My Cell Phone

So, I accidentally jumped into a creek and floated in a children's swimming pool for a half hour with my phone in my pocket. Which means, I don't currently have a phone. Luckily, I'm due for a new phone if I sign up for another two year Verizon contract. But, the thing is, I'm not interested in a new contract. In fact, I have such miserable luck with phones, I think I've decided I won't be getting a new phone contract just yet. I'm going to go without a phone for a while and get a new one later. I'm a little sick of cell phones right now, and part of me is looking forward to not being available at all times, everywhere I go. (Not that I want to avoid people, I'm just looking somewhat forward to simplifying a bit in that way.) So for those of you with my number in your phones, it's going to be changed by the time I decide to go ahead and get a new phone. So, unless I get some change of spirit right away, that Joshua Cell number you have in your phone... yeah, it's going to be obsolete in a few days.

If you want me, you can call Rachel's phone, or our apartment.

For those of you who don't know, the following details my cell phone history:

1. First phone. Drop in sink while shaving. Don't realize that it's in the sink full of water until I'm done shaving and I empty the sink. That's when I find the phone there... oops. Order a new phone, which arrives the next day. Meanwhile, the phone I dropped in the sink starts working again.

2. Replacement phone from shaving phone. Drop so many times that the back won't stay on by itself. When I finally replace that phone, the back is taped on.

3. This phone dies constantly the whole time I have it. Shuts down all the time, complete junk. Finally dies because I accidentally go swimming with it in my pocket.

4. Motorola Q. POS. Craps out constantly. Try to get a new phone and find out that keeping it in my pocket has exposed it to enough moisture to ruin the phone. (?) Yeah, that's what they told me.

5. Rachel's old phone. (I'm not about to buy a new phone after my Q dies, so I activate Rachel's old phone.) This one lasts me two months before I jump into a creek and float in a raft with it in my pocket for about a half hour. Oops.

So, maybe it's not so much luck as it is pure absent mindedness. Oh well... I'm still not going to have a cell phone for a little while. If you need our apartment number, feel free to email me.

The Perfect Engineering Feat

Now, the following picture might not look that amazing to you... but if you are a dad, you'll look at the picture, smack yourself in the face, shout "Amazing!" at the top of your lungs, and fall down on the floor pounding your face on the ground for not having thought of it. (I warned you.)
THAT'S RIGHT! I managed to take Norah's currently favorite teething-rattle-shakey-rubber-ball-shaped-mouth-massage-thingy and hook it up to a Gordian Knot made of a chain of, uh, chains... and hooked those onto her Bumbo tray. Now, she can sit in the Bumbo, play with her teething-rattle-you-get-the-idea-thingy forever. She can't drop it! She can't hit herself in the face really hard with it! And, she can still get it in her mouth if she bends forward. Oh... pure golden bliss.


I finally finished this engineering masterpiece, plumped it down in front of Norah and read Harry Potter while she sat content in her Boppy shaking and sucking on things for a long, long, loooong time. And I didn't have to pick anything up, or take anything away for fear of her hurting herself. I'm breathing deep sighs of gratitude for my own brilliance as I write this.

In other news... Norah was baptized last weekend! As anyone who really cares about us has already read Rachel's post, I'm not going to write much about that. I'm exceptionally glad that she got to spend time with her family, and have been thinking a lot about Baptism lately as a result. But seeing as most people don't want to read about my thoughts on Baptism... I'm just going to move on from there.

I'll close with the image that is up on Rachel's blog right now. (Though I decided to enhance the image for my blog, because I want to be better than her.)

Of course, now that I've posted it, I'm not sure it's better than the one on Rachel's Blog. So, I'll let you all decide. Which layout is better?

Layout A

Layout B

Oh, and last thing... Rach, Norah and I were walking around Campus when we came across some flowering crabapple trees. They were really pretty and smelled like perfume, so we went under them for a minute or two. I bumped a branch and flower petal started falling down. So naturally, I grabbed a hold of the branch and started to shake until it was snowing white flower petals. Norah was entranced. Here's a picture.

Things but Very Slowly

I watched this video with Rach tonight, and was literally on the couch with my mouth wide open laughing and saying "No way" and "Wow." Take a look:

Rice Cereal!

Just one picture of Branden, Rach and I during our visit to U Chicago last weekend. I liked being on Campus with Branden, because he doesn't take himself too seriously. So, he and I could walk around a campus full of stuffed shirts speaking Franish.

Now, on to the goods.

