"His name is Matthew."

So, there is a social dilemma that I have yet to find a satisfactory solution to - and it is one that I encounter quite frequently. It has happened with both of my children but probably happens more with Matthew than it did with Austin.


The social dilemma is this: strangers will see my little Matthew and make all sorts of comments referring to him as a little girl. For example:

"She is so beautiful!"
"She has such long lashes!"
"Oh, what big, beautiful blue eyes she has!"
"Her hair is so cute!"


These comments are inevitably followed by the following questions:


"How old is she?"
"What is her name?"

Now, this is the manner in which I have chosen to deal with this awkward dilemma. If the adoring stranger stops after any number of the first kinds of compliments, I just smile and thank them graciously. I have decided that correcting them when they have given him (and me, in a round-about way) a compliment, and thus making them potentially feel embarrassed, seems rather rude when they are doing something so kind. However, the real problem comes when I don't correct them initially and then they follow up with one of the questions from the second set above. At that point I refuse to continue living the lie that my Matthew is a little girl. For one, if they ask what "her" name is and I wanted to continue the charade, I would have to make up another name to tell them and I don't think I could ever bring myself to call him by a girl's name myself. Second of all, it is their mistake and not mine, so I should not have to cover for them - although I do think that on occasion it is less important to be right than it is to help someone else from feeling embarrassed. Thus what I usually say is, "He is 9 months old," or else, "His name is Matthew." They are usually fairly embarrassed at this point and I do my best to put them at ease, but I feel it necessary to set the record straight at this point.

Now, here is the thing that baffles me. Why would you ever make an assumption in the first place about what gender a little baby is unless they are dressed in pink from head to toe or have one of those huge headbands with a silk flower attached to it or something of a similar nature? You are also usually pretty safe to make a judgment if the baby is in blue from head to toe or has any sports accessory appliquéd to their clothing, although even this is less safe than the feminine motif - let's be honest, most parents do not put their little boys in pink and purple, but blue things or sports are not nearly as taboo for a little girl to wear. This being said, even if I did not make the judgment call aloud, I would gather from the evidence that a blue and sports clad baby is presumably a boy. Whenever I encounter a baby, even if I am thoroughly convinced of the gender, unless it is the feminine motif mentioned above, I always say things like, "How old is your baby?" or, "What is your baby's name?" Notice the neutrality in those statements. Then I can follow the cue of the parent when they respond with, "She is 6 months old, " or, "His name is Taylor." Particularly in the second response given in the previous sentence, it is very important to listen to the "his" or "her" part, since it is a name used for children of both genders. After thus hearing out of the mouth of the parent what the gender of the child actually is, then I can follow with a compliment (if there is one that I can give honestly) using the correct grammar usage appropriate for the sex of the baby.

Given my own personal awareness of the situation, I am always surprised when, Matthew being clothed in blue and green entirely (alright, so these pictures aren't exactly good examples of this), and clutching his green blankie, so many (almost all the strangers that talk to us, actually) guess that he is a girl. It could be his beautiful blue eyes, his long and luscious lashes, his dimple when he smiles, or his hair that has so much volume that many women would kill for it - but since when have women had a monopoly on beauty? I am never offended when people think he is a girl because it usually means that they think he is beautiful, and no one should ever be offended when someone thinks their baby is beautiful. I really only struggle with this dilemma because of my hesitancy to knowingly embarrass another by correcting them.

However, not to beat a dead horse, but even if they think he may be a girl, if it is not absolutely clear, why not be safe? It is for this last reason, largely, that I feel alright about revealing a stranger's mistake if they ask me how old "she" is... Maybe next time they will be more careful in their absolute certainty of declaring the gender of someone else's baby.

It's a jungle out there...

Instead of attempting to make my first entry something noteworthy, witty, and beautifully written, I have decided to jump right in and talk about the fun "picnic" we had today. This is not because I wouldn't rather make it something noteworthy, witty, and beautifully written, but because I have been thinking of what to write that might fall into that category for days now and have come up completely blank. Thus, to overcome my timidity as a less than stellar writer and a significantly below par humorist, I have determined that if I write enough, perhaps something I write one day will have the potential of falling into the desired category, whereas, if I never write anything in my fear of failure, I never have the potential of succeeding.

That being said, I now begin my quasi-narrative of our day. This morning, feeling somewhat inspired to be more proactive in embracing life and living life to the fullest, I decided it might be fun for me and the boys to go visit Joseph at work for a "picnic" lunch. I say "picnic" because it was not out in a luscious forest (although we did encounter one of those later in the visit), or on a mountainside, or even in a local park, but rather at Bingham High School in the Biology/Agriculture Compound where Joseph teaches most of his classes. (As a note, Joseph is now a biology teacher at Bingham High School in South Jordan, Utah. He teaches 4 general biology classes, 1 biology/agriculture class, and 1 greenhouse class.) Joseph, Austin, and I sat at the student desks while Matthew crawled around on the floor playing with some Crayola markers (he is still young enough that he doesn't take the cap off and wreak havoc on everything within arm's length - including himself and his clothes).

