This, too, shall pass UPDATE

I am no longer minus a bracket; I went in last Wednesday for my new one. While I was there, the orthodontist decided to go ahead and tighten everything up. Braces are seeming more and more like a medieval torture device.

By Friday I hadn't seen the missing bracket come through Ana's system, but I wasn't sure if it warranted a trip to the doctor. After all, a bracket IS very small. It could have passed without me finding it. But after a call to my doctor brother for advice, we decided to play it safe.

Analee was wary of the nurse, x-ray technician and doctor, and she really didn't want to lie down on the table for the x-ray, but she did amazingly well. The technician was super, too. He told me to lay Ana down, then he strapped a big vest around me so I could stay with Ana and hold her hands, and he had Bekah stand in the booth with him. He even let Bekah push the button ("The big green button, Mommy!").

The only metal that showed up on the x-ray was on Ana's onesie. So she is totally bracket-free.

I feel better that my bracket didn't somehow get lodged in Analee's spleen, but, as with anything medically related, that peace of mind will come at a price.

Anyone want to pay the bill when it shows up in our mailbox?

Bekahism #5

(While visiting Great-Grandma Wirkus today)

Grandpa: Can you count to 10?

Bekah: I can count to 100. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, eleven, sixteen, nineteen, one hundred!

Grandpa: Wow! Good job!

Bekah: Grandpa, you can't count to 100 because you're old.

This, too, shall pass

Yesterday I was munching on a brownie when I bit down on something hard. My first thought: "Oh no! What did I drop in the batter? Egg shells?" So I spat the culprit out, but thankfully it wasn't anything that was baked in the brownies. (I fed some to my in-laws earlier this week; I would have been totally embarrassed if they had found something inedible in their brownies.) Turns out it was a bracket.

This isn't a picture of my mouth, but you get the idea.

The joys of braces are endless. This is the second bracket I've had fall off.

I put the bracket on the computer desk thinking I would put it in the medicine cabinet upstairs as soon as I had finished my project on the computer, but before I knew what was happening, Analee had picked it up and popped it in her mouth.

What kind of kid pops a bracket in her mouth?! She had no idea what it was! It makes me wonder what other types of non-food items she has tasted.

Immediately I told her, "Ana! Spit it out!" Usually she's really good about following such an order, but I could tell as soon as she opened her mouth that no amount of searching would turn up the bracket. It was gone.

Still, I got the flashlight, laid Ana on the ground and made her say, "Ah!" All to no avail.

The last time I lost a bracket, I took it back in to the orthodontist where they reattached it. To get my bracket back this time, I'll have to wait a couple of days and fish it out of a diaper. Too much information? Ah ... come on. You saw that comin'.

There's no way I'd want that back in my mouth anyway. So today I'm going to the orthodontist to get a new bracket on my teeth. Hopefully this one stays where it belongs.

Just shoot me

Aaah. Doctor's office visits. Such a peaceful time in Groverland.

Okay, so that's obviously a dream. But Analee did fare better during her 18-month checkup than she did with her 15-month checkup. Well, at least she didn't scream quite as loud as the doctor approached her.

Analee is turning out to be "long and lean," in the words of her pediatrician. She's about at the 44th percentile for weight and 88th for height. And her head is still huge ... off the charts but following her own curve. Our kids have huge brains, in case you didn't know.

But the most fun part came in the form of flu shots. I had asked that both girls get theirs while we were at the office, and Rebekah was kind enough to allow Ana to go first. I'm still not sure if that was the best idea, but it's too late now.

Ana didn't like lying down on the exam table, she didn't like having the nurse hold her little legs, and she really didn't like having the needle go in her thigh. But all it took to console her was a hug, a baba (pacifier), a teddy bear and a monkey blankie.

Then it was Bekah's turn. She REALLY didn't like lying down on the exam table, she REALLY didn't like having the nurse hold her legs, and she REALLY didn't like having the needle go in her thigh. As soon as the injection started, she screamed, "No! Stop! Get that thing outta me!" And then as the nurses made their exit, Bekah yelled after them: "No more shots! I'm not going to get ANY more shots!"

I told her we were finished, that she, indeed, would have no more shots, but I don't think she was listening. It took a lot more than a cuddle and a few comfort items to calm her down.

Thank goodness for stickers. On my way out, I picked out a few Wall-E stickers for the girls (who happened to be wearing their Wall-E shirts), and Bekah was shucking her coat in the waiting room to put Wall-E and Eve on top of the Wall-E and Eve on her shirt.

