I mean, seriously, when did we all decide that it’s not cool to wear a construction paper headband with kangaroo ears stapled to the sides?

Alisa and I are (obviously) awaiting the arrival of another little boy. Could be any day now. We’ve both been thinking a lot about what it means to be a parent, and what it means to get these kids raised in such a way that they can (a) function, (b) succeed, and (c) rock this world. It takes time and it takes patience and it takes a willingness to make all kinds of mistakes, but it is really the coolest thing I’ve ever done, which is why we want to do it again.

Sure, there will be lots of crying and sleeplessness, and poop, but there are also moments you get when your shy daughter gets on stage to sing and dance and when your son says, “Wait, let’s stop and clean my room, Zoë. If we don’t, I won’t be able to have any screens tomorrow.”

I have more to say on my style of fathering (cheeseburger + Marvel Comics iPad app), but suffice it to say, I’ve been feeling kind of glowy and happy about being a dad lately.

Hint: BBC America

The thing is, this stuff (hair, screwdriver, etc.) is pretty much all his idea. Even the pose here was 100% his. He got all set up like this and marched off to church, gaining all kinds of attention, mostly from old ladies who wanted to gobble him up and lick the sweetness off their fingers.

More photos from the shoot at Facebook.

Now that the holidays are here, I’m going to attempt a few posts. Are blogs still something? Don’t know. I am growing tired of Facebook, a little. Twitter is so scattered. Perhaps the focus of the blog will feel, I don’t know…kind of retro.

I’ll post something more fully about the trip later. It was full of sublimity and absurdity, often at the same time.

Here’s the five-year-old, Ike. Next will be to catch the elusive critter, Zoë Ingrid.

I went about my business today, and a really curious thing happened. Tons of people in town and up at the reservoir and all over started talking to me about fishing and cars and guy stuff. It’s like this new look is professor camo. I might keep it.

We’re funded through a National Parks Service grant, and we get some pretty amazing access. This summer I’ll be leading or advising projects in Zion National Park, Grand Canyon-Parashant (in the remote NW section of the Grand Canyon, and Denali National Park in Alaska. We’ll also be exploring new possibilities for projects in Olympic National Park in Washington, Great Basin, King’s Canyon, and Sequoia. We also have projects that I am not directly overseeing in Cape Hatteras and Manhattan (many are unaware of the many, many urban NPS sites).

For the last two days I’ve been hiking through an upper section of Zion National Park, called Kolob Canyons. This morning we awoke to snow. We knew it was coming, but we sort of hoped we’d be wrong about that. It made for a miserable slog: lots of mud and being cold, but it was spellbindingly beautiful.

I kept expecting to see Chinese warriors flying overhead with spears and flowing silk robes, engaging in silent battle between the sandstone ramparts and the mist.

Today was hard going, but it was very beautiful. It was a good day, all in all, because I had good gear, I was in pretty good shape, and I was at work.

1. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
2. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (First 1/2)
3. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (Second 1/2)
4. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch
5. The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch
6. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier
7. Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing by Lydia Peelle
8. Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder
9. Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
10. Count Zero by William Gibson
11. Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer
12. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
13. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
14. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
15. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
16. A World Beneath by Aaron Gwyn

I’d also do Brady Udall’s The Lonely Polygamist, but it is 700 pages. I’m buying it today, but I’ll be reading it this fall, I think. I’m really excited about this book.

So, it seems I’ve started a movement. My friend Rae English has started her own list and a challenge to others. So, I’m issuing the same challenge to you all: what kind of reading can you squeeze out of the summer at the rate of one book a week?

But you’d be wrong. Dead wrong, actually. After a little questioning we discovered that these are actually the young artist’s rendering of a pair of Cylon Raiders.

Innocence restored, for a season.

• Review syllabi for all classes, to see what I said is due.
• Respond to 4 ENGL 2010 student podcast assignments.
• Write 3 final exam questions on Gibson’s Neuromancer.
• Write 2 final exam questions on the film Moon.
• Respond to 4 more ENGL 2020 short stories.
• Respond to 1 more 50 page novel section for ENGL 4020.
• Respond to remaining 4020 reading responses (this is going to suck).
• Write up response to Dean’s new policies.
• Figure out exactly when Ike will not be in school.
• Schedule early final with testing center.
• Respond to ENGL 2020 portfolios.
• Respond to ENGL 2010 final projects.
• Grade ENGL 2130 exams and compute grades.
• Send failure/low grade notifications to students.
• Go through ENGL 4020 portfolios.
• Final grades for ENGL 2010.
• Final grades for ENGL 2020.
• Final grades for ENGL 2130.
• Final grades for ENGL 4020.
• Plan for Partners in the Parks Zion project.
• Plan for Partners in the Parks Grand Canyon-Parashant Project.
• Schedule dentist appointment.
• Schedule annual physical.
• Schedule annual skin cancer screening.
• Enter evaluation data into spreadsheet.
• Nap in the hammock with a book on my face.

I’m not going to give away the whole farm, but I thought I’d throw this out to answer the question I’ve been getting a lot lately: “What are you working on?”

Sorry, America. Football is boring.

Here’s a secret video of her song rehearsals. She chose Priscilla Ahn’s song “Wallflower,” which isn’t really a Broadway hit, but we don’t listen to many Broadway hits around here. In this respect, Alisa and I are useless to her budding career in musical theater.

Zoë’s Audition Practice from Todd Robert Petersen on Vimeo.

We’re proud of her. She auditions at 5:15 on Monday. Wish her luck.

Learn how to manage your kid’s career by taking a few courses through one of the many accredited online universities. A class or two in management and your number one star will be on the way to fame.

We Mormons have the same expectations of Church members in almost all other professions. We expect, for instance, that dentists will favor dentistry over promoting religious orthodoxy while they are at work. To illustrate, we don’t expect dentists to give the missionary discussions to clients strapped, mouths agape, in the dentist chair. Nor do we expect accountants to slip copies of their testimonies in with their client’s tax returns. Dentists and accountants may be inspired in certain instances to share their beliefs, but we generally don’t expect such acts to be a mainstay of their professions. We shouldn’t expect it from artists either.

This saves me a blog post, really. What’s more important, though, is why so many assume that artists should be doing more evangelical work than a dentist, because they do. My wife’s Uncle Joe has been making this same argument about “uplifting work” for a long time.

Thinking I am the only one
still awake, I walk the house
until I find a canted box
of light painting the hallway
in front of my daughter’s room.

I stand in the doorway
with an elbow against the jamb,
fist to my temple.

She’s contorted in her bed,
angling a book toward
the lamp. One sweep of her finger
reveals an ear.

She turns one page, then
another. How long until she
is just a snapshot on the fridge?

Cedar City writer Todd Robert Petersen explores Utah’s changing landscape in his newly published novel Rift , the story of interconnectedness, conflict and isolation in a small Sanpete County town.

He is not surprised Utahns, such as those he portrays in his novel, are upset by changes occurring around them.

“You can’t blame people for being scared,” Petersen says.

But slowly, with enough time to think about it, “they come to realize maybe all this change isn’t as dangerous as we think it is.”

He sees the promise of a more diverse Utah in the young people he teaches at Southern Utah University.

“Their attitude, whether they’re what I’d call ‘high faith’ or already on their way out [of the LDS Church] is ‘bring it on,’ ” he says. “Utah is amazing. I’m so interested in what’s next.”

Here’s a link to the full article. Should be live for a while.