Gulliver Loves

Well it's high time for a Gulliver Loves post. Don't think that we've been too busy to enjoy good quality time with Gulliver! We are loving every day with our little man and say to ourselves all the time how lucky we are to be his parents and how much we love parenthood. So here's the latest. Oh, and by the way, he is now 17 months.

Gulliver loves stacking and nesting toys. I just bought him some stacking/nesting cups from IKEA for $2.50 and it has been money well spent.

Gulliver loves outside. We need to make sure he gets lots of play time outside. He loves balls and says "ball!" every time he sees one, which includes driving past the UVU electronic sign on university parkway, which flashes the image of a basketball, and pulling into my brother's driveway, since there are balls and play things in the yard. In fact, Gulliver has started saying "ball" when we get off the freeway, on our way to my brother's house. Because Gulliver is a genius baby.

Gulliver loves strawberries and bananas.

Gulliver loves giving kisses and hugs, which he will do by request.

Gulliver doesn't love getting in trouble. He is a very sensitive soul and if he realizes that he's hurt you, he will cry. His little quivering chin, which is reserved only for guilt-induced crying, is pretty much the most adorable thing I have ever seen.

Gulliver still loves my unlockable baking cupboard.

Gulliver loves going up and down stairs like a big boy, which means that he'll go up or down normally, but holding my hand. Otherwise, he goes backwards and is very very good on the stairs. In fact, for the most part, we have stopped using the baby gate. I love it when he sees a step that he's going to want to get down, and starts moving backwards for several feet in anticipation of the step.

Gulliver loves his cousins. We are very happy to live near his cousins on both sides. They love to see him and he loves to see and play with them!

Gulliver loves some of the applications I put on my iPad for him. However, he pretty much hates my favorite one. It is a matching game with fun music, great graphics, and terrifying animal noises. He backs away from me any time I open up that app. As soon as I change it, he comes near again and plays.

Gulliver loves chocolate chips. He bounces and shuffles and makes excited noises any time I take them out. (see also, Gulliver loves baking cupboard)

Gulliver loves praying, which is also pretty much the most adorable thing ever. Usually he clasps his baby hands but tonight, he was folding his arms, bowing his head, closing his eyes, and peeking while speaking gibberish.

Gulliver loves talking. Most of it is gibberish, but there sure is a steady stream of it.

Gulliver loves his belly button. And I love him showing it to me, so I ask to see it several times a day. The other day, he stole my small stepping stool, put it in front of the full length mirror, climbed on top, and pulled up his shirt so that he could stare at his own belly button.


Gulliver says...

SHOE whenever we get his shoes on or off.

CHEESE whenever I offer him cheese.

CRACKER, which still means milk, or cracker.

COOKIE, but only in reference to Cookie Monster.

DADA, especially when we are walking into the master bedroom to wake dada up.

BUPA for his Grandpa. He even says this when we pull up in front of their house.

WHAT? I've decided that I'd like to claim this as my name, since he says it all the time, but never calls me mama. Gulliver says what whenever the phone rings, and randomly throughout the day. He doesn't say "Do what?" as often anymore, but it's almost as if the "what" has really become more of a question and more urgent.

OOOOO? Whenever he's pretending to be on the phone. The other day, he found a jump drive and pretended that was a phone.

TICKLE, which he pronounces CACOL and makes a tickling motion on his body. This comes from reading books with his grandma.

NOH, which actually means NOSE. He rounds his mouth very exaggeratedly when doing this.

BALL, although he can't say the LLs, so it is pronounced with a slight W sound at the end.



We adore every precious minute of having him in our lives!!

-- Post From My iPad, with apologies for the typos and for the self righteousness of admitting I have an iPad.

Inactive

I know, I know. I've been an inactive blogger. Recently, Murray and I acquired a studio and that is now where we go to work. I work on MWF and Murray works on TTh. It's wonderful and very productive to get away from the house to work. But, I also feel that while I'm at the studio, I'm there to work, not blog. I'm so busy with work (which is a good thing! it's a good thing!) that I don't have time to write in my own blog or look at the blogs of others! (Sorry everyone!) And to help keep us from working at home, we've even pared down our home computers to just one laptop. (And two iPads and two iPhones... shhh!) It really helps with work! Because now, if it's 10:00pm and I have a project that I want to do work on, I really have to figure out whether it is something that I actually need to go into the studio to do, or if it's something that can wait till the next morning or the next work day. We've been working really really hard at creating boundaries between work and home.

And also? Our house is a wreck, but is slowly becoming unwrecked. Like today for example. I can spend a few hours catching you all up, OR I can keep washing and folding laundry. I won't even tell you how many huge IKEA bags we have full of clothes. I won't do it. Okay, I will. Seven. Seven IKEA bags full of laundry. (The good news is, about 4 of them are full of cleaned and folded clothes. Woot!) In other news, we will also be doing a major purging wherein we take a good look at all of those clothes and decide which ones we actually wear and want to keep.


Rooms in our home that are pretty clean on a regular basis:

Kitchen (although I'm getting the itch to do a pantry purge and I'm not going to lie---I'm really excited about it)

Gulliver's room

The Guest Room (which used to be the office)

The guest bathroom (which is my primary bathroom even though I'm not a guest... it gets cleaned because that gives me something to do while Gulliver takes his bath)

Rooms in our home that are moderately clean, but get cluttery sometimes:

Kitchen also fits into this category, actually.

