Possum Wheels

I generally don’t listen to the radio these days, but I was driving home from Visiting Teaching in our little black truck and it only has a radio. Anyway, I am glad I was listening because the John Tesh show was on and he was telling us all about this cool company that makes carts for dogs who have lost limbs. They have wheels and harnesses and the dogs are so happy because it gives them their life back again, and one German Shepherd was so depressed that all he would do was lie there looking out the window at all the other dogs playing until he got his little cart, and then he ran off down the driveway like a new dog ready to play. At the end of the show they mentioned the web site (which I have unfortunately forgotten – maybe something like Ed’s wheels?). They also added that they have made wheels for dogs as big as 220 pounds right on down to Chihuahuas. They have even made carts for cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits and AN OPPOSUM! Now, there could certainly be some interesting things to think about here. . . . Interesting how much some folks love their rabbits, interesting to think of how much money was spent on medical bills for these hamsters before they were ready for their little carts, interesting to wonder how much longer the hamsters will live anyway. We could go on and on. I won’t however because I don’t know how everyone feels about this. I will only say that while my husband does love animals, he loves them in a little more of farmy sort of way – you know, the sort of love that shoots a horse when he breaks his leg (I’m sorry if that type of love offends any of you). That means there will likely be no wheels on any rabbits around here – though he will certainly mourn with Abe over the loss of any rabbit (not that we are getting rabbits – but you can never be too certain) and, I must admit that personally, I’d love to see a little hamster carting itself around. I also think it would be super cool to get wheels for a chicken.

BUT, the thing that struck me most was the reference to the one opossum cart. My first thought was, “Who keeps a possum for a pet?” Then the whole thing laid itself out perfectly before me. There can be little doubt how this possum came to lose the use of its back legs (if you are unsure of what I mean, please refer to my previous post on the possum). This opossum wasn’t a pet to begin with. He was a plain old possum, but then he got hit by a car (like so many possums before him), only this time, the driver of the car had likely been reading my possum post! Because I had raised possum awareness, the driver did not speed off as he otherwise might have. Rather, he stopped to check on the little guy who, it turns out, was not dead at all (though he might have been playing dead as also discussed in my post) merely deprived of the use of his back appendages. You can probably guess the rest of the story from here as well as I did, but I must say, it just warms my heart thinking of that little possum and his new owner going on little walks with his little leash and tiny little back wheels (at night of course since possums are nocturnal), and I like to imagine that I am wholly responsible for this happy relationship.

City Chickens

We have lived the city life for nearly 3 years now (ok, we actually don't live in the city at all, rather a very small town surrounded by farms. Still, we live in a sub-division and have no land of our own, so it seems city-ish) so, it is decided: while we must live in the city, we will no longer live of the city . . . as evidenced by Mike's Saturday purchase:
That's right, those are baby chicks, and they will soon grow into egg laying hens (don't tell Goldie that though, she gets super mad if anyone ever suggests that she, any of her siblings, or even baby chicks might ever grow up . . . in fact she cried for almost an hour the other day because she saw some video footage from when she was one and it broke her heart that she could never be one again).

Anyway, I must clear my husband of any wrong doing here by admitting that I have actually missed our chickening days. I remember sitting out in our old spacious yard with my sister and our kids while two old hens strutted boldly around us trying to get at any food we had. Megan gave them names and always insisted they were listening for gossip to take back to the coop, and I remember how oddly watched I felt when one would fly up to our front yard and stare in the front window at us. I don't know, I guess I've grown fond of the birds. I remember Mike once trying to find something online that would tell him what to do about our rooster crowing so loudly in the mornings. He found little and was surprised as he figured that all the urban dwelling chicken owners would have figured something out. I laughed at the idea that any urban dwellers would own chickens . . . and now, here we are. I think it will be fun to give city chickens a try.

