What the UFC?

Ladies, maybe you can sympathize. You wake up at night and look over to see that your husband is missing from your bed. You then look at the clock. It's late, past 11, definitely past bedtime. So you tiptoe out into the living room to find your husband sitting on the couch in the dark staring at a computer screen. You don't want to believe it, but there it is, on screen, staring you right in the face. Sweaty, greased-up, half-naked men who are all over each other. You look away feeling kind of dirty for having taken a peek and let the truth sink in.... your husband is a (gulp) UFC addict.

What the UFC?

I get sports. And I'm not just saying that. I can appreciate the physicality of football or hockey. I've even been known to enjoy a boxing match or two, but I simply cannot understand the appeal of ultimate fighting. When a dude is kneeing what appears to be a semi-unconscious man repeatedly in the nose, call me crazy, but I think we've crossed the line from sport to sadism.

While I don't get the attraction, I guess the one positive thing I can say about this seemingly universal male obsession, is that it gives my husband at least one thing to talk with my brothers about. So fight on you disgusting, barbaric, juiced-up, testosterone-loving men!

Fresh to Death

About 2 years ago I earned the moniker "cool wife" by allowing my husband to buy a motorcycle. I scored even bigger points because Yo was technically unemployed, but I'll be nice and call it "between jobs" at the time.

Since this purchase he has dreamed of being a part of a motorcycle gang. I used to laugh when he talked about it because Yo does not exactly look like a candidate for any motorcycle gang that I know of (truthfully, Hell's Angels is the only one that comes to mind). Still, I like to humor him so one morning I asked Yo what his gang would be called and without skipping a beat he declared, Fresh to Death. Classic.

2 years later, Yo has found about 4 or 5 buddies from our ward that he goes riding with on occasion. Most of them have about as much street credibility as my husband, but there is one striking exception--by day he is Darrell or Br. Draper, 1st Counselor in the Bishopric. By night he is Big D, one tough-looking biker dude. Like Yo and I like to tell him, when he has all of his biker gear on, he looks like the type of guy that no one in their right mind would mess with. Funny thing is, he's a big ol' teddy bear and one of the most laid back, coolest guys we know.

I'm kind of hoping that Yo gets his fix of motorcycles before Kai is old enough to want to follow in Pappa's footsteps and get a bike of his own one day. But for now, it does make a pretty funny prop for pictures of Kai.

Check out Kai and Big D:

Memorial Day Weekend

Who doesn't love a long weekend? Especially when we've been getting weather like this! And the fact that Gabby and Jason are in town is just icing on the cake. It's only Sunday, but our weekend has already been action-packed.

To start things off, on Friday I met up with some of the Adams clan at the California Academy of Science with Kai. As for Kai, he was more fascinated by the carpet than anything he saw in the displays. At one point I had him within a few inches of tiger shark and he barely glanced at it. He was so focused on the floor. Oh well! I guess we'll wait another couple of months before we rush him off to the zoo.

Friday night Yo and I got a babysitter and went to see a production of Peter Pan that's playing down on The Embarcadero. It was a really cute show. Yo has a special place in his heart for Peter Pan. Does that surprise anyone? I had fun watching the kids in the crowd react to the performance and thought about how much fun it will be to take Kai to plays in a few years.

On Saturday we headed to the Pleasanton to the Adams' abode to hang out for the day and enjoy the East Bay's warmer temperatures. We love the Adams. They are such a big and loving family. When we are there they always make us feel right at home. This time was no exception. We also were lucky enough to have our friends Cameron and Shannon Rosenhan join us with their adorable baby.

While at the Adams', we took Kai swimming for the first time. He has always loved bath time, so I hoped that he would like being in a bigger body of water, too. The water in the big pool was still a little too chilly for Kai (and me!) but we took him in the hot tub and he happily splashed around for a good 30 minutes or so before I dragged him out. I'm glad that he had fun because next weekend we are heading down south with Gabby and Jason to catch some Orange County rays and hopefully spend a lot of time poolside or at the beach.

