Hi & Dad

Daphne is quickly adding to the words that she knows how to say.

"Ow" is now an everyday word, and is used mainly when she knows that she is hurting you.

"Da or Dad or Dada" has made it onto the list, and she uses it consistently when talking to or pointing at her dad.

The new word that she uses a lot now is, "hi." The other day, she said, "Hi" when I picked up my cell phone. Now she will do it if you put a cell phone up to her ear. She will also say, "hi" when she goes in to visit the chicks.

"Hi" is now a word for her. Yay!

Macaroni and Cheese and Banana

Tonights dinner was Macaroni and cheese with banana on top. No, I am not pregnant. This is what Daphne insisted on eating.

Final

I finished my last final for school today. It feels good to be able to take a short break before another semester starts.

Debt Reduction

If I were to really get into gear, I could get us out of debt by the middle of next year. Here is what I would need to do.

Shoot 55 weddings on my own at full price (that is one almost every weekend).

Sell 9200 diapers.

Those are both a little unreal. If we were to take our regular payment from Jared's paycheck to pay off the debts, we could assume and I did nothing, we would be looking at 46 months to pay off the debt, which is almost 4 years.

However, if, over the next 18 months we took the regular amount out of Jared's paycheck and I shot 30 weddings or made 5600 diapers or some combination of the two, we could be out of debt.

I am determined to figure out how to pay off the debt. Hopefully, Jared incurred his last medical bill on Tuesday. At this point, we have maxed out our insurance, so regardless of what happens, we won't pay anything else for medical bills for him except for doctor co-pays.

If we stop incurring medical bills AND we cut way back on our expenses, we may be able to even pull it off in a year. It seems like such a long road. I wish there were an easy way out. The good news, it that there IS at least ONE way out.

I am working to grow all our food so that I don't have to go to the grocery store anymore. That will be wonderful. As soon as I figure out getting a goat here, I will not have to worry about dairy supplies, which will be nice. I will butcher the chickens we have now in only a few weeks and then we will have fresh chicken. Perhaps, I will raise another batch and try to sell them or keep them to eat for ourselves.

I am also turning off our TV service. It only saves us about $20 per month, but we almost never watch it, and wouldn't it be better if we were outside playing anyway growing the food I am trying to save from our grocery bill?

We are looking at a new cell phone plan that could take away our cable internet bill and lower our phone bill while we are at it. I am excited at this prospect, very excited!

At least we are lucky enough this year to be able to have the tax rebate to cover our tax bill. I am using any additional to pay off debt. Sorry government...

Uncle Alex

Daphne spent some time with her Uncle Alex today who had come over to help out with some things.

She took to playing with him, and was perfectly happy to sit on him and torture him just like she tortures us. At least she treats him like family!

Corned Beef Girl

For St. Patrick's day, I made corned beef and cabbage. It has been a big hit around here. Daphne especially loves the cabbage part, Jared especially loved the corned beef part.

I went to visit my friend Julie today who had also made corned beef and cabbage. Daphne was very into eating the cabbage, and she ate the cabbage out of Julie's bowl. She ate ALL the cabbage in fact.

At least I have someone to share the cabbage with because Jared sure doesn't like it.

Flaff... Flaff

Daphne and I were walking in Portland today. We were walking down the street, and she was walking beside me.

A man with a pug on a leash was walking by on his cell phone. Daphne's face lit up, and she said "Dlaff" as she chased after the dog. She was so excited to find her dog in a new environment.

Needless to say, she was heartbroken when I would not let her play with her dog (she really likes the dog). I had to swoop her up and put her in the car, to which she cried for some time about.

I thought it was cute that she thought the pug was HER Pug.

7 New Deadly Sins

The Vatican just released 7 new deadly sins.

They are:

1. Genetic Modification
2. Experimenting on Humans
3. Polluting the Environment
4. Causing Social Injustice
5. Causing Poverty
6. Financial Gluttony
   
7. Taking Drugs

Good job Vatican. Protect that environment.

8 Teeth

Daphne got her 8th tooth in within the last week. She has 4 on top and 4 on the bottom.

It has been an interesting two months while she got those 8 teeth. She is much happier now--until more start coming in.

Chick Casualty

I lost my little Barred Plymouth Rock chick. She was going to be my 7th laying hen, but she did not make it. I think that she just suffered from Failure to Thrive, which is what chicks run into after day 3 if they just are not set up to live a healthy life.

I am sad, but it will be fine. Julie and I are going to do a trade, so that she loans me another breed of hen to replace her, and I will give her one of the light Brahmas that was going to be a meat chick.

St. Patrick's Breakfast

To make things a little festive, I made green eggs for breakfast. It wasn't the normal green eggs that I have been making with spinach and artichoke.

I used food coloring to make them green, green. I am not usually a food-coloring kind of person, but I figured that the occasion suited doing something fun. I have to run to the store today, and I will pick up some corned beef, and we will eat corned beef and cabbage for dinner!