Little bits of stuff about my kids

My sister-in-law Marnie recently mentioned (on her blog) how it seems that all she talks and writes about is her kids. But really, can moms help it? Our kids are our greatest creations and pretty much our hugest source of work, joy, entertainment, worry, etc. I think moms are entitled to think that their kids are “the bees knees” (I don’t know where on earth that originated, my friend Jessica is the first I ever heard use it, and it seemed like it meant “super coolest of all”). I think we are also entitled to feel that everything they do is of great interest to all our loved ones (at least). With that said, you must all press on through this:

1. Crafty has been at it again. Not bad for a Kindergartener. It’s a boat and two passengers (one of whom actually has a happy face on front and an angry face on back – when I asked Daisy what he was so angry about she said, “or maybe it’s a scared face” . . . which makes sense as that boat might not be totally seaworthy). Anyway, I don’t know why for certain, but I think it is the coolest thing ever when she is just off minding her own business and then comes and shows me something like this. Maybe it’s because when they are really little they pretty much need your active guidance for any type of creative crafty thing, and it is strangely and happily startling to see their little minds becoming independent enough to come up with things like this without needing me at all -- especially because often the creations are something that never would have occurred to me to make. It makes me realize that they are going to truly be their own little people with their own gifts and talents beyond simply what I teach them. Plus, look at her hair. She made me take these pics because she’d tied that ribbon all by herself. I do think she has the most beautiful hair color though and I hope it won’t fade as she gets older.

2. Penny has added one new word to her constant crazy babbling. It is “uh-oh” (is that really a word?). She says it anytime anyone drops anything (and even as she crawls about -- causing me to wonder just what’s so “uh-oh”). Her only real word prior to this has been “dad.” We often have conversations that go something like this:
Me: Penny, how about “mom?” Say, “mom mom mom.”
Penny: Dad daddaddad.
Me: Say Mom.
Penny: (Pause) Dad? Daddad?
Anyway, the other night she was babbling away in her crib before falling asleep (as she often does). All of the sudden the random babbles stopped and I heard a very distinct, “uh-oh.” Soon, she fell asleep, and I forgot all about the “uh-oh” until I went to tuck her in a little better before heading to bed myself. Here is what I saw: one tiny lone sock on the floor next to her crib. Yes, apparently she had managed to pull one of her socks off and had then dropped it out of the crib. It just seemed so cute to picture her in there all alone thinking, “uh-oh, I’ve done it now, there is no way I’m getting that sock back.” They just start to seem so much more like a real little person when you can see their actual thoughts expressed by a word of some sort. Sigh. They just grow up and grow up and it makes me so happy and also makes me cry cry cry.

3. Goldie often tells me she did something all by "herselth." I love “selth” because it just seems so much trickier to say than “self,” and I wonder why she does. My kids always haul a few books to bed with them. Today she grabbed a book with a collection of about ten stories. She said, “Mom, I’m choosing this book, but I won’t read all of it. . . . If I do read all of it, I’ll be mad at myselth.” That was reassuring.

That’s all for now. Abe will get plenty of glory in future posts.

Daisy Sketch

I once saw a post from a friend's sister that talked about "blogging" verses "bragging" and sometimes I fear I have stepped into the realms of bragging . . . but this is my little writing space where I like to write happily about my life . . . so, sorry if I've dwelt in the realms of pride and vanity a little. In the past though it has mostly been about my husband and children though, and I think we are all entitled to a little of that. Now, however, I'm showcasing my own genius (I'm actually not sure what that means "my genius," but I like it). I never would have put this picture on here if it weren't that my sister and several friends keep hounding me to post what I've done artistically of late. The sad thing is, and this is the gospel truth (I love when people say that), I really wasn't joking when I said that the ants, cats, possums, etc. that I've drawn on my blog are the only drawing I've done in ages. It's the truth. It makes me so sad because I did love it once, and every now and then my friend Liz (who was in art classes with me from about 7th grade on) sends me a card or something that she has water colored and it is amazing and I wonder why I've let that gift slip away!

Here is where it all went wrong. In 12th grade my art class was one with very little direction, and I was one who liked to have a goal or a challenge or some type of instruction. Still, on my own, I faithfully spent an entire month of class days working on something other than the list of 100 excuses as to why me and my best friends (who were also in the class) were late nearly every day (we had a great time creating that list though). Anyway, it was a drawing from a picture my brother had taken of his three kids eating popsicles. It was a close up of their faces and they looked so cute and happy. I really captured them in my drawing I felt, and I really did take nearly a month to finish it. Unfortunately, upon its completion, I accidentally left it out on a desk in Mr. Colton's classroom. The next day it was gone. Of-course you'd hope some caring person had put it some place safely or even, as sad as it would be to lose it, someone loved it so much that they kept it, but Mr. Colton's class had a very bad reputation. The kids in there were bad (probably myself included) they loved to steal everything they could from the teacher when his back was turned, cover their desks in rubber cement or paint, paint on and destroy other people's work, etc. I searched and searched for my drawing. I was so heart sick about losing all that work that I even prayed and prayed that if it was anywhere out there it would be returned to me. Alas, it never was and my sad guess is that someone laughingly scribbled or painted all over it and tossed it in a dumpster. I was a bit tired of drawing for a spell after that . . . then came college with my fascination for all things biology, etc. I was busy and happy and I just didn't draw much anymore.

