Tag: kids

Categories
life

Welcome Isaac

The surprise today was that Isaac decided to have a birthday. Stats and story follow.

Name: Isaac David Miller
Arrived: 7:13 am 11/5/2006
Weight: 7 lbs. 3 oz.
Length: 18 1/2 inches

At 4:45 Laura woke me up saying “I think we’re going to have a baby today.” She had been timing contractions since 3:30 after they had been waking her up since 12:00. Laura had been wanting to wait until her mom got home this afternoon, but Isaac had other plans. We called our friend, Kandice, to come watch our two sleeping children and Savannah (who was awake for all of this). I had to pack the bags and call the midwife on duty. Laura and I got dressed and rushed to the hospital.

Laura was 8 cm dilated by the time we arrived around 5:45 – it’s a good thing we had pre-registered after Laura’s last checkup – and she was at a 10 within an hour. They barely had time to get an epidural in her. Isaac’s head was nearly out by the time Laura realized that he was crowning. He came after about 10 minutes of pushing. Aside from the extra pain – the epidural was just kicking in – it was the easiest birth we’ve had.

Isaac was almost 3 weeks early so we were not expecting this, but he and Laura are doing great. In our rush to get to the hospital we forgot the camera. We will have pictures up in the next few days.

P.S. Thanks to Kandice for her supporting role.

Categories
life

Highlight of My Day

After being out of work for over a month, you would think that getting a good job offer yesterday would have been the highlight of my day. It wasn’t. Later in the day Alyssa, my three-year-old, came in to the office to tell me that she wanted to read Hey Diddle Diddle to me. She brought her book of nursery rhymes to me. It was opened to the correct page and she stared at the picture while saying the rhyme. I’m not sure if she had memorized it or if she was reading the picture, but she got it exactly right.

Categories
culture life

Insurance Racket

I had to deal with changing health insurance today with the business office at the womens clinic that Laura goes to in preparation for our new baby. That gave me the opportunity to review prices for their services. I discovered something very disappointing. In the last year, with insurance through my work, I have paid as much in premiums (not counting what the company was supposedly paying toward the premiums) as the clinic would charge an insurance company. The only money I saved by having insurance, even with the large medical expense of having a baby, is that I am not being charged the higher prices that they charge those who don’t have insurance. I don’t quite understand that policy. Why should they charge more to those people who can’t afford insurance? Isn’t that like kicking a person while they’re down?

Anyway, that’s the insurance racket. My portion of the price of insurance every year is enough to pay for a major medical procedure, like 9 months of prenatal care plus delivery and a hospital stay.If we weren’t having kids I’d be throwing away a new car every year in insurance premiums – and that’s when the company is paying the bulk of the costs. If I were to pay for that insurance myself for three years I would have paid for a major injury – like being seriously hit by a car. If I put that money into my house instead of my insurance I would have the house paid off in 11 years from the time I bought it.

Categories
life politics

Foundations

I was up very early this morning talking to Laura about foundations. We were specifically talking about the foundation that we are laying for our children which will affect them throughout their lives. We also talked about the foundations that we received from our parents. As I thought more about it I recognized the foundation of our government – the Constitution. Then I remembered the words to the hymn “How Firm a Foundation” which remind me that the foundation of my faith and the faith of other Latter Day Saints, as well as the faith of Christians in general, is (and ought to be) firmly founded in the excellent word of Christ.

During the discussion this morning I realized how vital a good foundation is in any endeavor. In our lives, Laura and I have both noticed that any strength we have comes from the strength of our foundations. Wherever there was weakness in the foundations we gained during our formative years we find that we are constantly struggling to compensate while we try to fix the underlying foundational layer. It is obvious why we are so adamant about trying to give our children the strongest foundations we can give them.

My later reflections had me thinking about how the strength of our nation comes from our Constitution. Where there is weakness in our country we can generally trace the origins of that weakness either to a weakness in the Constitution (which we can fix through the amendment process) or to our society contradicting or misinterpreting the Constitution.

