When the Lilacs Bloom

Conversation with a four year old

2009-03-31T21:47:00.001-07:00

Riley: "Nanny, did you know that you are a grown up?"
Me: "Who told you I was grown up?"
Riley: "Aunt Jan told me. She said you have a job and everything. And that you are old."
Me: "How old do you think I am?"
Riley: "Old."
Me: "Yes, I've been figuring out I'm a grown up."
Riley: "That means you have to move out of your room, and live in your own house, and get married."
Me: "Get married? Who do you think I should get married to?"
Riley: " I don't know, but you should also have a baby."
Me: "Wow, do you really think so?"
Riley: "Yes, that's what grown ups do.... Nanny, lets go jump on the tramp."
Me: "Okay."

You know you are a grown up when the four year olds start coming at you with marriage and children advice. Maybe it's time to get serious about this stuff.

A Veritable Smorgasbord

2008-09-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Recently Rachel, Nick, Baby Soren and I had the enjoyment of visiting the Eastern Idaho State Fair. Here are some of the highlights.

Baby Soren petting a bunny
A Goat
Baby Soren and Rachel saying hello to a cow
A napping goat
Soren and I feeding a baby goat

The Fair was not all "goat"-centric though. We also ate delicious food. Looked at tiny houses. Explored the rides and toys, and again ate delicious food. It was a delight that I look forward to each year.

The Case of the Missing Missionary

2008-09-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

So, Rusty has been serving his mission in Houston Texas for a little over a month now. He left August 27th. He was in the MTC for a couple of weeks and went down to Texas on September 17th. The last letter we got from him was September 15th, the Monday before he went down to Houston. There are so many issues with this. Because I know he has arrived there safely. The mission president sent us a lovely letter telling us so. So why is he not writing? Is he too busy? Is he miserable and doesn't want to tell us about it. Is he so happily thriving in Texas that he has no time to for his wretched family back home. What is the deal Rusty! Write us a stinking letter. We must know how you are doing. WE MUST!

Tribute to Lorianncumr...

2008-03-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

Ahh... Loriann. You should post here more often. But I'm glad you invited me to contribute, because I just did.

You're great. I can't wait to hear your witty remarks tomorrow at Documentary Night.

Why I love Oscar

2007-09-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

Oscar came to live with me 3 and 1/2 years ago right before my 21st birthday. He is fabulous. He is really noisy and makes a lot of talkative grumbly noises. He loves kids, especially babies. Mostly he likes to lick them because they taste delicious. I love Oscar because he loves me and everyone in my family. He is always excited whenever anyone comes home. He is most excited when I come home. His favorite thing to do is go for walks by the canal, which we do daily. We also enjoy snuggling while watching television. He also is a bed hog, but I don't mind. These are just a few of the reasons why I love Oscar.

Best thing about my backyard... the trampoline

2007-09-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

While there are many things to love about my home, the thing I like most is the backyard. I love the grass, the garden, the many many trees my father has planted over the years (it increases property value). We have a lot of room to play games and have water gun fights. I like to lay in the grass with both dogs and look up at the sky, pondering the many meanings of life. But by far the BEST part of my backyard is the trampoline. The trampoline was given to us by a man who lives down the road and is a friend of my father. He is old and his children grew up and didn't use it anymore. We got it when I was about 10. It is fabulous. You would think that at the age of 24 I wouldn't still love the tramp as much as I do, but who doesn't love jumping through the air? I am still the person in our family who uses it the most. The person who uses it the most after me? My dad.

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

2007-08-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

While driving to work the other day I spotted this young man on the side of the road with a sign that read, "Spaceship broke down, need parts, may the force be with you." He wasn't making eye contact with anyone, and I don't know if he was making a lot of spare change that particular morning. It was more entertaining to me than most of the, "Lost Soul, God Bless" signs, so I decided to take his picture. He found this comical and though he tried to contain himself, couldn't. I thought about giving him a dollar for the sheer fact that he had posed for my picture taking, but then noticed he had a new case for the guitar he was carrying and must have had enough money to pierce his lip and his ears,so I figured he was doing okay. I would save my dollar for something else. And just write about the guy who was begging for my with a spaceship sign.

