Fickle Spring

This was Saturday--Cousin Melissa and Lizzy playing with bubbles at a picnic in a park...




This is today... poor daffodils...

Lizzy the Super Eater

In the past year, Lizzy's eating habits have transformed dramatically. Check out this plate. As she was heaping it high at dinner tonight, I was rather flabbergasted. Just a year ago, the only fruit or vegetable she would eat was jar peaches--as in babyfood. She was 6 years old and still eating babyfood because that was the only way we could get her to eat fruit. And she was equally picky about other foods. And now...



On her plate in this picture are the following things (we were having modified Hawaiian haystacks... we called them Utahn haystacks today):

Rice
Hard-boiled eggs
Zucchini
Shredded coconut
Cream of mushroom soup (as sauce on the rice)
Shredded cheddar cheese
Raw spinach greens (our favorite salad)
Chicken
Strawberries
Bananas

The only thing she protested about on this plate were the second strawberry slice and the second banana slice (crazy kid--she's still not crazy about fruit; she'll eat it, but she often complains. She eats vegetables very well though... go figure).

So how did it happen?

Well, a couple of years ago, we were painting various rooms in the house, and Lizzy and Christine got excited about painting Lizzy's room pink. But we set a condition. Before Lizzy could have a pink room, she had to learn to eat five fruits and five vegetables. We defined "learning to eat" as having eaten each one five times. So we made a fruit chart and a vegetable chart on which she could put stickers to track her progress.

She started strong and soon had three or four banana stickers but not much else. Then she fizzled, and the charts were ignored for months--probably almost a year. They even came down off the fridge for a while, and Christine bemoaned that we would never get to paint Lizzy's room, and I worried that Lizzy would be eating jar peaches when she was 16.

Then last spring Lizzy got motivated again. I'm not sure what made the change, but she got the charts out and started eating. It still required a bit of encouragement and urging on our part, but soon she had eaten five servings of five fruits or vegetables, so we painted half her room. And by sometime in the summer she had completed both charts--five servings of 10 fruits and vegetables--and she had a pink room.

Since then, we have simply continued encouraging. At first I thought we would be confined to those 10 fruits and vegetables, but she has broadened her repertoire pretty well. She has also become less picky about other foods. It has sometimes taken prodding, and it always takes a firm commitment to the rule that you don't get dessert unless you eat your fruits or vegetables.

We still sometimes have to insist and threaten, but usually these days she will dish it up and eat it down (see picture at right as evidence that tonight's meal was completely consumed... though there were tears at one point this evening when she didn't want to eat some of it. But we persevered through the tears and she had a smile to show for it at the end of the meal).

Cold Flowers

Poor daffodils. They came out last week, so eager to meet spring...

Spring in Utah

70s last week... 30s this week. Sigh.

Sunday Evening Concerts

This is one of my favorite times of the week. Christine is the fastest eater in our house, and on Sunday evenings when she is done eating, she will often take Caroline with her and retire to the living room, where she begins playing arrangements of hymns on the piano. The peaceful, beautiful spirit of the music soon fills our home. And if Lizzy and I can finish eating fast enough, we like to join her in the living room: Lizzy to dance and me to read or care for Caroline or just sit and listen and watch. The spirit of this moment is, in my mind, the perfect conclusion to a sabbath day.

Welcome to Spring

When I came home today the daffodils were blooming in front of the house. Perfect way to celebrate the first day of spring.

Scripture Study Strategy

For a long time now I've been trying to come up with an effective scripture study routine. My attempts, however, tend to be complicated by poor sleep habits and a lack of decisiveness about what I should be studying.

I'm doing great with studying every day, but I often don't think my study is as effective as it could be, and I often feel like I'm fitting it in my schedule out of obligation and I do it almost begrudgingly at times. This is not because I don't want to study. It's rather because by the time I get around to studying, it is later in the evening and I am tired or I have other things I'd like to be doing.

I have also taken to doing a bit of my study by listening to scriptures or Church magazines as I drive to and from work or while I do things around the house. This is a good way to fit it into a busy schedule, and I think some of that is probably fine. But if this is all I'm doing, I fear it's not as effective as it could be. For one thing, I often get a bit distracted from what I'm listening to; for another, not everything I want to study is available in mp3 format. And in addition, I think I need to be doing more writing as part of my study (see below).

So I'm thinking outloud a bit at the moment... here are some of my objectives with scripture study; maybe if I write them all down I can think through them better and come up with a good way of doing this.