Today we are having a quiet day at home and letting Kai catch up on sleep. He caught his first cold a couple of days ago so he's been a little bit off his schedule and a bit needier than usual. His poor little nose is all stuffed up so when he sucks on a binky he ends up spitting it out after a few seconds and gasping for air. Last night we pulled out the humidifier and Yo did a good suctioning number on his nose before he went to bed and it seemed to help. Today he seems like he's breathing better so I'm hoping that he'll be back to his normal, healthy self before we leave on our road trip next weekend.

Kai in rare form:

Checking out the humidifier:

One Cute Kid

Thought I'd upload some of Kai's latest pictures. Maybe some of you skilled photographers can give me some constructive criticism. Anyway, these pictures were taken just a couple of days ago so Kai is just over 6 months old.

A Mother's Prayer

For the last month we've made it a point to put Kai in his crib when he is drowsy, but awake so he can learn to fall asleep on his own. It's been a long time coming, but sometimes I miss rocking my baby to sleep. So the other day when Kai fell asleep while I was feeding him, I indulged and held him for about 30 minutes before putting him down.

As I held Kai and stared at his little, peaceful face, I wished that life could always be this simple....that Kai could always be this perfect. Sometimes I think about all of the challenges that Kai is certain to face in his life and it is tempting to want to protect him forever. But I know that I won't always be able to wrap him in my arms and be his whole world.  So I trust him to the Lord and pray for his keeping.

This is my prayer for Kai:
May you have the courage to stand up for what's right, even when you're left standing alone;
A sense-of-humor--an ability to laugh at yourself and appreciate the lighter side of life;
A spirit of gratitude for your blessings and generosity to those who are less fortunate;
A clear sense-of-self, and the strength to be true to who you  are;
Humility, that you might be quick to accept when you are wrong and change your ways;
A tender heart
A willingness to befriend the friendless and defend the defenseless; and
A life full of love--freely given and freely received.

The Randomness That Is Yo

Yo and I are coming up on our 5 year anniversary. So we've had some time to discover and fix many of the, let's call them "kinks," in our relationship. Well, one of the kinks that we ran into early on in our relationship was that we have very different ideas about what makes an appropriate gift for the myriad of special occasions that we celebrate together (holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.).

For some reason, we just never seem to be on the same page. For example, for our first anniversary I bought Yo a video camera (it was actually a joint present for our anniversary and his graduation). He bought me a pair of sunglasses...from Target. And it wasn't that I didn't like them. I did. They were great. It was just the scale of our gifts was so far off. Another case in point, a couple of years ago I got Yo a fishing pole for Valentine's Day (he'd mentioned several times that he always enjoyed fishing at his Grandparents' house growing-up). Yo got me a laptop. And not just any laptop, but a Mac Notebook that he'd coincidentally had his eye on for some time. I was not so happy at the time, in fact, I'm still trying to figure out how to use this darn thing, but we can both laugh about it now.

I used to try and explain to Yo what constituted an "appropriate" gift, but eventually I just gave up and gave in to the randomness that is my husband. In fact, instead of changing him, seeing what he will get me has become part of the fun. Sometimes he has delightfully surprised me. Last year for Valentine's Day I was shocked when Yo gave me a pair of designer jeans that he had picked out all by himself. He had even gotten the right size. He also surprised me last year for Mother's Day when I was pregnant with Kai. He got me the perfect gift--a gift certificate to a spa and another for MAC cosmetics. He knew how fat and ugly I felt and he wanted to make me feel pampered and beautiful.

Another gift that will go down in history as one of the most thoughtful things he's given me was a Tiffany's charm bracelet for my 30th birthday. He'd had the heart charm specially engraved. One side said "Mom" the other "Kai". It was the perfect momento to recognize two monumental occasions in my life.  I wear the bracelet all the time, especially now that I'm back at work, to remind me of the two loves of my life.

When it comes to gifts, I'm usually pleasantly surprised and almost always pleasantly amused at what Yo comes up with. So this year, for my first "real" Mother's Day I, literally, had no idea what to expect. As I blogged previously Yo was super attentive all day long. He tended to the house and the cooking and was even more helpful than usual with Kai. As for his present, he'd warned me that it was taking longer than expected to get delivered so it would have to wait. Then, on Monday he came bounding into the house after work saying that he had some wrapping that he had to do. He was clearly excited about whatever surprise he had up his sleeve. About 15 minutes later he came back upstairs carrying a present he said was from Kai. I opened it and was surprised to see a Mario game (What can I say? I'm a fan.). I was more surprised when I realized that it was for a Wii seeing as that Yo only owns an Xbox 360.

