Things I love about Taya

*How she goes 'Aaeeaaeeaaee' - almost like a little Baby Tarzan (but lower pitched) & moves her body front and back, front and back while she does it. She also likes to say 'mamamamama' and currently - 'Dekadekadekadeka' among others. ... Love it.

*How she flirts big time with people in the stores ... and with friends too, but man does she love stranger attention ... (we may have to keep an eye on this one)

*How she loves to eat. She can never get enough. She wants whatever we're having, whatever she's having, and then some ... (this is also a little frustrating when she's yelling to get some of our food during our meals)

*The way her hand flips quickly forward to back with the weight of my cell phone that she loves to hold.

*How she never stops kicking her little legs. Never. No, not ever.

*How she gets a huge ol' smile when her Dada comes home from work ... (and then she wants me 10 minutes later because she's a Mama's girl like that right now - that part I don't love quite as much when I need a break)

*How she Army Crawls and rolls to get whatever she wants ... and to see her on all fours rocking back and forth is so cute! ... (if only she could avoid that next step of crawling that is going to change my life!)

*How she has about 20 rolls of baby fatty skin on each leg.

*Her floppy ears.

*How everything on her is round. Round face. Round eyes. Round nose. Round.

*How she gets so excited to play with her mobile during her diaper changes on the changing table (our changing table sits on top of the crib) -- Thanks again for the mobile Matt & Kathryn!

*How she loves me and does everything with me! What did I do with myself before?

...Now if I could just find my camera to add UPDATED pictures (she is 7 1/2, almost 8 months old now & I can't believe it! The pictures above are from 6 months. She's had a haircut since then and her hair is lighter).

Delegations for a week ...

For lack of camera use and any creative ideas on my part, I am just resorting to other people doing the entertaining for me. Not to say my posts are really even entertaining ... anyhow ...

I saw this little 17 month old girl on The Today Show this morning - she can read! All I could do was say WHOA & laugh a lot while watching her - it is unreal! Here is the clip:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23557146#23557146

Urgent to Marilyn

This is another poem by Carol Lynn Pearson that I love; I posted one a while ago, and said I would post more, so for lack of creativity and any ready pictures for my other posting ideas, you get to be graced by the presence of this wonderful poet instead! (I'm sure you wished that all along didn't you?)
...
Urgent to Marilyn

Marilyn had a job-
Working out her salvation.
It wasn't nine to five.
It was nine to nine
In twenty-four-hour shifts.

And there was no vacation,
And in case she should get fired
Nobody else was hiring,
So Marilyn worked hard
And she worked fast
And she worked in fear.

The boss was away a lot
And Marilyn wondered
If he liked her work,
And not knowing, she worked harder.
She did everything on every list
Twice over to make sure.

She didn't have much fun
On the job.
It was more the retirement
Benenfits she was there for,
The mansion, the glory.

On a typical day
She ran frantically
From the visual aid department
To the wheat-grinding
And quilting department
To the grow your own
Vegetables department
And the sew your own
Children's clothing department
And the physical fitness
Department.

She even stopped running
Past the genealogy department
And locked herself in
Until she got something done.

And then she ran
To the food storage department,
Ran with scriptures
On casette (I-Pod) in hand,
Ran because there were Twenty-two minutes left to fill,
Ran past the boss's memo
On the bulletin board:

"Urgent to Marilyn:
Peace, be still."



What do you think of this poem?
One part that stands out to me is when it says that she didn't really enjoy her job and was just working for retirement benefits; I had a conversation a while ago with a friend who described how her religion focused on making the most out of now, and that it seemed that in the LDS church, we mostly just focused on getting the most out of life after death. I didn't have a great response then, but I thought about it later and thought, you know what? - I love my beliefs and religion because unlike what she thought, it actually teaches me to make the most out of now while also preparing for wonderful blessings after this life. So I can see what Pearson is saying when she says the woman was working only for retirement - I want to make sure I'm working for happiness (not temporal bad decision happiness, but pure happiness) now and later. Also, I noticed how it says 'she worked in fear'. We might be a God-fearing people, but more than that I ultimately want to work out of love, love for my fellow men and Heavenly Father. "Men are that they might have joy" - I think this goes along with my thoughts, working for happiness now and for life after death, as well as working out of a motivation of love & charity - which ultimately blesses us with joy.

What are your thoughts?