The Brody Blog

Animal Kingdom

According to Brody, there are only two types of animals in the animal kingdom:

"COWS!"

and

"Not cows."

Isn't He Lovely?

Brody, doing his best Stevie Wonder impression. What a ham!

And Baby Makes... 19?!

Have you guys ever seen the TLC specials on The Duggar Family?

They're a devout Christian family in Arkansas who are expecting their seventeenth child this year. Seventeen! How amazing is that? Jim Duggar, the father, is a former local politician.

Personally, I think they're amazing. They have a beautiful home, they are debt-free, the children are all well dressed, well educated, and well cared for. They each have household responsibilities, including looking after the other children. Each of the children plays at least one instrument, as well!

Recently I came across another blogger who bascially verbally annihilated this family for their choice to have 17 children. The blogger called them selfish, and accused the parents of "collecting" children, rather than actually raising a family. This blogger is proclaims to be both a feminist and pro-choice.

Now tell me, honestly, how can you consider yourself a feminist and pro-choice, and then criticize a woman for exercising those rights? I guess it's okay to abort a fetus, but holy hell, don't you dare give birth to 17 of them!

Being Mormon, I come from a culture where large families are more or less "the norm" so it's not so shocking to me. Brody is definitely a rarity- you don't see many families with only one child. (And I would dare to guess that those who do just have one child have only one because of circumstances beyond their control- money, fertility, pregnancy complications.)

I have several friends who have 4, 5, even 6 kids, and they're GREAT parents with wonderful children. My first husband and I wanted 5 children. Obviously that didn't work out, and several years of being single before getting remarried and having so many complications with and after Brody changed those plans.

What do you think? Do you think it's selfish or irresponsible to have 17 children?

Ears... or "Eows" as Brody would pronounce them

Brody's church nursery lesson on Sunday was "I Am Thankful For My Ears." How cute is he?

More pictures on my Flickr account!

Outwitted & Outsmarted

I just now discovered that sometime on either Saturday or Sunday Brody turned my phone to "silent" mode, which would explain why I haven't received my daily calls from Citi Mastercard offering me fraud protection on my account or Magazines 4 Less offering me Playboy at a discounted rate. (Yeah, 'cause that's what I need- a monthly glossy two page fold-out reminder of what my boobs used to look like before pregnancy etc. Nothing depressing about staring at a 20 year old's ripe melons while realizing mine, at 28, more closely resemble fruit roll ups. Nothing depressing about that at all.)

Oh, yeah, um... where were we? Oh yes, cell phones. Ahem. (Sorry Dad, Dan & Bob, I owe ya'll a brain eraser.)

I find it highly suspicious that a 2.5 year old knows which button auto-dials Brent, Guhgie (my mom), GuhPapa (Brent's parents), can turn a phone to "silent" mode, and work the Tivo remote, but he can't take a poop in the potty.

Did you notice how I snuck that in there... the "2.5" part?  Brody turns two and a half this month. He's getting so tall and skinny. He's definitely grown taller, but hasn't put on much (if any) weight. His speech has become much clearer, and he talks in four or five word sentences. He's currently in love with anything dinosaur, especially books. He won't go to bed at night until both Brent and I have each read him at least 3 books.

And, as a final step away from babyhood, there is no sign of anything baby in the house! He's been out of his crib for a while, but I still had his changing table up. Well, we took that down a few weekends ago, and I must confess, I cried a little. (Ok, a lot. My baby's not a baby anymore! It's final! I think my ovaries might have freaked out just a little, because I swear I was temporarily blinded by insanity and all I could think was, "MUST MAKE NEW BABY! MUST MAKE NEW BABY!" Thankfully Brent reminded me oh-so-kindly that I suck at all things pregnancy and postpartum, and then later handed me a Yaz before bed.)