1. Study in the morning. Study in the morning--before I get busy with other things--will help (I think) avoid this sense of obligation a bit. In the morning, there is little else competing for my attention (except sleep). And if I study in the morning, it will free up my evenings for other stuff. The problem is that morning study requires getting up early, and that has never been my strength. I tend to rationalize sleeping until the last possible moment because either a) I was up late, b) I'm recovering from a campout or work project or some other thing that caused me to be up for much of the night, or c) I was up for a while in the night with Caroline. Those issues combine with d) I really should be getting closer to eight hours of sleep (even seven would be nice). I'm not entirely sure how to handle those issues because I really do think sleep is important. I tend to think I need to just discipline myself to getting up at a set time no matter what. Once I make excuses now and then, the whole system falls apart. It becomes really easy to find reasons not to get up just yet. Plus, if I wake up late, then I stay up late the next night fitting in scripture study, which makes it hard to get up early the next morning, and so on. So I think I just need to set a time and stick to it. But that's hard to do--easy to say when you're already out of bed, hard to practice when your head is comfortable on a soft pillow...

2. Begin writing what I study. Several people in our ward keep scripture study journals, and we've talked about them many times. There is great value in writing down what you study--in thinking through and processing the material, and in recording it for future reference or to share with others. As a writer, this is something I can understand. But including writing in my scripture study time means I can't do all my study by listening to mp3s--I have to have time where I can sit and ponder and write. And it means I can't read as much as I would like. I have a good list of things I'd like to read as part of my scripture study, and I often have this sense that there is more I should be reading, and it's hard to discipline myself to stop reading and start writing.

3. Exercise while I study. This is something I have tried in the past year and it has worked pretty well at times. Regular exercise is a weakness of mine, and I have thought if i could walk on the treadmill while I read, that would help me accomplish two challenging goals at once. But this complicates the writing goal, and it means that most--if not all--of my study needs to be done at home, not while driving in the car. But it works well with the morning study goal, and it works well with listening to mp3s as part of my study. In the past when I have done this, I have tried to walk for 30 minutes while I read various things. Oh--the other thing this means is it is hard to study big books or write notes in margins or follow lots of cross references while I walk. Walking while studying works great with reading Church magazines or handbooks or something from one of the smaller scripture books--Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price. The bible can work, but it's a bit heavy to hold while walking. My minimum goal would be to exercise at least three times a week.

4. Study for an hour a day. When I received my current assignment at Church, part of my instruction was that I really should be studying for at least 60 minutes a day. That has been a challenge. My previous goal was 30 minutes, but I would often only get 15--if it was late and I was tired. I've done fairly well at increasing my time to 60 minutes a day. In the last year or so, I would say I have probably hit that mark at least half the time--maybe two-thirds. But it has continued to be a challenge, especially when I don't get around to studying until 9 or 9:30 p.m.

5. Study a variety of things. Here are some of the things I would like to do during my study. I don't need to do all of these every day, but I'd like to get to each of them pretty regularly.

• Book of Mormon: Our stake president has asked us to read this once a year. I would like to to read at least a chapter or two several times a week. This could be something I listen to while I walk on the treadmill.
  
• Other scripture: I find I know the Book of Mormon really well, but I'm not as familiar with the other scriptures. I would like to know them all as well as I know the Book of Mormon. In the last six or eight months I've been studying the Doctrine and Covenants with a study guide as the core of my scripture study (usually 20-30 minutes) and it has been really helpful. I'd like to continue this sort of practice. Because the scripture guide is big and this study often involves marking things, this is difficult to do on the treadmill.
  
• Church handbooks: I need to better understand Church policy and guidelines
  
• Church magazines: I've never been good at reading these, but when I do read them, I find good value there. In the last four or five months, I've been listening to the Ensign and the New Era as mp3s--that has worked really well, and I have enjoyed it. This month's New Era has about 80 minutes of listening material. The Ensign should have around 130 minutes of material each month (though about 20 minutes of that can be Church news, which I find less uplifting and scripture-study worthy).
  
• Lesson plans: I frequently have opportunities to teach a class at Church or to conduct some training in a meeting or to share a message with a group. Preparing for these opportunities seems like a good use of scripture study time--though the schedule for these opportunities tend to be a bit erratic, so it's hard to schedule 15 minutes a day on this. In the past I have sometimes spent my whole scripture time preparing a lesson, and other times I've spent a few minutes here and there. Somehow my strategy needs to include enough flexibility to accommodate this.
  
• Other: Occasionally other Church materials--talks, pamphlets, etc.--come up as things I need to study.

So... how to fit this all together? A bit of a puzzle or logic problem. One key question: how much time should I spend writing? Part of my issue there is that I tend to ramble on when I write. This post, for instance... When I have tried to do this in the past I've either started writing and then gone on and on or I've been unable to think of anything from my study to write about. So on one hand I'm not sure 10 minutes is enough time for writing, but on the other hand I may not have 10 minutes worth of material each day. I'm probably going about this wrong--it probably shouldn't be a block of writing time separate from my reading time (say 45 minutes reading, 15 minutes writing). It probably needs to be integrated: writing as I'm reading--having my scripture study journal open and ready as I read and jotting thoughts and insights as they come. So maybe I spend 15 minutes in the Book of Mormon and part of that 15 minutes is writing. Our previous bishop told me once that for his scripture journal, he writes a brief summary of each thing he reads. Those summaries can be a sentence or a paragraph or more. As I think through some of these issues, I am tempted to let it be more flexible--just study what I feel like studying each day. But I think I might tend to over study some things that way and not get around to other things. I think having a structure and a plan will be important in helping me accomplish my various objectives. So... here's a thought: 1. Begin study by 5:30 a.m. at the latest. If I'm done by 6:30, that will give me plenty of time for showering, eating, praying, making my lunch, and having family devotional before Lizzy and I leave the house at 7:55 for school. If I wake up earlier I could use the extra time for writing in my blog or writing notes to people, which is another of my goals I'm not doing well with. 5:30 has been my goal before... but it's been hard to stick to. Discipline, discipline. 2. Walk on the treadmill while I study at least three times a week (I've planned time for walking every day below). 3. Have my journal open and next to me as I study. Stop and write thoughts as they come. This will be difficult on the treadmill--will have to stop walking while I write thoughts; might have to just make brief notes and expound on them after walking. I might consider getting an exercise bike; riding involves less bouncing, which makes both reading and writing easier. 4. Follow this plan for study time:

• Book of Mormon: 15 minutes, daily, listen to mp3s (or read the book, if focus is a problem) while walking every day but Sunday
  
• Church magazines: 15 minutes, M/W/F, listen to mp3s (or read hard copy, if focus is a problem) while walking; that should give me enough minutes to get through both the Ensign and the New Era each month
  
• Church Handbook: 15 minutes, T/Th/Sa/Su, read while walking (except Sunday)
  
• Other scriptures: 15 minutes, daily (can be replaced by lesson plan time if needed)
  
• Flex time/lesson plans/other: 15 minutes, daily

K, now I have a plan. Let's see if I can do it.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

A few weeks ago I repaired our front door knob. Then a few days later when I came home and inserted my key into the lock, I noticed something wrong. can you see it in the image at left?

Well, the door knob functioned fine, so I was tempted to leave it alone. But I just couldn't let that backwardness continue, so recently I fixed it (see image at right).

Whew. Now isn't that better?

The Princess Dance

Tonight Lizzy and I attended the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo Ball at her elementary school for princesses and their fathers. They had a few crafts (make a tiara, make your own corsage/boutonniere) and some dance instruction. Lizzy doesn't care for the waltz too much, but she loves to spin... and do her own crazy dance (which is not always/ever timed to the music and mostly involves spinning and jumping and running around as fast as you can). I have previously taught her the "pretzel"--a country dance move I learned long ago. She enjoyed that (it involves lots of spinning), and she kept requesting the pretzel in the middle of her crazy dance.

A Question of Balance

For a couple of years Lizzy has been trying to learn to ride a bike. We got training wheels a couple of summers ago and we've tried riding around on them. Problem is we haven't been very diligent about trying. And Lizzy has been quite skittish of the bike. She wants to learn and she's excited to ride, but the bike makes her rather nervous. Even with training wheels, she has sometimes been a bit jumpy.

On the advice of a friend at work, we got Lizzy a scooter for Christmas. The scooter, he said, would help her learn balance. Well, the scooter was a big hit--the most popular Christmas present by far. Before long she was almost constantly scooting through the house (it being too cold to scoot outside): down the tiled hall, across the kitchen, down the ramp and into the family room. Then back up the ramp, through the kitchen, and down the hall. Back and forth, back and forth. With all that scooting, her balance improved dramatically.

Last Saturday was a beautiful pre-spring day, and Lizzy decided to scoot around outside. After a couple minutes, she came inside and asked if I would go around the block with her. I consented, hopped on her bike, and around the block she went. Her balance was so good on the scooter, I proposed she try the bike (without training wheels). She did, with me holding the seat to keep her up. But then I let go, and she kept going! But only for a few feet. But still, this was progress. So up and down the sidewalk we went. But she was still quite nervous and wanted me to hold the seat almost all the time. When I would let go, however, she would keep upright--though wobbly--for a good 10 feet or so. Encouraged, we practiced again a couple times this week after work. Still, Lizzy was very nervous and wanted me to hold most of the time. but there were signs of improvement, so we kept at it.

