Provo.

The walk from the temple back to our little white Nissan was a long one. At first, when we passed people Leo was lively and chirping. We amassed scores of compliments and awwws and cuuuutes, but as Leo began to calm and quiet and slip into sleep (looking a little more dead), the awwws were more often accompanied by "poor thing" and "who does that?" and "whoa, that's a real baby!" I am not sure who brings fake babies out and about, but several people made this comment so it must happen more often than I realize.

At the car, we stripped out of our most powdered layers and buckled up for the 20-minute ride, sheets and old towels spread beneath us to catch our shedding colors.

We were happy and bouncy and chalked up with rainbows and high spirits.

(Eminem Leo)

And we were not, could not, should not, have been expecting this:

We'd passed through a green light with a steady stream of traffic. Cars on the left passed us so fast. Then the car in front of us was stopped and Jon said "Oh no!" and slammed on the breaks and

crunch.

No one was hurt. We were safe, safe, safe. The car in front of us was dinged by us, and we think that driver hit the car in front of her before we hit her from behind. We pulled into a parking lot at a bank by the side of the road, and waited for the police to arrive.

After they finished their report, we got in our little dinged thing and tried to start our car.

It was silent.

We spent the next hour or so making phone calls, to Rachel first, then to Mom, then six or seven auto repair shops. None of them open. Finally, the last number we called picked up, the man said we could tow in our car and leave it there over the weekend. As we waited for Rachel, we saw three cars get into the same wreck we'd just gotten into. It was a treacherous intersection, and looking back, we're not sure how it could have been avoided.

Rachel ended up saving our hides and our money. After we called, she got in touch with her close friend Mike. His parents lent him their suburban and a few tow ropes. Rachel and Mike drove down to pick us up and tow us out, so we didn't need to afford a tow truck. Mike pulled us to the auto repair shop, a slow and knuckle-clenching ride, with Jon steering our dead beaten car from behind.

We've both thought through the accident time after time, neither of us knowing what Jon could have done differently. It was a dangerous intersection, and Jon is a safe driver. It was bitter consolation to see the accident repeated, but we felt good knowing we didn't misstep.

In all likelihood, the Nissan is totaled. Jon has fond memories of that car. It was his first and only car. It was the car that drove us to dates, that drove all our belongings from one place to another, and that drove us home from the hospital when Leo was born (and we drove as if over eggshells).

So this week, I will write two:

One for Rachel:

Did what she always does when someone, anyone besides herself doesn't know what to do: she took care of it.

And one for Jon:

Did just what he should have done, could have done, would have done and still the car was wrecked.

And that's one for the books.

Annual Postage, by Becca

2011-02-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

It has been nearly a year since our last post and we feel the smart of our Internet absence (though perhaps no one else really does). We've long since finished our Final Fantasy forays and picked up house. That is, we've moved out of our rented shack and into a proper apartment. We like not sharing our bedroom with our kitchen and our living room, as well as keeping our clothes in a real closet instead of a glorified TV cabinet. Not to mention the absence of mold and rodentia.

[Our old haunt—notice also the absence of any space whatsoever]

We've also graduated with two semi-useless degrees (one English Master's degree each—I believe two huzzahs are in order) and had our first child, who has (since birth) learned to roll over, grasp, sit up, scoot, poop through a week's worth of diapers in a day, giggle, eat solid foods, and wear ridiculously cute outfits (which is what he is doing right now. Yes, I mean you, plaid overalls).

About two weeks after giving birth (with my stitches still healing) I began an MFA program in creative writing (that's a Master of the Freaking Arts for those unfamiliar with the degree). My MFA thesis has just recently started to look something like a novel, specifically, a comic middle grade novel about a hypochondriac with a death wish.

