Junk Mail

I'm so glad I checked my junk email! There were several things that weren't really junk. If I had just let it be automatically deleted after a week, I would have never found out that I had won £850,000 in a contest I never entered! (We can pay off our house early and fund most of our retirement now!) I also wouldn't know about the special natural herb that would help me lose weight eight times faster! I wouldn't have found a cheap Canadian pharmacy where I could order medication for erectile dysfunction! I would have missed out on many other opportunities, like knowing how to have naturally bigger body parts. I don't know which one I should choose. Do I go for the weight loss or the bigger boobs? Maybe I can do both! It's all natural, after all...

Avery and I are teaching ourselves how to play the ukulele. I love how Sadie says ukulele. Ook-uh-way-way.

I am pretty sure that Sadie has had RSV the last couple of days. I felt so glad when she woke up today with a lower fever and almost breathing normally. She also has an appetite again today, which is great. I have already given her two breakfasts and two large snacks, and she is ready for an early lunch. And she is back to spending all her time in the big black bin, pretending it is a boat or a house or a baby tiger cage. The baby tiger talks. Now she has it upside down on top of her. She flipped it over on its side and wants me to roll her in it. Nope, it's already a big drum again. And the one inch high book she got to use as a step stool made a big difference as she climbed on top of it for a bumpy ride. Way up there in the sky now. I almost miss the sicker cuddly girl from yesterday...

If only I had enough energy to keep up with her! 

Preston made his car for the pinewood derby tonight. He made a purple Minion. He glued some fuzzy "hair" on the top, even though he knew it would slow his car down a little. He said he just wanted to have fun, and he doesn't care if he wins. Bill made Preston do it himself except part of the cutting with some tool that Bill didn't feel was was safe enough for a kid to use even with help. Our kids never have the fanciest cars since they have to design and make the cars mostly by themselves. Carter did win one year, despite having a car that was clearly made by a kid...

Carter built a Geiger counter and made a presentation about it for his class. I hope it helps make up for some of the work he completed but didn't turn in. He loses everything! The last slide of his presentation about how the Geiger counter detects radiation had the song "Radioactive" on it. Funny dude.

Sadie: I wuv you! (Then she squeezed my feet.)

Me: What are you talking about?

Sadie: I just wuv your toes so much! Hi, toes. Do you wanna pway with me? Yeah, I do. Okay, wet's pway, toes. Okay. (Every time my toes "talked," they had a super high pitched voice, and she would talk in her normal voice to the toes.)

Easily Embarrassed

I get embarrassed easily. Many times I later realize that my embarrassment was ridiculous. (Remember that I was embarrassed to be standing by a cactus when I was in kindergarten or first grade.) Other times, I feel my face flush when I am just thinking about a past action or extremely stupid thing I said, even years later. (I would give you an example here, but I am too embarrassed about the things that continually come to mind.) 

I have been reading lots of articles and Facebook status updates and blog posts the past few days, all regarding Easter and the Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ. One blog post in particular, stood out to me. It was a very bold declaration of his faith. It brought to my mind the admonition to "stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things and in all places." I believe in the importance of being that witness, but I have never been very good at actually doing it. I am not bold. 

I know that my fear of sharing my beliefs began as a child, living in a place where my siblings and I were the only members of our faith in our school. Some kids made fun of me. Others were not allowed to play with us because of our religion. I began to avoid all topic of religion. I was embarrassed about my faith, even though I had a testimony in my heart at a very young age that it was true. Even as an adult, I have felt some of that fear and embarrassment. It is hard to outgrow.

One thing that I later realized is that I was never embarrassed about my actual beliefs. Most people who actually study and pray will learn that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that it can bless their lives. I feel no shame in that faith. I felt more embarrassed, imagining what they thought about me and about my religion. I knew many of the lies that they had been taught in their churches regarding my religion. The other kids would talk openly about it to me. I was embarrassed that they thought bad things about my church. How silly of me to be embarrassed that other people's preachers taught them things that were not true! How stupid of me not to proclaim my faith so that they knew the truth instead of the lies! I realize now that their misconceptions should have had no bearing on my willingness to share the Gospel. It's hard to realize things like that when I am busy being embarrassed.

At least now I have too many valid things to be embarrassed about to worry about the invalid reasons. My kid ate almost nothing but candy today. I can only walk through my bedroom if I stay along the straight and narrow path between all the papers and laundry and the luggage left over from the last trip I went on. My kid played a whole Bach minuet with weird three inch paper claw things on his fingers and a big black cape on. I sang Phantom of the Opera songs with him after that, very loudly. The windows were wide open, and it was nice out, so lots of neighbors probably heard me. I also ate very little other than candy today. 

