El Nino

I now understand why the weather powers that be named a winter weather pattern "El Ñino." They had young children at home. Shocking, yes, but so true. I personally have experienced my own tiny El Ñino right here in my living room. His name is Ben.

Benjamin just turned ten months old. He has four teeth and he started to crawl about two weeks ago. I was very excited to tell people that my little guy was becoming such a big boy. It seemed, however, that when I announced to friends and family that Ben has passed a major milestone and was now crawling, they were immediately on the other side of the room putting antique vases and delicate knick knacks on the highest shelf possible.

At first, I laughed at these people for being so paranoid. He hadn't made any messes yet, he was just learning how to move on his own. What I didn't realize is that my sunny weather was about to turn into the storm of the century.

As Ben's slow scoot turned into VERY fast crawl our little home turned into a battle ground. Side-tables have been overturned. Books have been pulled off of the shelf and DVDs that used to be in alphabetical order are now lost forever because Ben has managed to push them behind the TV stand. I can't be more thankful for online bills either, because all of our hard copies have been chewed or shredded by our very sweet boy. Thanks Ben! Now we can donate our paper shredder to someone who really needs it.

With all of the new mayhem that Ben has caused, there is also a lot of joy. I am amazed at how smart he is and every day when I wake up to sound of the monitor amplifying Ben's loud talking in his crib, I can't keep the smile from spreading across my face. What a delight to have this child in my home.

Ben may be full of mischief and messes but I know that he isn't trying to be bad, he's just learning. It is my responsibility to tell him no when he is causing trouble, but even more important, it is my responsibility to comfort him when he has bumped his head. It is my responsibility to love him even when he has thrown up on my last clean shirt. Most important, it is my responsibility to share with him the incredible love and forgiveness of our Savior. I won't say that being a parent is easy, but I will say that it is the most wonderful and scary thing that I have ever done or ever will do. To sum up the forecast for the rest of Ben's baby-hood, it is going to be partly cloudy with radiant sun breaks.

Nicknames and Such

"Chim Chim"

Nicknames are a curious thing. Anyone who currently has or has ever raised a baby, would tell you that they have a long mutating string of nicknames for their child. Being a former Richardson, I had a feeling that I would have a bit of a problem with this. My family, as many of you know, is very weird. My brother and I can talk to each other in a made up language and, although we can hold back in public, when we are all toghether we make a strange bunch.

My brother Ryan (or "Unca Rat") gave Ben his first nickname before he was even born. He was "The Cub." Now, Ben has many nicknames. The most popular are as follows : Chim, Chim Chim, Peet, Peety, Poot, Poot Patterson, Bug, Boy, Babykins, Budge, Budgee ... and the list goes on.

I suppose that I should back-track a bit and explain. My parents had a list of nicknames for me and Ryan that could be recited for hours. I grew up being called Rin, Rinny, and Doot. There was even a year when Ryan refused to call my dad anything but Snavely. I'm pretty sure that Ben didn't have a chance.


Although our nicknames are silly, I know that they are universal. In my eyes, I see nicknames as an honor. Other than stupid kids at school, the people that give us our nicknames are the ones that mean the most to us. A nickname is a way of saying , "We love you, we know you better than anyone else, and to show you that, we will call you a name that nobody else knows or understands." Our nicknames are like passports to the inside circle of a family.

Ben will probably decide that he doesn't like to be called Chim someday, most likely when he becomes a teenager. But once he realizes that his nickname is so much more than a silly made up word, I'll bet he'll want it back. Or he will at least ask to be called Chim at home ... just not in front of his buddies. He may even read this someday when he has a baby of his own and get a good laugh, because he will use nicknames too.

Memories, Misty Crayon Colored Memories...

I recently wrote about my mission to organize old pictures and memories. In my quest to find scrapbooking Zen, I stumbled upon the most delightful collection of my second and third grade writing projects and old letters. I was supposed to be cleaning up and I spent the afternoon in stitches and tears over hillarious book reports and touching letters from my late Grandpa Flory.

I ended up wasting even more time by calling my mom and reading her some of my pieces. She loved my book report about Christopher Columbus where I spent three of my four pages talking about how I had to write abook report and that "I was bigger than one first grader." (Classic little Erin) The all around favorite is a book about a bear who wants to make balloons, so he pays a lamb one penny to get the "secret poshen" which I will tell you all now for free. "You take some ruber and take some tape and then put some air and put a string and you have a ballon!" The best part of the book however, is when the lamb exclaims "GOOD GOB." I'm pretty sure that I was trying to say "Good Job!" but "Good Gob" has officially become the Smith Family excliamation of 2007.

In all of my wasted hours I Kept thinking to myself, "I love this stuff, I love kids." I even thought about what fun my teachers had reading the crazy things that us kids imagined up and then it hit me. Ben will make silly books. Ben will make me laugh so hard that I will tear up. I haven't thought about him as a grade-schooler. The idea of my little boy going off to school and coming back with a silly book report makes my heart warm. I can't even imagine the joys that Benjamin will bring me and Colin, but I'm pretty sure that he can come up with something even better than Good Gob.

New Year's Resolution

Happy New Year everyone! I am so glad to welcome the year 2007 and all that it has in store for my little family. I am a believer in New Year Resolutions, not because I can't work on myself during the year, but because I like the feeling of a fresh start. I have a few very poignant resolutions but they aren't fun to write about, so I'm going to tell you about my radical and awesome one.

Organizing memorobilia and pictures. Oh it's a big one. I have boxes and boxes of crap. Well not crap, but it looks like it right now and I am just itching to get it taken care of. So far I have made a dent in only one box and it is currently sprawled on the floor beside me. So I haven't actually made any progress.

I guess the biggest roadblock for me has been Mr. Benjamin. Since that little boy showed up, we have fifteen times our original amount of cards, pictures, mementos, and other clutter, yet with him around I have no time to scrabook, or for that matter, shower. So, I'm just not sure what to do at this point. maybe I'll just pay my mom to do it for me. Ha! Right! I'll come up with something and I'll keep you posted. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

~Erin