A round

by Grant

    brought to you once again, education by the Simpsons. Woefully ignorant is I, as I just learned that that weird singing thingy where one group of people sing  and then another group starts on the same section a moment later is called "a round." Fascinating is it not?

    I have begun to obsess about minor details such as heating the house during wintertime. Our old farm house does not have the greatest heat retention, and the furnace system is old and inefficient. As such, we began heating with wood in recent years. Unfortunately, my wrist pain has made it difficult to swing an axe as I once did. Thankfully, my father, being the kind man that he is, has loaned me his log splitter. I spent a couple weeks of free time (which was about 13 minutes all told) and finally on this last Saturday I got it to start. Ornery cuss, kind of like my Dad. Maybe more like my Mom. I also don't have enough wood, but I still have a connection from last year. This means wandering miles from home with only a chainsaw for company. The good news is that I have 500k in Accidental Death and  dismemberment life insurance plus 500k for a natural death. Hey, find the silver lining, I always say.

Baby/Life Update:

Hmm. The girls are doing well. Serenity's rolled over a couple times. Liberty is still lagging a bit physically, but that'll probably be par for the course most of her baby life. It's amazing how different that they are for being "identical." The boys are doing well. Titus is becoming much more eloquent and Forrest is being a big help typically. I do have a couple videos and my brother Forrest has a bunch of pictures that I'll grab and post.

Murder!

Murder most foul. I just learned (yes, from the Simpsons) that a group of birds is called a "murder." How cool is that!

Food for Thought

During World War II, Adolf Hitler called Roosevelt a war criminal.*

I guess with this in mind, it surpises me less that the crazy lefties out there would call Bush a war criminal rather than that they would insult him by comparing him to Hitler.

*In the last letter he wrote from his bunker before the Battle of Berlin

Everybody is a critic

by Grant

I have subscribed to the blog philosophy simply because I ain't ramming stuff down your throat. You don't want to read about my ramblings, you can click that cute little X in the upper right hand corner. Or better yet, don't even view the page in the first place. I also have tried to break specific family issues into a separate section so you don't have to read my ramblings if you don't want to. Although, I have to admit that sometimes I mix the two. The perils of reading prose penned by yours truly. Now, to address one other criticism. I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH THE GIRLS WEIGH! We know it's at least 13 pounds. But we have not been taking them in for regular check-ups because we have some people that come to the house and make sure that they're progressing normally. Unfortunately, they don't bring a flippin' scale with them. Now, I'll give you an update.

Baby/Life Update:
The trips went well. I spent 16 hours (2 8 hour sections) with a friend and talked about all sorts of stuff and would probably bore the socks off most of you. The Baseball game was cool (even though I'm not a huge fan) primarily because of great seats and great commentary from Kelly. Why I don't watch sports: Because my team lost and I wanted to punch out an annoying Mariners fan in front of me. If I want that kind of aggravation I'll tell my kids to pick up their toys.

The trip to Fairfield went well as well. Rebekah went up early while I was in Seattle and I guess things went ok, but she was happy to see me. Considering the sheer number of people and personalities, things went better (far better) than expected. Titus is pretty challenging as he wants to get into everything, but after a few days he would generally stay close to the rest of the Ballard fam.

Right now I am sitting on the floor by the girls as I am sick. Rebekah took the boys to church. Instead of having the TV on, I turned on some music with some cool visualizations that display on the TV. The girls have been pretty fascinated by it. What's the music you ask? Sometime mild that Rebekah had. Uhm, named after a city in the midwest. Oh, that's right Chicago! Wow. this could be considered child abuse couldn't it?

As far as pictures go, my other family members took far more than we did. Maybe I can get some from them.

On the road again

by Grant

    Rebekah and young ones have gone to my parents house. I am going to Seattle with a friend to watch a baseball game. When I get back, then I will make my own migration east southward. Hopefully we'll have lots of good pictures when we get back. Since we'll be gone for a week and basically w/out Internet access I don't anticipate posting anything for a week or so.

