Happy Halloween; or, A Nightmare Come True

I enjoy Halloween. It does, however, give me anxiety. I used to have dreams--nightmares, actually--in July or so of any given year, that it was Halloween and I didn't have my costume yet. I'm too cheap to buy ready made costumes. Unfortunately, I'm not super talented as a seamstress either, so this ends in stress sometimes. Two years ago, Matt and I attempted to go as Calvin and Hobbes, but something went wrong and everyone thought we were Tigger and Piglet, which was bad because Matt didn't like being mistaken for a "baby girl pig." (Don't worry, all you Pooh fans. I assured Matt that piglet is male, though that didn't seem to make him feel much better.)

Anyway, this year I was down to the last minute without costumes, proving my nightmare prophetic once again. Then my sister Carolyn saved the day with a great idea: the three bears! Simplicity was of paramount importance at that point, and so was thrift, so it was a good fit. Here we are: Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear.



Yes, I realize we look like mice. But honestly, why would we be three mice, unless we were the three mice, as in the blind ones? Clearly we have no dark glasses, so people should have been able to tell who we were by process of elimination at least, right? Anyway, here's Harrison getting in character (actually, it's Harrison getting freaked out. He started crying immediately after I pushed the shutter button):



Whatever people thought we were, we had a really fun Halloween. Matt took the whole afternoon/evening off from studying and we squeezed in a lot of celebrating. We started at Midwestern's annual carnival, then headed off to a pumpkin patch where we had a hayride, chose a pumpkin, visited a petting zoo, and where my cowboy husband used his roping skills to subdue a hay-bale with horns. (But seriously, he's good at it.) Here's Harrison learning about the art of selecting a pumpkin:





Next we went to the trunk or treat and chili dinner at the church where Baby Bear dumped his just-right porridge on the table and where we were mistaken for mice. Finally Matt and I finished off the evening watching Charade on my laptop, huddled around a set of headphones so as not to wake the baby. We hope you had a happy Halloween too!

Hello, Matthew again.

I blogged for the very first time today!

Hi, this is Matthew.

I felt a prostate for the very first time today!

Four-month-old baby

We love our boy!




"excellent..."

Great Day, Everyone!

Two days ago at the bank, the woman behind us in line asked how old Harrison was. When I told her almost 4 months, she said, "Oh, he's a big boy!" That's a big deal for us because he was kind of scrawny for a while. And as if to prove the woman right about his skills as well as his size, Harrison made two important breakthroughs yesterday!

Roller from Kathryn Crosby on Vimeo.

H's Firsts - The Hilarious Lion from Kathryn Crosby on Vimeo.

That's the best sound in the world, don't you think? Harrison has giggled a couple of random times before, but this is the first time we've gotten such consistent laughter. Special thanks to Michelle, who made the lion (which Harrison LOVES).

It was a pretty good day for Matt and I too. In the anatomy lab where Matt's working, he was the only one among the TAs and students who could shed some light on a certain obterator artery. As for me, I saw some tiny baby quail and scored some shorts at Ross, which will help make this Phoenix summer more bearable. Pretty good, all around!

10 Weeks Old

Favorite songs: Peace Train (Cat Stevens), Beautiful Boy (John Lennon), Prelude from Cello Suite no 1 (Bach)
Favorite word: ng-ah
Best tricks: Smiling; Reaching for and occasionally grabbing toys.






Quirks: Snorts when it's time to eat; Won't sleep in his bed during the day (he needs help falling asleep, and most of his naps are in his bouncer chair).


Last week was his 2 month checkup. He weighed 9 lbs 12 oz and measured 23.5 inches. Apparently that's pretty tall and very skinny. He's gained 2 lbs 6 oz and grown 3 inches since birth. I'm trying to fatten him up, but the more I feed him, the taller he gets!

Harrison and I have been in Utah for a week now. Matt's in Alabama for officer training. We miss him pretty bad. I do get to talk to him on the phone at least once a day. Whenever Harrison is awake when Matt calls, he gets to talk to his daddy. Here's Harrison right after one of these phone calls and just before bed.



I show Harrison Matt's picture everyday, and he smiles back at it. It's really sweet. We can't wait for him to get home!

The Harrison Show

A few highlights from Harrison's first week

Matthew sometimes holds Harrison on his lap while he practices the piano. This time the baby spilled a little, uh, diaper juice on Daddy.



A common expression with this kid. He also has an adorable smile, but I haven't caught it on camera because he usually does it just as he's falling asleep.




Check out those long fingers! He also has really long feet, but none of the pictures I've taken of them have turned out well.



Another grumpy old man face:



My favorite picture of Harrison won't load here for some reason, but it's my Facebook profile picture, if anyone is interested.

We're in Love.

Meet Harrison Shadrach Crosby. More pictures to come soon.

Here He Comes!

If I don't go into labor by Sunday night, my doctor's instructions are to call the hospital and set up an appointment to be induced on Monday! We're so excited for our little one to come!

March Begins

Baby's due date is not for another three weeks, but at my appointment this morning, my doctor said he could come any time now. Like even before my next appointment a week from today. AAAAAAAAAK! We're really excited and really scared around here.

Here's what I look like today. All attempts at this picture ended up with my face looking weird, so please try to overlook that.



In other news, Matt did an awesome job in his second semester of medical school and is now enjoying a week off. We're having a staycation because I'd rather not go into labor on a long stretch of highway in some other state.

And finally, the book I plan to read for March is The Creative Habit. Read along if you'd like!

