What Rhymes with Style . . . ?

So I meant to write this a while ago, but this is the first time I've had to sit down and write.

A few weeks ago, Mark and I were just turning in for the night when we discovered mouse droppings on our unmade bed.  That’s right…..mouse droppings….on our bed.   Suppressing the immediate instinctual desire to burn our sheets, we threw another top sheet that we borrowed from my parents down on top of the bed. (we couldn’t find our spare set of sheets, having just recently gotten all of our things moved into the basement.)  So we uneasily went to sleep that night, haunted by images of creepy little rodents rummaging through our strewn about things only half unpacked.  The next morning during Juliette’s nap I set about going through all her clothes, checking them all over for any trace of feces or urine some nasty mouse might have left.  It was like checking someone’s head for lice with a fine toothed comb.  I recognized that perhaps I was being a bit paranoid, but I didn’t care.   Between that and washing our sheets, I was kept fairly busy.  Unfortunately I had started that day two hours behind already in my work hours, so I had been planning on trying to get caught up.  But I figured I could still work during Juliette’s afternoon nap.  

            Alas, that was not to be.  I had been warned against prunes by my mother, but Mark and I had decided to try them on Juliette that week.  It had been a couple days since we had given them to her, and we hadn’t seen any negative side affects.  So I got her up from her morning nap, fed her and cheerfully began planning my productive afternoon getting caught up on research work.  The blowout occurred shortly before she went down for her afternoon nap.  I did not realize her diaper was even messy until it was soaking through her clothes.  I couldn’t even clean it up without getting her messier…you know the kind.  So she was stripped down and plopped into the bath….for the second time that day (that morning, she had gotten her regular bath).  So I spent the first portion of her afternoon nap rinsing her clothes out in the toilet and starting another load of laundry, after which I scrambled to get to work.   I think I got a measly hour in before she woke up.  Shortly before we went to pick up Mark, I was changing her diaper and discovered that same gooey brown sticking to the inside of  her second outfit of the day, having shot up the back of her diaper. Cursing my rotten luck, I repeated the same routine: rinsing off baby, rinsing out clothes.  I was getting really sick of rinsing out clothes in the toilet.   After I rinsed off Juliette, I put a clean diaper on her and laid her on the floor while I went over to gather her things from the bathroom.  In the minute I was gone she proceeded to unfasten her diaper and pee on the carpet.   

            Needless to say, on the drive home Mark got an earful about my day, and my strong aversion to mice and prunes (which he had unfortunately chosen to get from the grocery store as one of the items on that week’s baby menu).  Luckily he is a very sympathetic listener.   Before the prunes had finished ripping through her system, Juliette had three more blowouts, two which occurred the next day.  Concerning the mice, there has been no sign of any since then, and two mousetraps in our apartment have yet to catch anything, so we're attributing the incident to the mouse poop fairy and leaving it at that.  The moral of the story is I hate poop, of mice and men . . . and prunes.

 

The upside is that Juliette looks really cute in the bath . . . and conveniently censors herself :-)

Also, Juliette is shocked that we photographed her eating applesauce.  So is Brittany (if you look to the left).  Actually, Brittany is falling prey to I-can't-help-opening-my-mouth-when-my-child-is-taking-a-bite syndrome.  I know you know what I'm talking about.  If you don't, try feeding a baby sometime.

Just a quick plug:  I've opened another blog.  After reading some of Heather's recent posts and responses thereto I've decided it might be wise to separate my potentially controversial opinions from the family blog, which, let's face it, is just a photo album for Juliette.  So if you'd like access to the deep inner workings of my mind and because of temporal or geographical constraints don't have five minutes to sit in a room with me (because that's about how long it takes for me to get on a soap box) check out my new blog at salondulisle.blogspot.com  

 
 
 
 
Last of all, Juliette and I are planning an intervention for Brittany after we found her passed out when she OD'd on Halloween Candy.  It's a rising epidemic in our society.