The Fighting Three's

2007-07-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

The terrible two's have dissolved away for my cousin Riley into a new stage of life. I don't know how else to describe it but, the fighting three's. Being raised predominatley by a single father she is surrounded by quite a lot of testosterone, and innudated by a lot of boxing and wrestling type television programs. It is no wonder that in the middle of playing something like 'shopping cart' she will turn to me and say, "let's get down on the carpet and fight."

"I don't feel like fighting right now. Why don't you go see what Rusty is doing?" Armed with a pillow Riley is now on the hunt for my brother Rusty to play a fighting game.

Sometimes when Riley is totally relaxed, just about to go to sleep she makes a face. It is her baby face, still chubby and round with her mouth closed and her eyes concentrated. I miss this face, as it is the one I spent months looking at and taking care of. She never talked back or squealed at me, never invited me to fight with her on the carpet. She was just a little bundle of wiggling joy who I was the boss of and got to feed canned baby food and graham crackers to daily. I miss that face.

Riley has now resurfaced with Rusty behind her, her pink sundress flouncing around her as she prepares her battle stances. She smacks him with a pillow. They roll to the ground locked together in a serious wrestling move.

Riley goes in for the next round with the bucket that the blocks are housed in on her head. It is her helmet. I am cheering out "go bucket head!" as she charges Rusty, but the 'bucket head' comment was too hilarious for her and she collapses in his arms in a fit of giggles. "Nanny, come fight with us", she laughs. As she removes the bucket from her head she stands up and SLAMS Rusty with a pillow. I refuse to fight with them on this day.

2007-07-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

My name is ART.

Oscar at the Beach

2007-07-18T14:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Oscar and I went to Bear Lake. We went with Tyson and Katy and their dog Lilly. For those who know Oscar he is unfriendly and at times like a cranky old man who feels it unnecessary to make new friends. Lilly who is pictured above is a young puppy who just likes to play and tried very hard all weekend to get on Oscar's good side. It was to no avail.

On both Friday and Saturday we spent lovely afternoon's on the beach swimming. In Oscar's younger day's he wasn't very keen on spending time in the water, but on this trip trotted happily into the oncoming waves. He splashed about and played fetch. As long as his feet touched bottom he remained calm. As soon as he reached deeper waters though he began to thrash wildly like drowning rat and immediately looked to me for rescue.

An enjoyable time was had by all and I am very proud of Oscar's new swimming expertise.

Post Secret - My Mental Image

2007-06-25T13:31:00.000-07:00

There is an amazing website full of little art projects that I like to go to each week. This is the web page: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/.

The picture above stood out to me because the woman had such a kind face and because everybody's mental image of God is probably a little different. I'm surprised by how many people think he would look mean. I always think he looks very kind.

This picture also reminded me of when I was a little girl and thought that the Holy Ghost was a super tiny man who wore blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and cowboy boots. He had to be really small because he had to fit in my pocket so he could always be with me. At night I would imagine taking him out of my pocket and setting him on my nightstand next to my Raggedy Ann lamp so he could watch me all through the night. I'm not really sure why he wore cowboy boots and blue jeans instead of a robe like Jesus, but it made sense at the time. It's a mental image that I've never really been able to break.

Who wants to play Ro-Sham-Bo?

2007-06-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

" Let's play Ro-Sham-Bo Nanny," my cousin Riley declared, sitting down in front of me with her legs crossed and putting her hand out flat. "Don't play it with her, " my brother Rusty said, "she cheats." I looked at Riley with a suspicious eye. "Is that true? Are you a cheater?" Riley thought about it for a second and then replied, "Yes... I am."

"I've never heard of this game before, is it like rock paper scissors?" I asked the 3 year old sitting in front of me. "What you do," she said "is you take your hands and you shake them up and you say Ro-Sham-Bo, and whoevers hand looks like this (she made her fist look a little like a firecracker going off) is the one who wins." "Let's play" I said.

"Ro-Sham-Bo" we both chanted. She made the sign for 3, something she has just learned because her third birthday was last week. I made the sign for paper. "I win" she declared. "Why?" I asked. "Because I'm 3!"

"Ro-Sham-Bo" we chant. She made the sign for 1 and I made the sign for scissors. "I win" she says. "No, I win." I say, pretending to cut off her finger with my scissor fingers. She looks at me stunned. Then she laughs like a mad woman and replies, "That is winning, Nanny."

