Earthbump

My years of practicing for "The Big One" in the Utah school system failed me. Yesterday, I experienced my first earthquake, and I froze. The earthquake registered in at 4.7, so it wasn't huge (thank goodness!), but we felt the brunt of it, since we were quite close to the epicenter. I was sitting at the dining room table with my laptop, and Ryan was in the living room. Next thing I know the house was moving and there was this eerie rumbling noise. I don't know who reacted worse--me sitting frozen right next to our solid dining room table or Ryan rushing across the living room toward our glass bookcases to keep them from tipping over. Apparently, fire drills are in order for the Shoemaker household. Kieran's been talking about the "earthbump" all day, and it's his newest excuse for why he can't go to bed.

Still Emerging from the Post-Holiday Fog...

As the lack of posts would suggest, our life has been busy the past couple of months. Nothing too terribly interesting, mostly just the day-to-day grind and some birthdays. Kieran and I celebrated our birthdays in January--his 3rd and my 33rd--and Haven's 1st birthday is fast approaching. So with that, I'll cut straight to grandma's updates:

While we're hesitant to don the flight jacket and declare mission accomplished in the war on wetting, we will say that significant progress has been made in the battle of Kieran's heart and mind. The advice is solid: Wait until 3 years old to potty train a boy (and don't get involved in a land war in Asia). He amazes us every day with all the new things he's learned to say. His newest favorite thing is tatter telling on Haven. And for some reason, he has to call me by name when doing this. For example, "Jen, Haven's throwing her food on the floor." He also calls Ryan "Ry." If you check out his photo closely, you'll notice that his forearms and shins are all bruised up. That's our Kieran!

Haven now has eight teeth, an eardrum-breaking screech, and the ability--though not the desire--to walk. She officially began walking about a month ago, but we think she must have taken a few nasty falls and decided that crawling is more civilized. While our firstborn's first words were "mama" and "dada," Haven's first words were "mine" and "no." She seems to become a little fiestier everyday as she learns to hold her own against Kieran.

Died and Gone to Santa Barbara

Happy New Year to everyone! We celebrated the 1st day of 2009 with a road trip, and we fell in love with a new city—Santa Barbara. I haven’t instantaneously loved a city like this since Santa Fe. Hmmm…I just noticed the Spanish holy name connection between the two cities, but then again that’s not really much of a coincidence in the Southwestern U.S., is it? Anyway, Santa Barbara is one of those charming cities where I start rearranging our life plans to figure out how to end up there. I don’t have a solution yet, since apparently you have to be independently wealthy or willing to endure a hellish commute. Since neither scenario is likely, I may just have to settle for a few day trips here and there.




Kieran turns three this week, and we’re still pushing the potty training hard. I know we should probably just hold off a little longer, but he seems so close at times. That is, until he wets his pants, and then he doesn’t seem so close any longer. He has started replying to our questions with “What!?” or “Yep” and “Uh-huh.” He pointed out to me today that he was breathing. He often proudly announces his, shall we say, less subtle bodily functions, but I was impressed that he knew what it meant to breath.


Haven is now nine months old and is crowned our “good eater.” She’ll eat just about anything she can get her hands on—cat food, paper in the recycling bin, you name it. She has 7 teeth and will soon be competing with Kieran for the official “hair farmer” title.

Last month, Ryan’s story, “Such Great Heights,” was published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Not only was it the longest work of fiction they’ve published, but it was also awarded the Best Fiction of the Year prize. If you don't have a subscription to Dialogue (which I'm guessing is everyone-except Aunt Becky and Uncle Brent) and would like to read the story, I'd be happy to send you the PDF.

L.A. Travelogue

My parents, Dave & Kathy, were just in town, and I love it when they visit. My house becomes cleaner, the kids are better groomed, and Ryan and I usually get a rare night out without kids. Some highlights of their trip were:

• Attending the filming of the Tonight Show - My parents weren't that enthused about Jay, but they were giddy as schoolgirls over David Archuleta


• The Getty - Amazing museum, gardens, and a spectacular view of L.A.

• Dining with the dolphins (or were they sharks?) at Duke's in Malibu

• Disneyland & California Adventure - I don't know who was the most excited about this, Kieran or my dad? Probably my dad.

