Stories from Mom

The other day dg5 came home from preschool and said, Mom, do I have any extra money?"
"Yes," she said.
"Mom, we need to put my extra money in the bank."
"Yeah, we can put your money in your piggy bank."
"No, the BANK," he says.
"In the Hughes Federal Credit Union Bank?"
"Yeah."
"Okay."

We're guessing he learned something about banks in preschool.


The same day wg3 and Mom were at the scout office. wg3 was beahaving like a 3 year old, mixing up the pencils, waving the restroom key around over his head and wanting to duel with his light sabre. He very frankly asked the lady at the counter for a pocket knife.

On the way out he showed his mother a sly grin. She stopped. "What are you smiling about wg3?" No response, he just cocked his head to the side and kept on smiling. Mom noticed he had a hand over his pocket. She moved his little paws and found it full of pins and belt loops; rewards for scouts who achieve a certain amount of completed tasks.

"wg3, if we had left the store with those that would be stealing. We don't do that. When you steal the police come and take you to jail."
To which he replied, "How do you get the police officers to come?"
"You call them."
"Can we call them now?"
"No."
"But I want to call them. I want to have them over for dinner."

We think he is missing the point.

Congratulations Mr. President

"My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies. They will surely bless their fathers and their fathers' God that the Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us now to make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable verdict?" - James A Garfield, 1881

Whistling

Yesterday at work we used a dosimeter to measure the noise level of a machining process. When the employee reviewed the noise level she shared that a David put a finger in each side of his mouth and whistled over 100db. Very loud.

I was reminded of when I was a kid roaming the small Ohio neighborhood where I grew up. I could hear my Mom's whistle from blocks away. I don't ever remember dragging my feet when I heard that whistle. I do remember saying goodbye and running home. I never could whistle to the same effect.

Home

I arrived home from work just now. NH and the boys are at her parents house visiting her brother jg + kids and Aunt Kelly. This house is very empty without them. I don't like it here much just now.

We just can't get a normal smile

There was a period of time when dg would not smile for pictures or all smiles were goofy. Maybe I should just say that because he would not produce the hoped for smile the picture didn't turn out the way we hoped; oh and that he wasn't cooperating on purpose. dg5 is now moved out of that phase, but wg3 has no problem filling his shoes. After many pictures this is the best we got.

Ah, the picture without wg3. That's better.

Here he is in his wheelhouse.

Here he is when he doesn't know it's coming. Unfortunately, neither does anyone else. The consequence, occasionally heads are missing parts.

Existential

Went to help a family move today. At one point I found myself amidst four fake plants holding a watering can. Hmmmm.

My sledding wipeout

Our camera battery was low so I didn't bring it to do any short footage. However, a guy there named JB took some footage of my sledding wipeout. Behold

Love is the greatest gift

dg5 told me that whenever his cousin, cj12, sees a Bionicle he's going to buy it for dg5 and whenever dg5 sees a Bionicle he's going to buy it for cj12.

I said, "Why?"
"Because we're friends."
"Friends are a great gift."
"But there's a better gift."
"Oh yeah? What?"
"Love."

Whose kid is this??

Here they come

cl and wg3 are the first out of the chutes. Wg3 is upset he didn't hear Santa because he wanted to pet the reindeer. wg3 is going to be impossible to keep out of the gifts. He already walked up to a stocking and pulled out an M&M candy cane.

I said "Wg3 you have to put it back dude."
"But I asked for it for Christmas!" Fortunately nh got all the kids one.
"But that's not your stocking."
"Ohhhh." He collapses to his knees, dejected. He's so dramatic.

Christmas morning - early

It's Christmas morning and I'm up before the kids. How can this be?

Today we remember Christ's birth. His life is proof God loves us. I am grateful to know it.

It's rainy, dreary weather outside. It's supposed to rain all day here. Today we go see The Tale of Despereaux @ noon with Aunt Kelly.

An update: Despereaux stinks.

Faceplants

Today we went sledding in the Cleveland National Forest. It wasn't without it's dramas, but my favorite was the first of the day. On the way to the hill where the sledding would commence my "favorite oldest niece" saw a fresh patch of deep snow.
Her eyes widened, she ran, leapt high in the air, stretched out her arms for the perfect snow angel and then "uggghhh." She found her weight wasn't enough to compress the snow. Faceplant. I couldn't stop laughing. Some uncle I am.

This just in

dg5 just came in to see me. I lay here beside wg3, my first umbilical cord, having coaxed him to sleep. dg5 made me a cookie. mmmm. What's this? Here's nh. "Do you want to get in the hot tub?"

What is this Valhalla?

18

I cannot help but feel she isn't ready.
I remember when she was born, covered in muck.

My first contact with her? "Make her cry." That's what the nurse said.
"What?"
"Shake her and make her cry. She needs to clear the gunk out of her lungs."

They took her from Julie and put her under a heat lamp and that's where I made her cry. What did I know about it? I was a 20 year old kid. I had to they said. It was good for her they told me.

It was disappointing to me that our first contact should be so purposeful. I just wanted to admire her and listen to her coo. You know, to bond. That's what I heard happens.

It turns out though, that a lot of practical things have to happen first. Cut the umbilical cord (it took me three children to do it myself - like cutting beef jerky), weight, length (not height), APGAR scores, cleaning, crying, swaddling, then feeding. Maybe then admiration, maybe then bonding.

Thinking of making her cry still tightens my chest. I never liked it. As it turns out the years ahead were to be filled with anxiety, tight chests, prayers, hope - more than laughter and admiration though it never was her fault. I rather think the next 18 will be more of the same.

I learned that first contact was important if not a very sentimental a moment. I'd like to spend more time admiring her, her life. But who ever turned 18 and didn't still have a little gunk in their lungs?

A pleasant Saturday

Went to see 7 pounds with km17 and thought is was a little underwhelming I give it a C-. We did IN-N-OUT Burger for lunch...mmmmm.
Then after a pleasant nap, thanks family, we went to Maw Maw and Paw Paw's for an early Christmas. The boys were very excited and of course got sugared up.

A weird thing

I was called as a Ward Mission Leader consecutively in two different wards. Though the number of Sister Missionaries in the Mission is very low I have spent probably 5 of my 7 years serving with them. We have many favorites and have the good fortune to remain friends with some of them.

Today the door bell rang. We bought our home from other members of the ward we moved into and when I answered the door Sister Ellsworth, now off of her mission, was on the other side. The weird thing???? She wasn't coming to see us, she was coming to see the folks we bought the house from. It was an exciting reunion. nh says Sister Ellsworth was her favorite missionary of all time, that there is a genuineness about her she hasn't felt so strongly from other missionaries.

It was good to see her.

wg3 - without guile

Today nh and the boys were viewing an online Christmas card of Santa bent over a tree working at present delivery and the crack of his butt was showing. The tag line read, Hope your Holidays are all they're cracked up to be.

wg3 then innocently and sincerely interjected, "Is my butt cracked?"
"No buddy. Your butt is not cracked." *Smiles all around*
"Oh. hehe."

A movie night

Recently dg5 and km17 exchanged snail mail letters. dg5 wrote all the letters himself. Anyway, km17 offered to do a movie night and sleepover with the boys. Well, let me tell you they have been looking forward to it everyday since. They are talking more about "movie night" with sister than Christmas.

Here's hoping it all goes down. The boys love their sister, but they don't see her much and she's begun to drop out of their prayers.

Home Teaching

I love home teaching, but I hate when my companion blows me off. Grrrrrr. I'd do it myself if that was the point.

Ugggh. Please eat your dinner.

Tonight we broke new ground and it was awful. We're trying to teach the kids to eat what they're given for dinner. We don't want the little monkeys running the asylum and we're not short order cooks. Well tonight dg5 developed an aversion to the beans in chili. Chili he has eaten regularly for some time by the way.

I put my foot down and said he had to eat it or he couldn't get up. He protested and we went back and forth a little. Then he shed two tsunami size crocodile tears and I fell off of my game a little. I said he could get up, but that he couldn't have anything else to eat. It liked to rip my heart out. He looked at me respectfully, but defiant against hunger and simply said, "Well I'm gonna eat a lot of cereal in the morning."

In the end he picked around the beans and ate what wasn't suddenly distasteful to him and that was it. I hope he's up early, I'll fill our bowls and we'll eat together.

A dream

Four days ago dg5 told me about a dream he'd had. He said, "I dreamt about Jesus and he told me some guys are gonna rob our house when we go on vacation." What do you do with that?

Pretend

When the boys and I went out to buy Christmas presents for nh we went to Kohls. As we went through the checkout line wg3 stepped into an empty cashier's booth and said shyly to the woman behind us in line, "I can help you please."

A giving spirit

Recently dg5 participated in a memory study with the U of A. They came to the house three times and played a memory game with him and recorded the results for their study. As a consequence dg5 received a gift certificate to Target.

Today nh took the boys shopping for gifts for his cousins. His oldest cousin, cj, is a kid he idolizes. He really loves him and cj has been kind, gentle and patient with him. I really love that about cj. So when it came time to buy cj a present dg5 wanted to buy him the biggest one there was. It was outside our budgeted money and nh carefully explained it to dg5. Dg5 thought for a minute and offered to make up the difference with his gift card.

It was the first sign of selflessness I've seen in him lately and quite frankly it warms the cockles of my heart.

If it's yellow let it mellow

We have a toilet in the master bathroom. On the other side of the wall from the toilet, right up against the wall, are the boys bunkbeds. At night we don't flush our pee pees because the flushing wakes the boys up and they invariably end up in our room.

As a result, and with a certain indignation dg5 said one morning after finishing using our toilet: "Why am I the only one who flushes the toilet around this place???!!!! Mom never does it!"

I love it when he does indignation.

Bad Breath is a real turn off, no matter who you are.

During a ward Christmas party the boys spoke with Santa in his sleigh, but I was not surprised when last night at the mall they wanted to speak with him again. We waited in line for awhile and finally the boys got to sit and speak with Santa. It was uneventful and we went on with our shopping.

As we left we passed by the play area. The boys love, love, love the play area, but as it was late I answered their pleas for playtime with, "I'm sorry boys, but you wanted to see Santa and now there is no time because it's late and you have to get to bed." Dg5 then said, "I didn't want to see Santa anyway 'cause we already saw him and besides his breath stinks."

What are you gonna do?

Hope

These can be dark times. It is easy to feel lost and empty. I don't know that I can ease anyone else's pain. I don't know how. But I don't believe we're in this alone. We have God whom we too often forget and we have each other because that gift God gives us too.

I hope for my friends, I love them very much. I hope God blesses them with whatever they need to have happiness again. I hope I have the strength when my time comes to be strong, to remember the great gifts and blessings I have in my life and to remember that God loves me very much, that he wants me to be happy and to have peace. I hope I remember those few true things and I hope I hope it enough that the sense of peace I feel never leaves me.