The trauma didn't stop at the office, though. Bekah was momentarily distracted by the sticker and a sucker in the van, but when she got home and had to go potty, I had to cover up the traumatic reminder of her traumatic shot--her Tweety Bird band-aid.

Good thing Bekah won't need any more shots for another year.

A sinkful of spirits

I can't believe the amount of alcohol I had in the back of the van last night. I know, I know. That's probably the last thing you thought I'd say. Diapers in the back of the van? That's pretty much a given. Smashed goldfish crackers? Obviously. But alcohol?!

Here's the story: Back when I was student teaching with Vicki Anderson at Bonneville High School, she gave me a bottle of the most incredible Italian dressing ever. It was Olive Garden's Italian dressing. When the dressing was gone (way too soon! I could have eaten that stuff forever), I decided to keep the bottle. It was cute; it was different.

Thus began my bottle collection.

Since then, I've added a few glass vases, a Cholula bottle, a Coca Cola bottle and a couple of sparkling cider bottles.

Up until a few months ago, my collection was sparse at best. I found a home for my bottles on top of my kitchen cabinets, but I don't even know if they counted as a "collection." More like a chance meeting of a few glass objects. But then my little brother found out about my aspirations of bottle collecting. And now I'm loaded.

See, Tyson delivers produce for work. Lettuce, tomatoes, limes, avocados ... and wine. So Tyson started scavenging for bottles from their recycling bin. When he found several bottles that were worth keeping, he'd pass them along to me. I wash the bottles out, remove the labels and add them to the collection on top of the cabinets.

For whatever reason, his work needed to get rid of a bunch of their wine. Tyson and I met at the warehouse yesterday, where several boxes of wine were laid out on the floor. I got my pick of the litter. Here's what I brought home:

I've learned that I have a problem smiling naturally for the camera with my braces. And I have a problem keeping my eyes completely open with the flash firing. So I'm not actually as demented as I look in this picture, I swear.

Any guess as to how much money all this alcohol is worth? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe that's for the better, because here's what we did with it:

There it goes, down the drain.

Just so we could see the amount of wine we were throwing away, we plugged the drain. This excludes the three bottles that had corks in it. Seeing as we don't drink the stuff, we don't own a corkscrew. We'll have to figure out a way to get those open and drained as well.

The side-by-side comparison of the empty sink versus the one full of spirits.

And then we pulled the plug.

Going.

Going.

Gone.

I must say, I'm excited to get these labels off and add my newest recruits to the collection.

violent tendencies

Last night Andrea and I were trying to figure out what was wrong with our washing machine. In the process of moving it I slid/dropped it onto my naked, unprotected big toe. As Andrea said afterwards, "When I get hurt, my first reaction isn't to hurt myself somewhere else." Well, apparently that is my first reaction, as I punched a fist-size hole into our laundry room wall. At least I have small hands.

Do I need anger management or something? Are my wife and children going to have to cower in fear from now on? Am I some sort of Hulk? Is there danger lurking within?

Disclaimer: Of course I would never, ever, ever harm my family or any other human being, unless they really had it coming. Nor would I damage any wall anywhere else in our house besides the laundry room, and I'm pretty sure I'd better not even do that again or I'd probably have the wrath of Andrea bring its dreadful hammer down on me, which I'd prefer to avoid.

like Maná from heaven

Andrea did her post on this topic months ago, so I figure it's my turn. I'm going to take a few minutes and tell you about the greatest rock band in the world.

Thing is, you've probably never heard of them before. What, you just assumed the greatest band in the world had to be American, didn't you? Or maybe British. Oh, I can tell. You can't hide your racism from me, grasshopper.

The greatest band on earth, just so happens to be from Guadalajara, Mexico. They are Maná.



Don't get me wrong; there are lots of other bands I love, both new and old: Led Zeppelin, Counting Crows, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Gaslight Anthem. But nothing in the realm of music distills upon my soul like the dews from heaven like Maná.

I remember the very first time I heard Maná. I was tracting with Elder Greer one evening, just around dark, in the little neighborhood over behind the HEB off 10th street in McAllen. We walked down the street, and suddenly I heard this heavenly sound drifting from around the corner. As we grew nearer, I saw two men sitting in the car, the doors open, their feet propped up in the open window, just enjoying the evening (and some probably-not-medicinal marijuana, but that's another story). I didn't listen to secular music on my mission, but I never forgot the incredible sounds I heard coming from that car's speakers that night.

A guy I baptized, Oscar, gifted me an album in my last area, which I carefully wrapped up and sent home to listen to in six months when my mission would be over.

Their songs deal with topics like love, illegal immigration, environmental activist Chico Mendez, drinking, and many, many others, their lyrics are poetic and their music sublime.

