A better day

Today was a much better day at our house. So much better, in fact, that I can look back and think it was pleasant, enjoyable and, at times, even humorous.

After breakfast we went visiting teaching, which is always an adventure. At one home we ended up with six kids running around, at another only five. But we did manage to get some discussion in and the children all enjoyed playing together (for the most part).

The afternoon was a jumble of lunchtime, nap time, movie watching, dancing in the living room, and silliness.

Rachel was rather funny today. At dinner we were talking, for some reason, about when she would get to go to college. She's always rushing to be an adult (I don't know why). I told her that college was a long way off—she still had kindergarten and elementary school and middle school and high school before college.

"What's high school?" Rachel asked. "Is it just for Heisses?"

"No," I told her. "It's high school, not Heiss school. It's for everybody."

"Oh," she said, like this was the biggest blow I had ever delivered to her ego.

Later, when the kids were in the tub, I asked Rachel to wash her ears really well because I had noticed they were looking a little dirty.

"After my bath can you give us toothpicks so we can clean our ears out with those?" she asked.

"I don't think you mean toothpicks," I said. "I think you mean..."

"Oh, you know, Mom!" she sighed exasperatedly. "Those toothpicks with the fuzzies on the ends!"

"Right. Those are called Q-tips. And, yes, you can have some."

She later almost pierced her eardrum with one. It's a good thing I decided to give her Q-tips instead of toothpicks, isn't it? Ten minutes of crying and she was all better.

After a discussion about how we only use Q-tips to clean our outer ear and a long dose of story time, we went with Grandma to the Provo airport to pick up Daddy! On the way, Miriam was as talkative as could be and anything she said had to be repeated at least twice.

"Grandma! I see a church outside!" she'd say once.

"Very nice."

"Mommy! I see a church outside!" she'd say again.

"Wonderful."

"Rachie! I see a church outside!" she'd say once more.

"Stop telling us! Mom, why does she keep saying that?" Rachel would whine.

It went on like this for a while until Miriam saw a pokey tree.

"Grandma! I see a pokey tree! Mommy! I see a pokey tree! Rachie! I see a pokey tree! Mommy! Me sing a song about pokey trees! Pokey tree! Pokey tree! Pokey tree! Pokey tree! Pokey tree! Pokey tree!"

"Why does she keep saying that?" Rachel moaned.

"Not saying! Me singing! Pokey tree! Pokey tree! Pokey tree!"

"Make her stop!"

"Ummm..." Miriam said, "When it dark outside...My touched one...A pokey tree!"

It was a very entertaining ride to the airport, which is likely the smallest airport I've ever been inside in my whole entire life. It was full of people milling around, waiting for the plane to arrive...because all the seats (like all ten of them) were taken. We chose a spot right by the doors so we could watch the plane come in. The girls had fun watching Daddy's plane land and were so excited to see him walk through the doors but when I announced we had better go show Daddy where the van was parked, Miriam started crying.

"Meme go on a plane, too!" she bawled.

She had settled down by the time we got to the van but was still rather disgruntled.

Andrew sat in the front seat and turned around and said, "Hi, Miriam!"

"I'm Meme-Beam!" she shouted. "That's Mommy's spot!"

That certainly put him in his place. Meme-beam is just another of her plentiful nicknames. It goes well in the song Jesus Wants Me For a...Meme-beam.

Anyway, on the way home the girls saw a gun shop.

"Why does that store have a picture with two guns making an X?" Rachel asked.

"It's a gun shop," I told her.

"Oh. So people can buy guns in there so they can shoot deer?"

"Yes."

"And bears?"

"Yes."

Then Miriam thought she'd add to the list, "And lions?"

"No," Rachel answered solemnly. "Don't you know that people can't kill lions? They are much more powerful than people. Too powerful."

Just then we entered some serious road construction and Grandma momentarily lost her lane.

"Where's the line? Where's the line?" she asked.

"There's a lion?!" Rachel gasped. "Where?"

"Line," Grandma said. "Not li-on. Oh, there it is. I see it."

"I see a bear," Miriam casually remarked.

We humoured her by asking, "You do?"

"Yes," she affirmed.

"I hope not," Grandma said, "Because that would be scary!"

"Yes, you would be scared, Grandma," Rachel said before cautioning, "And you might want to run out of the car but you shouldn't because then you would be killed."

Fortunately we weren't too far away from the gun shop at this point so if push came to shove we could just rush back there, buy a gun, and kill the bear. Unless what Miriam saw was actually the lion Rachel was worried about, in which case all hope would be lost because lions are far too powerful for humans to kill, or so I'm told.

We got home without actually seeing any lions or tigers or bears, thankfully, and got the girls into bed within half an hour. Andrew had to hug and kiss them goodnight twice (once to make up for last night, I suppose).

Today was a much better day than yesterday. I vote that we have another day like today tomorrow.