Baby/Life Update
    We finally connected with some babysitters. Two teenagers (late teens) and their mom. We took the little ones over (all four) and it went really well. Rebekah was able to go to her Bible Study and after awhile I went and visited a friend around the block. It went so well that I am still amazed. Now, if we can just get something regular going :)

Pictures!

Exclusive To Grant's Blog.. This picture!

Yes, I am in the Simpsons Movie. Ok, not really, but pretty cool huh? check out http://simpsonizeme.com. You can upload a picture of yourself and then tweak it.

(sob)I can't keep up with this kid. My truck, his mud. Rebekah took thepicture and I didn't know my seat was mud covered until I went to go towork the next day.

He's a Coffee lover too. I think this isactually postum, but he will at any opportunity drink our coffee. WhenI bring home a coffee mug, I always make sure it's empty but he alwaysgets a dribble out. Black, brown, sugary sweet or bitter, he likes it.




Serenity Chillin' and Liberty (below) working out


Brother Bonding w/ Sisters


Sisters Bonding w/ each other.



And something to really make you laugh...

Where to start...

by Grant

    What day is it? Ah, monday you say. Good, I was getting a little confused there. I've been a little by myself at work as we have people on vacation and a bunch of people in 'Bama (short for Alabama) where we are assimilating a site (like the Borg... Resistance is futile) into Woodgrain. I'm getting mentally prepped for a big family get together around Camas County Fair Time. Everybody is coming home for the the Jeep's anniversary. To my shame, I'm not sure if the jeep is 30 or 40. If you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, well Dad built himself a Jeep many moons ago. I'm thinking the Jeep is 30 and shame on me for not using capitals. BTW, this isn't just any "Jeep," but rather "The Jeep." We actually have another Jeep as well as a Jeep Pickup and between Tyler and Dad three other Jeep-mobiles (Cherokee, Grand Wagoneers). I'm sure if my brother's read this post, they will be beside themselves with my mangling of any details, but suffice it to say that this vehicle my Dad built from pieces. It's got a Jeep cab (drivetrain?) but a Ford Flat-head V8 engine, Ford pickup box (old, maybe Model T or something). It's a cool rig. Hard for a guy like me to drive as the seat doesn't adjust and my Dad is 5'9". Basically, it feels like my knees are bumping my chin. Anyway, we (the fam) were all together for the Jeeps last major birthday (Melodie baked a cake). And yes, the Jeep will blow out the candles (we'll rev up the engine and stick the cake behind the exhaust).

    Other tidbits of interest... I got a small package from my Dad to day only to find out that Mugsy, our belove Dog of 10 years, had passed. Fun finding things like that out in the mail. Dad does a good job when a long time pet dies. He writes up an obituary complete with pictures. Most humans don't get such a well done obituary but I'm sure it seems like the least Dad can do. Ogres like me would probably be happier just forgetting rather than dwelling on it.

The girls... are... teething. Ok, Serenity is. Liberty is fine. But Serenity was a crab today which is unlike her. Just when we were starting to catch our breath with those buggers, they start teething. <sigh>

Good news! Forrest has gotten over his toilet phobia (we think) . In fact, he has been going "stinky" for about 30 minutes now without any crying or fussing. He's so proud of himself that now it's a novelty for him.

One last note: Dad is still in a pretty large amount of pain. That alters his personality as I well know. Pain wears you down day after day and you get tired of being brave and carrying on. You snap that much easier at irritants that once were minor. What's the source of his pain? Inflammation of the tissue under his rib cage, extreme indigestion... those are the guesses. Unfortunately, modern medical science isn't much help.

Home Theater/Media PC and associated psycho-babble

by Grant

(posted only on blogspot)