Whether or not you speak Spanish, I urge you to check them out. You won't be disappointed.

In closing, a small tribute of mine own to the greatest rock band in the world, Maná.



Me covering Maná's "En El Muelle De San Blas."

Happy Halloween, partner!

Analee, the cutest cow on the block.

Bekah running down the driveway in her cowboy costume. We almost forgot her trusty steed at home.

An action shot of Bekah with her horse. "He doesn't have a name because he isn't real," according to Bekah.

Months ago, Bekah determined that she'd be a cowboy for Halloween (not a cowgirl, mind you). So we decided that Ana would follow suit with the theme and be the cow. Thank heavens for secondhand stores; every single piece of Ana's outfit came from my favorite place to shop for the girls, and all of Bekah's outfit minus the boots (borrowed from a neighbor) and the horse (made by yours truly) came from there as well.

We had dinner in a pumpkin, then set out in our neighborhood to knock on doors. Afterward, we ran the gamut of grandparents in Idaho Falls: Seth's parents, my grandpa, Seth's grandma and my parents. The girls got to bed a little late that night, but it was worth it. Between the girls' two buckets of candy, I'll have a healthy amount of chocolate to snitch for weeks.

Grandpa Dennis, Analee, Bekah, Calvin (the girls' cousin) and Grandma Susan.

Grandpa Wirkus dishing out (and dishing out, and dishing out) the candy to Analee and Bekah.

Great-Grandma Grover (or "Old Grandma," as Bekah calls her) with Analee and Rebekah. Bekah is eying Patches the dog who is out of the camera's range. She's not too comfortable around people's pets, if you couldn't tell.

Bekah, Analee and Seth with Grandma Scott.

Bekahism #4

(After talking about the movie Aladdin)

Andrea: If you could have three wishes, what would you wish for?
Bekah: I would wish that I could go to the temple with a nice boy I found.

(Andrea swells with pride that Bekah has paid attention to the FHE lesson Seth gave an hour before.)

Andrea: What would your second wish be?
Bekah: That I could watch TV all day and not have to go to sleep.

(Andrea thinks, "That sounds like a three-year-old, all right.")

Andrea: And what would your third wish be?
Bekah: Ratadatdatdat.
Andrea: What?
Bekah: Ratadatdatdat.
Andrea: I don't understand you.
Bekah: "Ratadatdatdat" means 50 hundred twelveen nightlights. Twelveen is a REAL number!

(Andrea is utterly perplexed.)

Photo tagged

Brooke tagged me. I am supposed to post the fifth picture from the fifth folder and blog about it. This proved to be harder than expected, because I have MANY, MANY folders with MANY, MANY pictures. Do I go to my "camera downloads" folder and select the fifth folder and picture from there? Or just the "pictures" folder? When counting down to the fifth folder, do I include the TIFs AND the JPGs? Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, I made an executive decision and came up with this lovely nugget:

This is part of a series of family pictures we had my dad shoot last March. (This photo is the pre-color enhancing version, by the way.) The girls looked adorable in their matching Nemo dresses (gifts from my mom), hair bows and red toenails. It's hard to imagine that Analee actually needed to lean on that rocking chair so she wouldn't tumble over; nowadays it's hard to keep up with her running all over the place.

Another executive decision: I tag Leah, Ethan, Taralyn, Lindsay and Jade.

you know you'd fall for it

My wife wanted me to make it known that she had nothing to do with this week's post.



covering The Flight of the Conchords' "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room"

Cute girls

Aren't these girls adorable? You would never have guessed that in less than 5 minutes from this moment, they were fighting over a stick, which resulted in Bekah having a timeout.

パックマン (pakku-man)

It's that time of year again, when we cover the table in the Classifieds section, pull out the knives, and string pumpkin guts across across our kitchen in an attempt to make a gourd look cool. And, if we do say so ourselves, they do look cool. Pretty danged cool.

We've been doing this for years, and most years we try to pick a common theme for both of our pumpkins to share. Some years, not so much.

This year we decided to go 8-bit retro and do a Pac-Man theme. I think it looks pretty flippin' sweet. We tried some new techniques this year. I think it was chiaro-scurro or graffito or something.


Pakku-man with Cherry (Seth's masterpiece) and his arch nemesis, Blinky (Andrea's even more masterful-piece).

The family after Pumpkinfest 2008. Bekah is eating Crunch Berries. Ana is eating a teddy bear.


For more Halloweenie fun, click here.

old people are funny, 'cause they're old

does he just get confused about when the song actually starts?

I've sort of been a slacker.



(cover of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful")