Back Pain

A week ago, Ella's back was hurting her. She said, "Can you give Jack a bath, my back hurts." I filled his tub, put him in the water, started to get the soap ready, leaned over the tub, and promptly threw my back out. Bad. The worst I've done in quite a number of years. I spent the better part of the next twenty-four hours lying on my back. Jane was often concerned for me. A couple days later, I saw my friend Maclain. I told him I threw my back out. He said he'd never done that before and asked me what it feels like. I told him it's pretty much like what you see on TV or in movies when someone throws their back out. It's actually portrayed pretty spot on. Namely, your hand flies to your back and you throw your head back, eyes wild with pain and fear. Basically, if someone was watching from a distance, and a car backfired at the right moment, they would think you'd been shot with a .44 magnum. And you feel like you're about 85 years old at that moment. That's the funny part for me--not ha-ha funny, but ironic funny. The first time I threw out my back, I was in the fourth grade on the soccer field. Back then, when I saw how the coach looked at me, I thought he thought I was a weirdo. Knowing what I know now, I think his expression was more a reflection of how sorry he felt for me, seeing me throw my back out for the first time when I didn't even have all my permanent teeth.

So a few days ago, Sharon brought a bag of toys for Jane. Jane was so excited. Fisher-Price toys. Pet shop toys. She played from the moment the toys arrived until we dragged her (screaming) away from them to put her to bed.Here's the sad part (her screaming while being dragged to bed ceased being sad a long time ago). At one point during her marathon play session, she stood up, walked over to us, and complained of back pain. Then she went back and continued playing. Flashbacks of that autumn afternoon on the soccer field, and me splayed on the grass like I'd been shot with a four oh four magnum sprung to my mind, and I think my expression probably looked a lot like my coach's. I guess that's what we do--we pass on our pains and sorrows to our children. C'est la vie. Sorry, Jane.

Speaking of toys--but no longer backs--Jane has the most idiotic toy you could ever imagine. It looks like this:It's not the penny. That's just for perspective. Although, I could've just used Jane's cheek for size comparison:No, it's that little green ball you see pinched between her fingers. What makes it so idiotic? That fact that she bawls her head off when it's lost, and, as you see, it's quite easy to lose. I was introduced to it one afternoon, when I found Jane crying inconsolably in the kitchen. I asked what was wrong. She said her green ball rolled under the dryer. I got down to look for it and discovered many different items, a few of which might be described as a "green ball." I asked her if any of them were what she was talking about. Nope. She kept crying. I looked again, and lo and behold, there it was. I gave it to her and she was happy. She wanted to take it to bed with her for her nap. She said Mommy said she could. I said no. Mommy was wrong on this one. More crying. But I figured, this crying was better than the crying that would occur when she woke up and the ball was nowhere to be found.

There it is, just some lame tales of tiny toys and back pain. And a picture of Jane coloring that has nothing to do with any of that.

Jane's love for animals

Jane loves animals. She'll tell you that she loves dogs, cats, horses, and rabbits. She'll probably say it in a high sing-songy voice while pretending to hug and pet one. Whenever she sees an animal she asks if she can pet it. Very few times I have asked the owner for the opportunity but usually I just tell her we can't.

Jane also loves candy. If I had to guess I would've said that she loves candy more than animals but I would've been wrong. You see, at the end of June we went to a parade. Imagine how shocked I was when candy was raining down and Jane didn't run out to get it. Instead she sat right by some dogs and petted them to her hearts content. When it was time to leave the parade she said she had to say bye to the dogs. They were in the shade under a chair but she carefully maneuvered her way around so that she was able to pet each one goodbye. Later that same day we went to a petting zoo at the park. Needless to say she loved it. She sat by some rabbit cages and kept each hand on two different rabbits for as long as she could.




In July we went to Freedom Days in Provo. They had a reptile show. Before the show a worker sat outside the tent with a gigantic snake. I didn't know how Jane would feel about the snake, but lo and behold she loved it. She just had to pet it. So she petted it's long body for a good while. Then she saw his face and her eyes lit up. She cooed at it like it was a fuzzy teddy bear and just had to pet his head. The worker had to tell her a few times, "Not his face. Don't touch his face." until I finally got spooked enough that I went and grabbed her. No reason to let a 27 pound toddler upset a humongous snake.