"Ro-Sham-Bo". I put in my fist for rock, she sticks in her foot. "I win" she declares. I bite her foot and the game dissolves into a tickle fight. Rusty walks in to find the two champions of Ro-Sham-Bo. He has refused to play the game with the 3 year old anymore because "it just doesn't make any sense, and you can only win because you cheat at it too." So be it.

Life Lessons While Driving

2007-06-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

While driving my two year old cousin Riley around in the car I often discover fascinating things about myself. I am a songwriter and a brilliant joke teller. Given such directives as, "Nanny sing me the song about teeth." I can come up with brilliant and witty lyrics like "You have teeth, chomp chomp, I have teeth, chomp chomp, Baby Soren doesn't have teeth, wah wah!" (You might be more impressed if you heard the melody.)
I am also excellent at explaining the laws of motion. "Nanny how does that train move?" "Well, it makes the choo chooing sound and the conductor who drives the train pushes the button that makes the chugga chugga sound and the train keeps moving. Also, don't play on the train tracks."
I am NOT good however at explaining death and loss, which is also something that one can view while driving along the highways of Idaho. On a recent trip home Riley and I viewed a most horrifying event. A horse had been struck by a vehicle and then, being too big to move a bullodozer had to be called in to pick it up and then hoist it HIGH in the air and dump it into the back of a pickup truck. Even I at the mature age of 24 was truly shocked by the event taking place before us, but Riley slowly removed her sunglasses and stated with much upset, "Nanny, WHAT are they DOING to that horse?"
How to answer such a question? As the horse was hoisted high above our heads, right in the middle of our path, it's legs stiff with rigor mortis, I turned to see Riley's eyes light up just as they had at spud day when I took her on the pony ride. Then, in one awful moment, the bulldozer released it's bucket and the horse fell, making a horrible THUD onto the back of the flat bed truck.
The THUD was too much to bear. Hitting reverse we flipped around on the country road, Riley beginning to squeal in excitement at the accelaration. "Nanny WHAT were they DOING to that horse? WHAT were they DOING to that horse?" Some sort of explanation needed to occur here. Did I need to explain death? That seemed to hard. Was the horse asleep? That seemed horribly implausible. Maybe she hadn't gotten as good a view of the event as I had.
"Well Riley, the horse was training for a trick where he jumps really high in the air and then onto a truck." "Like my daddy's truck?" "JUST like your daddy's truck!" "I love my daddy's truck."
Problem solved.

I Scored Big with Juannonhot

2007-06-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

I was recently introduced to the game of scrabble. Rachel and Nick both raved about how fun it was, but didn't know what a great competitor I would be when I played such words as ZIGATO, JUANNONHOT, WHIZ (def: to pee). Only when I played the word VEINS did Rachel say, "I'm not going to let you cheat anymore."

The Little Girl and the Sea

2005-11-21T08:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, it was not the sea... it was a reservoir. And it was frozen. I was bundled from head to toe in my snazzy pink jumpsuit ready for a day of ice fishing. Ice fishing is truly boring. You go to a frozen lake... or reservoir. You drill a hole in the ice. You drop your fishing line through that hole. And then you wait. You sit, and stare at the tiny hole and wait for a fish to come along and eat the marshmellow off your hook. All in all it is a wearisome day. But, to a 5 year old, ice fishing is fun. You can scoot around on the ice, you can play with the fish that have already been caught and you can drop things down the hole that you are fishing out of. Unknown to my five year old self, this is a verboten activity. It scares the fish. But it's fun to drop things down the icy hole and watch them sink into the dark waters below, when your father is not watching. Now, as I was closely watching the hole, the fishing pole line started to bob. My father, who was trying to reel a fish in on another hole said, "go ahead, reel your fish in." I was scared. What if the fish pulled me down this hole? I reluctantly took the pole and started to extract my fish from the reservoir. But this fish was HUGE. It was putting up a fight. It was a battle of wills. But... my will was wanting to give up. "Dad the fish is going to drown me!" "That fish won't drown you," my dad said, "just keep reeling it in." My arms were getting tired and the fish was pulling me closer towards the hole. "He's going to kill me dad. He's going to drown me!" Just then up popped the biggest fish I've ever seen. It was the biggest fish I've ever caught. We both fell to the ice in exhaustion. By now, my dad had reeled his tiny fish in and had come over to my fishing hole. He unhooked my magnanimous catch from the hook and said, "Well, that is a big fish." As I posed for my picture, with a fish almost as big as myself I said, "We should get this one mounted on the wall." My dad said, "We only mount the things I catch." Apparently when your five, you've got no authority.

Puppy Headwear

2005-11-09T10:34:00.000-08:00

Oscar has a strange obsession with my head. He likes to sit on it. It doesn't matter if it's my face, the top of my head, the back of my head, he just likes to be on my head. He likes my hair, the way it smells, and when I put it up in a pony tail or bun, he thinks that it is his playtoy, and chomps on it with his teeth. Sometimes in the morning I wake up to find him tightly curled around my skull, kind of like earmuffs. For someone who is only about 12" tall I must be the perfect candidate to perch himself upon to see a fantastic view of the world. 62" must be just the right height to see all the wonders of puppydom that could not otherwise be realized without my assistance.

Vomiting Pumpkin

2005-11-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

This Halloween the jack-o-lantern I carved ate all of his trick or treat candy in one sitting, got sick, and then threw it up. I felt kind of sorry for him, but I warned him of the dangers of too much sugar. Poor little guy.

Best Friends

2005-11-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

Rachel, Holly and Loriann. Three tried and true friends. They've laughed and loved together. Fought and played. Skinny dipped in the canal. And through the end, they will always be there for each other. What is the purpose having such amazing friendships? Eugene Kennedy said "The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple? " The moments of friendship that I remember most are spooning on the couch late at night doing literally nothing. Everyone laying in bed together, or watching movies, or dancing absurdly. That is the purpose of having such amazing friendships. Remembering those moments and loving your friends for a lifetime.

Oscar and Loriann go everywhere together...even Boise

2005-10-31T13:12:00.000-08:00

This weekend Oscar and I packed up the car and traveled many a mile to visit Jamie and Mikey. My friend's have all grown up and moved far away, so I decided I should buy a new car so I can travel to see them. After a few hours of driving I arrived in Boise. Oscar and I checked into our Hotel. It was super swanky... meaning it was NICE. We stayed at the Red Lion in Downtown Boise right near the river. Just as I was throwing myself on my luxurious king size bed overflowing with pillows Jamie called. Mikey was cooking Friend Rice and Sweet and Sour Chicken. That's something that really can't be passed up. So Oscar and I hurried over to Euclid Avenue (that's where they live). I was greeted by a widely grinning Evelyn who was happily laying on the couch. Oscar had to investigate this small human. He sniffed her, but then found that there was chicken cooking in the kitchen, so he moved on. Andrew and Jamie were playing outside in the car, but quickly came in to see their visitors. Andrew was happy to play with the puppy he called "Custard" That night we ate dinner, all of us together. Then Jamie and I, with a little help from Oscar, gave Andrew a bath. I forgot the importance of bathtime. It really can be the best part of the day. That night Oscar and I went back to our cozy hotel room and snuggled into our comfy bed safe and warm.

Friend Rice

2005-10-31T11:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend I ate Friend Rice. This is much like Fried Rice, but do not confuse it. Fried Rice can be eaten anywhere at anytime with anyone. But friend rice is special. It is made with love and eaten with Friends. I ate Friend Rice with Jamie, Mikey, Andrew, Evelyn and Oscar on Friday evening. I even helped Mikey make the Friend Rice. He makes his Friend Rice with Bacon, not Ham. It was ultra delicious. Andrew shared his Friend Rice with Oscar, who was very appreciative. He had Friend Rice stuck in his beard and his eyebrows. Andrew ate his Friend Rice with a fork, and then with his fingers.
This is not the first time I have had Friend Rice. Nick and I used to eat Friend Rice at the Mongolian grill. He enjoyed it more than I. They only serve it during the lunch hour though. He would mix his friend rice with his mongolian grill concoction. I preferred to mix mine with my soup. Either way, Nick usually ended up eating both of our Friend Rice.
Friend Rice is best eaten with your closest friends. It makes you laugh much. Sometimes your Friend Rice ends up on the floor, but that is okay, as long as Oscar is around. He's good at hoovering things up off the floor. Most importantly after eating your Friend Rice, you should sit together cozily on the couch together and laugh. Or, if you are eating Friend Rice with Andrew, you will probably have to put him in the bathtub. But that's just how life goes.