Max Cubed!

Thanks to everyone who helped come up with name for my last post. If you think of anything else, please feel free to leave a comment - I’m by no means decided on the matter yet. So far, I’m thinking I’ll use “Music Makers.” We’ll see.

In all my posting about everything else in our lives, I realize that I’ve been neglecting Mr. Isaac a little. So, without further ado, here’s some quality Isaac time. Oh, and there are more pictures in our Photos section.

Sometimes this boy looks like mischief incarnate:

Which leads to this little video clip. We were having all sorts of innocent fun with the camera and making Isaac laugh, when he suddenly made a dive for it. The resulting footage is somewhat reminiscent of a horror flick:

But he does have his cute moments. We love it when he plays with his cousin Lila. He did a lot of that this past week while Grandma Coco was in town:

This isn’t a cute moment. It’s his “get-me-outta-this-crib-NOW” call that we’ve been privileged enough to hear ever since he mastered pulling himself up:

But boy is he a happy camper once we get him out:

And there you have it, folks! Isaac just keeps getting more and more fun each day. He loves playing mimicking games (spitting, shaking his head, clapping) and makes snorty/scrunchy faces at every stranger who passes him. He especially loves standing up on the pews at church and snorting at all the people behind him. What a flirt!

In other news, Collin starts up school again this week. We’ll miss having him at home, but it will be nice for everyone to get back into our normal routine.

Dear Everyone,

I need your help! We’ve recently decided to put my preschool teaching expertise to use and make some money from it. While I feel it’s important for me to stay at home with Isaac, I can still hold little “Mommy and Me”-type classes to make a little extra money to help put us through college. Unfortunately, “Mommy and Me” is a registered trademark and I’d hate to incur the legal wrath of any company. If you come up with the winning name, you’ll have my eternal gratitude and some other fancy prize that I’ve yet to decide upon.

The name should reflect what the classes are about, so here are the specifics:

* They will be half-hour sessions for children and their mothers/fathers. Sessions will include singing all manner of songs (including in foreign languages), movement activities, finger plays, flannel stories, learning some basic sign language, etc. Basically, it will be teaching parents new and different ways to interact with their children.

* There will be time after classes for the parents to discuss child development issues with me if they want (I’ll have all sorts of articles and such to pass out at their request).  Parents will also receive a handout at each session containing the songs we’ve learned that day.

* Classes will be separated by age group: toddler and preschool. The name could apply to both, but it would be fun to have some group names as well (e.g., “Mommy and Me” classes; Tadpole group and the Frog group). Not necessary, though.

* Leave your suggestions in the comments section, and I’ll be ever so grateful to you! Thanks a ton for your help! We’re hoping to get this going by the second week of September - wish us luck!

Isaac has recently mastered crawling, pulling himself up to standing, and a lovely new smile we like to call Scrunchy Face:

Scrunchy Face turns into Piggy Face when he laughs (which now sounds more like a snort, but you’ll have to turn your volume up):

I love this kid!

Believe me when I say that I’m not particularly artsy nor crafty. I draw like a five-year old. I hate scrapbooking with a fiery passion (it’s to do with staying up till all hours of the night to make them for the “graduating” kids at work). I tried quilting once, but stopped about 3/4 of the way in when I realized I hated it. I can knit and enjoy doing so, but I’m painfully slow at it - it takes me nearly a year to make one baby blanket (and that’s if I work on it a lot). My mom tried teaching me to sew when I was a kid, but we both soon discovered that I was fairly inept at it. With this pathetic history in mind, I unveil my latest accomplishment: Lined blackout curtains for Isaac’s room!

I’m kind of really proud of myself for making these. So what if they’re about as easy as sewing projects get? I think I did a mighty fine job, thank you very much! I even channeled my inner frugal saver and managed to get a bunch of normally very expensive fabric on a lovely clearance. Next up will be curtains for our own bedroom (the fabric will be the inverse of Isaac’s pattern, minus the bears).

Okay, so this is a REALLY divisive issue but I just wanted to spread the word to the Saints who don’t live in California and may not know all about it. If you have issues with what I say I understand - feel free to share your opinion in the comment section if you want to vent or offer support. I personally feel that the family unit is the core of a successful society, and that the problems we’re seeing today are due to the erosion of that foundation. Further disintegration of the family will only lead to the fall of our nation. Every kid needs a mom and a dad - it’s the whole yin-yang thing - they need to learn kindness and nurturing from the mother and toughness and resourcefulness from the father. That’s just a super-generalization, but it’s pretty much the crux of it. If the yin or yang is missing, the child grows up unbalanced and has to look elsewhere to fill the void.

Anyhoo, this November in California Proposition 8 will be placed on the ballot. If passed, it will restrict marriage to a union between a man and woman. You can read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)

If you want to help out but aren’t in California to knock doors you can make a donation here:

http://www.protectmarriage.com

Protectmarriage.com was the organization that put the proposition on the ballot. It’s easy to make a donation - click on “Donate” and fill out the amount and your credit card information.

This is a pretty big battle we’re fighting and a victory with Proposition 8 will really help.

