Shame

"It wasn't my kid, was it?" I asked, searching the faces of my fellow Cub Committee members. A few cast sidelong glances at each other.

"Do you really want to know?" Kristy could look me in the eye, her kid stories could top mine any day.

We were discussing the Spaceship Derby a couple of weeks before. It was a loud, overstimulating affair. There were so many little children running around screaming, it was the perfect birth control ad. I'd spent a few precious minutes of quiet helping in the kitchen. Apparently, I'd missed out on some action. Some punk kid (cough) called 911 and hung up. Of course the police came. They always come. The Bishop rounded up all the kids and tried to discover the culprit. No one came forward. He didn't want to humiliate anyone, so he asked that whoever did it come to him privately.

As I heard what had happened, my heart clenched. My pupils dilated. My nostrils flared. I expect all kinds of hi jinx from my boys, but some things cross the line. Mouthing off, being disrespectful, or lying to an adult that is not your parent carries a heavy punishment. I had a vague memory of some kid coming to me to tattle that Dainon was the one on the phone. He's almost 14, so the idea of him being on the phone wasn't particularly disturbing. I asked him about it, and he gave me an explanation so mundane that I completely forgot about it. Until that moment at the table.

I stewed.

Was my child on a path riddled with crime and disrespect to elders?

Could he, in fact, withstand the "please just confess in secret" line from a loving Bishop?

Hell in a hand basket, my friends. In a hand basket.

I stewed some more.

The more I thought about it, the less it sounded like him. It would have been pure idiocy to involve the police in your doings with your father in the next room.

As soon as he breezed in from school, we had a little chat.

"Um, Dain, I was at a meeting today, talking about the space derby. They said someone called 911 and the police came. Did you call 911?"

"Sure." He said, "But don't worry. I dialed it, but I didn't press send."

"Babe, it's not a cell phone. All you have to do is press the numbers. You did dial the police. They came."

"They came?" He asked in surprise. "I never saw them, I was outside." He missed the whole thing with the Bishop too, and was only too happy to explain to him how it had all gone down.

Whew!

Not so shameful after all. It was actually pretty funny.

Seriously Icky. You've Been Warned.

Remember when I was rhapsodizing about heaven the other day? We spend a lot of time at Two Rivers and Zintel Canyon, so a couple of Sundays ago we decided to branch out a bit. Lewis looked up some hiking trails (more like walking paths) on google earth, then we drove around to find them. Cool trails wound around on the banks of a very scarily swift river. We took our faithful nanny dog Jill, and had a nice, reverent Sunday stroll. (I stuck that reverent bit in for you judgemental types) When we all piled out of the van back home, there was a tick on the carpet of the van. Eww! Lewis squished it (which is more difficult than you would think) and we thought that was the end of it. We found two more on the ground that evening, much to my dismay, so I bought a tick collar for Jill. Flash forward to this afternoon. Dainon brought Jill over to me and showed me a very disgusting sight.

At first I thought she had a hand full of nasty tumors. Have you ever seen those on old dogs? Gross. Then I realized, they were very full, very satisfied ticks.

How did I handle this? I did what any sensible, liberated woman would do. I called my husband at work.

"Honey, there are ginormous ticks on Jill" I shrieked. "What do I do?"

I've never removed a tick in my life. I've seen it done when I was a girl. My mom did something with a match. I could just picture that going wrong and Jill bolting out of the house a flaming Dog of Death. The closest thing I've done would be when I was a teenager and my dog got too close to a porcupine. Of all the luck, my parents were gone. That was an adventure.

"I don't know, just Google it and do what they say."

That sounded reasonable enough.

I always do what Google says, even when I shouldn't. (Like when I was being induced with Liam. Don't follow Google instead of your own midwife. Someday I'll tell you the story.)

He then very chivalrously offered to take care of the problem when he got home. There was no way I was going to have a dog walking around with those blood-sucking fiends hanging off her, so Dainon and I decided to git 'er done.

Google said to pull them out with tweezers. They advised against yanking, just steady pressure. They told us not to be alarmed if the head stayed in, that the dog's immune system would take care of it.

I decided that now was the time to enjoy the benefits of only having boys. I found some gloves and some pliers, and made Dainon pull them out. I held Jill, spread her fur away from the offending pustules and tried not to watch.

It was horrible. Really.

I was nauseated. He had to pull so hard, her skin would stretch way out, then those ticks would end up with a piece of her as a souvenir.

But we did it.

He took the ticks outside to kill them, and their carcasses became a neighborhood sensation.

See, I told you it was disgusting.

Breaking Child Labor Laws

I took a mental health day yesterday. I remained in the fetal position, snug under a down comforter, hugging a bowl of popcorn, watching my beloved foreign movies. At the end of the day, I felt renewed. Alas, my house did not. Lewis read to us until after 10, and no dishes were done. (We HAD to find out if Max died in the creepy castle of death!)


A few of my boys have a cough. Dainon sounds pretty gross. Kelton has a sore throat. Logan has a minor cough. Dallin is fit as a fiddle, the poor boy. He's always healthy when they're sick. He has a bionic immune system. I surveyed the chaos in my house and made an executive decision.


Happy Mental Health Day!


Everyone gets to stay home and rest. As long as they work, too. So far, it's 8:18 and my powder room floor has been scrubbed and a big pile of laundry has been put away. It's going to be a nice long day breaking child labor laws!! (Rubbing hands together with unholy glee)

Mwa ha ha haaaaaaaa!!!

Dublin it is!

My sister had a really good friend that we went to church with back in jr. high. They've kept in touch through the years and we girls have adopted her as a sister. Kim has invited us to come stay with her at her home in Dublin. So we're going on the ultimate road trip, except we're flying!!! We fly out to Copenhagen, then on to Dublin, where all sorts of girl adventures will ensue. There is guaranteed to be tons of conversation, food, adventure and late night giggles. Some of my favorite things on earth!


Did I ever have a morning today. It started just before 3am. Lewis grabbed me and said urgently, "Liam needs you!"


I shot out of bed and was halfway down the stairs when Liam flew from his room in a panic.


I've seen croup tons of times. It always strikes in the middle of the night. Out of nowhere. Usually, I'm up in the mountains out of cell phone range. The first couple of times, it really scared me. Once I knew what to do, it was no big deal.


I've never seen croup like this. There was the trademark bark of a cough, but in between, there was this struggle to breathe. It was a horrible gasping, frantic sound. I have a kid with asthma, so I thought an albuterol treatment would help. It turns out, the answer is no. Croup affects the upper part of the respiratory system, and albuterol only helps the lower, unaffected part. If your child ever scares you to death in the middle of the night, cold night air is best. That's what the nurse told me. I rushed him to the ER after his father gave him a blessing. Thank goodness it was a short drive. It was surreal to be talking to him in this cheerful, reassuring voice, encouraging him to keep breathing. He did, and we made it. The crisis was over pretty quickly, and we were back in bed by 4:30. I had a hard time waking up this morning though.


I had another blow when I found out that the two giant bags on fruit I'd sent downstairs to the basement fridge were put in the freezer instead. "Put them in the fridge, not the freezer!" I'd repeated several times. It seems I should have made use of smoke signals too, because the message wasn't clear.


I'm almost laughing about it, maybe tomorrow. Since there was no other fruit in the house, and I felt like they deserved it, the older boys got rock-hard oranges in their lunches.


I decided to call it a day at 8:30 am. I curled up on the couch and turned off my brain. We watched this movie. Liam didn't mind that it wasn't in English. What a movie! I had no idea that over a million women in third world countries have their lives ruined by labor injuries that can be easily fixed! It's so sad, it makes me want to do something about it.




After that, it was all a blur. We (Liam) watched multiple episodes of Zelda from 1989, then Bob the Builder, and ultimately Barney. I stayed passed out on the couch. Now, at 4:52 in the afternoon, I'm almost ready to start my day. Good Morning!

Clue #2

I Just Bought a Ticket

I just bought a ticket, I just bought a ticket. I just bought a ticket......
I wonder where it's to?

Clue #1: I'm crossing the ocean with my sister in July.

ps. Tia Juana asked about my new scout theme. It is in celebration of all the guilt I've cast off in buying Dallin a new Bear book (he lost his first one, and the scout office is way out of my way). I'm now working on his requirements with him, and I no longer feel like I'm neglecting my poor middle child.

Heaven

I know what heaven will be like. I know how it will smell, what it will sound like, taste like, every tiny detail. I know this, because I lived it on Monday.
Our family isn't perfect. We're pretty terrible at some things, like being refined. I just have to say, that it's a cruel trick of the universe that I ended up being the guardian of good taste in my home. We're also pretty lousy at yard work. Sorry, no landscaping awards here. Housework too. I just didn't inherit the 'neat pin' gene. I can sleep just fine knowing my basement is a mess.
If there's one thing we're good at (and we're not just good at it, more like gloriously perfect) is savoring long uninterrupted hours together as a family. In the winter, we're curled up in front of the fire. I'm most likely knitting, one boy is drawing, the others are building Lego creations. Lewis is reading from some adventure we're all living together. He'll pause, and we'll all discuss the characters and hazard a guess about what will happen next. We can go on like that for six hours straight, no kidding.
Spring finds us outside, roasting marshmallows around the fire pit. Some are swinging on the rope, others are digging in the dirt. Lewis, again, is probably reading.
We had summer weather this last week, and that took us to our ultimate paradise, Two Rivers park. We had a picnic in typical Earl fashion. No frills :) We grabbed a fried chicken full meal at the store, some books and headed for the river. Of course, we forgot plates or forks. So of course, we improvised. We had plastic cups that could be fashioned into scoops, so anyone interested in potato or macaroni salad could scoop it into a cup. The boys worried the chicken to the bones, ate chips and made suicide punches out of the revoltingly strong red and orange 'juices' Lewis bought. Then we wandered out through some cattails to OUR sand spit. We sword fought with reeds, played balance games on a log. The boys dug trenches in the sand and flooded them. Liam made sand castles with plastic cups and went 'fishing' with branches, catching slimy leaf 'fishes'. I stretched out in the warm sand, put my hat over my face and just soaked up the sun, and the experience. Lewis read to us from our latest adventure (a series about bird/human hybrid kids who escaped from the scientists that created them) and we stayed that way for hours. When the sun got low in the sky, we headed back to the van sandy and smelling like the river, but oh, so happy.
So, in case you were wondering, heaven's gonna be great.