Today we decided to try again. It was a bright, sunny day--though rather chilly--and the Church parking lot across the street was empty and inviting. She got on her bike and I held the seat. She started to pedal and soon commanded, "Let go." I did. And she stayed up. Still nervous, though, within a few feet she called out, "Hold on!"

She was doing so well, though, that I refused. And she kept going. And she kept going. And she rode around in a circle, all the way saying, "Hold on! Hold on!" with me saying, "No, you're doing great! Keep going!"

So she rode in a big circle and then 50 yards down the parking lot before she stopped and crashed. She had done it! She had ridden and balanced and turned! I was so excited. She still seemed tentative, but I could tell she was pleased. So she got on and did it again--this time farther. Within a few minutes, she was riding all over the parking lot by herself--all fear, all nervousness gone. Amazing how something that was so scary could suddenly be so easy and natural (see video below for evidence).

My Amazing Wife

Christine has been asked to speak at a stake Relief Society meeting this Saturday (I just read her talk--it's really good), and a member of the stake Relief Society presidency contacted me to get some introductory material. She asked for a few quick facts. I went a bit overboard. :)

But anyway, I thought it was worth sharing... cuz Christine is truly an amazing person. As further evidence of how cool she is, this is Lizzy's lunch bag from the other day. When Lizzy forgets to bring her lunch box home, Christine uses a brown paper bag. But it's not just a brown paper bag. She always decorates the bag with these fun crayon drawings. Sometimes it's Lizzy's name in fun writing. Sometimes it's music notations. Sometimes it's flowers or fish or cats or a sunrise. She's cool.

Christine's best friend (second best, perhaps, after me--but that's a close call) is her twin sister. She is the third of six children and grew up in Northern California (Bay Area--east bay, near Walnut Creek). She ran track in high school and played on the basketball and tennis teams. She and her family shared a boat with another family in their ward and loved to go water skiing.

She loves hiking and being in the outdoors (in warm weather). The beach and the mountains are two of her favorite places; during the summer we take lots of picnics up the canyon. She loves to run up the canyon trail when she can. She also is an avid reader and loves participating in the ward's book group as well as a book group of friends from our previous ward.

She served a mission in Venezuela and speaks Spanish fluently.

She is an amazing pianist and minored in music at BYU. At her BYU graduation--where she was honored as the valedictorian of her department--she performed a piano piece by Chopin (in the Marriott Center). She also has perfect pitch (so does her twin). She enjoys various styles of music, especially performed live.

Her father was diagnosed with cancer during her last year of her undergraduate studies at BYU; he died a few weeks after her graduation.

She got a master's degree in sociology at BYU and conducted sociological research in Bolivia and Colombia during her graduate program. She was accepted to PhD sociology programs at Princeton, UCLA, and a few other schools (most of whom were willing to pay her way for four years of study and research) when we got engaged. We prayed a lot about what to do and considered moving to New Jersey for a few years, but in the end she decided she didn't want sociology to be the focus of her life, and as much of a rush as it was to have Princeton begging her to come to school there, she wasn't really all that excited about getting a PhD after all. So we stayed in Utah, and she did sociological research for the Church until we had our first child.

Our oldest daughter, Lizzy, has inherited her mother's brilliant mind, love of reading, and musical talent. She is a sweet girl who is developing a strong testimony in her youth. She also inherited her father's distractability and deals with mild ADHD issues (sometimes less mild than others).

Christine's second pregnancy went smoothly and we were eagerly anticipating another daughter, about 20 months behind Lizzy. On her due date, however, Christine felt we should go to the doctor to have things checked out. She hadn't felt Caroline move much in the last day or so, and she thought we needed to check on things.

We went to the hospital, and they did a stress test. The baby's heart rate seemed fine, and they said they'd just watch things for a little while. After we'd been there for 15 minutes or so, they suddenly lost Caroline's heart rate; at first they moved the machine around thinking they just didn't have it situated right; then they realized her heart rate had plummeted.

Christine was rushed into emergency c-section surgery; when she came out Caroline was not breathing and her heart was barely beating. She had lost a lot of blood. They revived her, began blood transfusions, and sent her to Primary Children's. We are still not sure exactly what caused this trauma, but somehow Caroline lost a lot of blood before birth--possibly even a day or two before birth--and then something significant happened while we were there in the hospital to cause her heart rate to suddenly drop. Doctors have said if we were not in the hospital at that precise moment, we would have lost her. I will be ever grateful that Christine was in tune enough to know we needed to go to the doctor that morning.