Anyway, to this sketch: My sister Megan took up sketching a year or so ago and was amazing at it. She kept calling me telling me to give it another go. I wasn't up for it, but finally, upon her hounding me a little extra one day, I did this from a picture I had of Daisy. It was with a #2 pencil on typing paper, so the blending etc. was not superior, but here it is. You'd like to think this motivated me to do more (as I was pleased with the outcome), but it requires enough energy that I have failed to even do my other children in the year or so since this! (And, may I add that Daisy really did look like this a few years back before we grew her bangs out, etc.)

A Little More Mike

I wanted to write a little about my husband. I’ve heard complaints from some about how it is no fun when people go on and on about their perfect husbands, so I will let you all know right here and now, that my husband is not perfect. He is most likely the worst husband ever! (Honey, you really are the perfect and best husband ever, I just said that so no one reading this would feel bad). Anyway, I am a big fan of people just liking their husbands because it makes me happy to see married people that like each other; and I don’t think it is so much about who is the most romantic, who is the best cleaner, or who gives the most compliments, etc. as it is about appreciating your spouse for who he is and liking who he is and the things he does (even if it is buying you a vacuum . . . or perhaps a Nintendo Wii instead of flowers).

So, despite the fact that my husband is a horrible husband (Mike, you are the best in the world!!), I just really really like him. I like him even with his refusal to let me throw things away and his desire to force us to someday live with cattle for pets. And he did do a very nice thing the other day. Sometimes I complain that I could use a little more coddling – you know, being treated like a delicate flower that needs constant care – unfortunately, I am fairly hardy. Well, I guess that isn’t “unfortunately;” I wouldn’t trade my poor sister-in-laws who get horribly sick with their pregnancies or give up any other physical blessing. It’s just that I’m usually fine, so my husband assumes . . . you know . . . that I’m fine (because, well, I am). Anyway, the other day I was feeling awful – headachy and nauseous. I called Mike at work and he rushed right home to take care of me. It was nice to know that he could coddle if necessary. He made me go take a nap and forget about the kids. He refused to let me give in to my near constant urges to straighten up clutter (and even straightened some himself), and he bought me chicken noodle soup, Munchies (yes those again), orange soda, and rainbow sherbet ice-cream (that was the bizarre list of items that I came up with that didn’t seem like they would make me throw up). Now, one could argue that this was due more to his sense of honesty. He was, after all taking “sick leave.” His sick leave does say he must be sick himself or taking care of another sick family member. Whatever his motivation – duty, love or honesty, he did a darn fine job!

Moving right along, one of my very favorite things about my husband is that he makes me laugh out loud generally several times each day. Here are a few of the cool things he’s told me this week:

Penny has gotten in the habit of turning off the power switch to our computer. It doesn’t matter that the cord is at the back of the computer desk and I’ve pushed it as far behind as possible, nor does it matter if I wedge a large chair under the desk allowing pretty much zero access to the switch. She still manages to worm her way through to switch off the power. I was complaining about this to Mike until he told me how he could just imagine a National Emergency where some reactor in a very small space would need turning off. “Send in Penny” they would say, and in she would weave and crawl and wriggle until she turned the switch off – saving all of humanity.

Also, when he first came home to take care of poor sick me the other day he said, as seriously as he could manage, “What can I do for you honey? Do you need me to blog for you?” Oh he’s a smart alec for sure. Plus I said something that I thought was so funny the other day and when I said, “Oh that was funny, huh?” He replied, “Yes . . . but don’t put it on your blog.”

Lastly, Mike saw some news thing recently about these “free cruises” that are really high pressure seminars trying to get you to join or buy something. Apparently they will sit with you at your meals, as you relax by the pool, etc. and hound you over the products. Anyway, Mike was trying to talk me into living our summers on a farm the other day. I asked him if this farm was some sort of a time share thing that other people took care of the rest of the year. He told me that our entire marriage was “actually a time share sales pitch” and that that was why I “got such a good deal.” Now anytime there is anything I bring up that I don’t like he tells me it is part of the time share. I wish I’d known that that was the whole reason this marriage was going to be such a bargain before I signed on. This is one long high pressure seminar and I will likely crack soon.

