HOWIE SPEAKS

We would like to make an announcement... Howie has begun speaking in the last few days! Starting on Sunday Howie has been making these really funny noises, like this: "ba ba ba ba." We've been having some deep conversations with him. This is how they go.

Betsy/Josh: "Howie, would you like some more sweet potatoes?"
Howie: "Da da da da da da." This is usually followed or proceeded by a large amount of bubble-blowing and raspberry-making, which results in some or all of the food in Howie's mouth exiting forcefully.

Just thought we'd make that announcement. If you would like to hear these things from Howie himself, please feel free to call and ask for him.

Have a great weekend!

PHOTO UPDATE

Mourning the Colts, Cheering on the Packers, and more pictures of Howie

Hey Folks,
We just want everyone to know that this week we have been mourning the Indy Colts shocking and fluke loss to the San Diego (New England is going to kill us) Chargers. The first picture you will see if us in our grieving attire. We are now cheering with all our hearts for Brett Favre. Go Packers! I cannot stand either the Giants or the Chargers. In other news, we recently have had the chance to see Church Bulletin Betsy and Bible Bill, as well as Chris and Marnie. Here are some pictures from those visits, as well as some others. Enjoy!

Howie Gets A Cell Phone, and Other Christmas Stories

Well, it's been a while since we've posted a Howie update, so now is the time. He just turned 6 whopping months right after Christmas, which I can't believe. How has 6 months gone so quickly?? And now we're in 2008!! Crazy!! The biggest Howie news is that he has just started sitting up by himself, although he's still a little wobbly and prone to fall over from time to time. It's fun to watch him become more curious and active.

I'm sad to report that over the holidays Howie had a paci relapse. We blogged about the momentous event when he actually gave up his night-time paci, but somehow between the trip to Arizona for Thanksgiving and Illinois for Christmas, he relapsed into using again. So we came back on Tuesday, in the same sleepless boat we were in a couple of months ago. This latest foray into paci dependency was a bit more complicated, because Howie was growing out of swaddling. He had been swaddled in his crib since he came home from the hospital. Although it looked like he was going to bed in a straightjacket, he actually liked it, and what's more, came to depend on it for being able to sleep. If he wasn't swaddled, it wasn't time to sleep. But as he's gotten older and more active, he's able to get his arms out of the blanket and start playing around. So let me set the scene for you. It's 2:30 AM. Josh and I are sleeping in bed. Howie wakes up. A normal enough part of his night, but instead of going back to sleep easily as we want him to do, he decides to wriggle his arms out of his blanket. Now because I'm still in bed blissfully unaware of what is about to happen, this sequence of events is pure conjecture, but I think it's probably right on. "Oh, there are my arms," he says to himself. (He has recently acquired the ability to pinch things between his fingers and the palm of his hand, and let me tell you, he can pinch HARD. It's particularly horrible when he gets just a little skin on the back of your arm.) Then he realizes that his pinchers (as we know call his hands, which are often just pinching the air at random) are attached to the end of his arms, meaning that his pinchers are free. They start going. Next he sees that there's a paci in his mouth. He decides to sic the pinchers on it. The paci is removed from his mouth by the pinchers and becomes a toy. He holds it up over his head with both hands, waves it around, tries to put it in backwards (& occasionally gets it in the right way), tries to put it in sideways, and eventually drops it. Now what? "Well," says Howie, "I'll just holler for Mama or Papa." Then commences the whole whose-turn-is-it-to-get-out-of-bed-to-replace-the-paci-thing. Howie never fails to wake me up since I've got that whole instinctual mom thing where I wake up if he breathes wrong, but he usually doesn't wake Josh up. I say to myself, "Should I just let Josh sleep. or am I too tired to move?" This is the account of what happens when I get up to replace the paci. I'm not sure what happens when Josh gets up. I reluctantly pull the warm covers off, walk into the kitchen, and survey the damage. "How awake does he look?" I ask myself. If he looks very sleepy, I quickly reswaddle him, replace the paci, and tiptoe back to bed. If he looks cheery and ready to play, I first think "oh, great," and then proceed to reswaddle him, replace the paci, and sing some songs. We sing just a few songs to Howie on repeat, usually one of three: "Jesus, I Am Resting, Resting," "Rock of Ages," or "The King of Love My Shepherd Is." I'm sure by now Howie is wondering if we know any other songs. I usually manage to croak out a couple of verses while patting his head, hoping that my meager calming efforts will convince him that it's still night-time and he'll go back to sleep. Then I creep back to bed and lay there holding my breath, hoping that he will go back to sleep. All too often he just gets his arms right back out and continues playing. So this time around Josh and I decided that both the paci and the swaddle had to go. He's just too active to be swaddled because if he can get his arms out, he thinks it's playtime. We had tried to break Howie of his swaddle addiction a few months ago, but when we put him in bed unswaddled he cried so hard that he eventually threw up. So we thought, "OK! Not going to try that again for a while!" But earlier this week we arrived home from our Christmas vacation with new resolve to break Howie of his paci and swaddle addiction. He's slowly learning, but it's been a little rough going. Since Howie has acquired rolling skills, both from tummy to back and back to tummy, he's rolling around in his crib a lot when he should be trying to sleep. Because of that we've found him in some pretty funny positions once he finally falls asleep. Last night I went into the kitchen to make sure he was OK, and I found that he was in the upper left corner of his crib... so much so in the corner that one of his legs was between the crib slats!! Not sure how he fell asleep like that, but I guess it was comfortable. Hopefully this will be the last chapter in Howie's paci saga, but I'm not holding my breath.

We had a wonderful trip to Illinois for Christmas and enjoyed celebrating Christmas with Josh's family in Augusta before we left. Howie had the distinct privilege of being with his cousin John Gabriel again over Christmas- it was so fun to see them together and know that they'll be great friends! They're exactly 11 weeks apart. As the title of this post suggests, Howie is now the proud owner of a cell phone, which is visible in the first picture. No, we didn't suddenly become some of those parents who give their child a cell phone at a ridiculously young age (although I think giving a 6 month old a cell phone would be a new low)- Aunt Emily and Uncle Rob got Howie a play cell phone. So he's now accepting calls, but don't be surprised if he sends your call straight to voicemail. He's pretty selective about how he uses his minutes.

We enjoyed some Christmas-y weather in Illinois, i.e., SNOW!! Josh had his first experience using a snowblower on New Year's Eve. In preparation for snow blowing, he consumed 5 pancakes at Perkins, where we had our New Year's Eve dinner. I think he discovered that pushing a snowblower really doesn't require that much energy, but I guess it's better to be prepared in case your snowblower poops out and you have to pick up a shovel. When we left Augusta the temperature was probably in the 60s. Much to our unpleasant surprise, we arrived in Illinois to freezing, seemingly gale-force winds. My mom and dad's house has always been cold, even when we were little... I remember warming myself up with a hair dryer on many occasions. My mom's compassionate response to my complaints of the cold was always "Just put another sweater on!!" Thanks, Mom, but when you already have 10 layers on and you're so huge you can't move, another sweater isn't going to help anything. So we arrived back at the house and Josh was so cold that he climbed into bed with all of this clothing on, as you can see in one of the pictures: an undershirt, his North Face windbreaker, his heaviest wool coat, and my huge bathrobe to top it all off. In fairness to my parents, I think that was a little overreaction and within a few minutes of going under the blankets I think he had shed most of that, but it was pretty funny to see.

There are so many more things I would like to write about, but my time has run out. More to come later! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Why I Won't Vote for Mike Huckabee: by J. Desch

I'm a registered republican. I voted for "W" in the last election, but I will not be voting for Mike Huckabee as the next president of these United States if he somehow were to win the republican nomination. When I first heard about Huckabee, I got excited. Ordained Baptist minister, conservative, stands by his convictions, etc. I watched him defend his views of creationism on youtube. Finally, I thought, a candidate Christians can get excited about. I don't think that anymore. A majority of the republicans in Iowa might think he's the man, but I don't . . . And I'm a Christian. Here's why I won't vote for Huckabee:
1) He's exactly like every other politician I know about these days. He is a morally conservative (he better be as an ordained Baptist minister!) but he is fiscally loose. Spending went way up in Arkansas while he was governor. He doesn't offer a fresh perspective on anything really. He pretty much stands for the exact same things "W" stands for, and sounds as if he would lead the nation exactly as "W" has. I'm not here to attack "W", but I will say that I don't think the country needs another 4 and/or 8 years of government just like we have had the last 8 years.
2) He has never won a "real" election as a non-incumbent. "What do you mean?", you are thinking. Simply this, in 1992 Huckabee became Lieutenant Governor in Arkansas in a special election when the man who was elected Lieutenant Governor becaeme governor because Bill Clinton became president. Huckabee then won reelection as L. Gov, but then became the Governor when the then Governor of Arkansas resigned amid scandel. He then won reelection two times as Governor. Again I maintain, this man has never won an election in which he wasn't already the incumbent except the special election for L. Gov in 1992, which only happened because Bill Clinton was elected. Huckabee was also defeated for the United States senate in the early 90s. Do you really think this man can win the Presidency of the U.S., when he will not be running as the incumbent or in a special election?
3) His last name is "Huckabee", which sounds incredibly redneck to me. I'm from the south, and proud of it, but I don't know if I want world leaders trying to pronounce "Huckabee." Betsy agrees with me here.
4) As Governor, he pressured a parole board to release a convicted rapist, apparently to get at Bill Clinton. This man then went and raped and murdered a woman in Missouri. That makes me so mad.
5) I would rather have him as my pastor than my president. Enough said. That's just my opinion.

Howie pictures are coming, so hold your horses!

America Weeps

All across America, and even the world, people are weeping over the evil Patriots victory, which completed a perfect regular season for Satan's team.

Beginning tomorrow, America will begin a week of morning over the tragic events which unfolded on Saturday night: the New England Patriots completed a perfect regular season - 16 wins, 0 losses. The Desch family encourages everyone to wear black for the next week, and set your hope on the fast-approaching demise of the Patriots, which will occur when the Colts beat them in the AFC championship game in Foxboro, New England's home turf. Please do not lose hope everyone, good will triumph over evil, if not in this life then in the next.

Merry Christmas from P-Town!

Josh, Betsy and Howie here, wishing you a very Merry Christmas from Peoria, IL, home of the . . . of . . . home Caterpillar Inc.! And, of course, most importantly home to Betsy's wonderful family. We had a great Christmas, filled with thoughtful meditation on the reason for the season (kudos to mr. gar pappy), good family fun and presents, to boot. Betsy got me an indy colts hat for Christmas. I am so excited, I'm the biggest NFL fan ever and I love the Colts and yet I did not own any Colts paraphenilia until this hat. The hat is just like the one below except it is grey with a blue horseshoe. I got Betsy some cookbooks. And now for some fun memories.On Christmas Eve a lot of us played the Wheel of Fortune board game, and Carrie offered to play the part of Vanna. Carrie, however, quickly became weary of how long it was taking the teams to solve the puzzles and so she started saying things like, "you're not going to solve it! just pick an "m" or something so we can move on!" Quickly she became known as "Surly Vanna." Toward the end of our game, during one particularly difficult puzzle, Surly Vanna suddenly figured out the puzzle for herself and blurted out "its (the puzzle) 'Little Joe Cartwright, I quit." We sat in stunned silence for a half a second and then started laughing really hard. Can you imagine the real Vanna solving the puzzle for the contestants because she got frustrated with the pace of the game? Moving on to Christmas day. It is a P-Town tradition for Bets' parents to make beef slips, so we ate beef slips for dinner along with the Uncle Glenn, Aunt Martha, John, Jen, Adam, Uncle Monte, Tammy, Lesley, and the Grandmas. Some memorable gifts-just to name a few-were charm braclets for Bets and Emily, necklaces numbered 1 to 5 for each of the sisters (from Marnie) and the board game version of Deal or No Deal for Josh (from Mr. and Mrs. H). We tried out the game last night and it was fun. I got a chance to be Howie and say, with my hands together, "open the case!". Also, the cousins, Howie and John, got to see each other last night.

More Christmas stories and pictures to come. We will also be posting pictures from our Christmas celebration in Augusta with my family. Currently, our Christmas tree-named Peyton naturally-is probably dead as a doornail in our apartment. I am including a picture of the "spider-pig" scene from the Simpson's movie because that song is really, really funny, and Betsy and I sing it all the time. Merry Christmas to all!