Fold My Laundry Please

Finally!  I get to wear my "scary" socks!

This? makes me mad.  Apparently it’s a popular costume this year, too.  Some people have no taste and no respect for grieving families.  When South Park has more tact than you do, it’s time to take a good long look at yourself.

I was reading one of my daily webcomics (PC Weenies) when I noticed the artist’s blog section below the comic.  He has this link posted.  You have to hear it, it’s hilarious!

Today’s Headline:

Mailbox Vandals Strike  Apparently, some kids went around town running down mailboxes with their car last night.  It’s nice to live in a town where something as relatively minor as this gets put front and center in the paper.  It could definitely get worse!

Man Arrested for Breaking Into Office  A tile-layer from out of town broke into a Farmer’s Insurance office to use the computer to look at internet porn.  Someone in the neighborhood noticed that the blinds were down and the lights were on at 11 pm and called the police.  The police broke down the door and "caught" the man at the computer.  Hehe, that one kind of cracked me up!

That’s pretty much it.  The second article didn’t even happen here in Rexburg.  It was in St. Anthony, the next town over.  Other than that, there were a few Associated Press articles from around the nation and the world, obituaries, weddings and engagements, Eagle Scout ranks earned, young men and women who left on their missions this week, school lunch menus, senior center lunch menus, editorial letters, classifieds, comics, and lots and lots of advertising.  Our local paper is just that, LOCAL.  Ah,the simple life of small town living!

We don’t normally watch South Park in our house, but I saw this clip from the show on Youtube and almost wet my pants!  Enjoy!

I thought you guys might like to see a picture of Julia and her sister Anna.  It was taken just this morning (Behold!  The power of the internet!) and I think Julia is the one on the left.  Enjoy!

Today Andrew had yet another round of doctor appointments at the Veteran’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.  Instead of having him drive down there on his own this time, we decided to make it a family road trip.  It’s a four hour drive to Salt Lake from Rexburg and Andrew’s first appointment was at 9:30 am, so we left in the wee hours of the morning.  Even the farmers were still sleeping!  The drive was nice.  I drove first and Andrew read a book to me for about two hours.  Then, because I am a creature of sleep and Andrew is not, he took over driving while I got cozy in the passenger seat and passed out for the remainder of the trip. 

Eventually we reached our destination safely.  I had kind of dreaded waiting around in the hospital with my children.  For one thing, hospitals are not the most kid friendly places.  For another thing, it was a Veteran’s Hospital.  This means that a lot of areas smell suspiciously like urine (and not just near bathrooms), all of the other people there are irritable/in pain/a little too touchy feely, and, to be frank, there’s a whole passle of KUH-RAZY in a Veteran’s Hospital!  Don’t forget, most of those people, along with all of their physical ailments, also have a healthy dose of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to contend with.  So the thought of taking my "4 and Under" crowd inside and trying desperately to keep them from trying to undo the brakes on some poor old man’s wheel chair, or lying down and rolling on the floors, did not appeal to me in the least!

Upon pulling into a parking space, however, my husband had a brilliant idea.  He suggested I drop him off and take the kids to breakfast.  While the thought of me alone in a restaurant with a 4 year old, a 3 year old, and a 14 month old was not my idea of relaxation, it beat the pants off of chasing them around the VA hospital!  So off we went!  After driving around Salt Lake for a bit, we found a Village Inn and went in for breakfast.  The kids were really well behaved and the food was great!  Even better, Andrew called while we were eating.  His first appointment had finished really early, so he went to his next appointment and they were able to take him in early.  Long story short, what was supposed to have been a full day at the hospital ended up only taking about an hour and a half!  So we sucked down the rest of our breakfast as fast as we could and hurried off to pick up Daddy!  Yay!

With so much time to kill, we decided to go wander around the Gateway Mall and Clark Planetarium.  It’s an open air mall and the weather was perfect!  We had a great time wandering around the different stores, spending a little money, and eating lunch.  Then we headed over to the planetarium and had a wonderful time roaming around the different space exhibits gettin’ all edjumucated and stuff.  That was where Andrew and I experienced a serious maturity regression.  We were doing fine at first, looking through telescopes, playing with globes, staring in awe at models of different space exploration vehicles.  Then we headed upstairs to the giant model of the solar system. 

We headed down the row of planets, reading off of the plaques to Ethan, and making intellectual comments and observations of our own.

"Mercury is so tiny." 

"Venus is a lovely blue planet."

"Look, there’s Earth!  Wave to Grandma!"

"Mars is the red one.  It’s smaller than Earth."

"Jupiter is HUGE!"

"Aren’t Saturn’s rings neat?"

"Uranus is a lovely shade of green," I stated innocently.  Here we paused and tried desperately to contain our laughter.  Snorts of air kept managing to escape and mine and Andrew’s faces were turning red.  Ethan and Gideon, oblivious to the maturity of our humor, ran off to look at a video of the space shuttle that was playing on a nearby television set.  "If I remember correctly, Uranus is your favorite planet."  More repressed laughter nearly caused my brain to explode.