Attached to the classroom in the Compound is a room attached to show animals in and then a fenced in "yard" behind it. In the "yard" (a cement area with sheds and rusty broken trailers and machinery) was a tractor. Now, it has become very clear to me in observing the blogs of friends with children of the female variety that there are some very fundamental differences between a boy-child and a girl-child. With a girl-child there are often pretty princess moments and dressing up and playing with dolls. However, my oldest boy-child makes every sharp pointy object a sword and he yells "Hi-yah!" as he thrusts them into the air. Additionally, cars and trucks are the objects of his affection as opposed to dolls or other such feminine accoutrements. Thus, when his eyes fell upon the rusty tractor, he was instantly shouting (he does a lot of shouting actually...) "I get on tractor!"


It may be difficult to see from this small picture, but to the right of the steering wheel, on the dash, there is a warning sticker that states very clearly: "Be Careful." This is undoubtedly a vital warning due to the rust and exposed sharp objects rather than any danger existing from the tractor actually running. Surely it has not run in many, many years from the look of things.

After Austin played on the tractor for a short time, we spent our last few minutes before Joseph's next class out at the greenhouse. This greenhouse was VERY dirty and somewhat dangerous itself as we found it several weeks ago. We cleaned it out pretty thoroughly and Joseph has been accumulating many plants in a very short amount of time. Due to his excellent bargaining abilities (Dave Ramsey would be proud!) he has about $4500 worth of beautiful and interesting plants that he bought for a mere $800 (of the school's money, no less)! It is so packed, one may think that there is no room for anymore plants - but Joseph would disagree. There are palm trees, banana plants, bromeliads, aloes, and many, many others. Here are some fun pictures of the jungle he has created, along with some fun pictures of Joseph and the boys.

Joseph and Matthew

Austin with his very own watering can

And finally, the jungle Joseph has created...

and alas, the jungle is vastly under-appreciated by high-school students

Maiden Voyage

It finally happened. Audrey and I have a blog. This historic event has been long in the making because of the interplay of several competing, yet contradictory, factors. First, while I have long been a disciple of the blogosphere, I am also woefully computationally inept, thus preventing me from ever taking the steps to create a blog of my own. Instead, I have been relegated to poring over the blogs of others for hours late at night as I pursue my unhealthy fascination with politics.

On the other hand, Audrey, while a technological genius herself, has had no prior interest in the blogosphere, let alone writing a blog of her own. Thus, she has passed many nights attempting to sleep, awakening occasionally in the wee hours to roll her eyes in my general direction as I sit, laptop in hand, and greedily gobble up whatever hard news I can glean from Fox News, redstate.com, conservativenuthouse.com, and rushlimbaugh.com.

It seemed that, perhaps, our lives would continue forever in this trajectory, each of us possessing only one of the necessary blogging components (me - the interest, Audrey - the competence), until that fateful day this last week when Audrey, in her unending quest to avoid working on her Masters thesis, stumbled across the blog of her graduate advisor . . .

It required mere moments for Audrey to grasp the delight and utter bliss that can be achieved through participation in blogging. Never in our married life have I observed her laugh so hard. Acting quickly on one of my rare flashes of intelligence, I immediately wrapped her in foam and duct tape, to prevent her from injuring herself, as she appeared in danger of falling off the couch in her paroxysms of laughter. Injury avoided, as she lay in her incapacitated state, I glanced at the computer screen to ascertain the source of her mirth. I had read only a few lines of the Jester in the Court of Honor before I too erupted in laughter. Lacking the appropriate protection, however, I immediately fell down and fractured my coccyx. In that moment, though suffering from asphyxia due to the foam strapped to her head, Audrey had one of her many flashes of intelligence - we could combine her vast technical genius with my vast experience reading the blogs of others and create our own blog.

Thus it is that the inaugural blog of josephandaudrey.blogspot.com is being written as I convalesce on our oh-so-soft california king mattress, which, by the way, I recommend to anyone who has not experienced the luxury of sleeping on one.

We hope you have enjoyed our blog's maiden voyage, and that you will continue to visit us in the coming months as we pontificate about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything - as we are wont to do.

And by the way, if you ever happen to wander over to splinger moosebutt's blog, which we highly recommend, make sure that you first wrap yourself in foam and duct tape. And please don't quit reading our blog afterward, just because we're not nearly as funny as he is.