She didn’t read the book!!

8 November 2013, 9:10 am by Giggles
Categories: Books, Family, Health

I can definitely relate to Hermione. When there’s a problem I go to the library and do some research.

I read “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” when we wanted to get pregnant. I read “Your Pregnancy Week by Week” (I like it so much better than the What to Expect book) and “A Child Is Born” when I was pregnant. We read “The Birth Partner” to get ready for the delivery. And I read “The Nursing Mother’s Companion” to prepare for breast feeding.

I felt as prepared as you can be. I just didn’t count on one thing.

Iddo didn’t read ANY of that.

The breast feeding book suggested a couple of different holds – the cross hold, the football hold, the cradle hold. Iddo preferred what we called “the monkey” hold. She liked to sit up on my lap, facing me, legs tucked in under her, with her hands up by her face. Brett said she looked like a little monkey. My mom said she’d never seen a baby eat like that. She’s a bit long to do it now and has settled on a modified cradle hold for the most part.

We should’ve known something was up though when she decided she preferred me laying on my right side during labor when all the books say it’s better for the baby if you lay on your left.

She hasn’t read the books about what babies generally find funny. Occasionally she laughs when we do something silly. Monday night this week she thought me blowing through my lips was hilarious, but only for about twenty minutes. Most of the times she laughs at jokes we tell, as if she understands what we’re saying.

She might get it from me. When I was a little bit older than she is now I hadn’t read the books that say a person is supposed to crawl before they walk. Nor did I read the books that say if you don’t learn to crawl first you aren’t supposed to be able to learn to read, a common belief back then. Now they say you won’t gain depth perception if you don’t learn how to crawl. It’s always something.

We probably aren’t helping any either. The books we are reading to her now are “Killing Kennedy,” “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling,” “Wheelock’s Latin,” and the Prydain Chronicles (she’s already finished “The Book of Three” and “The Black Cauldron“). We apparently didn’t read where it said what books most people read to their babies.

As long as she enjoys reading, we’re fine letting her write her own book.

4 Shared thoughts

November means…

7 November 2013, 3:54 pm by Giggles
Categories: Happy Things

This is my seventh year attempting to every day in November. Amanda, my partner in crime, and I decided that rather than one month long theme this year, we’d have a different theme for each day of the week. Writing about one theme four or five times is easier than writing about one theme thirty times. Thursdays in November naturally make a person in this country think of gratitude.

I am grateful for Novembers. In fact, I think it might be in the running for my favorite month.

Novembers mean cool weather, driving with the windows down, getting out the hammock, afternoon walks.

Novembers mean Thanksgiving dinner with mashed potatoes and homemade cranberry sauce (my favorite parts). It means fresh pumpkin muffins, warm soups, and a kitchen cool enough to think about making bread in.

Novembers mean anticipating the Christmas season, planning presents, and taking extra time to be with family.

Yup, I’m pretty sure November is one of the better months out there. Next Thursday I’ll list a few more reasons I’m grateful for November.

3 Shared thoughts

Put a hat on it.

6 November 2013, 8:08 am by Giggles
Categories: How To, Quilting/Sewing/Knitting/Crafting

I’ve decided I love hats. And now I have a little tiny head to make hats for and she’s absolutely adorable in hats! But this post is about the hat I made myself last summer.

Last April I made myself a new hat. And I love that hat. It’s a great squish-in-the-purse hat. It keeps my ears and nose out of the sun. It’s fun fabric. The only problem is that I can only wear it when my hair is down, which is pretty much never because of the heat, or when my hair is in a braid, which is often. The majority of the time, however, my hair is back in a bun. And wearing a hat with a bun is pretty much impossible. Unless I want to pull out my pioneer style hat (check out the very last photo on the post), which is, admittedly, a fun hat, but not really one I’m going to wear around town often.

So I needed a hat I could wear with my hair in a bun. An extensive internet search (i.e. a quick google search) showed me that one person had found a solution for the problem – they made a regular sun hat and cut a hole in the back. Which is, admittedly, a solution. However, I figured there had to be a better solution. What if I wanted to wear my hat when I didn’t have a bun? Would I have to make two hats in the same fabric, one with a hole and one without? So I thought some more.

As I pondered I thought about how I wear a baseball hat with a pony tail. I just pull my hair through the hole. If I really wanted to, I could probably undo the sizing thing on the baseball hat and then redo it under a bun and wear it that way. Ah ha! I’m heading in the right direction. Now I just had to figure out how to make a sun hat act like a baseball hat.

