Yup, he's a boy.

Sorry, this one is kinda long, but I hope you'll understand as we've had a bit of stress this morning.

Emily sings in a small group made up of Her dad, two sisters and, of course, her. They typically get together on Saturday mornings, and occasionally, Jeremy and the kids come along to play while the moms practice.

Today seemed no different than any other time the kids get together. Lots of running, jumping, screeching, hooting and hollering, with occasional weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth if someone does something another doesn't like. Just the usual kid stuff.

Anyway, Jeremy asked if we wanted to go to the park to get out of the house (and the hair of the aforementioned practitioners). So, we tried our best to wrangle the howler monkeys enough to get shoes on and head out the door.

Well, while I was trying to get the stroller out of the van for Henry, he escaped out the front door and decided to try his hand at going down the front steps by himself. Now, on a GOOD day, he still walks like a sailor who's had a bit too much shore leave, let alone when he tries to run sideways. He got the first step okay, but gravity and his momentum carried him down the other one where he hit a tiny pebble on the driveway.

Now, I have to give him a bit of credit. He did put out his hands to catch himself, which they did, but his noggin must weigh as much as a bowling ball because he tipped like a teeter-totter smacking his forehead (with his feet in the air) on the cement. I got a first-hand view in slow motion.

I got to him while he was still face down, picked him up and blood started flowing. ALOT. I kinda feel bad because Hank must've felt like I was torturing him. I grabbed the first thing I thought of to stop the bleeding, which was his shirt. I pulled it up right over his face. That didn't work. After that, I went to the front door to get Momma and everything else went by in a bit of a blur.

Nobody lost their calm or anything like that. Thank you to Jen and Grammy for helping. It took about 5 minutes total for his head to stop bleeding and then we could see that he didn't need stitches (thankfully). After we got it stopped he just went about his business like nothing had happened.

I think he was mainly annoyed with people holding his hands down and pushing on his forehead.

Yup, he's a boy alright.

P.S. Grammy just told us that while all the commotion was going on, Henry's cousin Eva, saw the blood and starting saying, "He's dead! He's dead!" at that point Josh chimes in with the same thing: "He's dead! He's dead!". I think that is HILARIOUS!

Absolutely priceless memories but, no I don't need more like this one, thank you very much. (But, I'm sure I'll get them.)

Spider-man

Audrey likes to be my shadow and goes with me wherever she can. She likes to "help" me take the trash out to the dumpster or whatever errand I'm doing at the moment. Most of the time it's fun for me too.

Anyway, today we went outside to get the mail. No big deal, just out to the curb and back, right?

We had just finished lunch (Taco Bell, mmm...), and I had JUST put Henry down for his nap. I asked Audrey if she wanted to go with me and she obliged me (of course).

Well, I seemed to have picked up a hitchhiker along the way. We get back into the house and Audrey says to me in a bit of a scared tone, "Dad, there's a spider on you!" and runs off to go get Em.

Now, first thing is that she is almost deathly afraid of spiders for some reason.

(Well, we kinda know the reason. She got bit on the bum a couple of months ago while sitting on the toilet and now says there's a spider in the bathroom almost every morning even before she goes in there to pee).

Anyway, I stand in the entry way til Em gets there and Audrey is already starting to freak out a bit, so I just have to be the brave daddy and pretend that it's no big deal, while being totally still in case there actually IS a spider on me somewhere.

So, Em gets there and as she's looking for it, the poor little critter decides to silk its way to the floor from the bottom of my shorts. Em is bending over to try to get to it and Audrey gives the biggest scream I've ever heard from her.

Now, this wasn't a "I'm trying to get your attention" scream, or "I'm yelling for fun" scream, this was a "I'm about to get eaten by a two-ton tarantula" scream. I mean, her eyes were bigger than Dara's! (No offense Dara, but I just needed a point of reference.)

And, she screamed right into Em's ear. As soon as I saw it on the floor, I squished the little thing which couldn't have even been the size of my pinky fingernail. After that, we had to calm Audrey down and tell her that things usually get worse if you panic.

I think we'll have to work on that for a while, though.

Gumpy bottoms...

My conversation with Audrey early this morning went like this:

"Audrey, go back into your room . It's not time to get up yet."

"But I want my doodle! I wanna play! I wanna play!"

I proceeded to close the door with her inside her room. After a moment I hear Henry start to get cranky. I then hear,

"HENRY!

YOU CAN'T CRY, I WANT TO CRY!!!"

Interesting Joke From a 3 Year Old

Audrey: "Knock, Knock."

Em: "Who's there?"

"Willamina."

"Willamina, who?"

"I want some candy!!"

Audrey told Em this joke in church on Sunday. She just made it up on her own, as far as we know. She's really been going with her imagination recently and it's been great to see and hear how her mind works.

Oh Deer!

Do you ever have those moments where you have a near-miss event and you think of the one or two things you could have done differently and that would have been YOU in the circumstance?

I had that happen to me this morning.

I was on my way home from work in a pretty decent mood (because of how well things went for the first day of the week) and wanted to get home a soon as I could. I take a semi-rural route to and from work instead of the freeway because the scenery is better.

Today, the scenery almost got me.

I was coming up to a part of the road where it went from one lane to two for a bit to let traffic merge and there was a slower car two cars in front of me and an older red VW Jetta directly in front of me who REALLY seemed to be in a hurry. When we got to the second lane, the Jetta went around as fast as they could and zoomed off. I decided I wasn't in that big a hurry so I stayed behind the other car as the two lanes merged back into one.

About 15 seconds later a small herd (about 6 or 8) deer came running as fast as they could across the road in front of us. They were far enough ahead that I didn't feel the need to slow down much, but when the car in front of me got the the crossing point, they slowed waaay down.

I thought they were being a bit too overly cautious now, but realized when they went around the fresh accident scene that a deer had been struck. I didn't know it until they stopped a bit further up, but the red Jetta hit one directly and pulled off to inspect the damage.

I pondered for a moment as I passed by them and decided to turn around in case anyone was hurt. It turned out that they were physically ok, but the car was pretty well totaled. Not only had they hit a deer head on, but a SECOND one broadsided the driver side of the car.

I asked them if they needed me to call for help, but they had already done so and asked if I could give the passenger a ride to work. It turned out that his work was on my way home and I agreed. After giving him a ride he thanked me for stopping and helping and asked my name. I told him, and he told me his name was Moroni.

Interesting. (Not tooo out of the ordinary living in Utah, but still...)

Anyway, I was thinking about it the rest of the way home and came to the conclusion that we really are looked over if we listen to the still, small voice inside. Literally, if I had only made one or maybe two different decisions on my way home, it would have been me in that spot at the wrong time.