Yo feigned surprise as well, saying that he must have made a mistake and then went bounding down the stairs only to reappear with another, larger package. What could it be? Hmmm.... a Wii. And why not? What first-time mom would not want a Wii and for Mother's Day, no less?

Random? Yes. I think I had mentioned sometime, maybe a few years ago that the Wii looked like fun. I'm not sure that I ever made more than a passing comment about it and, like I said, it's been a long time since I mentioned it at all. I have to admit, it's definitely not something that I would have ever bought myself, but I definitely see the potential to have some fun playing games with Yo and maybe even Kai a few more years down the road. I've never been coordinated enough to catch onto the Xbox. The funniest thing about Yo is that he actually proclaimed to me out of the blue a couple of weeks ago that he deserved some credit, "because he's learning."

When I asked what he meant, he said that he had thought about getting me a gift for Mother's Day, but then thought better of it because I might be mad about what he was going to get. Then he asked, "Would you be mad if I got you a Wii?'

I said, no, I wouldn't be mad, but a Wii would be a random gift and pretty expensive for a holiday like Mother's Day.

Call me crazy, but based on our conversation, it didn't really dawn on me that Yo would then go ahead and order a Wii, the very present that he commended himself for not getting me. Like I said, Yo is random and for the most part, delightfully so.

In the last five years I've come to realize that sometimes not knowing what to expect is the best part. So thank you to my adorable and strange husband for always keeping life interesting and me guessing.

10 Reasons Why Kai Is the Coolest

1. He sleeps 12 hours at night.
2. He cracks a huge smile after sneezing, coughing, or pooping.
3. He always bounces on his tip-toes. I've never seen his heels touch the ground.
4. He laughs at weird noises. 
5. He acts like he doesn't recognize his own name, but if you say, "bottle," or "this little piggy," he gets all kinds of excited.
6. He snores.
7. When he gets really tired he'll start making such spastic movements with all of his limbs at the same time that it looks like he's having convulsions (or Crumping as his dad likes to call it).
8. He gained 80% of his body weight in 2 months (jumping from 10 to 18 lbs). About 5 of those lbs went straight to his cheeks.
9. He'll wait until he sees his bottle before crying and freaking out as if he's starving. 
10. He is one of the happiest, smiliest babies I've ever known and when he smiles he bares his entire upper and bottom gums. It's about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

My First Mother's Day

It's official, I have joined the sisterhood of women who can call themselves "mothers" and finally earned the chocolates the men pass out in church to honor the women in our ward on Mother's Day. I'm not gonna lie, it felt good eating those chocolates despite the fact that I've otherwise been on a health kick. After all, I'd earned them. Aside from the chocolates I greedily absorbed all of the well-wishes from other church goers who greeted me in the hall with countless "Happy Mother's Day" wishes and generously divvied out "Happy Mother's Day" greetings of my own.

I unapologetically wore a new dress to church today. When Yo asked, "Is that new?" I said, "Yes."

After church I played with Kai downstairs while Yo hustled and bustled to make a divine homemade chicken curry from scratch. I put Kai down for a nap and then ate, slowly, with my feet up on the coffee table and a diet Coke within easy reach. And when Yo sprung up from the couch and began cleaning I only offered twice to help before caving in to his protestations and deciding to eat seconds instead.

I went crazy and totally disregarded Kai's (color-coded) schedule letting him wake-up early from an afternoon nap and skip his rice cereal and bath all together so that we could join some friends for dessert at their place.... and they served strawberry shortcake, only my favorite summer dessert.

We got home late, past Kai's bedtime, so I fed him a bottle and then read him my Mother's Day card that Yo thoughtfully delivered to me mid-bottle. Kai even signed it. Amazing, right?


And then I got super crazy and decided to watch some TV, while reading my email, and eating more sweets. And now, I am blogging when I really should be sleeping since tomorrow is Monday and I actually work again.

Oh Mother's Day, how I'm going to miss you!

I'm hoping all of you mothers out there enjoyed your Mother's Day, too. In case your kids didn't tell you enough times to last you until this day rolls around again next year, thank you for all that you do!