Lunch will be duck soup... In case you wanted to know.

Driving the Trash Can

Daphne hurt her leg so that she was having a hard time walking on it while it healed up.

As a crutch, she got a hold of an empty garbage can from my office, and she started pushing it around as a sort of "walker." How cute is that?

Easter Egg Hunting

We went out to Grandma Paula's house today to celebrate Easter early. Paula hid some eggs around, and Daphne had to go find them.

After all her practice yesterday, she methodically went to find the eggs and put them in her basket. I am amazed that she has that concept down. We will do egg hunts one more time this year and then it will be fun to do it again next year.

She got a fruit leather for all of her effort with the eggs, and it was well deserved.

Daphne's Birthday and Easter

We spent a good deal of time yesterday celebrating Easter and Daphne's birthday.

We got up in the morning and headed straight to the airplane museum with the Spruce Goose in it. They were having an Easter Egg hunt. We were sure that Daphne was going to be able to play. She managed to pick up a bunch of eggs. She even had the concept of putting them in the basket. The only catch was that she wouldn't walk on her own, so I had to hold her in the air and lean her down to get the eggs and then lean her down to put them in the basket. She was game, and we got about 20 eggs or so!

The Easter bunny then flew in on a helicopter. It was just fun to watch.

We even got to visit goats and sheep and rabbits in a petting zoo. Mom was more excited about the animals than Daphne was.

After the hunt, we went out with a few friends to do Daphne's breakfast brunch. We had a nice big group, and we were able to hang out for a while. It felt good to connect up with friends I hadn't seen for a while, and Daphne had a lot of fun eating pancakes. She also got a new toy that she enjoyed playing with the whole brunch.

After brunch, a few of us got together, and we headed for the swimming pool. This was the best part of the day for her. She loves to swim now. She will float on her back happily. She will even kick her legs in the water with them behind her when she is facing forward. She goes under the water for a second or two at a time, and she even likes that. She is so excited about swimming that it is back on our weekly regimen. I am not the least bit sad about that at all!

After a short nap, we headed to Forest Grove to visit some friends from our birthing class. Their little boy was turning one and her sister's littler girl was turning one as well (they were born on the same day 4 hours apart). The party was fun, and it was nice to catch up with even more old friends.

Daphne was tired after that day, but it was a fun one. One of the best on record.

She's Got Words

Daphne is now working very hard to learn to communicate. She wants to talk really bad.

She now know the approbate times to say "ow." She will say it when she knows she has hurt you or when she has had a minor boo-boo of her own.

Today, in the car, I was mimicking what she was saying, and we discovered that she knew, "mmmmmmm." This is what she says when something is good to eat, and when eating, she will say, "mmmmmm" every once in a while, and it is very, very cute.

Tonight, I was sitting on the bathroom floor after trying to get her to potty. She kept leaving the room and trying to close the door. I would say, "bye" as she left and, "hi" as she came back. A few times, she would say, "hi" to me before she entered the room without any prompting.

We then came back out into the office where the dog was. She went to sit next to him and said, "dlaff." I thought she was trying to say dog, but she was really saying Flaff. Now, I get it, and she will say it any time she wants to pet the dog.

After we got the dog all figured out, she went to get her phone, and she put it on her shoulder after opening it and said, "hi."

It is very cute that she is learning all these new words. What a girl.

We have (in order of appearance)

1.) hi
2.) ow
3.) dlaff

Into A Box

I just had to go rescue Daphne from a box. She was playing around, and she somehow fell into the box with the tax records in it. She fell on her back, and she was like a turtle that had flipped over and couldn't get back up.

Mom to the rescue.

"Ouch"

Daphne's First word is officially, "Hi." She has had it down for months and months, and if you prompt her to do it, she will say it with perfection. Recently, she connected it as word used when you see someone for the first time in a while and also as a way to start a new conversation.

Today, however, she learned "Ouch." It is really funny. She likes to claw and scratch a lot. It is a bad habit, and so we openly let her know that it is not a good thing by saying, "Ouch" and pulling away.

Now, when she goes to scratch or claw you, she says, "Ouch, Ow, Ouch. ... Ouch, Ow, Ouch."

It is really cute. If you hold her and she wants to claw at your face, she will say, "Ouch."

We are now encouraging her to use the word, but NOT while abusing us. I can't wait until the clawing faze is over.

A Curious Baby

A clause said more than once today:

"Never underestimate the power of a curious baby."

I went out to Delphi yesterday and spent the day hanging out. It was such a wonderful experience for me to have again.

As time goes on, and it gets around to being 6 years after I graduated, it seems that the things in my life take on a different path. When I was in Europe, it was my ultimate focus, and was the “best part” of my life. Now that I am a mom, I am equally involved and in love with the task at hand.

My experience as a Delphi student and graduate should never be misestimated. It changed me from a bratty little kid with no understanding or respect for others around me to a responsible young lady who can get on in life and accomplish things I put the effort into accomplishing.

