Navy had a great night of sleeping, and was zonked out until 5:30 — a new record, and the most consecutive sleep I have had in a long time.
I was looking forward to heading back to dreamland after feeding her, until Micah came down and handed Stinky off to me after being up with him for hours. We tried to lay quietly and fall back asleep. But after him wanting to talk about “milk”, his “boo boo”, “bugawuga”, and anything else that fluttered into his mind, I decided to give Micah some decent sleep and take Scout out. I noticed the sky was just starting to get light over the mountain’s, so Scout and I headed out to our beach chairs to “do something fun” and watch the sunrise. We listened to the birdies sing, and the monkeys (which were the crows making their noises). But the highlight was watching the sky turn a thousand different colors as the sun was about to come up. I made oatmeal for him in an attempt to keep him warm, and he also snacked on raisins. We talked all about “dark” and “light”, and I am pretty sure he has grasped the whole concept of the earth rotating on a 24 hour cycle. The following is a picture diary of the morning’s events — once I got Scout:
First light
Scout snacking
Me laughing at him
Scout wrapped up to stay warm
And finally — daytime!
On Sunday, about 3/4 of the way through Sacrament meeting I decided to bear my testimony. I always grew up sitting on the first row of church, and we do now also …. which at times I feel like reconsidering due to Scout’s unconstrained and larger than usual “play” area. But to be honest, sitting in the front is the only place I really listen intently and don’t get distracted by what is in front of me. So the front it is….and always will be.
As I headed up to the pulpit, all was fine. I started speaking, and Scout comes up after me. (By the way — I am not into the whole little rowdy kid following the parent up thing.) Well, there he was and he stands to the side — very wisely just out of my reach — and is grinning ear to ear as he looked out at the entire congregation. People were giggling, and I asked Micah if he was going to get the “stinky little kid”. Because I was trying to speak, I don’t really know what happened, but I then saw Scout down where he was supposed to be….so I thought the little mishap had ended.
As I continued to talk, I about jumped out of my skin as the organ roared out the loudest note for about 7 seconds straight. I turned back, and there Scout was….grinning from ear to ear. Of course I started to laugh because it really was funny (the part about it being my kid was the only not funny part). The whole ward was laughing at this point, and I just looked down to see what my darling husband was going to do. And what I saw was the proudest father on the planet, who did everything short of put his arms in the air and shout “good for you my boy” in the air, as he beamed with delight. Thank goodness I saw my mom scrambling to get the little punk in my peripheral vision. In the meantime, good old Rod Hopkins had grabbed him and at least stopped the loud note. By this time, I was only slightly mortified (more at my husband than my kid), but had to keep going. I commented that once again, our family had made our mark and moved on.
When I got down, I asked Micah why he wasn’t stopping Scout in the first place. He basically told me that he was totally entertained, and he was waiting to see what he was going to do. Then he went on to tell me that Scout definitely exceeded his expectations. HUH, I don’t get it? How about we keep that on the ball field from now on.
(As a side note — I had at least 25 people tell me that our little episode was the best they have ever seen (great….I hope we are now part of the “craziest church moments” conversation. And I have to admit, I have never witnessed anything so white trash. I am glad my family could oblige.)
Whenever Scout finds a feather, he/we call them “birdies”. Once he gets one, he gets really excited and brings it over to me. I hold it, have him close his eyes to make a wish, and when he opens them, he blows on it to make it float away. (With a little huff and puff from me.) We are making wishes on birdies up to ten times a day, and he thinks it is totally fun…..talk about the simple things!
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