"No, my favorite planet is Neptune because it comes after Uranus!"  The laughter escaped and my husband and I just stood there, laughing out loud in front of a large model of Uranus (can you hear me bursting into giggles as I typed that last bit?), unable to grow up and stop making Uranus jokes while other adults walked past us with looks of disgust and revulsion on their faces.

"Look how tiny Pluto is.  You could fit a whole bunch of them inside of Uranus!"

"Take a close look at Uranus.  It must be a very gaseous planet!"

I could go on, but I might burst open stitches that healed up years ago!  It’s official, I’m the most mature person on the planet.  (Which planet?  Why, Uranus of course!) 

HOOOO!  

WOOOO!  

Hoboy…*wipes tears from eyes*…give me a minute…okay, I’m better now.  Anyway, the parents had a good laugh, the kids got to pick out one toy space shuttle each from the gift shop, and we all got a little bit more smarter.  What more could you ask for in a day out with the family!

See, it really is a lovely shade of green!

This past Sunday was our ward’s Primary Program.  Ethan was given his part a few weeks ago and has been very excited for his chance to show off his memorization skills.  He was asked to say, "The blessings found in the scriptures can be mine if I am faithful.  The scriptures give me a special kind of power."  His part was very special because it led into the song "Scripture Power".  Sometime during the last week, Ethan decided he didn’t like the way his lines sounded, so he decided to change them to, "I know the scriptures are true.  The scriptures give me a special kind of power."  It was okay with his teacher and I thought it was cute, so the change stuck. 

During their rehearsal the day before, I practiced some sneaky video recording techniques.  It’s kind of frowned on to pull out your cell phone during Sacrament Meeting and start recording people, even if it is your son and he is being totally adorable.  Well, it started out good that Sunday morning.  I got my phone out and navigated around the correct menus.  I was sitting there with my finger on the button waiting for Ethan to go up, confident in my abilities to get it done unnoticed.  Ethan stood up, I hit record, and Gideon started pulling on my arm that was holding the phone.  All hopes at discretion went out the window as I tried to fend him off with the other arm and still keep from jiggling around too much.  While my first born was up on the stand performing like a little star, his family sat in the congregation, wildly flailing arms around and whispering loudly things like, "Stop it!" and "Shhhhh!" and "Look at Ethan!"  The things I go through just so the Grandma’s can see their grandkids!

Why do I say that?  Because when I woke up and looked out the window, I saw this:

It’s not going to stick yet, but this means that the real snow is acommin’.  I have not been able to warm up all day!  The good news, Sam’s Club sells hot chocolate powder in massive sized containers! 

I have a talent and I can no longer hide it from the world.  I’ve kept this secret for too long and can no longer stand the burden of it.  I’ve been gifted with the ability to detect bedtime!  Really, it’s true!  Before you toss my claims aside, allow me to provide you with proof.  This evening, for example, I was feeling particularly perspicacious. 

Today was a pretty good day.  Ethan had a Primary Activity to go to and I took Gideon with us.  On the walk home we gathered up several beautiful examples of fall leaves that were scattered around on the ground.  We made some really pretty "magic" pictures by putting the leaves under plain pieces of paper and rubbing crayons across the paper.  We made some cute Halloween decorations with pompons, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes.  We ate macaroni and cheese for lunch.  Ethan and I played computer games together most of the afternoon while Gideon and Aurora made a mess of toys all over the house.  All in all it was quite enjoyable.

Then came the first signals that bedtime was iminent.  Aurora began carrying around a blanket and begging to be held by anyone who came near.  Ethan started saying he was "cranky" and would only be able to remove this stigma through the intake of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets covered in buffalo sauce.  Gideon approached us several times saying that "Ethan made me sad," or "Aurora made me mad."  These first clues made my bedtime sense start tingling.  Ethan was told it was time to turn off the game and I was treated to an exclusive display of "The Frown".  A request was extended to the boys for the toys to be picked up so that dinner could commence.  That was when I was witness to this final clue:

Did I balk in the face of adversity?  I did not!  I did what every good parent would do and grabbed the closest recording device to record for posterity the proof that my gift for discerning exhaustion was, in fact, real.  It was definitely bedtime.  So after the forced labor of cleaning up toys was completed, I lovingly tossed large handfuls of dinosaur chicken into the microwave, gave the children a few moments to inhale it, scrubbed the dirt off of their angelic countenances, and hustled them off to bed. 

Why go public with this formidable talent?  I’ve decided to go professional and use this ability to make a little extra spending money.  As of today, I’m officially for hire as a Bedtime Detector.  Not only will I use my skills at perceiving the obvious to look at the clock and determine what time it is, I will make a mental note of the many more subtle hints displayed by children, such as you saw in the above video, and compare those items with the level of noticable frustration shown by you, the parents.  Through this process I will be able to confirm whether your instincts are correct and I will promptly let you know whether or not it is truly bedtime.  I will be operating on a first come, first served basis and will charge a reasonable fee.  Act fast so that you, too, can make use of my services!