Norah had her first go at having her teeth brushed yesterday. Which is funny, because she doesn't have teeth. But we have this little rubber thimble thingy that you can put banana flavored toothpaste on. (Yes, banana flavored toothpaste. I tasted it, and it really does taste like bananas. Someone should talk to Crest, because banana flavored toothpaste is amazing.)

I tried it out on her the other day. Apparently, as soon as you stick that rubber thimble thing in her mouth, she achieves Nirvana. She absolutely LOVES it. It's hard to get her to quit chomping down on my finger and when you take it out, she looks at you like you just killed Christmas. After observing Norah's deep seated oral stage fixation, I'm pretty sure she's going to be a dentist, or a smoker. Here's a picture of the gum massaging.

In other news, Norah has reached that tender-loving age of four months. Which means, the Doctor told us to start giving her rice cereal from a spoon. As you can see, she hasn't entirely warmed up to the idea of solid foods. (Though I would hardly call that stuff "solid.")

Now, you might think that after four months of drinking every meal, she would look forward to something a little different. I mean, if I ate milk and only milk every day for half a year... I'd be lovin' on some rice cereal. But no... Norah seems to like consistency, and that means "Get that friggin goo draped rubber coated spoon thingy OUT OF MY MOUTH!"

One tablespoon of Rice Cereal. (Yes. One tablespoon.) Took just under forty-five minutes to get down. And we only managed to get half of it in. We tossed the other half down the sink.

Hopefully, the idea will grow on her soon because I don't think she'll make many friends bringing a bottle of pureed salami sandwiches to the high school cafeteria.

Here are pictures:

Check out our Flickr page for more photos of the UChicago trip, the Late Night Breakfast we had at Vance Church, and Norah's Cereal escapade.

I'll close with a picture of Norah as she sits right now. And yes, she will sit there in that same spot until the Indians win the World Series.

Holy Smart People

So, we're here in Chicago this weekend for the Prospective Student's day at U Chicago. We stayed with a very gracious and welcoming couple named Gene and Nissy. They put us up, and let us crash on their futon for the two nights we were here, which was great. Today we woke up early and went to the University for the actual prospective students day... which was... wow. Let me just say, the people here are really, really smart.

After spending an entire day with nauseatingly intelligent people, I think I realized that there are really three kinds of Ultra-Geeks out there. The most common Ultra-Geek is the guy who only talks about Foucault. The second most common Ultra-Geeks is the guy who only talks about how everyone only talks about Foucault. Then, the most rare Ultra-geek, (the kind I think I am) is the guy sitting in the corner looking like a chimney sweep at a tea party saying "Shit. Who's Foucault?"

I spent a lot of time with the first guy. He's nice. He throws out names I've never heard of and I play along. "Oh yes," I say, "I think that I intend to contend to simultaneously also agree with you on this important matter of transientdentalisticethnomusicalismticism." And he points his drink at me spilling single malt brandy on his leather padded elbows screaming "Exactly! Exactly!" While I nod my head and duck behind the guy in the green sweater vest. He doesn't even stop to breathe. He continues his lecture while he turns to the girl with the piercing in her lip as she tries to slink by and I watch as she stops and looks at him, trapped. And I hear her saying "Oh yes. Absolutely. Foucault! Yes. I think that I intend..."

Then, I bump into the second guy who chokes on his Gin and Tonic and says "They're all so fucking boring! I'm so sick of talking about Empiricism! Can't anyone talk about the Cubs?" And I laugh very loudly while my brain screams "Don't ask me about the Cubs. I don't know about the Cubs. Who are the Cubs?" And he claps me on the back and laughs through is grizzled black beard saying "Look at that bastard! Trapped that poor girl in a twenty minute dissertation about some lame ass book he just read!" So I nod my head and think about how I want to sit and hang out with this second guy forever because he's making fun of people and if I'm standing here, then he can't be making fun of me. But he sticks his arm in the air and says something about how he's gotta jet and I'm left there by myself. Terrified. Wishing I were much, much more drunk. And I see the second guy now, standing at the bar talking to some other guy, who points at me. And my eyes fall out of my head.

That's when I turn around and see that there's a guy behind me with four bottles of Sam Adams in his pockets with his hair messed up and his zipper down who looks like he spent the night under a bus. He looks at me. I look at him. We're both horrified that one of us might say something. We stand there, our eyes like huge roving UFOs, for a solid fifteen minutes before he finally squeaks "I don't know who Foucault is." I sigh and drop my shoulders and we both drink beer.

This is going to be an interesting four to sixteen years.