    I have built a Media Center PC. I used the mythtv via mythdora as the software and then I purchased compatible hardware to go along with it. But I was thinking that this is so cool everyone should do it, or rather, you should be able to buy one cheaply. I'm using my setup to rip movies and provide content w/out getting the actual dvd out of the case. I've also thrown on all my wma and mp3 files and pictures for good measure. Once you have something like this, you just want to improve it and do more and more. But it's hard. Ripping movies is technically illegal, but the MPAA freely admits that they don't care about Joe User doing it. They're paranoid about rampant piracy. It seems so silly to me because they are limiting their audience with all their DRM measures. Music is the same. If I want to buy an album, I will buy a CD and rip it because 1) I have a hard backup 2) I have the absolute best quality 3) I can put it on any MP3 player out there. I can play it on  linux, MAC, Windows, Zune, iPod, etc. etc. etc. You can't do that with a song from iTunes. At least, not without violating other laws. The fact of the matter is that there will always be ways to circumvent laws and hackers will implement those. But most people aren't hackers and by restricting them you just irritate them. And by making it so if you buy a song, you can't move that song to another MP3 player later you just alienate your audience. If the RIAA had been quicker on the ball (by about 10 years) then we wouldn't have MP3 players today. The MPAA with the DMCA  has prevented Media Center PCs for the masses which I think is  a shame. And don't get me started with the stupidity of Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD. Those should just be different codecs distributed via purely digital means. I'm sure as H-E double hockey sticks not going to buy a $1000 player that'll turn into a stupid Betamax down the road. Bring on the commie dvd from China. Maybe a couple billion people can help move the market from accepting such inane stupidity.

Baby/Life Update

by Grant

    A few odds and ends. I *think* my wrists are finally improving. It's getting harder for me to resist working on the computer, but I need to excercise some self-restraint. The pain and numbness isn't gone, but seems to remain mild for a far longer period of time. I used to be unable to get through the week without being really discouraged because of the pain. Now I've managed to get through two weeks without taking time off on thursday to rest my arms/wrists.
   
    Titus got eaten alive by mosquitoes @ some unkown time this last week. Unfortunately, his bites are pretty inflamed and he has had trouble sleeping. I think they're starting to get better, but they're still pretty darn irritating. I find it amusing that the other night I sprayed mosquito spray on forrest and Titus, but neglected myself so now I have plenty of bites. See, I must be pretty sweet if mosquitoes like munching on me.

    On the financial front, we submitted every piece of financial information to St. Luke's Financial services. I was a little irritated at some of the questions like "Have you asked your family for help?" Why should my family pay my bills? It's my responsibility and I'm not going to go for hand-outs just so that they get their pound of flesh. I believe in paying what I owe, but some of those bills were crazy high and unnecessary. Dr. Visits before the babies were even viable cost about $1400 apiece! This was for 5 minutes with a different Dr. each time who said things were fine but even if they weren't there wasn't anything that they could do. Strictly malpractice paranoia on their part. Thankfully, our insurance guru looked over our bills and is going to dig into it some. She's a real tiger at making sure we don't get overcharged. Unfortunately, Hospitals are pretty bad at this because they have to make their money from somewhere. I learned from talking to our HR manager that most insurance companies just pay the bills and pass on the bill to their customers via premium increases. I'm not saying that St. Luke's has done this, but some costs are pretty hard to swallow. I wish we had some choice in the matter during the experience. If they'd say before they walked in the room that they were charging you $500 (which happened. Not our normal Dr. just somebody that asked how she was doing) we might scream "Nobody's home. Go away!"

I was looking at Liberty yesterday and decided to encourage her like I do with the boys. So, in a very animated voice I said, "Good job Liberty!" Apparently, I triggered her funny bone because she started laughing really hard. I did it several times and every time she laughed more than we've ever heard before.

I've got some pictures that I'll try to at least get working on today. In the meantime, if you want to see something funny, go look in the mirror.

God provides, imagine that.

by Grant

    I have been stressing the finances for a couple weeks since Rebekah showed me how lopsided things were (income versus outflow). But, I was trying my best to remind myself that God provides and has gotten us through much tougher things (such as the last nine months). I started getting myself in gear and seeking out some additional funds while Rebekah started pruning things (such as our home phone). Within the last week I have secured some moonlighting computer work that should bring in a few bucks as well as I worked an on-call shift (which is rough at times). But besides those things, we received $375 from three different parties without any whining on our part. No prayer requests for finances (at least, not to my knowledge), no crying on friends shoulder's, nothing out of the ordinary. It's pretty tough to be too demoralized when God starts providing immediately. Yes, the money is only a drip in the bucket but it's nice to see prayers being answered.