As I've worked on that, Jon has taken up a part-time teaching gig, wherein he helps the future dentists of the world perfect their resumes and flesh out their cover letters. We both wonder why those students so often write that dentistry (unlike other professions?) is utterly service-oriented. I'm not sure how performing expensive and largely cosmetic procedures is service-oriented, though my degree doesn't prepare me to answer those types of questions.

In that vein, we don't know what our future will look like in the coming months and years, though we do know it won't be in dentistry. Jon has applied to several PhD programs in poetry and we're waiting for those heavy or slim envelopes to return to us in the mail. I'm confident Jon will get accepted somewhere, though he is less optimistic. All our parents keep asking about it anyhow. Don't worry, we'll let you know the ~~day~~ ~~hour~~ ~~minute~~ second a rejection or acceptance letter arrives. Unless we forget, which is just as likely.

Speaking of parents, this week we enjoyed an all-too-short visit from my parents and homebound siblings (of which there are now only 2, which makes the Provo/Seattle split exactly even: 4 here, 4 there). The family did plenty of skiing, though Jon and I only went for one afternoon, and mostly stuck to the bunny hill. At least we intended to. Jon did some unintentional black diamond skiing, which was both impressive and powdery.

We also had a chance to get family photos from our friend Skoticus while they were in town. I'm excited to see how they turn out and will post the results when they're in.

I'm not sure how else to fill in the gaps between this year and last. I will probably resort to flashback posts now and again as I think of memories that need to be written, which seems to happen every five minutes. I wish I could write exactly what it means to be where we are, what we are, who we are. Maybe in a few years we'll be missing our one-bedroom apartment and our pre-career lives, though it seems hectic and unsteady now. Today I've divided my time between reading student rhetorical analysis papers, revising an essay for Segullah, and mopping up my baby, who not only pulled over a 32+oz cup of water on himself for the second time in his life, but who also has a cold that is even drippier than our leaky kitchen faucet.

But he's so dang cute I don't even mind.

I Love Daddy. from Becca Lee on Vimeo.

Happy blog, everyone. Welcome back.

I've Practiced Laziness so Frequently I'm Fluent

2010-03-08T15:19:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since we've posted, but not because we've been swamped with school work. The thing is, I recently found a version of the very first Final Fantasy and Becca likes to watch me play it. (I keep asking her, "you really like this? It's just a little red guy wandering around pixelly forests and then suddenly a few imps flash on the screen for a bit." But she says it's fun, and, yes, it's Disneyland without lines or sticky seats, so . . .)

In honor of Final Fantasy's twentieth anniversary we're clipping the time we spent blogging to slaughter imps.

Little red guy wandering:

Imps:

George Winston: Timeless

2010-02-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

Hello, it's Jon.

While George Winston isn't the artist I listen to most frequently, he's one of two artists I listen to most consistently. I've been listening to three of his albums (December, Plains, and Summer) since I was in fifth grade and have never tired of them. If you don't know Winston's work, give this song a listen. All three of the song's movements surprise. What dynamics!

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

2010-02-24T21:51:00.000-08:00

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

Hello, this is Jon.

Perhaps you've seen this, but if not, please do. Even though I'm only a tepid Harry Potter fan, I was altogether taken by Rowling's language and story here.

Ski Doodle

2010-02-21T21:35:00.001-08:00

Hello, it's Becca.

This week was Jon's first time skiing. He created his own style:

One time he slipped as we were trying to get on the lift, so they had to stop everything and put him on the next one alone.

But we taught him how to ski right

and then he did fine.

Introduction to the Blog

2010-02-17T20:56:00.001-08:00

Hello, it's Jon.

Six months ago, when I decided to begin blogging regularly, I was excited about the potential an online forum has for quality discussions. The best part about these entries (in my mind) was that I could skip senseless small talk and bounce right in to intellectual debate.

The only problem was that I started feeling like

a brain with legs on it. I realized that the tiny things in life are most of what make us human. So, with Becca's goodwill, we're starting a family blog, a place where we'll post updates about things we see. Like our baby, after it emerges.