Living room: Most everything in the living room has a home. But not everything. And the bookshelves could use a good purging where we clean them out of everything that should be at the studio. And our media could be better organized.

The laundry room. I should put this in the next category (rooms that I've given up for lost) except that I just barely cleaned it this morning and it looks a bazillion times better. It is amazing how happy a clean laundry room makes me.


Rooms that I've given up for lost:

Under the stairs closet. Yes, I'm counting it as a room. It seems like as much as I purge and organize this sucker, it never stays organized or functional.

The master bedroom. Ohhhh how I yearn for the day when it is clean. The problem is that the closet is currently unfunctional, which means that we actually don't have a good way to put away our clean clothes right now, which means that unless we tackle that closet tonight (hint hint, Murray) none of the laundry that I've been doing will make any impact on the cleanliness of our home. We need to PURGE PURGE PURGE of all the random stuff we've allowed ourselves to collect.

The master bathroom. Although the truth is that I believe given a large garbage sack and a good 45 minutes, I could have that puppy feng shui-ed out the wazoo. In fact, I'd love to do this tonight after Gulliver goes to bed and I'm home from a class I'm teaching. (Can you tell I'm in the mood to clean right now?)

The back yard. Also not technically a room (but about as large as one). The grass is dead. The paper wasps have invaded, infested, and asserted themselves as the main tenants. I just bought a yellow jacket trap that I was so sure was the answer to all our problems that I even dreamt about its effectiveness last night. But this morning, when I set it up, I read what the difference between a yellow jacket and a paper wasp is, and oh by the way although they look almost identical, this trap does NOT work on paper wasps, and we only tell you that on the inner packaging that you can only read once you have opened our product and disassembled the whole thing to be able to get the insert.

So. That is the status of our cleanliness life right now. Business is good. Our weight is bad. But now that we feel we've got a great system for work, we can start to focus on weight (I've lost three pounds this past week) and the house (I actually feel like we're getting there). I will have to update on adorable, hysterical, and brilliant Gulliver later. Perhaps Saturday?

I also wanted to mention, though, that I was trying to use my ward online directory the other day. This requires me to sign in to LDS.org, except that my username and password are saved on my at-work computer. So I tried and tried and for the life of me couldn't remember the right username and password combo. So I walked away from the computer, only to come back and find this:

Bwahahahahaha! Couldn't they have come up with different wording? Here is my alternate version:

Utah County Hates Babies

Okay, just kidding. I don't want to start some social media war or anything. But why isn't the film "Babies" available in the most baby-hungry county in the world?

Has anyone seen it yet?

LINK HERE (because you can't embed... why??)

To Insure Proper Service

Okay. I have an issue I would like to discuss and I'd love your thoughts and comments, even though I haven't posted in so long that probably no one is reading anymore.

Today at a girls' brunch, someone mentioned that she was talking to a photographer recently who, in a round about way, complained about not receiving tips. Now, at the risk of sounding like an ignoramus I will state clearly here that it never occurred to me to tip a photographer. A poll of the women in the room indicated that none of us would think to tip a photographer (right?). So I emailed two photographer friends to ask them what they think. Both indicated that it happens outside of Utah (but pretty much never in Utah) and that while it isn't expected, it is appreciated, and wouldn't be refused if offered.

Who do you tip? I tip waiters in restaurants and I tip my hair dresser (one of the brunch girls said that her hair dresser said if you're going to leave five dollars, you may as well not leave anything). And I'm not trying to be boastful here, just honest---I rarely tip under 20 percent. I think that's fair. Oh, and on the rare occasion that I get a manicure or pedicure, I tip then, too. I also tip house keeping in hotels because going back to a clean room really makes me happy, and I tip sky cap at the airport. I think that's about it. Oh, and I always feel guilty for not tipping when I pick up an order from a restaurant. You're not supposed to tip then, are you?

Anyway, going back to the photographers... I guess I just don't see why a tip should even be in question. Do you tip your auto mechanic? Your plumber? Do you tip your doctor? (That pap smear was excellently executed!)

I feel like my field of work is similar to photography. Should I expect tips? Most of my clients are outside of Utah. But I don't expect tips. I charge what the job is worth for me to do. And then I'm really happy when it's paid on time. That's about all I ask or expect.

I think that tipping is certainly appropriate when someone has gone above and beyond, but employed by someone else. Meaning, I know that the extra money I am giving is not going to the company, but is compensation above the worker's normal wages that they get to take home and enjoy. If I'm hiring an individual for creative services or the like, I would expect them to quote me their rate and then I would pay their rate. (But come to think of it, if I felt like the quality of their work was worth more than their quoted rate, and if I could afford to, I'd probably pay extra IF I feel like I'm getting a steal or bargain.)

Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts on tipping. Who do you tip? How do you decide?


-- Post From My iPad, with apologies for the typos and for the self righteousness of admitting I have an iPad.

I know, right?

Okay. I've been busy. I know. And I'm STILL busy. But just so that you know I'm not dead, here's a video that my former mission companion Jill sent to me. There are no words.