All actual valid reasons to be embarrassed, right? 

Darn Ninja

Sadie kept kicking me in my injured shoulder. Her explanations:  "I'm sorry! I was doing a baway on your arm." (Ballet) Then, when she did it a few seconds later, "I was just doing a ninja on your arm. I was being a ninja. Do you want me to do another ninja? Do you?" I didn't.

Sadie frequently has these kinds of conversations. I wrote the next one as she was saying the weird stuff. She was still going for a long time, but she stole one of my hands, so I quit recording the conversation because it was hard to type with one hand. 

Sadie: Wook at this. It's a darn?

Me: What's a darn?

Sadie: It's a darn darn darn. It's a darn poop! (Giggle) It's a darn poop on the swide! It's a darn poop poop poop. I can't put my ehbow up! I can't put my ehbow up! Oh yeah, I can. We should go get the maioh again. We should. I'm asweep. Honk shoo. Oh, now it's breakfast time. See my toesies? See them? They are right here! See my toes darn. See them died. My other toes died. And my hands. See it? Argh. This is garbage. Cuddoh up. I wih, Mommy. Oh no! Where's my bread? Cwosed and open and cwosed. It's gone. Poor behwy. See, my behwy's wost. My behwy's wost! It disappeared. I wih NEVER get my bread. Never get my behwy. I wih sweep on you, Mom. It's okay. I'm gonna feeoh you. I'm gonna feeoh your hand. Fingers go home. Never wost again. Never wost again again. It's okay, I can do that, finger. You can go home and have a daddy dinner. 

I don't know how her little mind works, but I love listening to her. And now she has a little piece of wrapping paper and is telling me that she's trying to make something. It's hard to keep up with her. "Surprise! It's a present! It's for you. I found you this present. You can open it up. See? See, I opened it up. Mommy, I'm trying to fix this. Now it's a party hat. Happy Birthday! It's your happy birthday." And she's going again. 

Sneeze Booms

I told my sister and mom that Preston had been eating so much the last few weeks and that he would probably have a big growth spurt soon. He responded, "I will not! That's mean to say, Mom." I asked how it could be a mean thing to say he was about to grow a lot. He started to laugh. "I thought you said I was going to have a BIG GROSS BURP instead of a big growth spurt!" (It was a pants of doom moment.)

Preston stayed home from school because he was sick. Sadie has loved having him here. "Preston is a farm cat. No, he's a waggiwy taiow woof woof. No, he's a wady bug, not a occopus."

Sadie also said, "I sneezed a funny sound. I did a sneeze boom!"

The first thing Sadie asked for this morning was black licorice. 

We went up to my sister's house for the weekend so Bill could help her husband put their new play set together. It was really awesome on the way home. First, we stopped for dinner. The first place we went to was randomly closed that day. The next place ended up taking us almost two hours. It was already bedtime before we even started driving. About a minute after we started driving, Sadie threw up all over. We stopped and cleaned it up. I was outside, trying to get something out of the back of the car for her when I knocked myself out for a few seconds by hitting my head really hard. (I'm guessing that was why I woke up with a really bad headache the next day.) We finally got everything in order and started driving again. About twenty minutes later, she did it again. We stopped at the next exit and cleaned her up. About ten minutes later, Avery started crying because she had to go potty really badly. We drove another ten or fifteen minutes until we found a place. We still had to drop my mom off at my other sister's house on the way home. (For some reason, she didn't want to sleep at our house when we had a kid throwing up.) And that's how our hour and a half drive home turned into over five hours. And we still had to bathe a kid covered in vomit and take the car seat apart to wash it. It was awesome. And Bill wasn't feeling great that whole time, and I could barely walk, so it was hard for me to help out much when we got home. 

At my sister's house, Sadie wanted ice in her water. She kept getting upset when the ice would disappear a minute later. "I need another piece! Someone stow my piece! It's aw gone!" I tried to explain about how ice melts and turns into water, but she didn't get it.

We thought after Sadie and her cousin got in huge trouble a week ago for coloring all over themselves and the house with markers that she wouldn't do it anymore. Wrong. Then next day, she drew on the wall downstairs with a sharpie. Last night, she drew all over her little play house and her whole body with a blue marker. We thought we had thrown them all away, but I guess we missed one. It didn't wash off in the bath, so she is a mess. She knew she was being naughty. Even as she was discovered, she started saying, "We ony cowor on paper with crayons. We ony cowor on paper."