Baby/Life update:
Rebekah is attempting to potty-train forrest. Argh! This kid is so afraid of the toilet, that it's not funny. I'm afraid if we keep pushing it he's going to have a phobia. Rebekah is very hard headed and not wanting to give up, but it's ugly. Tomorrow will be a determining day in this grand experiment.

I also had the opportunity on friday to dissuade a co-worker from quitting. Very upset this person was. Very discouraged about some issues at work. But the real problem was that "Jane" was dealing with pain on a constant basis. All the trials in her life had pushed her to the edge. I think that it's downright sad when an Ogre is active in employee retention. Life is funny at times...

Safety in America Today

by Grant

    Have you noticed how safe everything has to be? I was watching a Magnum PI and some guy got in the Ferrari (a government official no less) and he <gasp> didn't put a seat belt on! The horror! The government must protect us from everything including ourselves. When I grew up one of my favorite things was to ride in the back of a pick-up. Even though I see kids still doing that around here, my paranoia of the cops would make it hard to allow my kids to do that. So, not only do your kids have to wear a seat-belt, but it has to conform to certain requirements or you could be fined. Obviously, you must wear a seat-belt as well (pre-magnum PI). Obviously, many safety things such as seat-belts are worth the inconvenience. Sometimes I wonder with child seats though. Evil and awkward contraptions at best. But I propose that no government or parent should try to protect people from everything. With my children, I make a judgment when my kids are engaging in semi-perilous activities. "Will this result in fatality or maiming for him or anyone around him?" If no, then I ask  "Will he damage any property in the process?" If no (or very unlikely), then I generally let them have some slack. Please notice that I didn't ask myself if they might get hurt. The reason is, at least for boys, getting hurt physically is a part of life and they need to learn to deal with it. I think that learning to make decisions that affect the safety of yourself and others is important. I have noticed too many people that rely on the government to keep them from harm (people in New Orleans) and parents that think that they are failing somehow if their child gets hurt. The fourth of July festivities at a friend's house is a very good example. We had 14 children (including the girls) at a friends house. My friend lights copious amounts of fireworks (all legal) and the kids get to participate actively in some of it. Well, I figured Titus and possibly Forrest would burn their hands or fingers a little but I'd keep an eye on them. Titus surprised me by picking up a sparkler ember with his mouth. Obviously, the term "dropped it like a hot potato" is very apropos here. But he won't do that again. Hannah (my friend's 11 year old daughter) got a smoke bomb between her "flip-flop" and her foot. It burned her badly, but ice and vitamin-e did wonders. Guess what lesson she learned? Yeah, and before you castigate the father, he had told the kids to put on shoes. Attention world, "flip flops" are not shoes and should not be worn when shoes are required. The father was told by his wife before the festivities that someone might get hurt. He conceded that this was likely but it was still worth the risk. I tend to agree. Pain is a valuable teacher at times and we would do well to learn from its lessons.


Baby/Life update:
The girls are doing very well. They are a lot of fun to interact with. Rebekah lays them on the floor and I'll lay down by them and talk to them. They will even talk to each other which is incredible to watch. The boys are having fun with them as well, but not being careful enough at times. Rebekah has started to wean them to Kirkland/Costco formula, which if successful would cut our formula bill down by $100 a month. In the meantime, if you run across some Enfamil coupons and want to mail them to us, it would be appreciated. My hands still hurt and I'll probably have to have surgery which may or may not help. And no, we don't have any puppies, I was just trying to show how "ogre-ish" I am at times. Hey, you get what you pay for when you read the blog.

Pondering and Pontificating

by Grant

    Actually, I'll do most of that on my own blog, but I figured I'd warn you in case I accidentally pull the trigger.

