Morning Bird & Medicine Girl

.
Jolie believes that everything deserves a name.

Every toy in her room has at some point been assigned one, or several, and what she lacks in creativity she makes up for in consistency. Six of her dolls are referred to as "Baby Jesus."

Once when her friend Gillian was over to play, we overheard the following conversation:

Gillian: Pretend we live all by ourselves

Jolie: Yah. And pretend we have different names

Gillian: Okay. Pretend my name is...Samantha Alexis

Jolie: And pretend my name is...Los Angeles Mexico

Imagine her delight last week when her kindergarten teacher explained the Native American custom of bestowing names based on events and even animals. She came home certain she had been born into the wrong culture.

At her insistence, we have since been referring to her by her proper Native American title. "Morning Bird."

Afraid Leah might feel left out, Morning Bird deliberated rather intensely one afternoon, then formally bestowed her "Medicine Girl."

Medicine Girl comes in peace. As long as you are willing to share your food.

Mouse or Leah

.

Want to test your skills?

This is a game we play often. It's called "Mouse or Leah?"

#1 Mouse or Leah?

#2 Mouse or Leah?

#3 Mouse or Leah?

#4 Mouse or Leah?

Answer Key:

1. Leah

2. Leah

3. Leah

4. Leah

Eye of the Beholder

.

Leah loves to draw during sacrament meeting.

That is to say, Leah loves to draw during sacrament meeting when she's not busy grinding Lucky Charms into the carpet, flashing her Dora underwear to various members of the congregation, or scouting out unsuspecting toddlers to hug, and then drag helpless toward our bench. By the neck. (I am so sorry Miranda)

Last Sunday however, we enjoyed an unprecedented 10 minutes of peace when she fished the markers out of my bag and focused on creating this masterpiece:

When she was done she sat quietly for a minute examining the finished product, then suddenly had a total meltdown.

I managed to calm her down using the few Lucky Charms that hadn't made their way into the deepest fibers of the floor, then asked what was wrong.

She pointed to a green shape in the middle. The one with the blue line to the left of it, right above the words "Crafty Ladies Retreat"...

She tapped her finger on it and said, "THAT part."

"That part what Leah?"

"That part's too messy."

Oblogatory Halloween Pics

.

.

For his first Halloween, Cal wanted to dress as his Grandpa Jack, a college football official (yes, Grandpa Jack is the handsome Head Linesman you’ve seen on ESPN). Unfortunately, infant head linesman costumes are hard to come by (skeletons and sweet peas as far as the eye can see. Not a thing for aspiring referees).

So, our Jack customized one himself. Ladies, that shirt is hand painted! (That Jack! Don’t let the backward baseball hats or affection for Sunday football fool you. He is a crafty, crafty man.) He’s also responsible for Minnie’s custom headpiece.

And while we’re rolling the Halloween credits…I’d like to also thank Aunt Aileen for the Minnie Mouse dress, and tazcat1032. Tazcat1032 is the heavy smoker who sold us Jolie’s entire Tinkerbell getup on Ebay for only 15 bucks. It’s a good thing she looks so cute in it, Tazcat. Because, my gosh, she smells like tobacco.

Twilike

Last year, I casually mentioned on my blog that I tried to read Twilight but never finished because I did not enjoy it. This prompted a whole slew of positive, constructive comments, such as, "What is WRONG with you??" "Vampire hater" and "You are no longer invited to my children's weddings."

Well ladies, you will be pleased to know that I am now a little older, a little wiser, and madly in love with a vampire.

No, not because of the book (I never did finish it), but because it appears as though I have given birth to one.

This week, Cal strategically grew two new teeth. Just in time for Halloween.

Step aside, Edward. There's a new heartthrob in town.

Pomp & Our Circumstances

For the entire 8 years we’ve been married, Jack has been a full time student. To put things in perspective, when his cub scouts ask him what grade he’s in, he says, “Twenty second.” And he’s being completely serious.

On Friday, his doctoral dissertation was filed after receiving approval from its committee of advisors. In layman’s terms: He’s like, totally finished.

Jack said that being a PhD doesn’t feel any different. But actually, our lives have changed quite dramatically.

For instance, we just moved from a two bedroom apartment built in the 1960s, to a two bedroom apartment built in the 1970s. And our rent doubled! You may not be able to see the difference between our new place and our old one, but I am certain we are enjoying the luxury of unseen seismic upgrades.

Since graduation, I have also found it necessary to come up with new things to complain about. As residents of student housing we went six years without a dishwasher, washer or dryer - Something I loved to lament, particularly in my journal. (200 years from now my posterity will want to discuss the hardships of their ancestors - I always thought it would be fun to be cited as a reference). Now that we have home appliances, I’ve been testing out some new material (“Dear Journal, I miss the laundromat, and am so tired of emptying this dishwasher!”)

One thing that has not changed, unfortunately, is my inability to explain exactly what it is that Jack does. The title of one of the papers in his dissertation, for those who don't believe me, is “Accurately Sized Test Statistics with Misspecified Conditional Homoskedasticity ??????” (question marks added for emphasis).

Now, he is employed as a Lecturer of Game Theory. If you are wondering what Game Theory is, or why it takes 6 years of home appliance deprivation to earn a degree that qualifies one to teach it, you will have to ask Jack himself. I will give you a hint: It has nothing to do with designing an NFL offense.

And thus begins the next phase of our lives, and the end of a 22-year phase of Jack’s. I will spare you the details of how proud I am of him. But as a few of you know, graduate school has been a very winding road. More than his degree, I will always be impressed by the way he handled the process of obtaining it. He demonstrated a lot of integrity when he didn’t have to, and a lot of persistence when he didn’t necessarily want to.

Plus, contemplating Misspecified Homoskedasticity is no small feat when your ivory tower looks like this

I snapped this picture a few years ago while Jack was working on his dissertation. I can’t tell you how many hours he spent studying while wearing a fussy baby in the Bjorn, or how many lectures he prepared at the park, while pushing the kids on the swings.

I think that’s what they call graduating with honors.

(*Editor's Note: The author of this post acknowledges the possibility that at the time this photograph was taken, Jack was not actually working on his dissertation, but rather managing his Fantasy Football team.)