As for spiritual foundations, our faith can never be stronger than the foundation for that faith. Although the word of Christ is a strong foundation we must be careful that we are not contradicting that word, or misrepresenting it in our lives. If we are we will find that we cannot enjoy the true strength of that foundation.

Categories
life

What Makes a Good Day?

If you are like me, you have wondered at times what kids think about different things. I wonder how they view the world around them as they try to make sense of it. I am especially curious about what they think before they get a vocabulary.

This morning as I went to get Mariah, my one year old, out of bed I realized by looking in her eyes how she decides whether a day is good or not. If she wakes up, it’s a good day. She is just excited to be alive. She loves bringing happiness to everyone around her. This is not to say that she is happy 24/7, but the only time she is unhappy is when her focus on life is being distracted by more terrestrial concerns, like being hungry or tired.

Categories
life

Outing to the Park

We took the kids to This is the Place Heritage Park back in early June and they liked it so much then that we promised them a return visit. That return visit finally came today.

I was busy all morning so I was tired before we left and I didn’t really want to go. Technically the park is closed after Labor Day. What this means is that there is no charge and you can’t go into any of the buildings. Not only that, but there are no people wearing period clothing and telling visitors what life was like 150 years ago.

When we arrived at the park all of my worst fears were realized. It looked like a cross between a ghost town and a desolate wasteland. There were virtually no cars in the parking lot and we had not even come with cousins for the girls to play with – if we had I would have been optimistic (even in a wilderness) that the girls would have a good time.

I was worried that the girls would be bored and that they would be cranky since this cut across nap times. Two hours later, as we left, I had to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. The girls had behaved themselves perfectly while we walked in the nice weather. All they really wanted was to be together as a family. It didn’t hurt that there were still oxen standing around staring back at us, but even without the oxen they acted as if walking across Nebraska would have been fun so long as we did it together.

I doubt they know how long Nebraska is.

Categories
life

Idiosyncracies

My one-year-old has the funniest little trick. We have been meaning to get a picture of it, or capture it on video, but it is possible that we may never succeed, so I decided that I would write it down, lest it be forgotten.

Somehow she learned to drink off of flat surfaces. She likes to dump drinks on the table and then stick her face in the drink to slurp it up. One time, at a barbecue with some friends, she found my root beer sitting on the patio and she knocked it over on purpose. She then planted her face on the concrete to slurp up what daddy was drinking. Like always, she came up smiling at what a great trick she had just performed. I, on the other hand, was hoping she would not repeat the trick on concrete in the future.

Categories
life

Limbo

I have been in internet limbo for the last week and then some. This is likely to continue for a little while, but things are moving fast and I should be back up and running soon (I hope).Just an overview of what has been going on – I got a new job, moved to a new state and I am in the process of finding a new house – and I have a new baby due in the next couple of weeks. I hope not to get overwhelmed.

Categories
life

Teacher

On the way home tonight Savannah told me she wanted to play baseball. When we got home it turned out that she meant golf. I got the clubs out for her and some wiffle balls and she started playing. Within 5 minutes Alyssa wants to play too. Savannah took it upon herself to instruct Alyssa in all the fine points of the game.

“Put the ball down there. Now hit it. . . Like that.”

Categories
life

Jail Break

I just love having two kids who are such good friends. Laura told me a great story that took place yesterday with Savannah and Alyssa. I just have to share how Savannah chose to play the protective big sister for Alyssa.

Alyssa was doing something that she was not supposed to do. Laura warned her that if she did it again she would have to go sit in her crib – she did it again. When Laura was taking Alyssa to her crib Savannah followed her down the stairs. Savannah was talking to herself saying things like “I’m going to go help my sister.” After Laura put Alyssa in the crib she went to do whatever random things she needed to do. Savannah went into the bedroom where Alyssa was while Laura was busy and pulled the reading chair in their room over to Alyssa’s crib and helped Alyssa out of her “prison cell.”

A few minutes later Laura peeked into the girls room to find Alyssa out of the crib playing with Savannah in the room. The chair was left right at the scene of the jail break.