The Lawsons did Dallas!

Family Update
August 21, 2007

Since there is nothing exciting and/or noteworthy going on in the Lawson household, I thought I'd write an update for all of my family and friends today. So hold on to your hats...

JAMES
James is doing fantastically. His vocabulary is simply exploding, and his ability to string words together is something else. James has been using these new skills to continuously shock his mother by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. On Sunday, for example, he piped up during the quiet part of church--twice. First he piped up to proclaim, "Amy...I a monkey!" Then he preceded to make his best monkey noise over and over....and over. Can you say 'attention grabber'?

Then, during the second hymn, James climbed on to the pew (FYI: we were sitting in the second row), did some sort of dance that resembled the 'cabbage patch' and yelled, "Oh yeah! Oh yeah!" Apparently, James is soulful enough to rock out to the world's most boring version of 'How Great Thou Art.' He was really feeling it. It was the second time he's successfully performed that stunt in church.

He's becoming a real crowd pleaser, and yes, he calls me by my first name (as long as he doesn't start calling me 'Woman', I'm fine with it). Also, he won't let me cut his toe nails, he likes to stick his hand down his diaper immediately after pooping, and according the James, Elmo is dating Spiderman. Who knew?

JARED
Jared is fine. As I type, he's in the middle of his last round of final exams--ever. He has a few clinic requirements to finish up, and in less than four months he'll be Dr. Lawson. More importantly, he'll be employed, and at this point I don't care if Dr. Lawson is working the drive-thru window at a donut shop. Dr. Lawson needs a paycheck.

In other news, Jared gave himself a haircut last night. He's been doing these self-haircuts for a few months now, and so far so good acceptable. After the budget crash of '07, we all had to make some spending sacrifices. Jared determined that he either had to give up his forty dollar haircuts from his stylist named Precious (that is not a joke), or his man-dates with Blake and Lehi. With a heavy heart, he opted to dump Precious.

Last night, like every home haircut, Jared asked for my assistance, and then harshly criticized my efforts. "Amy" he hissed, "you are not holding my hair the right way with your fingers when you cut the stragglerssssss." I threw down the scissors in a moment of exasperation and quit. I am no longer the haircut helper, Jared was too demanding. Now he looks like a pot scrubber--whatev.

AMY
Well, I'm happy to say that everything is going well in my world, too. Yesterday my blog received its ten-thousandth hit from unique visitors, so I'm feeling pretty important. I was just waiting for the paparazzi to pop out from behind the cereal display at WalMart and start snapping my pic. It never happened, thank goodness. I would never want to world to know that I buy the store brand cheerios.

I bought some size eight jeans from the Gap on Friday instead of my regular size tens. I wore them on a date to the art museum and I could breath normally. Hallelujah.

And last but not least, my career as a professional babysitter has really taken off and I now have a second job. What's even more noteworthy is the fact that a family tried to lure me in at the park with an elaborate nanny-poaching scheme. In all seriousness it involved a grandmother following me to the park and giving me a drawn-out sob story about the family's childcare situation. It ended with a neighborly dispute and a desperate phone call from the family I currently work with (I guess they haven't realized that my child never wears pants and can recite the movie 'Cars' from start to finish). But really, how important did I feel?! LOVED IT!

Well, that's all the news for now, folks. I'll add a few pics when James wakes up. And as always, lots of love to our family and friends!