I have had a lot of lucky breaks one after the other in life, and I am thankful for them all. Being at Delphi gave me a chance to calm down and realize that an education was going to be a gift that would last me for the rest of my life. I don’t HAVE to rely on someone else to do something if I don’t want to. I have the ability to learn and gain skills that I find vital and important to my own life and my own survival.

When I left Delphi, I was sure that I was going to change the world. It was a sort of superhero complex. The truth of the matter is that I was going to settle into my niche in life and do what I could be set an example as a stellar member of society. That is what I was committed to do when I graduated. In a way, becoming a responsible leader in my own fields of interests is my own exchange for having been given the opportunity to be a Delphi graduate.

When I wandered off to Europe, I thought that I was going to have a good time. This was another amazing and life-altering experience. I saw a completely different world. I saw family values, community and history. I saw cultural traditions that were being handed down hundreds of generations. I saw the modern world creeping into the lives of the people and the way they have lived for hundred of years. Rather than letting it consume them, they embraced it and added it to their cultural heritage rather than letting it change the fundamental fabric of who they were.

I was touched. It wasn’t just about seeing all the art or swimming in the Mediterranean. It was about the care and kindness with which a mother would make lunch for her family. Or the dedication with which the farmer brought produce into the city every day on the back of his donkey. It was about living life as a modern European under the blanket of a world of history and culture.

I came home completely changed. I realize that I was dedicated in life to raising a family correctly and to helping to enhance my community as a leader. I realize that through my actions that I have a chance to make a change in my local area that would increase the happiness of the people around me. I am a missionary for cultural change.

And it all starts right in my house. I enjoy farming and growing vegetables and making food from scratch. I guess my primary motivation in this was to help my sick husband. A close second was the fact that making food at home from scratch was much more economical. We were saving tons of money on food that would otherwise be gotten by eating out.

I then started to piece parts of the puzzle together. I learned a few things.

q Food is used as one of the prime cultural methods of handing down traditions. This is why I was so obsessed with the food of Greece. It was more than just the wonderful flavors. It was the fact that food takes center stage in celebrations and traditions of a whole group of people. The fast of Lent makes way for a lot of good seafood to be eaten. Easter brings with it the chance to roast a lamb. Sundays are the time for fresh bread. Christmas has its bread pudding. I challenge you to find a traditional thing that does not involve food. By getting myself in touch with the traditions and using the food traditions in my own house, I was increasing not only our connection as a family, but I was bringing us together and making us a happier unit.

q Making food from scratch connects me with my ancestors. It was a HUGE advance in society when it was learned that grains could be harvested, ground and turned into bread. The methods of bread making or kefir making or cheese making are ancient. It connects me through the ages with the people who came before me who dedicated their lives to perfecting the process. A lot of modern people in America today have left the food making to big companies. They are not connected to the land and to their ancestors in their food. Food doesn’t nourish the soul for them, it only nourishes the body. When I ground the wheat by hand on my grinding stone for my daughter’s birthday cake, I had incredible self-satisfaction that I cared and that I was doing something that connected her and I to the land and to the peoples of our past. It also showed how much I cared to give her something special. I went to the trouble to make the cake not from a box with a mix that have flour ground weeks or months ago and then chemically treated.

I could go on and on, but my point is that I have learned that I am caring for my family in ways I can’t imagine. We are happier as a family unit.

What if this could be applied on a broad scale across cities and countries. What if the modern family didn’t have to live in the suburbs so that they could have a job that would allow them to live in the suburbs. What if we changed our economy from an economy meant to buy stuff and turned it into a service-based economy. People would still be making money, but it would be a neighbor-helping-neighbor community rather than a neighbor-helping-self community. What if we could all bike or walk to work? What if husbands could support their families so that women would be able to take their traditional roles of maintaining a household? What if women were free to enhance the society and bring a community together? What if the bond of community were open and drawing?

I think that people would be happier. They would live longer, and we could quit depleting our planet of the very things that keep us alive.

More on this later.

Touching

I am striving to watch less or no TV with Daphne, and it seems to be working. She has no interst at all.

I read this blog post from a blog I read, and I thought it was just a lovely post. It starts:

"A reader named Chrissy wrote to me and asked how we entertain Isabella without TV or video games:

We build towers from a set of wooden blocks and laugh our heads off when the towers fall down.

Towards bedtime, we sit on the couch and listen to classical music on the crank-up radio and try to hum along. Isabella sucks her left thumb, and if she is feeling generous, she holds up her right thumb for me or Michelle to suck.

We sit on the steps to the neighboring building and talk to people walking by. Isabella chooses the particular step and says, “Sit here, Daddie.”

We walk around, going nowhere in particular, and Isabella shows me how she can run, moving a lot, in her toddler body, like the tin man before Dorothy gave him oil.

We dance and we dance and we dance.

We take turns giving Mommy kiss attacks."

There are many many more cool ones. Check them out here
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/07/entertaining-is.html