Just Another Manic Monday

I love Monday mornings that start out by waking up late, still hungover from a Nyquil coma, and still feeling like I might be developing bronchitis....

Taking the puppy out for about 15 minutes only to have her not do a thing except sniff around...

And then not being able to find my keys when it's time for work.

Like, really not being able to find them - to the point that I call my husband and he has to drive home from school, give me the spare key he has for my car, and lock the apartment behind me.

Sometimes Monday mornings are just too cliche to even be worth being upset about!

Sammers

A certain someone has decided that I post too much about Sammie here on this blog. Now normally, I would try to prove that person wrong. But seeing as she's my little sister, I would feel way too bad if I did something that mean. Of course, I would never want to do anything to make her feel silly, I will just go ahead and try to prove her... RIGHT!

So here is a completely unimportant and pointless video of Sammie and Dan playing... be sure to have your volume on so you can hear her talking...it's just so CUTE!!

Be on the lookout for more completely pointless Sammie posts coming up.

Willkommen, Y'all!

I wanted to do something special for Dan's birthday, so I looked up events around Texas that fell somewhere close to the actual date of September 27th. So, last weekend, I surprised Dan with a weekend trip up to Dallas!

Dan and I along with our friends Faith and Sean went to Dallas to celebrate Oktoberfest! Oktoberfest, as you may not know, has been taking place in Munich, Germany since 1810. (It began to celebrate the marriage of some Prince and Princess). Although it originally started out in the month of October, they later moved the annual celebration back to September "because the weather was more pleasant." (No, I'm not kidding! Those crazy Germans!)

So, the Oktoberfest we attended in Dallas is modeled after the original Munich event and is one of the largest Oktoberfests outside of Munich. This is what it says on the website: "For over two decades, Addison has extended a heart-felt "Willkommen, Y’all!" to visitors eager to experience a little "Gemütlichkeit’ and learn about traditional music, costumes, dances, activities, foods and beverages of Germany, served up with a slightly "Texas twist."

Oh, Texas...

All four of us have some sort of German blood running through us (or close enough) so we took it to heart and celebrated Saturday afternoon and evening. We sat out on the grass and listened to bands such as Accordian Fusion, and watched people try to bowl with beer kegs. This lady was the MC of it all:

I have no idea what's going on here, but apparently the Germans have some unique instruments.

She looks sort of strange, you say? Here are some other pictures from the weekend:

Yeah, I don't really know what's going on there either. However, I do know that it was a lot of fun! I also know that you can get an awesome hat just like the one above by going here.

We also made Dan's weekend extra special by stopping at Jimmy John's on the way back to the hotel for subs and cookies. Neither of us has been there since college and it was the perfect, delicious way to end the evening.

"Auf Wiedersehen, Y'all!"

Daydreaming...

"Just thinking about how to create world peace...or maybe deciding who I want to be president..."

"Hey Mom, why are you bothering me by taking pictures? You're interrupting my deep thoughts!"

"All right, fine...I guess I'll just take a nap instead!"

Underlying Messages

I have been thinking about something a lot since yesterday. In Developmental Psych, we were discussing the best way to deal with babies who have less than ideal temperaments. This means that they cry a lot, are fussy, or may not enjoy being picked up. We were all trying to think about how you could teach a baby to act better, but my professor stopped us. It turns out that one of the best things that you can do is work with the parents to help change their parenting style to better fit their child's needs. Even more specifically, teach the parents to correctly identify and respond to their child's underlying message.

For example, when a baby cries, he might be crying because he is hungry or tired or something else is wrong. Most parents try to figure out what their baby wants, and hopefully they can discern their needs most of the time. However, a lot of times, parents cannot. And this can cause frustration, anger or annoyance in that parent, who then displays that toward their child. Not only are they not meeting the child's needs but they are actually causing the child to become even more upset, thus perpetuating the cycle.

Fast forward a couple years. Children by now can talk and act much more than when they were infants, so parents expect them to be able to voice their needs accurately. However, they aren't capable of doing this. For example, a little 3 year old girl I've done testing with freaked out when a stranger came in a room. She gathered up all her toys next to her and started throwing them at the stranger. Her mother was horrified when she watched the videotape - she couldn't believe how awful and mean her daughter was acting! In reality, though, the little girl was just scared to death of this stranger and was protecting herself in the only way she knew how. She would have gotten calmed down and eventually learned to respond better to strangers if her mother had recognized and acknowledged this fear. However, if her mother had yelled at her and punished her, the cycle would continue. The mother needed to pay attention to her underlying message, rather than her behavior, in order to begin the process of change.

I keep thinking about how this applies to our daily lives. How many times have I snapped at someone for something they did, when in reality it was really because I was tired and stressed out? Or in reverse - how many times have I perpetuated a negative cycle by responding to someone's words and actions, rather than their true needs?

I just wonder what it would be like if we all looked for other people's underlying messages, rather than just taking them at their surface level behaviors.

Sarah vs. Hillary

Completely regardless of your political affiliation, this SNL sketch was hilarious!

Monday Morning and Movies

So I didn't update yesterday as promised, due to the fact that Ike...did not really affect us at all. It ended up going more east than they thought it would, and therefore Saturday was just a really rainy and humid day...but nowhere near what we were told to expect. And from what I hear, it sounds like Ohio actually has gotten it much worse than Waco!

Dan and I watched "The Other Boleyn Girl" this weekend. It was actually really good. I'd heard mixed reviews on it, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but we both really liked it. It makes me want to watch more historical movies because there are so many parts of history I know nothing about.

Other movies we've watched recently:

"Bella": Wonderful independent movie. Unique and a great story.

"Lars and the Real Girl": Watch this! I don't care that the description looks weird, watch it!

"Atonement": Decent, I really liked the book and I'm not sure if I would have liked the movie if I hadn't read the book. Dan felt sort of mediocre about it.

"21": I'd recommend the book over the movie on this one as well, but it's still worth watching. It's neat knowing it's a (sort of) true story and it makes you feel like you too could count cards in Vegas!