Caroline spent a couple of weeks in intensive care in Primary Children's. Her loss of blood resulted in a lack of oxygen being carried to her brain. That, of course, led to severe brain injury. The results of her brain injury have been severe cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Caroline today is almost six years old; she functions physically--and mentally, as much as we can tell--on about a three-month-old level. She cannot talk and she is not mobile. She has frequent seizures and is fed by a tube. But she often smiles and laughs (she actually laughs through most of her seizures) and she appears to recognize our voices. She loves it when Christine plays the piano or when we move her arms around, and she smiles and laughs when her sister hugs and kisses her. Christine spends endless hours caring for Caroline. When Caroline is sick and sad (as she is frequently), this often means holding and comforting her for much of the day.

I am grateful to be married to a woman who is brilliant enough and reliable enough and on-top-of-it enough to manage doctors and medications and schools and to navigate our family's way through the complexities of life; a woman who is talented enough to fill our home with beautiful music (and teach our oldest daughter to do the same); a woman who has a strong enough testimony to sustain me in callings that require me to frequently leave her at home with the girls; a woman who is practical enough and clever enough to manage our finances and keep us fiscally afloat; a woman who is faithful enough and strong enough to weather the challenges that come our way and to help the rest of us do likewise; a woman who is patient enough to deal with a sad girl and a crazy girl and a perpetually late husband; and a woman who is strategic enough to beat me in Ticket to Ride nine out of 10 times (ok, I'm only sort of grateful for that part).

Sickness or Seizures

Well, Caroline is better now, after a week or two of being sick. We know she's better because now she's having seizures again. And she's not sleeping well again. Both sure signs that she's healthy. Sometimes I'm not entirely sure whether I prefer Caroline to be healthy or sick.

In early February, Caroline was healthy, and not sleeping well. She would wake up about 2 a.m. each morning--often with a seizure. Sometimes she would go back to sleep, sometimes she wouldn't. She was having six to eight seizures a day. Then on Feb. 6, she started sounding congested. She had six seizures that day. On Feb. 7, she woke up at 2 a.m, then went back to sleep until about 7, when we measured her temperature at 104. She only had two seizures that day. Over the next few days the fever continued and she had between two and four seizures a day. She started sleeping better on Feb. 9. On Feb. 11, Christine took her to the doctor, who found a blister on her eardrum. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic.

During the next 10 days of being on the antibiotic, Caroline had a total of five seizures, and she had several days with no seizures at all. Of course, this was also when the really negative side effect of Caroline illnesses kicked in: she got sad. For a little more than a week, she cried a lot--almost constantly for a few days.

Crying is a regular part of Caroline illnesses. At such times there are often only two things that can cheer her up. First, you can hold her upright, with her head on her shoulder. This works best when you are standing, but sometimes it works if you are sitting also; with her now weighing about 35 pounds, it had better work sitting, because our backs can't handle standing for long. The second option for cheering Caroline up (especially helpful when option one doesn't work) is to put her in the car and go for a drive. We don't know why this works, but it does. Sometimes you have to drive for 15 to 20 minutes before she'll calm down, but after that, she'll often remain happy in the car for hours--even if the car is just sitting in the garage (but if you take her out of the car, you may have another long drive ahead of you to cheer her up again). During this time, we were tempted to take a spontaneous road trip somewhere far away. Instead we went to the planetarium in Salt Lake--which was good for an hour drive each way (and, surprisingly, Caroline was quiet and happy in the planetarium.)

Anyway, after several days of sadness, no seizures, and good sleeping, she got healthy. She cheered up on Feb. 21, the last day of the antibiotic. She had no seizures that day or the next. Then suddenly on Feb. 23, she had 12 seizures; 15 on Feb. 24. On Feb. 25 she woke up at about 4:50 a.m. and had 18 seizures. Feb. 26 it was 2:30 a.m. and 9 seizures. 2:15 and 17 seizures the next day. You get the idea.

This pattern has repeated itself over and over in the last year--with the seizures, anyway. The sleeping/not sleeping pattern is a recent addition to the cycle. Not that we really have a choice, but it seems that we either have seizures or sickness. I guess I prefer Caroline healthy, because, well, she's healthy. And when she's healthy, she's generally happy. (And the sadness is much harder to deal with than the seizures.) So we're grateful that at the moment, Caroline is happy and healthy--even though that sometimes means we are listening to her giggling loudly through a seizure at 2:30 a.m....