Emphasis.
    You've all heard the jest about putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable (or siloble). I submit that good stories require just the precise amount of emphasis in the proper parts (as well as the proper proportions). What I didn't realize is that sometimes you can place the emphasis on a completely different part of the story and have something you'd never intended. Good stories require that you know what you are going to say (not exactly of course) and what the "punchline" is. Maybe it's funny, maybe it's not, but it's the thing that makes people say, "Wow. cool story. I bow in your presence at your mastery of the spoken word." rather than, "Will somebody please shut... hmm. I wonder what's for dinner. Maybe it's meatloaf. I like meatloaf. But only if there aren't onions. Onions are an abomination." Obviously, glazed eyes are not good. Not like glazed donuts are good. Although, I must profess that I've never consumed eyes, glazed or otherwise, but obviously I'm not talking about food. Am I? Moving right along... Maybe an example would help (if I can transcribe a verbal story into a written one appropriately... Let's see how this goes.)

Story 1: As remembered by Grant

Grant is outside in the hot sun working on a fence. He's frustrated for a variety of reasons and things generally aren't going well. He is looking down at the ground and pondering how frustrated he is when his eldest son comes up. "What are you doing Dad?", he asks. Grant responds, "I'm thinking." Not content at that response, Forrest inquires, "What are you thinking?" Grant, thinking quickly, decides that rather than vent on this poor (not so innocent at times) child, he'll try to spin this positively. So, Grant leans over and giving Forrest (the eldest child) a quick hug, he says, "I'm thinking that I love you." His son is embarrassed and laughs and walking a couple steps away out of further hug range and says, "I love you too Dad. We're bestest friends"

Story 2: As overheard by nosy female @ work (Just kidding Janice)

Grant is working on a fence and is having trouble and about ready to say every dirty word in the book when Forrest comes up and asks what he's doing. Grant then leans over and hugs him and says, "I'm thinking how much I love you."


So, do you see the difference in emphasis? The first story while having all the same details focuses on the child's response. The second one focuses on me. I was very surprised when Janice stopped there and all the females within earshot starting saying odd things like, "What a good father." Obviously, I beat a hasty retreat. For the record, I am an Ogre. Maybe Ogres are good fathers, not sure. Haven't see Shrek 4 yet to see how the kid comes out (He did have a kid in Shrek 3 right?). But I was really taken aback at how she told the same basic story but came out with a totally different emphasis while still having a good story. Fascinating huh? (BTW, my version of the story is better.)

Baby/Life update

    Must kill collectors. How come they want paid? I don't understand how come they don't pay us to go the hospital (roughly paraphrased from my wife's comments.) Other things...  Titus kindly put dirt in my lawn mowers gas tank. This might be a problem if I watered my lawn. Thankfully, I don't so mowing isn't much of any issue. (You think I jest. I assure you that I don't. much). Ooooh ooh! Liberty rolled over. Then she was unhappy (no likey the tummy). Serenity is progressing nicely according to some Child Developmental chick. LIberty needs to spend more time on the tummy (uh oh). Ah, and the boys and I happened upon one of our NICU nurses. We really liked her, but didn't see her a lot as she only worked part time. Turns out she only lives a few miles away. I need to take the girls over so she can see what a good job she did in her caretaker roll.

Well, I guess that's it. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to club some puppies. I prefer clubbing baby seals, but they're scarce this time of year. Hey, I told you I was an Ogre.

Videos Anyone?

Liberty


Serenity

Baby/Life Update

by Grant

    The girls are still doing well. Growing like weeds. Or grass if you water it. Which I don't. Because I don't want it to grow. The grass that is. I want the girls to grow. Today I was their sole caretaker for about six hours and they were on their best behavior. I actually got lonely for a bit. Haven't had that long without somebody to talk to. Yes, I talk to the babies but that's about like talking to a liberal. They make cute sounds back like they're trying to talk, but it's really just gibberish.

    We've finally gotten the girls into a semi good routine. They're not really on the same schedule during the day, but at night Rebekah gets them in sync pretty darn well. One amusing anecdote: Rebekah discovered that if both the girls are hungry and crying, it's best to always feed Serenity first. If she takes turns (which she has been doing for months) Liberty will stop eating because Serenity is crying. So, feed Serenity first and she'll be quiet at least. Then feed liberty. Seems to be working well.

Rebekah watched 6 kids (our 2 boys and 4 of her sister's) so her sister and her husband (her sister's husband... not me) could go on their anniversary date. Worked out pretty well Rebekah said. That's why I was watching the girls by my lonesome.