So, here's a video of Juliette giggling.  Before you watch it I would like to explain:  We've been trying to catch Juliette's giggle on video for weeks.  Two nights ago, Brittany sang the Austrian Yodeler song to her.  When she got to the yodeling part, Juliette went into the from-the-belly-falling-over kind of laugh.  Since then she has consistently laughed when the song was repeated (and we have laughed along with her).  So when we got home from church today Juliette hadn't napped and was very tired to the point that she was giggling when you said "Hi" to her.  We figured this was the perfect time to catch her with the webcam.  Of course, as soon as we got the camera out she decided that the song was no longer funny, thus thwarting our efforts to capture that delicious belly-laugh of hers.  We still got a decent giggle out of her, though, so we're posting it.  Enjoy it . . . we do. 

Another week has flown by . . . it's hard to believe it's October already.  Not a whole lot has happened this week out of the ordinary.  Brittany and I have been trying to eat better lately, and discovered that whole wheat pasta is actually pretty good, as is 1/2 the fat ice cream (although it's still 100% of the sugar).  Emilie, if you have any good-nutritious-not-too-expensive recipes to pass along we'd love that.  Actually that applies to anyone who reads this blog.  E-mail us recipes!

I guess it's time again for our bi-weekly update.  The big news, of course, is that Dad came out last weekend for a conference in DC.  He was at the conference most of the time, but we got to spend a lot of time with him over the weekend.  I had lunch with him Friday on campus at Georgetown, he stayed with us on Wednesday and Saturday and got to spend most of Sunday with us before we took him to the airport.  He took us all out to Macaroni Grill on Saturday and fixed my ingrown toe-nail in an impromptu surgical theater in the breakfast room.  That's what dads are for, right?  It was very fun to see him and fun, as always, to show off Juliette.  Here are some pictures:

Brittany and I were discussing this morning how this blog is really about Juliette, but I suppose we should update the world as to our doings as well.  Not that I'm pretending to be reluctant to write about myself.  Anyone who has spent any significant amount of time with me surely knows that I'm more than willing to talk about myself and my family to anyone who will listen.  It's one of my few failings.  So I'm going to start by talking about Brittany, lest anyone suspect me of narcissism.  

Well we've got quite a bit of catching up to do....almost the whole month of august has flown by! Previous to this post Mark has been reporting on our family's adventures, but this time I decided to try my hand at the blogging thing. So if this report lacks the style and flair that you are used to in your perusal of the lisle news, I apologize. 

Well, that's not exactly true. But it's been a little bit of a slow week. At first, that really bothered me, and I kept trying to find things to do, but then I remembered that school's going to start and it might be a while before Brittany, Juliette and I get another chance to just hang out together. So we spent a lot of time just hanging out. We slept late and sat around and generally enjoyed ourselves. Britt and I sort of went on a date. Actually we went to the mall to get jeans (I got two pairs for $20.00 at Old Navy! Yay for not spending lots of money!) but we did eat there and get ice cream afterwards, so it still counts as a date . . . right? On Saturday we went to the Tyson's Corner mall to look for shoes and visit the Apple Store. That mall is huge! It took like 20 minutes to walk from where we came in to Nordstroms. Mom and Heather: I definitely thought of you. I'm not enough of a shopper to do it justice, but I think you guys would have had a blast. Anyways . . .

The real news here, of course, is Juliette, who is the cutest child to ever grace the face of this planet (followed closely by her cousins). We bought her a little gym. I think that's what they call it. You know, it has a mat and bars hanging over it, with cute little toys hanging off of it. She really likes it, and spends a lot of time kicking her legs wildly and talking to her buddy the giraffe. Speaking of talking, Juliette has starting talking all the time. She loves to sing along with her mom and imitate the sounds she makes. I'm going to try to put a short video of that on if it works (mostly for you, Mom). She also started saying "Hi." One night, when we were all standing around her she just started saying "Hi! Hi! Haaaaaiiii!" over and over. She was obviously pleased that she was getting such a positive response from everybody. This went on for several minutes until she gradually became overstimulated and continued saying "Hi" but with a distinctly frantic edge to it. It's funny the way babies transition so quickly from excited to fussy. I guess adults can be like that too. Hmm . . .

We're really trying to get Juliette to do the tummy time thing. Her legs are super strong, but she hasn't totally figured out her arms yet and she hates tummy time. We bought the gym partially in hopes that it would help her enjoy tummy time a little more, and it has, but she still has trouble. She's very funny when she tries, though. The following pictures show a typical progression from propped up and looking, to one arm behind, to face planted firmly on the ground. I'm sure she'll get it, and in the meantime, we enjoy watching her try. The fourth picture is there just to show that she drools a lot. Seriously, she's like a little fountain.
Oh! I almost forgot! She totally started sleeping through the night this week. Yup, she has started conking out at around 9:30 PM and she doesn't get up until 8:30 AM (actually, she starts to rouse at about 7:00 AM, but if you stick a binky in her mouth she sleeps just fine). It's been really nice. Of course, now she eats a lot more at each feeding, (and in general), but it's a good trade off. We're very excited.

Anyway, I think that's about all we have. We're loving being with the McLerrans, but we're missing the Lisles. School starts on Tuesday, and I'm excited. Basically, we're happy to be where we are, doing what we're doing. We truly are blessed. All our love to all our family and friends!

P.S. As a last note, I'm thinking about buying a Mac laptop. I'm buying a laptop no matter what, and this seems like a good time to switch to Mac, despite the added expense. If any of you have any words of wisdom or advice, please post it here or on my Facebook. Ok, I'm done for reals now.

Now that we've officially moved to Virginia, I'm trying to catch up on what happened in the weeks leading up to our leaving. I quit my job on July 1st. It wasn't a bad job in the sense that I got paid money for it. I considered the alternative, and decided I prefer the jobs that pay money. Actually, the people I worked for were nice, if a little bit disorganized, and I worked a fairly regular schedule. Though being a low-level accounting clerk at a growing repo company was not the career I had envisioned for my future life, I was grateful to be employed. 'Nuff said. Brittany quit her job on June 30th, to her great relief. I think she liked her co-workers, but working as the weekend discharge coordinator at the Salem Hospital was about as fun as taking a bath in a tub full of snakes. And almost as stressful. We are glad to be done working.
On the Wednesday after we quit our jobs, my mom, Britt, Juliette, my sister Annie, and I piled into my mom's Camry at 6:00 AM and headed to Utah. It took us 20 hours to get there, but all in all it could have been worse. Juliette slept pretty much the whole time. It was, all in all, a whirlwind trip. Brittany's Aunt Mary, who we saw for a grand total of about 30 minutes, called it a whistle-stop tour. I think that sums it up pretty well. To our friends in Provo: it was wonderful to see those of you we saw, and to those of you we didn't see, we're sorry. We would have loved to have seen everyone, but it was a very quick trip.
The highlight, I think, was getting all three of the new babies together. We have some awesome pics of Juliette and Nathan together, and the pictures of Juliette, Nathan, and Maggie together are awesome. We'll probably think they're more awesome in about 20 years. It was also a lot of fun playing with James and Daphne and Matthew, although we didn't get to see as much of Matthew as we might have wanted.
On Sunday we piled back in the car at 11:00 PM and drove all night. We were very tired but, it paid off, since the return trip only took us 14 hours. It was fun to visit Provo again. It still feels like coming home for us. After we got back to Oregon we spent the rest of the week trying to pack up all our earthly possessions and loading them on a rental truck so we could drive them from Salem to Portland and load them on another truck so they could be shipped to Virginia. We tried to have a relaxing last couple of days with my family, but it wasn't easy with so many things to do. On Saturday (July 12th) we flew to Virginia.
We'll really miss living in Oregon. We enjoyed being so close to my family, and we hung out with them a lot. We already miss the dinners and the movies and the just plain hanging out we did. We miss you guys! We also miss playing Rock Band with Matt. On that note, we are accepting donations for the "Buy Mark and Brittany a Wii with Rock Band" Fund. We are also accepting donations for the "Fly Matt to Virginia so He Can Play It with Us" Fund. We accept cash, checks and money orders. And check out Facebook for more pictures.

In order to make my mother happy, since we just moved to the other side of the country, we are officially starting our own blog. I should also mention, that this is in keeping with the peer pressure exerted by all of my siblings having active blogs (except Annie and Heather), the same peer pressure that impelled me to join Facebook. I'm making it sound like this blog is for other people, but we're actually excited about the ability to keep in touch with family and friends scattered all across the country, and heaven knows I need to learn to keep a journal. Of course, as the denizens of the Cannon Center Table know, I'm a terribly inconsistent blogger . . . This is me vowing to turn over a new leaf. I have about three posts written in my head, but I'm very tired and I'll have to write them tomorrow. Hmm . . . this early disposition towards procrastination does not bode well.