McCalls 3625 hat patternI used McCalls 3625 (which has gone out of print since I bought it) for my last hat. One of the other views seemed like it might be what I was looking for. I needed to make the brim overlap in the back so I could open and close it like the sizing band on a baseball hat. And I needed the back to be able to lift up for a bun or down for a braid.

The cap portion of style E on this pattern is made of a center piece that runs from the front to the back and two side pieces. I extended it on the back about an inch or so and stopped connecting it to the side pieces about an inch and a half up from the brim (where the tabs on the pattern happened to be, perfect!).

The brim pattern was all one piece cut on the fold, but that wouldn’t give me enough of an overlap if I extended that. So I cut the brim in three pieces. The front piece was cut on the fold and extended around to the sides. And then I cut two back pieces that had long tabs I free handed the shape for.

I sewed the lining (leaving a hole for turning later) and the hat the same rather than following the separate lining instructions as written in the pattern. Then I sewed them together at the edge of the brim and turned it right side out through the hole I left. I stitched around the edge of the brim with some top stitching and added some bias tape with a thin piece of plastic boning running through it to stabilize the brim. I stitched in the ditch where the cap meets the brim to keep everything together.

To finish the hat I attached five snaps – two to connect the cap to the brim at the back for when I’m wearing it closed, and three on the tabs to close them up. There is one on the end of each tab and one in the middle.

To wear the hat I unsnap everything, fold the back center up inside the hat and then snap it around my bun. It stays on great. The snaps are easy to do. And I can still wear it with my hair down too just by closing up the hole in the back.

MissGiggles.com - Sun hat to wear with a bun MissGiggles.com - Sun hat to wear with a bun
Rocking my hat at the Walk of Hope Rocking the hat in Santa Fe

:sun: Now my ears, nose, and throat are all protected from the crazy hot sun we get here and my hair is still off my neck when I want it to be.

3 Shared thoughts

I like math (and pie)

5 November 2013, 1:38 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education

Every year for the past many years I have thrown a Pi party. March 14th. 3.14.

Because I like math that much.

March is a great time for a party. Most people throw their big holiday party in December (and I’ve done that too), that month can get real busy and stressful. But the only people who are stressed in mid-March are people named Caesar with friends named Brutus. By mid-March people are ready for a party again.

And I like pie.

There are a lot of reasons I like math, and always have. It makes sense. There are no exceptions to the rules like there are in English grammar. It is universal. It has a beauty all its own – the golden mean, palindromes, perfect numbers.

I have a hard time understanding people who don’t like math, yet I know they exist. I run into them frequently. And it’s rarely just a mild distaste for math. If a person does not like math it’s a feeling of great loathing.

Two months ago an article ran on Scientific American about how media does math a huge disservice – Keep it Simple, Stupid: Math Doesn’t Have to be “Complex”. When reporting about math it must be complex, difficult, enough to fill a wall of chalkboards with undecipherable scribblings. And people buy it. The TV says math is hard so people believe it is. Mathematicians in movies are rarely the heroes. Instead they are a side character that says confusing things the heroes don’t understand. (Yes, there are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.)

I grew up playing math games. Doing magic tricks that involved math. We need more of that in the media. More Pi Parties to make math more palatable.

Why do you like math (or pie)? Or, are you one of those who loathes it and can explain that to me?

4 Shared thoughts

Dad is not a babysitter

4 November 2013, 8:10 am by Giggles
Categories: Family

I generally (3 times out of 4) have meetings after church on Sunday. Brett sits in the foyer with Iddo while I have my meetings and then we all go home together after (or in the middle if she gets super hungry before the meeting is over). Back in August I heard the following conversation as I headed toward my meeting:

Woman #1: You the babysitter now?
Brett: I’m the dad.
Woman #1: It’s the same thing.
Woman #2: No it’s not.

I wanted to go hug Brett and high-five woman #2.

Dads are not babysitters.

No babysitter would put up with as much spit-up as Iddo has made Brett put up with the last several months. I have no idea how she does it, but she can spit-up half a cup of vomit and get it all over Brett, even in his shirt pocket, and not have any of it on her. It’s amazing.

No babysitter would put up with the screaming she can do at night. But Brett wants to spend time with his daughter. So he holds her. And bounces her. And reads her history books. And sings to her.

No babysitter would get so excited over her finding her toes or be so amazed at how much of her fist she can put in her mouth.

No babysitter would stay up all night to welcome her into the world. Or look at her with such love (she’s screaming in the second photo too).

An adoring father A loving father

Brett is not the babysitter. He’s the dad. Babysitters will come and go. But he will always be her dad.