Ryan and I had another quintessential L.A. experience. We attended a movie wrap party for Disney's Bolt at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood where the Oscars is filmed. We give the film two thumbs up, though we are biased.





In other news, I made my debut on national television...as an audience member on the Ellen's 900th show. It was kind of like going clubbing, except that it was in the afternoon, Steve Carell was there, the average age was closer to 50, and we all walked away with a new Blu-ray Disc player.

Kieran’s enjoying pre-school. I think he has his first crush on a little girl named Jaylene. He mentions her frequently and says she’s pretty. Should I be concerned that he’s not even three? His true love, however, is still monsters and dinosaurs. Here he is below practicing his smoldering look.






Haven is now eight months old and has three teeth and counting. She’s growing up way too fast.

Gritty Diapers

Jon, Bonnie and family were just in town, and we were happy to meet up with them at the beach a few times during their California vacation. We’ve discovered that Kieran has developed a full-fledged phobia of the beach and that Haven’s favorite food is sand. I’m not sure why Kieran has developed this fear. He’s never had any traumatic experiences at the beach. Out of the blue he’s afraid of the “milk” (translation: frothy white waves), because it’s “too loud.” Consequently, he spent the majority of his beach time by himself about 20 yards behind us. Haven didn’t mind since it meant more sand for herself. Check out the slideshow for pictures.

Ryan is just about at midterms and seems to be holding up well under the grueling weight of his reading assignments. He’s been reading so much that his eyes become physically sore. He recently had a story published in a literary journal, Wanderings Magazine. You can check it out at http://www.wanderingsmag.com/fiction.html.

Grandma's Update:
The big news in Haven's world is that she cut her first tooth this past week. She graciously let me know it had arrived by chomping down on my finger. She's also begun pulling herself up to a standing position. Kieran finds her more and more interesting, which is dangerous for her since he likes to see her fall over like a sack of potatoes. She winces any time he's within a about a 5-foot radius of her. I guess it's the typical big brother/little sister stuff. (I vaguely remember assuming a defensive position every time Jon walked by me until he left on his mission.) Her current hobbies include cornering the cats, trying to eat everyone's food, and splashing in the tub.

Kieran's big news is that he's semi potty trained. The degree of his success is correlated directly to two variables: his degree of nudity and the quality of the reward. He was doing really well when I let him run around naked all day at home and while we had a supply of miniature Cars figurines to give him every time he used the potty. Once that supply was exhausted and once he began wearing clothes again, his dedication dwindled. He kindly offered to give back some of his figurines to bring back some of the initial potty-training excitement, and I took him up on the reward recycling offer.

Haven at 6 months

The World According to Kieran (and Pixar)

Church is always a challenge with Kieran. To keep him well behaved, we usually play a type of "I Spy" game during sacrament meeting as part of our entertainment repetoire. Our new chapel is great for this game. It's the most ornate Mormon chapel--or temple, for that matter--that I've ever seen. It's a white, mosque-looking building that was dedicated in 1930 by then prophet, Heber J. Grant. The chapel is filled with stain glass windows. One window depicts a picture of Christ holding a lantern and knocking at a door. During the sacrament today, I asked Kieran if he could find the picture of Jesus, which he did. I asked him what Jesus was doing, and he said that he was knocking on a door. Since I need to make the game last as long as possible, I then asked him what Jesus was holding in his hand. He told me very matter-of-factly that Jesus was holding "the Ghostlight." To those of you who haven't watched the movie Cars and all its special features innumerable times, the ghostlight is a lantern the other characters use to scare the tow-truck, Mater. Who knew that the ghostlight had its beginning in the Bible!

This isn't the first time Kieran's world has been shaped by Pixar and the likes. We visited the La Brea tar pits a couple of weeks ago, which is just that. A tar pit. In the middle of Los Angeles. Thousands of ice-age fossils have been recovered from the pits and are displayed in a museum near the pits. While going through the museum, Kieran insisted on calling every wooly mammoth "Anny" after Manny in Ice Age, and every sabre tooth tiger he calls Diego. Now, all elephants are also called Anny, and anything even resembling a cat is called Diego. It's no use trying to correct him. Apparently, Pixar knows better than mommy.