So, the other day, I was looking through pictures on our iPad when I just started laughing and laughing. May I present: “What Happens When Your 4-Year Old Is Bored on the iPad.”

I call these, “Portraits of Myself”

“Portraits of Myself: Series 2”

“Portraits of Myself: Series 3”

“Portraits of Myself: Series 4”

“Portraits of Myself: Series 5”

There’s a whole other set of hand pictures, too. This kid…

Liam turned 3 months old on Wednesday. 3 months! I can’t even believe it. At 3 months, Liam sleeps through the night (a miracle–he’s my first baby to sleep through the night this young), sucks his thumb, rolls over from his back to his tummy, laughs and smiles, and melts my heart on a constant basis. He’s just the sweetest thing.

Sometimes his bottom lip disappears.

My little love.

At the risk of sounding like a total jerk, today’s prompt is:

List your top ten pet peeves.

10! That seems like a lot. I’m only going to list five. Ten just seems excessive. Let’s see here…

1. When you get home from the store and your bananas have gotten smooshed. Major bummer.

2. When I’m on the phone and all of my children suddenly need my attention RIGHT NOW! Seriously.

3. When the technology we’ve become so spoiled by doesn’t work like it should.

4. When people drive way under the speed limit.

5. When people wear those Bluetooth headsets all the time. I understand wearing it when you’re working and you need to use your hands–great. But all the time? 24/7? I saw a family walking around CostCo the other day and both parents had ear pieces on. Are you really that important? Maybe I’m just too old-fashioned.

There. Done sounding like a jerk.

So, when I play around with our Etch A Sketch, I do amazing things like make staircases and trees. My skills are limited. However, Amelie seems to have some kind of natural gift for it. Without spending much time on it in the past, she whipped it out last week and produced these:

A cat. (Calder added his car for effect)

A waving monkey.

Today she made this one:

Standing cat.

There’s something strangely compelling about these little drawings. They don’t take her very long either. I guess this is what these toys are meant for. My vision for the possibilities has just always been fenced in by my lack of ability and patience.

And this is where the fact that this is my only form on journaling is highlighted. We’re only a third of the way through this list of prompts–you’re stuck reading about me for a while to come. I’ll try to post some cute pictures of the kids soon to break it up.

Today’s prompt:

What was your most embarrassing moment? 

Other than the fact that I’m an English M.A. and still need to look up “embarrassing” to see if I’m spelling it right?

The embarrassing moment that stands out to me is something that happened 7 years ago, when I was pregnant with Amelie. This moment was embarrassing not because of what other people saw me do, but because of what I knew I had done. At the time, we lived in Provo and every morning I took the bus up to BYU campus to attend class and teach my Intro. to Writing and Rhetoric courses. This particular day, I got dressed in my khaki maternity slacks and a light blue maternity blouse, grabbed a light jacket, and hopped on the bus. Well, I probably didn’t hop. I was pregnant, after all. But that’s what people always say, right? Anyway, I got on the bus, sat down, and as we drove through south Provo, I came to an awful realization. (At this point, I’d like to warn any men reading this blog that we are entering female territory. But I actually don’t think many men read my blog, so this shouldn’t be a major inconvenience.)

I wasn’t wearing a bra.

Thank you, pregnancy-induced absent mindedness. Although, the number of times I’ve locked myself out of my car would suggest that it isn’t strictly pregnancy related.

Here I was, on my way to teach class, and I had no bra on. Now, for some women, this might not be a big deal. But I am not exactly, how to put this lightly, flat chested. In my embarrassment, I said a little prayer thanking Heavenly Father for the jacket I had decided to bring with me and for the fact that today was a library day, which meant that I wouldn’t actually be lecturing in front of the class. We’d be in a dimly lit library computer lab. Thank heavens for small tender mercies.

I don’t think anyone ever suspected my embarrassment, but I was definitely embarrassed on the inside. It sure made for a funny story later that night when Bryce came home, though. Guess I’m not made out for the life of a bra-burning feminist. Shucks.