5 Shared thoughts

Blessings of the Priesthood for all

3 November 2013, 9:30 pm by Giggles
Categories: Gospel

LDS.org gives these two definitions of priesthood:

  1. First, priesthood is the power and authority of God. It has always existed and will continue to exist without end (see Alma 13:7–8; D&C 84:17–18). Through the priesthood, God created and governs the heavens and the earth. Through this power, He exalts His obedient children, bringing to pass “the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39; see also D&C 84:35–38).
  2. In mortality, priesthood is the power and authority that God gives to man to act in all things necessary for the salvation of God’s children. The blessings of the priesthood are available to all who receive the gospel. (“Priesthood Authority” Handbook 2, Administering the Church)

I keep a small notebook to write down thoughts and inspiration in. I write the date down every time I write something so I can keep track of how often I am learning from the Spirit and recognizing that. Last week I was flipping through it and found it interesting how often and for how long I’ve been writing thoughts about how I feel like I am an active and equal participant in the priesthood of God, even though I am a woman. None of the ordinances or blessings of the priesthood are denied me because of my gender.

Back in June I wrote a post about honoring and sustaining the priesthood and how that is different from sustaining priesthood holders. I found some quotes for another discussion that month that I really appreciated.

In our Heavenly Father’s great priesthood-endowed plan, men have the unique responsibility to administer the priesthood, but they are not the priesthood. Men and women have different but equally valued roles. Just as a woman cannot conceive a child without a man, so a man cannot fully exercise the power of the priesthood to establish an eternal family without a woman. In other words, in the eternal perspective, both the procreative power and the priesthood power are shared by husband and wife. And as husband and wife, a man and a woman should strive to follow our Heavenly Father. The Christian virtues of love, humility, and patience should be their focus as they seek the blessings of the priesthood in their lives and for their family.
– Elder Ballard, “This is My Work and My Glory,” April 2013 General Conference

Procreation is not given solely to women. Priesthood is not given solely to men. They are both to be used by husband and wife together. Neither men nor women can fully exercise the power of either divine gift without the other.

My young sisters, some will try to persuade you that because you are not ordained to the priesthood you have been shortchanged. They are simply wrong, and they do not understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. The blessings of the priesthood are available to every righteous man and woman. We may all receive the Holy Ghost, obtain personal revelation, and be endowed in the temple, from which we emerge “armed” with power (see Doctrine & Covenants 109:22). The power of the priesthood heals, protects, and inoculates all of the righteous against the powers of darkness. Most significantly, the fulness of the priesthood contained in the highest ordinances of the house of the Lord can only be received by a man and woman together (see Doctrine & Covenants 131:1-4; 132:19-20). Said President Harold B. Lee: “Pure womanhood plus priesthood means exaltation. But womanhood without priesthood, or priesthood without pure womanhood doesn’t spell exaltation” (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee (1996), 292).
– Sister Dew, “It is not Good for Man or Woman to be Alone,” October 2001 General Conference

I am so grateful to know I am a daughter of God, to truly know what that means, and to be able to rejoice in it. It is so important to not let the divisive voices of the world take that away from us.

2 Shared thoughts

Twitter feeds I recommend

2 November 2013, 3:05 pm by Giggles
Categories: Science & Tech

There are some pretty interesting Twitter feeds out there, especially if you are in to history and science. This summer the Deseret News listed several interesting ones. Here’s a list of some of my favorites:

History

  • World War II Today – Follow events in WWII exactly 70 years after they happened, memoirs, military reports, diary entries and much more …
  • WW2 Tweets from 1941 – Livetweeting the 2nd World War, as it happens on this date & time in 1941, & for 5 years to come.
  • American History Museum – Real Stories. Real Stuff. At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Random Fun

  • Big Ben – Want to know what time it is in London? He bongs the hour, on the hour.
  • Story People – The little stories of all of us.
  • Disney Pixar – My love for this company is immense.

Science

  • TED Talks – Ideas worth speaking.
  • NASA Voyager – The official account for NASA’s twin Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft, the longest operating spacecraft in deep space.
  • NSF Voyager 2 – Semper peregrinus inter astra — a well-informed unofficial account full of unauthorized jargon, administered from NSF, still funding the science on-board!
  • Curiosity Rover – NASA’s latest mission to explore the surface of Mars. Roving the Red Planet since Aug. 5, 2012 (PDT) (Aug 6 UTC).
  • Smithsonian Air & Space – The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum maintains the largest collection of historic air & space objects in the world.

People

What are some of your favorite feeds?

3 Shared thoughts