Ok, we haven't been taking as many pictures but we do have a few that haven't made it onto the blog.


Happy Serenity



The Fam


Serenity and Liberty (more pics @ the photobucket site)

Fun with Trials and Tribulations

by Grant

    I think when miserable and arduous events come into our lives we should learn to have fun with them. Heck, if you know where soul is going after you turn into worm food then you should have a pretty good perspective. Unfortunately, we (me) tend to be annoyed (at best) or traumatized into a nervous breakdown (close to worst but not the worst). I think one universal tendency of all homo-sapiens (no that's not a bad word) is to wonder, "Why oh, Why????"

Yeah, don't go there. God doesn't (typically) make it really obvious why you are suffering. I've known two youngish people from our church (about 20 members) that suffered and died in the past couple years. Both affected me pretty hard (harder than I expected). I have one good friend who is having horrible problems with her young adult son who I know is a good kid. I have another friend that is suffering from crippling depression. What does this tell you? Don't be friends with me. But seriously, I don't know why these things have happened to these people. But I can posit some reasons that may not show up now, but possibly years down the road.

1. God is trying to get your attention. Whether you believe in him or not, he believes in you.Trite phrase but true. God gives you opportunities to accept his son as your personal savior. Ignore him at your perile.

2. God is going to use this experience to increase other's faith in him by how he provides YOU grace through *_insert miserable thingy here_*

3. God is going to grow your faith in him by making you trust him versus your super powerful (Not!) self.

4. God wants you to be able to help others through their similar trials

Ok, say your're an abject heathen. Either atheist (silly wabbit) or agnostic (lazy wabbit). Well, you can trim some of the God stuff out of my points and still find a bit of value, but admittedly it's a lot weaker. So, just get with the program. If you can't look out the window at a beautiful sunset (or analyze the amazing intricacies of the human eye) and admit to yourself that evolution is a bunch of hooey then there is pretty much no hope for you. If you do admit that there is something behind this creation (AKA God) then I can lay out some. reasons why my God is the only real one (and no, Buddha He is not).


P.S. Yes my hands still hurt like the dickens (not sure what a dickens is or how it hurts but it seems bad).

Pain in the membrane

by Grant

    I've been having some very irritating pain so I've been trying to limit any extra-curricular computer usage. Typing especially is a bit hard on my hands. But I wanted to post a couple things.

One: Kids continuously amaze me. Or at least, my kids do. Your kids are probably pretty boring, right? Forrest is so incredibly sweet at times. Polite and apologetic. Very appreciative. I spose a lot of that is what mood he's in. He's been calling things beautiful and no matter how many times I hear him say something is "beautiful" I can't help but smile. Titus is a charmer just standing there. He's not quite the talker, but he makes up for it with his perpetual smile and platinum hair. And of course, all babies are cute. Well, not really, but we have to pretend right?

Two: The good old days. Who out there hasn't pined for the days of yore? When life was simpler and you didn't have to run around to Wal-Mart and pick up a USB cable for your printer so you could print the Church's bulletin out? When Childbirth was the number one killer of women and death by fires was number 2. When things like diabetes and polio took lives. When fear of nuclear immolation was a daily concern. When if needed vision correction you had to wear glasses and mar your natural beauty. When, When, well... Let's just all be grateful for the advances that have been made that improve our daily life and try to ignore the evils of the modern world such as minivans, cell phone talkers, extended minivans, mary kay cosmetics, and commercials.

Three: (officially more than a couple) The evils of any hospital visit are starting to come due. The bill for Rebekah was over 20k (she spent time in antepartum and the OR). Our insurance paid 80% of it, but that still leaves us with over $5000 that the hospital wants paid off in 15 months or less. That's way more than what we can afford. Two babies plus another kid still in diapers is really hurting our budget. But, it could be worse. If that's all we have to pay it'll be incredible.

Life 'n stuff

by Grant

    Well, Serenity is doing pretty well considering she does have an infection. I guess the official diagnosis is it's a urinary tract infection and they prescribed liquid antibiotics for two weeks. But she's been a good sport. A smiley little girl even when she doesn't feel very well. It was funny in a sad way to talk to her and she'd smile a bit and then cry. Talk some more and she'd smile and then cry. But, like I said, she's doing better.

I found out today that a couple people that I know at work have immediate family members that are in the hospital @ 29 weeks with babies that want to come out. That's roughly the same time as our little ones ex uteroed. So, if you think about it you might pray for them as well. One Mom to be is named Nicole and the other's last name is baker (she is a Mrs. w/ other munchkins).

Liberty is a little sweetheart and Rebekah said that a sure-fire way to figure out which baby is which is to cover up their heads with blankets. Serenity thinks it's funny but Liberty not so much. Last night I saw them both that way and it was pretty amusing how they reacted differently. I'm not sure if my wife was being deliberately mean, or if Liberty just happened to cover herself up at the same time Serenity was.

Got some other stuff to put on here. Some of it is probably only interesting to technical members of my family. Some of it's pics. Some of it's neither. But ya gotta spread this stuff out sometimes. Don't want to overwhelm anybody with too much vitriol in one day.

BTW, if there are typos in my blog feel free to point them out, but blogs are "stream of conciousness" writing. This is NOT english class and I'm not writing a thesis.

Serenity Update

by Grant

    I'm sure some of you out there have been praying for our little girl. Yesterday scared me a little because (long story short) they said that they saw something suspicious in her urine and we had to take her back right away to get a shot. Suspicious huh? Short on details, long on panicking us poor parents. The Dr. is concerned that Serenity has an infection. Bladder or Kidney most likely. Serenity is doing better since the shot thankfully, but we don't know yet what her diagnosis is. We should find that out tomorrow. Right now I am staying home with her and Forrest while Rebekah goes to Church w/ Titus and Liberty. Division of labor, equality and all that.

I thought I would post some more stuff, but the more typing I do, the more my wrists and arms hurt (carpal-tunnel problems) so I guess I'll leave it at that.

Sick Serenity

by Grant

    Much to our dismay, Serenity has come down with something. It has caused a high fever. She's had a fever all day and although Rebekah has been giving her baby Tylenol, it never went down but rather stayed steady at 101. This evening it was at 102.5 so we called the pediatrician and she recommended giving her 2 ml of ibuprofen as well. Right now she's doing well, but it's always scary when a young child is sick. It's even more scary when it's a baby. Scarier yet if they are/were preemies.

In other news, the developmental chick (yes, that's her official job title) said that the babies are on schedule but we need to put them on their tummies more and also give them some practice grabbing stuff (as if my chest hair wasn't enough).

So far Liberty is fine. In fact Rebekah was making silly faces at her and Liberty was laughing. Pretty amusing to hear a baby laugh. It sounds almost like croaking.

Personalities

by Grant

    As the girls get older, they seem to definitely be exhibiting different personality types. (what a bold statement. "seem" and "definitely" both). Of course, I reserve the right to be completely wrong. Serenity, against all odds, actually seems to be living up to her name. I would characterize her as a type B personality. She sleeps better, needs less comforting and generally eats better too. Liberty on the other hand is much less easily consoled. When she gets upset she generally needs her mother--no other woman will do. She wakes up in the middle of the night more frequently. Definitely working on type A. Now, while this is "cute" it begs the question: Why are they different? Those of you who have seen the heathen film "Trading Places" (no, not trading spaces you women out there. It's not that silly show on HGTV) should know that there is a difference of opinions regarding what truly forms who you are. Nature (your genes) or Nurture (how you are raised). Now, obviously they both play a significant factor, but what if the nature (genes) are identical and nurture (how they are being raised/reared) is basically identical? What is that wild-card that makes them different? What is that X-Factor? What is that, uhm, unknown thingy? I submit to you that it is their souls. Why should nature and nurture be the only things that help define who you are? Why should your immortal soul just be this thingy you have that doesn't die but serves no other real purpose? Why I ask you? hmm? hmm? I thought so. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Unless you have asthma or emphysema. In which case, just pretend you're smoking but don't light anything.