Every day I take a 45-minute bus ride to and from school. This has given me wonderful opportunities to catch up on my reading! So I decided to blog a bit about my experiences and hopefully inspire someone to try out a great new book.

1. The Chronicles of Narnia - yup, I read the whole series, and it was great! The books are a lot shorter than I remember and all were fantastic, except for “Prince Caspian,” which was unfortunately very short on plot.

2. Demons (AKA “The Possessed”) by Dostoevsky - not Dostoevsky’s best, but still a very gripping and somewhat disturbing book. What really struck me was the narrative style. It was narrated by one of the characters, but at different times. So for the first third or so of the book, the narrator is telling you what happened but he has no idea what’s going on and there are so many gaps in his knowledge. Then he comes back with much more knowledge of what happened and he starts to fill in the blanks and foreshadow what’s to come. It was really interesting - I’ve never read a book like it.

3. 1776 - I read this book for the 4th of July. It was AMAZING!!! There is so much they don’t teach you in school! I recommend this to everybody. And I mean everybody. It’s such a page-turner, and everyone who professes to love this country needs to read it so they can really understand what happened. Don’t worry - it’ll only take a couple of days, and next year on July 4th you’ll look at the holiday a lot differently.

4. The Last Lecture - This book was really sad yet really uplifting. At Carnegie-Mellon it’s tradition to ask a professor to speak and give a hypothetical “last lecture.” Randy Pausch was asked to do the same, but after he was given the assignment he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had the burden of really giving his last lecture. You can find videos of the lecture on YouTube and all over the internet. Here’s a link to his lecture - you should really watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

In his lecture he spoke of fulfilling your childhood dreams. The lecture was such a hit that he expounded upon it and wrote this book. It was very sad to read in the news that Randy Pausch died last week on July 25 at age 47. He had a wife and three kids.

5. Tuesdays with Morrie - I guess I’m just a glutton for memoirs of terminally-ill people. This book (I’m not sure if it’s fiction) was written by a guy who would visit a dying man named Morrie every Tuesday. Every Tuesday Morrie would teach the author a new lesson on life, garnered from a long life of experience and happiness. This book wasn’t nearly as sad, but also not quite as powerful as “The Last Lecture.”

6. The Joy Luck Club - Definitely worth the hype. This book explores the relationships of four Chinese women and their American-born daughters. Each chapter is narrated by one of the seven main characters (one of the women dies in the first chapter so her story is told by her daughter) and as it hops back and forth from person to person and generation to generation you see a broader theme start to develop as gaps are filled in and you understand both sides of a battle that’s been raging in all Chinese-American homes for over 50 years now.

7. The Tao Te Ching - I was kind of on a Chinese kick and I’ve always wanted to read it anyway. I like to think of myself as a “Taoist Mormon.” I truly believe in the Way, and believe that the Gospel is a perfect incarnation of the Way, if followed properly. The Tao is about finding strength in weakness, leading by humility, and the whole yin-yang mentality in everything. Here are some examples:

“When trees are born they are tender, and when they die they are brittle. Stiffness is thus a companion of death, flexibility a companion of life.”

” Which is more destructive, gain or loss? Extreme fondness means great expense, and abundant possessions mean much loss.”

“The most difficult things in the world must be done while they are easy.”

8. Peter and the Starcatchers - co-written by Dave Barry, one of my heroes. It’s a book about the origin of Peter Pan, and it is BRILLIANT! What a fun read - I couldn’t put it down! They’ve since written two more books in the series, and I’ve already reserved them at the library. If you’re mourning the loss of Harry Potter or the Twilight series, I heartily recommend this series to fill the void.

9. The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog - by Dave Barry. Need I say more? Well, maybe a little. Maxine checked this out at the library yesterday and read it last night. She couldn’t stop laughing the whole time. So then I read it (it took 45 minutes to read it from cover to cover) and it reminded me again of why I so revere Dave Barry. It’s narrated by a boy in junior high relating the miracles surrounding his Christmas in 1960. We’re going to buy this book and make it a Christmas tradition from now on, because the book is that good.

So there you have it folks, my own personal book club. I recommend all of these books but on different levels. The only universal recommendations that everyone should read are 1776 and any book by Dave Barry. Maxine and I decided last night that we’re going to get every book he has ever written. He’s that good.

Oh, and I just want to point out that none of the “Twilight” books were on this list.  I was strong and did not get suckered into reading them by my wife.  Yes, that might make me a cad but so be it.

If you’re like me and have been eagerly awaiting the midnight release of Breaking Dawn, here’s a little something to hold you over:  The Normal Mormon Husbands blog.  It has the Normal Mormon Husband’s version of what he thinks BD will/should be like (start with Part I).  If only Stephenie Meyer could have consulted this guy first…

Isaac has been learning how to move around these past few weeks. Mostly, he just rolls around until he happens across something interesting by accident. Sometimes he crawls backwards, which is pretty frustrating considering it’s the opposite direction he wants to be going. Occasionally, he’ll army crawl a short distance to get an object he wants. Lately, though, Isaac has been learning to actually crawl. Let me tell you - it has been quite the ordeal for all of us! Here’s proof (you may want to turn your volume down a bit):