Potato, Party of Six

 Growing up is hard. Raising kids is hard. Being an adult is hard. One of the natural responses to things that are hard is fear. And fear tends to lead to lashing out. Last week, some kids were throwing rocks in the park next to our house and one of those rocks broke a window. The kids were so scared, they took off. We were scared because we didn’t know at the time if it was intentional or just an accident. It took me a couple hours to track down the kids and involved using video from a neighbor and intel from some middle schoolers I know. I took the time to do that because I didn’t want to be scared. But what I did not know at the time, was that I was also doing it to grow.  I thought I would be angry when I found the rock throwers but as soon as I saw them and took a minute to think and watch them play, all I could feel was peace.  I decided in that minute to treat them as though I understood their infinite potential. At that point I knew one of their names so I called it and he turn

I came home from dropping Waffle Fry at early morning seminary and the first thought I had was, “you know what’s better than a giant pile of Goat Poo?  I  A giant pile of WET goat poo. This is the pile that just keeps on giving…me giggles.  Also, when I got home I didn’t see Big Daddy so I asked Tater Tot where he was and didn’t know so I tried again,  “Where’s daddy’s car?”  TT looks me dead in the eye and says, “well…I guess it’s wherever HE left it!”  And that is why I have kids. So I can hear my own  gems of wisdom come back at me octave higher and covered in sass. It’s *amazing*. 🤣 Also, Daddy moved his car to make room for horned animal 💩 🐐  Happy Tuesday! 

 We have a garden. Kinda. Also, being this close to the river means we have basically no topsoil. Fine. I just add a little compost every year before we start growing. Being most of the way done with weeding the box where things die, I ordered a little goat poop 🐐 💩 compost to fill in the gaps here and make mounds for the tomato plants that will never set fruit.   My neighbor had this sweet hookup for cheap horned daemon crap (Oh, don’t you know? Goats are basically minions of Satan. Adorable. Horned. Minions. I should know. We had four of them, once. Tried to murder me. Ate Spicy Fry’s pig tail clean off her head.) ANYWAY… the guy even delivers and all that for just $40 a load.  Could not be more perfect. I texted and he said he could deliver this afternoon and I said that seemed stellar. I’d miss him since I had lab but Big Daddy would be here to pay.  I drove up this evening to find this. In my neighbor’s defense she DID tell me to go with half a load but have you *ever* known me

 Spicy Fry is at an amazing school. Her GT group decided to start a pod cast on mental health, Your Best Self. By Kids, for all! Here's the link. She went by Katrina for this project and her part is about 1/2 way through. Maybe a little further. I think it's quite good.  https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzsprout.com%2F1972262%2F10429125-your-best-self.mp3%3Fdownload%3Dtrue&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AOvVaw18lBD9k-F6o2b5Ymgnsi9G

 Mesa has some cool parks. We visited one with a three story net tower. Curly fry got the to the top of it before the rest of us made it to the play structure. Then she did it AGAIN 4 more times. None of the other kids were brave enough to go that high. She’s terrifying.  We had a ton of fun with the cousins.  This turd was having a day and kept trying to hide from the camera. One of the pictures Big Daddy got was AMAZING. His face was pulled in a all kinds of ways. We showed him and he DELETED it! What. A. Turkey.  

 One of the kids’ favorite things to do when we visit the grandparents is driving quads. When we got there last week Tater Tot told grandpa he was looking forward to driving the golf cart.  “I’ll probably drive in circles.”  Say what?  “Yeah. Circles seem like the most basic shape so I’ll do that. Seems easier than say, squares.” 😂 

 Preface: He’s fine now.  Big Daddy has terrible seasonal allergies.  Like, “WOW did that really just come out of your face, How can you even breathe with all all that up there” type allergies.  They’ve gotten worse every year we’ve lived here until mid pandemic he had had enough and decided to try desensitization shots. On the day of testing an entire side of his back was one giant, continuous oozing welt. It was disgusting. So he’s been doing the shots for maybe a year? Nary a problem. Some occasional pear-sized lumps on the day of injection but other than that, smooth sailing.  Until today.  They bumped him up to red which I’m pretty sure is the last level. He got the shots, sat in the office for the required 30 min, and drove home. Right about the time he got home, he started to feel TERRIBLE so he hopped in the shower. Didn’t help. Oh also, I wasn’t even home. 🤦‍♀️ He’s just steadily getting worse and actively NOT telling me. 🙄 picture of texts with proof I’m not a terrible spou

Tater Tot chose Harold and the Purple Crayon for his bedtime story but this time, he added color commentary and my GOSH, he was funny.   “The apples would be very tasty, Harold thought, when they got red.”  But TT can’t leave it at that. “ The apples will always be purple Harold, because you drew them with a PURPLE crayon.” “But as he looked down over the other side, he slipped—” “OBVIOUSLY. He only drew one side. It’s not a good idea to climb a one-sided mountain you draw with a crayon.”  Good advice, TaterTot. Now GO TO SLEEP.