But luckily Jane is easy to please. In fact the animals don't even have to be alive in order for Jane to be enamored with them. At Thanksgiving Point's Children's Gardens she spent about ten minutes petting the bronzed ducks. And after securing herself a stuffed turtle at a ward swap meet she has been gingerly carrying it around in the exact same position that she was taught to hold some kittens at the Sabin's neighbor's house: one hand under the front arms and one hand under its bum. She carried her turtle around like that for days asking us if we'd like to pet him. She is such a sweetie.

Zero going on 45

Here's our little mini-man. He cracks me up the way he looks like a 45-year-old baby.

Nothing too exciting to report on a two-month-old of course. He started batting at objects which is pretty cute. He also started cooing a couple days after I started to worry he was never going to do it. His smiles are getting bigger and more frequent. At first he only smiled for me (which I loved) but now he is smiling for just about anyone. He enjoys his baths and likes his vibrating chair. He really hates it when I'm a food pusher. If he's not hungry he does NOT want to nurse. (whereas Jane would nurse anytime I offered it). Jack just screams until I stick his paci in (okay, binky never stuck for us) and let him go to sleep. For how small he is he really should be doing better at tummy time. But he mainly just bawls his eyes out face down. So then I pick him up and the cycle continues. :)

Newborn clothes are finally getting too small for him. He fits well into a lot of his 0-3 months one piece outfits but all of the 0-3 pants fall right off his waist and bum. So he hasn't worn a big-boy outfit to church yet. I think he weighs around 11 pounds though so it seems like they should be fitting him.

My days are mainly spent wishing I could go back to bed. He is a good sleeper in the sense that he can often put himself to sleep and doesn't wake up unless he's hungry. But he's usually hungry at 10:00, 1:00, 4:00, 6:00 and every 30 minutes after 6. I know, it doesn't sound THAT bad but when it is day in and day out it gets pretty old. I am so tired of never sleeping longer than a 2.5 hour stretch. Jack likes to rub it in by taking a really long morning nap when I of course need to be awake to take care of Jane. I know I shouldn't let him sleep too long for his daytime naps but it always seems that I want to get just one more thing done before waking him up. And then of course by the time I get the second kid to bed during Jane's nap time the first one is ready to wake up. In short, I think my love with the newborn stage this time around is wearing off. I'm ready for him to grow up a bit, sleep a little longer, and get a little more fun.

But then again he is so sweet and cute. I guess I won't hit fast forward just yet.

How Jane made us laugh this month

Jane, my dad and I were sitting in the living room. My Dad asked my mom who was in another room, "Did you eat, Marlene?" Jane replied, "No, I ate Mommy."

After Jane went to the restroom she astutely pointed out to me "Poo-poo matches your hair." Thanks Jane.

Jane really enjoys seeing our neighbor's girls who are 4 and 6 years old. They are really sweet to her. The other day they were telling Jane some stories and Matt and I were laughing because it seemed that Jane was getting pretty confused but was pretending to follow along. A few minutes later Matt peeked out and said that the neighbor girls were looking as confused as Jane had been because now it was Jane's turn to tell them a story. When Matt walked out the girls said, "We have a ladder if you need to get Jane's shoe out of the tree." Matt said, "Jane's shoe isn't in the tree." The girls explained, "That's what Jane said."


Jane has developed her first crush. It's on Evan from So You Think You Can Dance. She lights up when he comes on and says, "I like Evan" with a long emphasis on like. When other guys are dancing she asks me when Evan will be on again. And she just told me "I love Mommy and Daddy and Evan. Every people love me so much."

Jane told me that when she gets bigger she can get married in the temple and have a baby in her tummy.

But she's a little unclear about what else she can do at the temple. When we were driving home from Julie's Jane saw the beautiful temple in Draper and started explaining what she had done there. I took dictation. "I bought cheese at that temple. Yeah. I bought starbursts at that temple. Yeah. I bought starbursts and lollipops, go poo-poo at that temple. Yeah. Got married, remember?"

I asked Jane to stop jumping on the couch. She did it again and we had the following conversation:
Mom: "I said No."
Jane: "I said Yes."
Mom: "I'm the Mom."
Jane: "I'm the big, big GIANT!"

While getting ready to brush Jane's teeth Matt and Jane had this conversation:
Matt: Are you chewy? (something he asks her and then pretends to eat her)
Jane: No, I not food.
Matt: You're not?
J: You're food.
M: I am? Am I chewy?
J: Yeah. (pretends to eat him)
Then Matt started brushing her teeth. She kept interrupting him by pushing the toothbrush out of her mouth to talk:
I eat you all gone. (brush brush brush) You be sad. (brush brush brush) I just kiddin'.