Anyway! No bragging or boasting here (though honestly, sometimes it can’t be helped). You are all free to like your husbands every bit as much as I like mine. In fact, I’d love to read your “posts” about it. I do like Mike though. He’s my favorite.

Emails from my Sisters

There are five girls in my family. My mom had to work pretty hard to give us each the gift of having four sisters. Why if she’d even stopped at an admirable eight children, those two older girls would be left as lone and miserable sisters, but as luck would have it, she pushed through (literally and figuratively I guess) and had three more girls. When we last three girls were small, the older two (Kathy and Amy) carted us around much like their own children – taking us for ice-cream or fries, taking us to get pictures taken, etc. And in turn, we spent enough of our youth tending their own little ones to practically be their under aged mothers. Now that we are all pretty well grown up, you’d hardly know there was ever the gap in ages (well, except that we younger three – Shannon, Nancy and Megan are OBVIOUSLY so much more in the prime of life – don’t worry, my sisters are all smart-alecs, and “when in Rome . . .”). We love to be together as much as possible along with our many other “sisters” who have married into the family.

I was looking through some old emails last night and found these that made me laugh. We’d been emailing back and forth nice things about one another – who was good at what, etc. Megan claimed that while I might be the one to claim best runner in the group (although Amy should perhaps be), she could have been the best biker. Here is a snippet from her email:

OOoo, I know what I could be best at. Mountain biking. Yes, I could be good at that. . . But then again, Nancy’s bike tire went flat. Maybe she would have passed me right, up. O' well its all speculation, I am taking it! Fastest biker!

The “flat tire” she referred to was the flat tire I received while participating in a biathlon with her and Amy. Amy went on to tell a little more of the “flat tire” story. It doesn’t portray me most favorably, but it is rather funny and perhaps even mostly true (though I'm sure I didn't curse!). . . I was very frustrated to have my race thrown so unexpectedly though. Here is Amy’s reply:

Meg you truly are a vision on a bike and I applaud you. But a little more to the flat tire story. I know I wasn't in a very good mood or in that good of shape come race day. But I seem to remember stopping to help the very frustrated Nancy who was wailing about her %$#@@ tire. I flagged someone down and got him to lend us a hand. It took about 15 minutes or more as I remember so we were pretty late coming in. As we got to the parking lot, I was apparently a little slow getting off my bike. Nancy, again knowing she was the fastest runner in the world, and knowing how behind she was, just looked at me and in exasperation said, "We'll are you going to run or what?" At that point I thought it prudent to tell her to go ahead, which she did and passed about 40 runners. Hoo Wee.

Now a little more from Amy just because she’s so funny (and so sweet):

Sometimes when I think about how lucky we are to have each other I almost want to cry. But of course having lost my ovaries (by the way has anyone seen them?) and being on a patch, I rarely cry. But I feel like crying! And on a serious note I realize that this sisterhood we have is a very, very rare gift from our Heavenly Father, as well as our parents who were willing to have # 9, 10 and 11, when eight children could have seemed more than plenty. Love you girls, Amy

I was actually going to put the comments Shannon made about me when we were emailing these nice things back and forth – not to show how great I am (and she did make me sound great), but to give you a glimpse at how incredibly complimentary and kind she is. I couldn’t do it in the end though because it was so dang nice I would feel like I was bragging just putting it on here! I will put a few pieces of it though . . . followed by my once again smart reply:

Nancy—. . . Such a good mom. So patient when her kids are whiney. So nice to me and cries with me when I am sad or something sad happens to me. . . . Can laugh laugh laugh. Just calls to see how I’m doing. . . . Doesn’t mind the smell of a cadaver that much . . . I love Nancy.

Ohh, if Shan just isn't the best! (You must be getting’ your cup all filled back up to be spillin' so much over to the rest of us). Really, I was just being goofy and then Shan writes the nicest stuff ever. Sigh, it feels really good when someone says specific nice things about you. Thanks Shoobs . . . ohh . . . except for me – “a good mom when my kids are whiny”??? Well, who knows, maybe I would be, but I can't be sure, you see, my kids don't whine. OH HOHO, HAHA HEE, HEEHEEHAW HAW!!

My sisters are also fun for when you want to brag a little. They are all about letting you brag and then praising you a bit more. Here are two emails from Kathy – one right before and one right after my last marathon:

I am on “pins and needles” to hear about the big results—ok really I am on a basically soft leather desk chair – but STILL, said prayers and hoping all went well.
Love,
Kath

NANCY, NANCY, NANCY…..WAY TO GO!!!!!! NUMBER 15 OF 750 LOSERS—I MEAN OTHER RUNNERS—AND BIG, FAT ATHENIAN AWARD!!!! I HAVE SHIVERS!!!! Truly I am so very, very happy for you. It is such a good feeling to accomplish a goal and stick with it—something I wouldn’t know much about- ha ha.

Lastly, here is an email from me to Megan that gives a little glimpse into how cool she is. She kept emailing me to take up drawing again and try her new sketching technique. Megan has five kids under eight, a spotless house and is always painting a room, sewing something, etc. Here was my reply to her request for me to get crackin’:

Ohhh I feel a stress coming upon me. Perhaps another day. Tata for now! Really, I have intended to, but neighbors were over while there kids played all morning. Then I had to take a nap and then fold laundry and now Mike is almost home to be with us for a few hours til he leaves out of town and then it will be dinner and family night and meanies to bed and then I can only draw if there is absolutely nothing on tv. So . . . we'll see. Heaven knows it won't happen tomorrow with 3 hours of "kindergarten testing" and then a young women's mtg. At least they have the mtgs. and my house so my kids can just watch tv instead of destroy someone elses home while I am supposed to be paying attention to my mtg. In the mean time, you have probably already learned a new language and how to play the guitar and the harp and are just finishing building an armoire.

Anyway, my friend Liz tells me to be grateful for having sisters and to be grateful that my little girls have sisters (especially good to remember when I am trying to do many little pony tails and not be late for church)! I do love my sisters though! I also love my eight trillion brothers, sister-in-laws, and brother-in-laws (along with all their little ones) on both Mike’s side and mine.

Q & A

Alright, so Tash gave me some questions to answer. There are eight, so it's not like the ones when you have to read 400 things about me (I probably should have said "get" not "have to").

1. What were you doing ten years ago?
I was recently returned from my semester abroad in Jerusalem. I was just starting to get serious with my major -- which was Zoology. I remember it being a super enjoyable time in my life. I loved my classes, professors and fellow students; I didn't work much; my sisters were around home to make late night runs to Smiths with me; and I was just getting to know the friend who would line me up with Mike (oh alright, she didn't line me up with Mike, she lined me up with her cousin and she went out with Mike -- still, she was how I met him!).

2. Name five things on your to do list for today.
Well, today is pretty well over, still, when it began, here was what I hoped to do:
1-Go running.
2-Call a friend to see if she needed us to take her kid to Abe's baseball game.
3-Call my Young Women to remind them we have a meeting tomorrow -- oops forgot to do that one.
4-Get to the store for a few things I needed to buy before Sunday.
5-Borrow or find Toy Story 2 for a popcorn and movie night with our kids.

3. List five snacks you enjoy.
1-Munchies -- yah, it has a dumb name, but I love it. It is a bag that mixes Doritos, Cheetos, Sunchips, and Pretzels. It is great. I almost blogged about it once.
2-Cupcakes -- I love to make and eat cupcakes. Somehow I make the tatiest cupcakes ever (even though I use a store bought mix and store bought frosting).
3-Yogurt and almonds.
4-Watermelon if it's in season. Ohhhhh I love love watermelon!
5-Hmmm. That’s all I can think of right now.

4. Five things you would do if you were a billionaire.
This question totally makes me think of “The Three Amigos” when they are all lying in bed discussing what they will do with their share of the money and they all say their selfish thing until Martin Short says his money will all go to some charity so the others immediately begin to back pedal.
1-Buy land, build our dream house and a barn on it.
2-Buy a place on the beach at Bear Lake.
3-Build a school for Shan in Haiti.
4-Something cool for all our family members.
5-Buy cute clothes for the kids of people I know of who are so broke and probably cry that they can’t send their kid’s to school feeling cute.

5. List five bad habits.
Oh, I don’t know. I probably have a billion. I drive too fast, I talk too loud on the phone (for some reason I never believe people can hear me on the phone), I never file our papers, I don't call friends as often as I should, I go to bed too late, etc. etc.

6. Five places I have lived.
Well how can you answer that on a blog when you are trying to never really be specific about where you and your loved ones live? I haven’t really lived five places though. Mostly two really.

7. Five jobs I have had.
1-Golden Swirl swirler of frozen yogurt.
2-Waitress.
3-Employee of Tash’s husband the “Breadman” at the bread store.
4-Lab tech at a place that tested plants and soils and then gave recommendations to major growers.
5-TA for lower level physiology classes.

8. What would you like to be doing in 25 years?
I’d like to be permanently settled and financially secure. I’d like to have my kids around a lot. My older brother swears that being in his 50’s is the best life has ever been, so that will be great if it’s true.

So, P. you are totally tagged because I know you don’t like seven years of bad luck and all that. Oh yah, you too Jami and Sarah – you know – tagging paybacks.

Sometimes it can't be helped . . .

P.S. Penny was asleep during most of these group shots . . . we didn't purposefully exclude little tumble-bumbles.

A Point for the Keeper

Perhaps I will start a little contest with my husband. He, the keeper of things, will be awarded a point for each and every item we keep about the house that eventually serves some purpose. I, the non-keeper of things, will be awarded a point for each and every item we keep around the house and never once use for any purpose. Of-course, you can never be sure when you will need something, so I won’t be able to fairly claim my points until we are both dead and gone, which takes some of the fun out of it. And, there are a lot of areas where the awarding of points gets a little gray. Should Mike, for example, get points for things we keep that serve no functional or aesthetic purpose but do perhaps give us peace of mind or happiness just knowing they are there? Should I gain points for things I do manage to throw out? Should I be docked points for things I throw out that we did end up needing or wanting? I can see it will be tricky at best and I’m not sure what winning will actually mean for either of us, but the contest is on . . . and Mike is up one. The source of his recent victory? A roll of butcher paper. Here is how it went down:

Me: Do you know where I can buy butcher paper? I need it for Young Women’s tomorrow and the only place I’ve seen it is that store way down by the mall. I don’t want to go clear down there (moan) .

Mike: Yah, there’s a roll in the garage.

Me: Really? We have butcher paper in the garage?

Mike: Yah, don’t you remember you wanted to get rid of it.

Me: I don’t remember. I can’t imagine I’d want to get rid of that. What kind of a mother would get rid of a roll of butcher paper? Where in the garage is it?

Mike: I don’t know, it should be in there though . . . unless you threw it out.

Well, the butcher paper was there, right next to all the twin-bed headboards. It was exactly what I needed for the Young Women’s activity and my kids are now happily coloring on more of it downstairs (well, sort of happily . . . Goldie is mad at anyone who talks while she “tries to color”).

This point I give you happily honey, along with the other point for the bull horns which we did eventually end up hanging in Abe’s room.

Book Tag

I was reading a friend’s blog yesterday when it happened again, I was “tagged.” In this particular instance, you are to look for the nearest book, open to page 123 and record the 5th sentence down. Of course, my friend (we’ll just call her “Jami” – oh alright, that is actually truly her name, so we’ll call her Mrs. X instead – even though you all know now that she is Jami) . . . anyway, Mrs. X happens to have the book Love and Logic close at hand, so she finds her little sentence and it is of real value. I actually paused a few moments and thought, “I need to remember that.” So, I look to my nearby dresser and here are the books I see:

1. My journal – well that should be inspiring at any sentence.

2. The scriptures – ha! I could totally beat Mrs. X with this!

3. The Activity Book – a cool book of mutual activity ideas from the 70’s.

4. A notebook of things my kids have said – not 123 pages there.

5. Who’s Who in the Doctrine in Covenants – this is a great book to have close by the next time you are reading D&C.

6. Teachings of Presidents of the Church – this years study guide for Relief Society.

7. The Alexandria Link – someone in my book club told me to give it a try. It’s not my usual style of book, but who knows.

8. Wigwam Stories – this is the winner. I’m sure it is the most exciting (oops, I’ll probably go straight to heck for saying that when the scriptures are an option!). I haven’t actually been reading this book (though here it is on my bedside table) rather Mike has read a few stories out of it to our kids. His dad lent it to him for the kids on the last trip home. Anyway, page 123, 5th sentence down (drum roll please): Wait, pause, page 123 ends one of the Wigwam stories and there are not 5 sentences!! I’ll just have to modify. Ok, here we go again, page 123, last sentence: “But the Old Grandfather who had been a Witch went off into the Forest, and no one ever saw him again.”

Wowzers, now that was good stuff. I think I am going to take over the reading of Wigwam Stories to the kids. It seems Mike has been cheating me out of serious excitement! In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that Wigwam Stories will increase in sales over the next few days by a number corresponding to the amount of people reading my blog! Thanks Jami!

Tiny Feet

It is hard to name a favorite physical characteristic about your babies, but I must say, I love love love the feet of my little ones. They are so tiny and so soft when they are born. Their toes alone seem to tell the whole miracle of a baby’s creation with their impossibly small perfectness. I’ve been sad that the weather has been too cold to let Penny’s little feet go uncovered for the past few months. I miss her tiny bare feet and take every opportunity to remove her little socks so I can kiss, rub, and remove the lint from between her toes.

I love when they get a little older and their chubbiness grows a little quicker than the length of any appendage so they go through a spell of having thick little loaves of bread for feet. I have moments of confusion when they first begin crawling where I wonder how it is that the tops of these chubby and thick feet have gotten so dirty and scuffed.

The other day we were kneeling for family prayer. Mike said, “How about the girl with the most colorful nails gives the prayer.” We all looked at Goldie who had each and every nail on her fingers and toes painted a different color, but she just looked back at us as if certainly someone else must be the most colorful.

Playing Possum

One great thing about this blog is that it has allowed me to resurrect my artistic talents – so far in the form of various sketched animals (ants and a cat to be specific). This is a bit odd as I was never one to draw animals in my artsy days (though I could draw a mean unicorn in elementary which was the envy of every school mate – or so I fancy). I’m pretty sure it looked exactly like this:

Anyway, this has greatly increased my self esteem as it is clear, even to me (and we all know we are our own worst critics), that these drawings are something special. Yes indeed. My only disappointment is that they all have to be drawn using the mouse with our kid’s “paint” program (we don’t have a scanner), and there aren’t many color options available.

But, I digress; the point of this post was to discuss the opossum, which I will only refer to as the possum. I’m much happier calling it a possum and my spell-check seems fine with this as well, so it must be legitimate.

I don’t know how many of you knew this, but the possum (fine call it an opossum if you must) is the only marsupial in North America, and – you may have guessed it – we live in a narrow strip of possum territory! When I discovered this, I couldn’t wait to see the critters hanging from their tails in cheery little rows. Sadly, this is never how I have seen the possum, and that is not just because (apparently) they very rarely hang from their tales, it is also because they are only seen like this (as far as experience has shown me):

Yes, that is what you were fearing it might be, a dead possum. I see them practically every time I go out running. Some of you may have heard the term, “playing possum.” This refers to someone pretending to be dead. Apparently when the poor possum sees no real hope for escaping his predator, he (as a last ditch effort) plays dead. I hoped for some time that this was what I was witnessing. Unfortunately I’m pretty certain they can’t “pretend” to be smashed. It makes me wonder if it was this very tactic “playing possum” that lead to their actual deaths – a last ditch effort to throw off the speedy and frightening predator racing towards them. If so, it seems Mother Nature might have considered the advent of vehicles when equipping the poor creatures with such a defense.

I'm very tired I . . .

When I was in elementary school, my sister-in-law Darlene (Doll) took some of us little ones along to visit her parents in St. George. I’m not sure why Doll agreed to take us along, but it was my first trip away from all the family and I was super excited to send them all postcards. Apparently I ended one postcard with “I’m very tired I” My guess is that I wasn’t really so tired that I just drifted into oblivion after “I,” my guess is that I intended to write why I was so tired and got side tracked. Still, my family found this greatly amusing and ever since it has not been uncommon for family letters and emails to end with, “I’m very tired I . . . .” The interesting thing is: not much has changed over the last 20 to 25 years. I have always been, as I am at this moment, and likely will remain for the foreseeable future, very tired I . . . .

Baby Handling Tips

These pictures were posted on my sister-in-law's sister's blog. I am not sure that it is fair play to steal something funny from another's blog, but that is just what I have done. How could I not? Several mothers read my blog and I think it important to make them aware of these mothering tips. Plus, she admitted stealing it from someone's blog herself . . . and, you are all totally free to steal this or anything else off of mine . . . even my social security number which I have posted on my profile. From the book Safe Baby Handling Tips: