Faye Penelope

I haven’t blogged about Faye yet! I didn’t even really blog about the pregnancy, because I’m lame.

Faye was born on November 25, 2012. She weighed 7 lb 10 oz, and measured 21.5 inches long! No one told me she was going to look so dark when she came out! I was tired and somewhat delirious, and wasn’t sure how they could have already mixed up my baby with another one, and why they would make such a stupid mistake.

Seriously. She looks more closely related to the nurse.

After a few minutes I regained trust in the hospital staff.

Here she is at a week old.

And doing her best impression of the Condescending Wonka meme:

And now she’s just over two months!

Weight: 12 lb 13 oz
Length: 23 in
Wears: 3 month clothes (though the legs are getting a little short) & size 2 diapers

Milestones
-Smiles
-Coos
-Follows your face
-Holds head up

Likes
-Boobs
-Diaper Changes
-Bathtime
-Being naked in general
-Looking at the camera
-Torturing Dad while Mom’s away
-When you play with her face
-Rocking in the glider
-Baby Einstein light-up turtle that plays classical music
-Chime toys
-Mirrors
-Attention
-Row, Row, Row Your Boat
-This Little Piggy
-Watching TV

Dislikes
-Going to bed at a reasonable hour
-Tummy time (unless it’s on top of you)
-Pacifiers
-Sleeping on her back
-Being put down for too long (too long meaning more than five minutes)
-Pants (who can blame her?)

Hopefully I’ll stay on top of updates!

Did I Tell You I’m Getting a New Dishwasher?

A few weeks ago, our dishwasher stopped working so I called our landlady. She told me someone would call me to set up an appointment to have it looked at. Three to four days go by, and I haven’t heard from anyone, so I decide I’ll call my landlady again the next day to ask what’s up.

Well, the next day, Brandon and I come home from an outing to find a note on our door from the repair company. It says that we’ve missed our appointment several times. The note also said they couldn’t contact me at my phone number. I did have a missed call one morning, but it was one of those calls where the phone just doesn’t ring. And they didn’t leave a message. So I didn’t call back, because I didn’t know who it was. I learned it was them, though, because they left their phone number on the note and it was the same. That’s some stellar trying-to-contact-a-customer right there.

So I call the company to set up a new appointment, and they tell me I already have one set up for the next day. I said “that’s great, that time totally works, but no one told me about it so I could have been gone again.” Whatever. The guy shows up the next day, fixes the dishwasher, and all is hunky dory.

Until it breaks again a week later. So I talk to the landlady again. It’s decided we’ll get a new one since the one we have is old. This was a little less than a week ago.

Today, someone showed up to take the old one out as I was walking out the door for my OB appointment. He told me he had to take it out now because someone from Sears should be showing up within the next two hours with the new one.

THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO KNOW.

I know it’s not the end of the world and it’s stupid and petty and a “first world problem,” but I’m pregnant and frustrated and I actually look forward to my OB appointments and I just want to cry hysterically and junk-punch someone. Not exactly rational, but totally how I feel.

(And I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve posted, so there’s been no mention on here of me being pregnant. Surprise!)

UPDATE: The Sears people showed up. The good news is, I have a new dishwasher. The bad news is, our maintenance guy assumed they would install it, but they told me our maintenance guy would have to. So now I get to call the landlady again. Joy!

“Eyedness” or The Day Josh Was Wrong

I remember very clearly sitting in my second grade classroom and learning how to tell which eye is your “dominant” eye. I was taught to extend my arm, find a small object to focus on, and then make an “O” with my hand around the object. You do this with both eyes open. Then, you close each eye and see if the object has “moved” out of the “O.” Because the object “moves” when I have my left eye open, but stays put with my right, I’m right-eye-dominant.

Fast forward fifteen or so years when I’m talking to my good friend Josh at work. I don’t remember why the subject came up, but there I was telling him how to figure out which eye is your dominant one. He tries it out a few times, and then basically tells me it’s totally bogus because he couldn’t get it to work. Since then, we’ve had arguments about it multiple times. But I suppose I still like him.

Anyway, just the other night, I guess the subject had come up again between Josh and another one of our friends, Andrew. Josh proceeds to then include me in the conversation by doing a group text message thing. Here’s the conversation, word for word, because I find it so hilarious. Josh will be red, Andrew will be green, and I’ll be blue. Any time I start a new paragraph, it’s a new text, even if it’s coming from the same person. We also make reference to Tim, another friend; Annie, Andrew’s wife; and Anna, Tim’s girlfriend.

Watch Josh get the smackdown. It’s kind of long, but it’s worth it!

Modesty?

I was spending some time on a forum today. On this forum I belong to two groups, an LDS group and another group where most of the members are not LDS. The majority of the people in both of these groups are women.

While perusing the LDS group, one woman started a thread to post some photos of prom dresses she and her daughter were considering, and wanted input in regards to whether they are “modest” by LDS standards. Most of them were not, for various reasons. Some of the responses she got were things like: “No! Wide shoulder-covering straps are not enough! You need sleeves!” At the same time, the same women were also saying things like “The neckline is a little low, but it’s workable on the right-shaped woman.”

Excuse me? Do we really as a group put so much emphasis on things like sleeves that other things like necklines go by the wayside? Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for wearing what you want to wear. Sleeveless, low-cut, whatever. I’ll freely admit that I’m no Molly Mormon. In the end it’s your decision and it’s what you feel comfortable with.

However, I feel like placing so much emphasis on shoulders/sleeves and then neglecting to talk about chests and things that seem more “obviously” immodest is affecting how we view “modesty” in an LDS community.

So I started a spin-off thread, including a poll. I posted these two pictures.

Option A

Option B

And then I asked, which one do you think is more modest?
These are the results from the LDS group:

These are the results from the non-LDS group:

No matter which camp you belong to, you have to admit that those are interesting results.

I, personally, am of the opinion that option A is more modest. Shoulders, to me, are more appropriate than chesticles any day of the week. Is it bad that I think there is something wrong with the way we are teaching modesty in the church if approximately half of the voters in the LDS group responded this way? What do you think? LDS or not, which one do you think is more modest?

(Keep in mind that the question is NOT “which one would you wear?” I am well aware that option A is butt-ugly and I wouldn’t be caught dead in it in a million years.)

ASL is a Natural Language

I was on Goodreads today, looking for new books to download on my new toy (Remember Valentine’s Day?). When I was reading reviews for Marlee Matlin’s autobiography, I’ll Scream Later, this comment was on the first page:

A Review of Marlee Matlin's "I'll Scream Later."

Forget the last paragraph. Of course she’s entitled to her opinion. My concern is about halfway through the first paragraph where she starts talking about the difference between Signed Exact English (SEE) and American Sign Language (ASL). She states that SEE is a more precise form of sign and ASL is like a shorthand version. She also uses this as an argument to support her theory of why the writing is “less descriptive” than other memoirs and why it’s “short and to the point.”

Friends, family, and random people who’ve accidentally stumbled across my blog (welcome!), if any of you share in this misconception of ASL being a signed, shorthand version of English, the reason I’m writing this is to correct you: It’s not. I don’t know where she got her “outside research,” but ASL does more than convey “general ideas.” ASL is a natural and organic language, separate from English, capable of description, and can convey any abstract idea your little heart desires. This was the reply I wrote on the website, which is short and to the point (short and to the point in English? No!)

My Reply

In retrospect, I would have worded it a little differently, but you get the idea (also, I know this review didn’t say anything specifically about the fastness of one over the other, but there was another comment just above mine that did. This person also didn’t understand the difference between ASL and signed English).

As far as Marlee choosing to write (in the above reviewer’s opinion) everything to the point and without description, that may have been influenced by the cultural bluntness that generally comes with the Deaf crowd. But my bet is that it was more of a stylistic choice that she thought would most effectively illustrate her life experiences.

 

As a side note, let me point out that there are two different forms of signed English that aren’t ASL: PSE and SEE. The reviewer doesn’t say specifically which one she’s referring to, but her description leads me to lean toward SEE, so that’s what I went with. Either way, ASL is still a natural language, while both forms of signed English are not.

In case you’re interested, here’s a video illustrating the differences between the three forms of sign using the story “The Three Little Pigs.” Even if you’re unfamiliar with signing, I think it’s still pretty easy to see how they differ. The kid in the black shirt is in SEE, the purple shirt PSE, and the grey shirt ASL.

 

Feel free to leave comments if you have any.