Gideon in the hospital

Don't panic by my title.  We're pretty healthy here right now.  I'm just FINALLY beginning to update the last few months of our lives.  Primarily by pictures.

Dancing

Those of you who have spent Amy significant time with us since Vidalia has been a toddler is probably aware that we instruct her to dance...a lot.  Our instructions usually sound like this,"Vidalia, do me a shirt dance!" In which case she will then dance and often accompany herself by singing,"Shirt dance, shirt dance, shirt dance, etc."  Shirt can be substituted for any word you like, Apple, face, Grammy, car, happy, anything you want.

Today Vidalia asked me for some milk. I poured her a cup and then instructed her to do a milk dance. She did. Singing milk dance as I have explained.  She noticed Gideon watching her (Have I ever mentioned that she is the object of most of his affection? He dotes on her words and movements.).  She then went over to him and said,"Gideon, do my milk dance."  He responded appropriately by leaning forward and flinging his arms.  Our children are going to be so weird.

Shosuke Zarif Mikhail

My newest nephew has arrived. 6 lbs 10 oz and I don't yet know anything else. He lives in Tokyo, so I hope to meet him while he's still a baby.

Supreme Court Decisions

      This is partially directed towards Gideon since these decisions were made pretty much on his birthday.
So the Supreme Court ruled against the Defence of Marriage Act and against California's proposition 8 calling them unconstitutional citing the 5th Amendment. So, Gideon now you know your father's opinion on this matter.  "DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. "
Here is the 5th Amendment:

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Now I just read that three times and I see now how it applies. The plaintiff was charged by the IRS taxes that she wouldn't be charged had the federal acknowledged her deceased wife's will giving her full ownership. Therefore if she failed to pay them it would have become a criminal case.

Proposition 8 apparently violated the 14th Amendment
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The phrase "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" was the ammunition for the majority comprised of
Chief Justice John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan while Justice Anthony Kennedy filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor.

So 5 people can strike down a law voted on by 51% of the California voters, to be sure, a lot more than 5.

It's interesting that the 4 dissenters against striking down Proposition 8 was different than the 4 dissenters against striking down DOMA. 
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented against striking down DOMA

Anyway, my comments:
The plaintiffs that fought Proposition 8 are essentially trying to silence their own consciences by getting legal endorsement for immoral behavior, either that or just collecting a paycheck, regardless of the ramifications of their legal action. 

The two messages fighting this law are:
1) it is normal for men to be romantically attracted to other men, or for women to be romantically attracted to other women.
2) it is psychologically damaging for anyone to deny her/himself of whatever he/she is attracted to.

Now regarding 1, I sincerely believe that the vast majority of people don't have these attractions. Some of those that do were in fact born with them, nothing they could have done would have changed them. Others create the feelings within themselves by entertaining the false idea that they are normal. Of course the issue is a little more complicated then that.

Regarding 2 we should add to the list of attractions violence, drugs (including alcohol), stealing, lying, any sexual attraction outside of a monogamous relationship (to include pornography) and even healthy attractions like hard work, exercise, humor, whatever it may be. My point is that rational human beings have the ability to evaluate each attraction to choose whether to act on it or not. Being attracted to something doesn't constitute that action or behavior being moral.

A little caviat, I empathize with people who view the issue of same-sex marriage as the equivalent to interracial marriage, racial equality, women's suffrage. To me it is beyond absurd that there was ever a law preventing people of different skin colors from being married, preventing people of color or women from voting, etc. 

But the bottom line is none of those actions are immoral, but any sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage is. It's that simple. That's a basic truth that can't be voted on. And that is a truth that I will always defend. 

Vidalia's Sayings

           So this is funny: We were at the Mikhail residence when Vidalia found a pair of sunglasses missing an arm. She wanted me to wear them. My response was "Oh no thanks, I'm good." This clever girl answered "you nah guh, you sick; you nee wear deez" (you're not good, you're sick; you need to wear these.") She also told me once that I was dead. And that she is four and that I'm four too. Oh yeah, and just this morning I was calling Gideon a little dude so she announced that I'm now named Gideon and Gideon is little dude.
Next time you see her ask her to tell you about her little dude :)

