In the attempt to get as many decent photos for our annual Christmas card, we meandered through the crowds milling about the Mesa temple. For obvious reasons, these are the photos that didn’t make it.

Click on the photos for a larger version.

Update: New photos added

There’s a mime in the house, and he mocks everything I do. The mime is a little person who looks just like me. I’ve watched him. He tries to walk like I do. He tries to talk like I do. He’s there in the house with me, doing the same thing I am.

When I cook, he’s leaning over the stove working on an invisible course, working unison with my movements. He picks up veggies I’m cutting and use a butter knife to try to slice them as I do. He throws in something he picked up around the house, a pen, say, or bottle of nasal spray.

When I packed a box full of canned goods for Christmas food donations, he mimics me by emptying the basket full of shredded documents, dumping shredded paper on the carpet. He fills it with toys and paper and our dog’s food dishes.

I am at the park. He is there with me. I climb on the public park equipment. So does he. I go get on the horses. My little mime follows suit. I wonder why he’s doing this?

When I open the car, the little me jumps in before I can stop him. He’s grabbed the wheel and the stick shift. He’s not going anywhere as I have the key.

True Colors

Micah got a haircut. A real haircut. While many babies come out with a full crop of hair, Micah always was one of those babies with little hair. In fact, what hair he came with was lost, receding from his large, round head like a fifty-year-old. About when he turned a year old, a new crop of toe-head blonde hair slowly began to grow, especially around the ears. Since, the hairs around his ears were the only thing cut, but a few weeks ago we cut the whole thing. See the results below.

In other news, it’s cold outside.

In other news, beware of Hitler. He could be in your house right now.

Some people say that Obama is Hitler. Poppycock. Micah is Hitler. This may just look like an innocent picture a kid who got a little excited with a chocolate bar, but doesn’t it seem a little too coincidental that it makes him look like Hitler. Isn’t it interesting that these are the kind of questions the main stream media isn’t asking. Look at the way he gets excited and throws his hands up. You know who else got excited and threw his hands up? This guy.

We introduced Micah to the quintessential American author of kid literature, Dr. Seuss. But halfway through Cat and the Hat, he gets up and walks away. For Fox in Socks, he can’t even wait until the third page before heading to his oak bookcase, which is about the same height as him, and plucks another, shorter book.

But there’s just one book that Micah will not only sit through but also request. The book I’m talking about is There’s a Wocket in My Pocket. It’s a story about a boy who imagines creatures living in his house. They tend to reside close to things that rhyme with their names. Therefore the Woset stays in the closet, the Zlock is behind the clock and the Zhelf is up on the shelf.

I imagine it’s comforting to fill your house with interesting creatures with an odd OCD problem, and who desperately need some sort of therapy on the uh–pherapy. But if it gets Micah’s imagination working, then it won’t be bad, says dad.

Did Micah turn blue because he was upset with rage or because he was choking on a peanut M&M? Either way, the incident scared (and scarred) dad.

On Wednesday, I was frantic while talking on my cell phone to Jill. I had just had the mother of all scares with Micah, when he threw a fit over an M&M and began to appear to be not breathing.

Since Halloween, Micah had developed an addiction for sugary snacks, taking in and wholly ingesting Tootsie Rolls, Dots, Kit Kat–one of his favorites–and, of course, M&Ms. But also since Halloween, dad and mom get really upset because he likes keep the candy in his hands for long periods of time. And believe me that M&Ms do, in fact, melt in your hands, leaving an prominent blue dye, which will get on clothes and cupboard doors.

So on that fateful night, I pulled out some peanut M&Ms–to satisfy my own craving, but Micah was soon at my feet (with Cid) begging for some.

Instead of letting him carry it around, I had put it directly into his mouth. He seems to chew it pretty good before asking for another. I stick the next one, again, directly into his mouth. He cried and spat it into his hand.

I took it and put it back into his mouth. He cried a little, spat it onto the floor and bent over to pick it up. At which point, I took it and threw it away. I looked directly at Micah and extolled him on the virtues of not getting candy all over oneself.

Now, Micah has had, in the past, seemed to stop breathing a few times when he’s thrown a fit. But, when he became hysterical, upon seeing the M&M thrown away, I really couldn’t tell if he was actually choking, or just throwing a fit. Or, what seemed to be the case, he started throwing a fit and got a peanut lodged in his throat–although I doubted it afterwards.

At first, I thought it was him throwing a fit, but then I saw bits of candy in his mouth. Then it seemed like he was choking. I picked him up. But he transformed into something that more resembled a sack full of potatoes than my son. I was panicked, he wasn’t breathing in any case. I could not find my cell phone.

A million thoughts gushed through my mind, preventing me from thinking coherently. I looked all over the place, for where I could have placed my cell phone. I grabbed my work bag, and threw it on the ground when I didn’t find it. I thought about running outside to see if it was in the car. But, I just couldn’t leave Micah.

I thought, How long has it been since his last breath? Twenty seconds? Thirty? I couldn’t be sure. Desperately, held him up by his chest and pounded his back. I yelled, a command for Micah to breath. I hear a few gasps release, a few precious cries from Micah. I think that maybe he is breathing again. But that’s all I got out of him. He seemed to have stopped breathing again.

I hold him up, readying him for another round of blows to the back. He starts crying before I get the chance to hit him again. It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. I hold him closer than I ever have. While he’s crying (again, the M&M or choking?), I feel like crying too.

I phoned Jill after a bitter session of phone-hunting and self-chastisement.

“We are getting a land-line,” is the first thing I said to Jill.

First, a look at what our house looked like for Halloween this year.

Dawn – Halloween Hillbillies

My wife, Jill, and I were scurrying around the house before heading out to the nearest corn maze, 30 minutes away. We wanted to get there before our son, Micah, gets too hungry or tired to enjoy the trip. After we got there and bought our tickets, it wasn’t too long before we began to question whether we were having in fun wondering around in the maze.

“What’s the point,” Jill said. “I think there’s something, but there wasn’t anyone there to explain to us, like the cashier said.”

As we get deeper into the maze, we figured out that we’re suppose to go to several stations, to get our cards punch. At the end of the maze, we should get a $5 off our next purchase at Best Buy. When find out about the stations, we actually had fun. Although. we never got our best buy coupon.

After the maze, Micah and I went hill-billy and climbed into a barrel that had wheels fixed to it and painted to look like a jersey cow, it was attached to a small tractor. Micah cried and grabbed onto the sides when the ride ended, making it difficult for me to get out of the already cramped barrel/trailer. Then we looked at and petted various farm animals, such as pigs and goats.

It turned out that Micah didn’t want to leave. We were having too much fun with the animals and rides. Jill, on the other hand, was hungry and tired.

Dusk – The Masquerade

Later, my friend Ryan comes over. Jill applied home made blood, a mixture of cocoa powder and red dye, to Micah in his Goodwill clothes we’d bought weeks before. Jill and I followed suit, but we applied make up from the Halloween stores that pop up about this time of year. We had planned on putting the same makeup on Micah, but I had protested once I read that some of the dyes in that makeup has radioactive material or something as toxic.

Later, we ate hot dogs and chili in the church parking lot, getting some strange looks from various people. Most Mormons seem to dress up as non-threatening things, like doctors, nurses and farmers, or mythical figures like Harry Potter, or centaurs; also there were angels and story-book characters like the Man in Yellow, from Curious George. In walked the three of us, a family of zombies, our shredded clothes and pale-while faces covered in blood. Regardless, we enjoyed it. And people, almost at once, rolled with it and were friendly.

Fin