Hormones and Pathogens

I haven't noticed many mood issues during my pregnancy. I've been pretty even-tempered the whole time, with the exception of a little breakdown during a game of Settlers of Catan over Christmas.

But this week, I watched a couple of Super Bowl ads online, and I cried in two of them. First, the Google Paris commercial:

The very last part with the baby giggle and the query about building a crib got me. Maybe that's not so unusual. I'm positive there are non-pregnant people who cried during that part too. But my tears in the Volkswagon Punch Dub commercial are a little more ridiculous:

Yep, during those 2.5 seconds when the woman in labor punches her husband and says "gray one," I thought, "Aww! She's having a baby too!" and the waterworks started.

But I've been very fortunate to have a pregnancy largely free of inconvenient symptoms and complications. And really blessed to have Matthew around for those times when problems arise. This week I caught a stomach bug, and what a guy - he set up a comfy, pillowy bed for me, held my hair while I knelt over the toilet, and came home from the store with Gatorade, Tylenol, and these lovely flowers. I was better in no time!

 

February's Book

Sorry this announcement is a little late, but I'll be reading Kepler's Witch by James A. Connor this month. Let me know if you want to read along! Oh, and thanks for the suggestions. I'm trying to figure out which ones I want to read the most, and it's not easy!

I'll post next month's book earlier.

For the Brain

I love to read fiction. Typically, when I have downtime for reading, I reach for a novel. So, when I made goals for the new year, one of the goals I made for my brain was to read at least one non-fiction book per month. I've got a tentative list in the works, and I'd be interested to hear suggestions as I make my final choices for the year. My book for January is The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball, but nothing else is set in stone. Some of these books are ones that we own that I've been meaning to get around to; some of them are ones I've read parts of but never finished. Some of them are embarrassing to admit I haven't read yet (mostly because I received them as gifts from my Dad a few years ago). Anyway, here are the semi-finalists:

1. I love words, and I love the Oxford English Dictionary. This book is about the writing of the OED. My dad gave me this book a few years ago, and it's about time I read it.

2.A yet-to-be-determined biography of one of my fave authors, George MacDonald (possibly the one in the picture below). MacDonald wrote The Princess and the Goblin and a lot of other great fairy tales and Christian fantasy.

3. I studied a little about the astronomer Johannes Kepler when I worked as a writer for a museum exhibit at BYU. He's well worth reading about because of his faith, his integrity, and his genius. I used bits of this book for my research, and it seems to be a great biography of Kepler.

4. This is another book my dad gave me a few years ago that I haven't read yet. The author is a former U.S. poet laureate and I'm excited to read it.

5. This one might be a little tough for me, since I've never taken a physics class, but I want to try it anyway.

6. Matt's reading something else by this author right now (Letters to a Young Conservative), and based on what Matt's read aloud to me, this is an author worth reading. Dinesh D'Souza grew up in India and moved to the U.S. as a teenager, and so he has a uniqe perspective on America. He's experienced in politics and higher education, and seems to be a witty writer. If anyone has a recommendation from the other side of the political spectrum (meaning written by a liberal) that's not too snooty or angry (I don't have much patience with partisanship in politics), I'd be interested to read it, too.

7. Terry Warner was one of my favorite professors in college. I'm embarrassed to admit that even though we have 2 copies of this book at our house, I've never read more than 2 chapters of it. Those 2 chapters were eye-opening, though. Everyone can stand to swallow their pride a little and admit there's room for improvement in their relationships, and that's what this book is about.

8. Just an astronomy book I picked up on sale. I don't really know if this particular book is any good, but I own it, and I like astronomy, and I think it's interesting to learn about how people have understood the universe throughout history.

9. This was assigned reading for a literary theory class I ended up dropping in college. But I kept the book because the idea of defining art as a gift rather than a commodity was interesting to me.

10. Fulfilling the Founding. This is an old textbook from my American Heritage class at BYU. That class was kind of all about how the United States came to be and how to preserve that legacy and be a good citizen. I think I've read more of this than the other books listed here, but I still think I should read it again/thoroughly sometime. There are several editions, and if anyone's interested, you can buy it for like $3 on Amazon. Mine is the 2001 edition by Heimburger, Latimer, and Pope.

11. I heard about this on the radio the other day, and it sounded really interesting. I think it focuses on the courtship of two young people from North Korea who eventually defected to South Korea. Anyway, I think this book would be an interesting way of learning about a part of the world I don't know much about.

12. I'm really, really, really interested in creativity, and one of my friends recommended this.

 13. Brains are cool. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist whose clinical experiences the movie Awakenings is based on. He's also a really kind, gracious man.

14. Matt brought a copy of this to our family, and it looks really interesting to me.

15. A compilation of sermons about the Holy Ghost by Joseph Smith, James E. Talmage, Bruce R. McConkie, and several other LDS prophets, apostles, and theologians. The book also includes Joseph Smith's Lectures on Faith.

16. Something by Neal A. Maxwell (possibly Not My Will, but Thine or Whom the Lord Loveth).

If there are any books here I should definitely include in my final list of 11, let me know, and if there's anything missing that I must read, let me know that too.  I'll post the final list when I figure it out. That way, if anyone wants to read along for one or more of the months, we'll be on the same page (heh, heh).

And speaking of good things for the brain, Matt's friend Scott told us about an awesome website, ted.com. If you were one of those people in college who enjoyed going to special lectures and forums, you'll love this website. And even if you weren't one of those people, you really should check it out. It's a bunch of videos of talks given by smart people on interesting topics. It's pretty cool.