Gideon Ned Armstrong

Gideon was born into our family on June 18th at 1:38 pm.  7 lbs 7 oz.  19 inches?  Maybe 18.5.  It really depends on if you ask the hospital that said they barely stretched him to 19 or the nurse who said he was 18.5 a week later.  (I didn't get percentiles from the hospital, but at his one week, I think his height was 2%, his weight was 16%, and his head was 66%.  Not so proportioned)  He was kind of tiny.  (Everyone, including the nurse, was surprised that he was as small as he was.  They were all sure he was going to be huge.)  His labor and delivery (and even pregnancy really) seemed pretty quick, but to us it seemed like we had waited FOREVER to meet him.  Ryan and I talked about this briefly the night before he was born.  We spent a lot of time praying and fasting and really hoping that we would have a baby #2 in our family.  We did a lot of things that we felt we had to do before we'd really be blessed with more people in our family.  We've talked a lot about some of those things too.  Most of them seemed (and still seem) completely unrelated to having children, but we don't claim to understand all the ways that inspiration and revelation work, we only claim to do our best to act in accordance with said inspiration and revelation.

That being said, I don't know if I can adequately explain the joy that Gideon has already brought into our lives.  My experience with him is way different than having Vidalia (although trust me I wanted both of them very much).  When Vidalia was born, it was just strange.  This little person that to me looked like herself and no one I really knew.  I didn't know her and yet she was my child.  It was a strange feeling that quickly gave way to adoration and abundant love.

Pretty much my whole pregnancy with Gideon I tried to convince myself that he was real and that he would be born alive.  When he was actually born he was super purple and didn't cry and I super panicked and asked a billion times if he was actually breathing (he was).  I loved him from the moment I saw him.  Maybe because I'm more experienced;  Maybe because I spent nine months psyching myself out;  I don't really know.

Now I've officially announced that he was born on our blog in probably way too many words.  I'll save more thoughts and more information on our family for future posts.

Embarrassing Moment and Funny Doings

First, the embarrassing moment (why does embarrassing need two Rs and two Ss? What a high maintenance, particular word!):
            Anyway, I was leading the Social Skills group with patients at the Utah State Hospital. We were simulating planning a road trip to practice various social skills that would be required. So I found a site that searches out hotels and such-the group wanted a package that included 9 rooms in a 5-star hotel with a conference room setup for 12 hours every day for the whole 5 days.
           I entered all this info in to the site thinking it would generate an estimate of how much that would cost and which hotels have that capability... what actually happened is the website assigned us a travel agent with a promise that she would be contacting us soon to discuss our options! whoops! So, I here publicly apologize to chubbman69@yahoo.com and to whoever has the phone number 555-555-5555.


Second, the doings that amused me today.
              We have a splash pad at the park near our house. The fountains that shoot up out of it are on a varied schedule; occasionally all the fountains will shut off at the same time for a short period of time. Every time that happened, all the kids at the splash pad let out a collective, very disappointed "Ahhhh, No..". Then, about 10 seconds later they would all shriek with alarm/delight when the water came back on. :)  Also, we met up there with our friends Melissa and Rei (Rei is 5 years old). Rei took Vidalia into the water several times, usually for about 3 minutes before they would both walk back to us and announce "We had so much fun in there! It was so fun!". Or as Vidalia would say it "We ha soma fuh! We ha soma fuh Mommy, inair!"

Some Things Vidalia did/said recently

Vidalia hitting my tummy: Gideon!  Wake up wake up!

And then scratching like crazy at my stomach: Come out!  Come out!

(I still don’t think she gets it, but maybe she does.)

Vidalia was in the kitchen (I was not) talking and asking questions like crazy.

Me: Who are you talking to?

V: Vidalia.  Vidalia, please aheh!  (Over and over as she shoved her mouth full of cheese.)

Earlier today she kept putting a bottle of baby powder and a bottle of petroleum jelly in timeout, which means she held them quietly in her arms and then talked to them and then told them they were not in timeout anymore because that’s how I do it.  That was a new.

Now she is wearing a pair of tights and two pairs of pants.  She just left so I’m betting she’s coming back with more pants to put on.

In other baby related news

I have an induction scheduled for June 18th (3 weeks from today).  That's when I anticipate meeting our little boy.  So excited!

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day we really didn't do anything appropriate to the holiday, but we did do a lot of fun things related to Ryan not working.  First we spent forever getting up and getting ready in the morning.  Then we went back to Seven Peaks for about three hours.  Then we came home and a few hours later went to Utah Lake with some friends from the ward for dinner and smores.  Those same friends met up with us at Seven Peaks.  We all have two year olds and we're all expecting baby boys.

Back: Jared, Jessica, Emmy, Kara, Tim, Melissa, Ryan

Front: Alba, Zoe, Vidalia