Watching the Children and the Garden Grow

Ahh, the heady ambrosia of summer. I just love it! I love how Christian smells like little boy sweat every day even when he has had a bath. I love that we can all go around shoeless. I love that every day holds the prospect of adventure (rarely realized thanks to Jack, but still...). I realized that Christian's summer will be over in three weeks so I decided that at the very certain expense of a filthy home we have to enjoy the last few days of summer. The dinosaur museum was supposed to be 2 bucks today so I thought we'd try it. Well, I should have known that every other thrifty Mormon mommy had the same idea. It's Utah, sheesh! The line wound all around the building. I decided thrifty possibly bordered on stupid so we went to the Aquarium instead. Christian loved the display with the touchable stingrays and fish. The stingrays even kinda crawled up the side and flapped their wings (fins?...whatever) and splashed you. The squeals of pure and complete joy that followed from Christian were the best.

I've also included a picture of the tomatoes that ate my back yard. I really can't figure out what made them grow like this, maybe the steer manure. But its just like the old movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". I think that's a real movie...

By the way, I can't claim the title line but I won't attribute it since the politcal backlash could be annoying, at best.

The Best Moment

Today, I left Christian and Jack with Nat (highly recommended babysitter) while I went to Ikea with Elliot. Christian realized I was leaving and said "miss you" to me. It was the best moment of my day, maybe week, maybe year. It's that more wonderful because every word out of Christian's mouth is very nearly a miracle.

It's a good thing they're cute: Wherein Christian graffitis his brother and throws the mother of all fits.

So....just thought I'd give a little update since its been, okay, a while. But for me (and I'm sure there's some nodding of heads happening here), a week is pretty good. First, a couple of days ago, I left Christian, Jack and some markers alone in the living room while I tried to unload the dishwasher. It was a recipe for disaster. Please see attached photo. What cracks me up about this is that he used every color. I mean, I was not paying attention for maybe 5 minutes. 5 minutes! I guess I should have realized something was going down because there was a masoleoum-like silence. The absolutely best, sure-fire, no-doubt indicator that trouble is afoot. But noone was screaming or crying or whining so I ignored it. That's what I get for ignoring the absolutely best, sure-fire, no-doubt indicator.

Today, we got to take Ian to the MTC. We get ready. I figure, dang, I'm good because, I was fairly certain that we would be early. Us!!! Early, for-the-love-of-Pete!!! Of course, thinking you having everything under control with a 3 year-old and an 8 month-old is the absolutley best, sure-fire, no-doubt indicator (last time, I promise) that you don't. I tell Christian he has to turn off the computer games (a new discovery for entertainment) and kinda guide his hand with the mouse to put the cursor on the X and turn it off. Apparently, this was an unbearable insult to his 3 year-old independence. What happens next was awe-inspiring (as in awful not awesome) even to me. For at least 20 minutes, Christian demands through screaming and crying that I let him turn it off. I, stupidly, figure we don't have time to bring up the internet, find the site and navigate to the game so I refuse. I threaten to leave Christian which elicits pathetics whimpers of "wonely". Finally, we get him in the car and I realize, it probably would have taken 5 minutes to just let him do it again.

Once the perfect storm was over, though, we had a very nice time taking Ian to the MTC. Spent a little time with Carylee and Fam as they were sending Brian off, as well. Ian was a good sport through it all and not until we were leaving the parking lot across from the Wilkinson Center did he mention that he was feeling a little ill. Yeah, the thought of 2 years of tracting will do that to ya. But he got off and I think he and Brian will be great missionaries.

After, we dropped Ian off we stopped at the Creamery because I had promised Christian an ice cream. Guess what? They were doing a feature on 2 news and Christian and I were on it. Our collective 15 seconds of fame included Christian stuffing his face like a caveman and me saying "We got roasted almond chocolate" with Jack in the background. Cool, huh? I have it DVR'rd for posterity. By the way, roasted almond chocolate was really good!