Thank YOU, bathtime.

Brooklynn was a crank and a half today. Way demanding, yet not even knowing what she wanted herself. Thank goodness for bath time! It still never fails to put her in a great mood - she's her mother's daughter (and her daddy's mommy's grand-daughter) after all!

I can explain!

There's a reason I haven't been posting, even though the weekend was fun and eventful, with my mom coming down from Boise and everything. That non-posting reason is this:



For the past five days, I've had a horrible, lingering, nausea-bringing, ear-ringing, head-mashing migraine. Ugh. I think it's all over though. Let's all hope.

Aaaanyway, my mom came down and saw Erik's closing performance and then spent the rest of the weekend with us. We had a little, early Christmas, in which I got a COMFY robe. MMmmmmm. BUT...now that I'm sitting here thinking clearly,.....I didn't whip out my camera the whole weekend! GRRRRRr!

Brooklynn's Dance

"I'm all the better for it"

So, Tiger Woods got caught cheating on his wife, i.e. betraying his entire family. Not TOO surprising, considering his childish, unrestrained behavior on the course. Still, we all assumed he was better than THIS.

Commentary has been mixed, and so are my feelings. You've got the "his personal life is none of our business" advocates, which I can follow to an extent, except I prefer to cheer for underdogs and/or "the good guy," and he's obviously neither. There are millions who watch the Yankees play just because they like to watch the amazing feats of atheleticism - but when it comes to cheering and wishing well, I think the quality of the person off the field is equally important. I suppose his rediculously long drives and amazing putts will be no less impressive, but I will be busy cheering for the humble newcomer who goes home to his wife and kids each night.

Then, you've got the "We can't judge him - we all make mistakes, so lay off" sentiment. We all may make a "mistake" here and there, but running a red light is a far cry from betraying your family. The amount of greed and calloused carelessness that it takes to do what he did is quite extraordinary, and it feels like the "we all make mistakes" platitude ignores the extent of the grievious nature of what he did (which, in turn, makes it ok for more people to indulge in such a "mistake"). On the whole, the "judge not" sentiment might have some ground to stand on, but I feel it's being over/misapplied and has dangerous side effects.

Finally, we have the real rub - the reason for this post: The "This wake-up call could help him become a better man and father in the future" sentiment. DAAAAAAGGGH! Blaugh! *Pitooey, Pitooey!* It was just revealed he's a scum bag, and you wanna talk about him being a good family man for it? Sure, people who commit wrong acts are more personally familiar with the pain it brings, so they COULD come out of it with more resolve to never cross that line again, but the better man is still the one who never did it in the first place! Not only that, but getting caught doesn't change a person: it's the personal realization of just how wrong you were and what damage you have done that starts the change, if any occurs. I have no reason to believe that that has happened in Tiger's case. (Not that it's my job to make sure he's penitent, but such a dangerous platitude is completely wrong unless you know he is). Anyway, being exposed as a scum bag doesn't turn him into less of one.


All I'm saying is that in our rush to forgive, ignore, or isolate, we are making what he did easier and more socially acceptable. And that's wrong.

Spoiling Christmas

That's right, I'm keeping a wishlist. It's materialistic and horrible and terrible and whatnot, but I often find myself wishing that other people had wishlists that I could look at, so here's mine:

http://wishlist.com/1007989/

the game

What a game, what a game, what a game. And *a-hem* what a statement afterward, Mr Hall! Though I DO think that Utah fans are a lot more aggressive and personal in their hatred of BYU, I still don't think I would have gone as far as he did. Aaanyway, what a game.

Borders Excursion

After Erik's birthday dinner at Tucanos this week, we stopped off at Borders to see if there was anything we couldn't live without. There was certainly a lot Brooklynn couldn't live without! I'm amazed by how many toys were in a Bookstore - and Brooklynn loved it. Here she is stealing stuffed animals and wind-up toys: