August Rush

The month of August is drawing to a close without much action on our blog. But don't think that's because we've just been sitting around. Oh no. We've been busy. The thought of separate posts for each "event" is too overwhelming for me right now, so here is a hodgepodge of what we've been doing lately.

Becoming an Uncle and Aunt

This didn't actually happen in August, but we haven't updated since she was born. That's right, on July 29th Carly gave birth to our first niece, Sadie. We've spent many hours this month stalking their blog, waiting for the latest updates on our little niece. I'm not sure when we will get to officially meet her, but we can't wait. She is adorable and takes the best pictures (and when I say "takes" I mean, her parents do a great job of capturing her candid moments). I only hope our son is half as entertaining and Anthony and I will be half as good parents. Congratulations, Nielsons!!

Growing

The month of August brought several milestones for me, some more fun than others. I now feel our little guy moving. All.the.time. A mover and a shaker for sure. For the most part this is very exciting. I wish he didn't press on my bladder so much, but it's not really his fault. There isn't much room in there. A less fun milestone is that my back is really starting to hurt at the end of the day. But we're all happy his growth is right on schedule.

In the first picture I am 23 weeks along and in the second I am 25 weeks.

Camping

I spent a few days early this month with our ward young women at Girl's Camp. I had a great time! Teenage girls are so fun. It was a great week--the weather was beautiful, I didn't get any headaches, and the girls from our ward have such good attitudes. My main regret is that our camera stopped working so I have no pictures. I am working to get some pictures from girls in the ward, so we'll see. Hopefully I'll get some up here at some point, but that is a big reason why I was so slow to blog this month. It feels weird to blog without pictures.

Celebrating...

three years of marital bliss. That's right, we've made it three years. We didn't do much to celebrate the day of, because our anniversary fell in the middle of the week, but here is a picture of us that night. If we look a little tired it's because we are, we helped some friends move that night, but I still wanted to take a picture to commemorate the occasion.

Sister Time

Jill and Emily came to town in mid-August so we made a weekend trip to KC. It was fun to be with all my sisters before they all start another year of school. Next time I see them I will have a baby. Crazy. It was a packed weekend. My mom organized a "family baby shower" where we got lots of clothes and a few other "essentials" for our boy toy. You know, like nursing pads and nose suckers. :o) My dad made some of his delicious apple crisp which I am still craving. We also got some family pictures taken.

Road trip '09: St. Louis

All summer we've been talking about taking some kind of trip. Being the recessionistas that we are, we decided that a weekend trip to "The 'Lou" would be the best vay-cay we could afford right now. We had a great time. We went to a Cardinals game, where Albert Pujols won the game with a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the ninth. We went to the temple. We visited the arch. Anthony was excited because the designer of the arch, Eero Saarinen, is Finnish. He was less excited about the height, and didn't like looking out the windows. We had a lot of fun.



And now, I guess you could say, we are ready to take on the rest of 2009.

Thoughts from a Father

I am so excited to be a dad. At least I know that.

My other emotions, and there are others, are difficult to pinpoint exactly. I cannot blame an emotional, hormone-driven roller coaster like my wife can for an inability to describe the emotions that accompany our child. No. Like Ron Weasley I probably have the emotional capacity of a teaspoon.

I think I am scared as well. I am scared because I am still an idiot. I have made positive strides in my life, most of which have been accelerated forward due to the BEST decision I ever made- to marry Carrie. But I know too well my own shortcomings. I fear that my flaws will be exposed and magnified by our child. I could hurt him, and that scares me.

But I am hopeful too. I hope that my fears are in some ways similar to my fears that my actions somehow affect whether the Red Sox win or lose. While I may take a Red Sox playoff loss personally because I did not do my due dilligence (e.g., wear "winning" clothes, sport the needed rally cap, watch the game from a "winning" location) in reality I had no effect on the game. Of course my personality and parental choices will affect my son, but I believe he will come to our family with a soul or even some genetic tendencies, that I can do nothing about. I guess I am scared about his genetic endowment/soul, partly because half them genes done come from me, too. But I can't do anything about it.

But I can. I have long thought that children, while they have their own personalities, are like sponges. I do not like the blank slate analogy because that negates the individual makeup of a person that I believe we each have. And kids come to earth, and they want to learn. Like sponges, they soak up all that is around them. If parents do not work to surround their children with useful, good information to "soak in", kids will let other sources fill up their heads: TV, friends, internet, etc. that often have alterior motives. So I can have a positive influence on my son, but I guess that increases my responsibility level as well which is scary.

So at this point in my inner dialogue about my feelings I am feeling all sorts of both excited, scared, and hopeful. What is weird is that the things that sometimes help me feel at peace are sometimes the very things that intimidate me.

I think what gives me the most hope is my own parents and especially my father. I know a bit about their weaknesses, as I was a teenager once, however mild-mannered. They are not perfect. And yet I am not too crummy a person. My siblings are all reasonably well-adjusted people, outside of Meredith (a sure-fire axe-murderer/Dartmouth chainsaw massacre instigator- mark my words). I am sure that my father felt stress when I was born about his part in my life, and I turned out okay. If he can do it, I can also. In fact I think that both my father and mother did a great job, especially with my siblings besides the aforementioned future axe-murderer.

I also hope that my psychology professor at BYU was right when he told us not to over-think parenthood and that humans naturally understand how to parent their children and that children are very resilient even when you make mistakes.

And if this post is emotionally confusing, welcome to my world.

Be-LATE-d Birthday Shout Out

We owe a much belated (but not forgotten) Happy Birthday to EMILY!

I missed blogging about it last week because I was at Girl's Camp sans internet access.

But we know she likes spreading out holidays by doing things such as carving a pumpkin with a turkey in November.


Emily is the third sister in my family and always does her best to keep everyone on their toes.
She is vivacious and entertaining

and fun to be around.

Even when she tries to ruin my pictures.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Emily!!