Matt said to Jane, "If you go poo-poo in your pants you'll be in big trouble." Jane said very seriously, "If I go poo-poo in my pants, I die. (nodding her head) Yeah."

I told Jane that the three of us (me, Jane and Jack) could go outside. She counted us out "One, two, three" and then said, "Four's at work."

Matt got stern with Jane and Jane said pleadingly, "Don't be mad at me. You're my best friend."

When Matt was changing Jack's diaper Jack peed all over. Jane said very compassionately, "I sorry. I sorry Jack go pee-pee on you, Dad."

While I was nursing Jack, Jane said she was hungry and wanted toast. I asked her to wait for a few minutes and she said, "Get my toast with one hand."

Before going to the canyon we asked Jane if she wanted to go see nature. She got very excited and said, "I wanna go to nature's house." A few minute's later she said she wanted to go to Uncle Nate's house. I think she thought it was his full name.

Why is it that kids think that saying anything about poop would be funny? Jane was singing a song from Sesame Street that goes, "I'm talking Love. I'm talking, love, love, love." But she changed it to, "I'm talking poop. I'm talking poop, poop, poop." What's worse is how Matt and I kept laughing like a couple of five year olds.

While driving in the car Jane had a pretend phone. I wrote down what we heard her saying:
-Hello, Julie? Oh, my phone's beeping.
-Hey, Julie? I love to talk to you so, so much. I love to talk to you about something else I love. That little flag has stripes on it.
-I hit Paris. And that's not mean to hit Paris. I love to hit Paris. And that's not nice to hit Paris. (Disclaimer: As far as I know there hasn't been any hitting of Paris before).

We have a Baby Einstien DVD called Santa's Music Box. Essentially it consists of instrumental Christmas songs playing while shiny, spinning objects flit across the screen. I had put it on a couple of times to give Jack something to look at while in his vibrating chair. Since then Jane consistenly requests to watch "Jack's show." She loves it. I'm not sure why. But during a segment where they show different ornaments slowly spinning around Jane has pointed out the orange one a couple times now and told me that she likes that one. And then she slowly dances to the music. She even enjoys the music on the DVD menu. One time she sat watching the DVD menu for about 15 minutes straight. Matt thinks it's the least intelligent thing he's ever seen her do.


Jane has been hooked on phonics lately. She'll say a word like "pretzel" and then say, "what starts with pretzel" meaning what does pretzel start with. Then you sound out a "puh, puh" and she'll say "p." She'll do that with the last letter of the word, too, and she'll still say "starts with" when she means ends with. Some words she knows all by herself, like "daddy, starts with d." But she still has quite a way to go. One morning Matt was watching her play with her letter blocks. She lined up a bunch of them in a row and rattled them off. Matt wrote down the letters and numbers from the blocks: GPIN1T8KDW9X4LE. She said each letter and number pointing at each block as she said them. When she finished, she looked at the letters and numbers, as if to see what it spelled and said "That says cup. Starts with cup." Matt says that's the second least intelligent thing he's seen her do.

Blessing Day

Jack received his baby blessing at church this past Sunday. When they read in his name as John Matthew Jespersen my nephew Sam turned around very confused and said, "I thought you named him Jack?" It was a nice day. Jack's Grandma Jespersen made him a darling little blessing outfit. Thankfully Matt warned her about his small stature so she made the newborn size vs. size 0-3 months. It still fit him quite generously.

A visit from Grandma and Grandpa Griner

The past week we got to enjoy some time with Grandma and Grandpa Griner. Jane enjoyed the extra attention and we were able to go do some fun stuff. My dad gave me the pics he snapped so even though Matt wasn't with us I actually have documentation of our outings.

But first here's some pics of Grandpa with the kids:


And here's Grandma helping Jane with her "activities"

Paris also got to spend the week with us and the girls had fun playing together.



We went to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. Their new room about planting and harvesting was lots of fun. Jane loved riding on the horses.



We also went to Discovery Gateway, a really great children's museum in Salt Lake City. Jane loved the "drums" (a large xylophone-type area) and the water pit the most. They also had pretend play areas like a grocery store, a small house, and a farm. Upstairs they enjoyed building with different blocks and magnets and exploring a wind tunnel.





After the museum we let the girls play in the fountains at the Gateway and then took them out for ice cream. It was a fantastic day.



Thanks for the great week Grandma and Grandpa!