Little Timmy

We left Idaho yesterday.  We were there to see 2 new Burk babies (whose last names happen to be Smith and Shurtliff).  They were blessed on Sunday.  They sure make my little Timmy look huge!  But he's at such a fun age.  He's learning new things all the time, and it's just delightful to watch him.

On Friday we decided to take just the little ones to the pool while the bigger ones were at school.  Jeremy has been so cold this winter.  He doesn't like it here.  Sometimes we go to the pool just so he can sit in the hot tub for a little while.  I can't say I'm opposed (cuz I'm not).  I just don't like how unforgiving swimming suits are of any excess fat.  I think that they need to repent and start to forgive.

Anyway, it is always really fun chasing Jill and Timmy around the pool.  Jill was all happy about her new Dora swimming suit (even though it is too big).  Timmy loves the little slide there.  It's a fish and you slide down out of its mouth.  He kept climbing up the first step and stomping his little foot on that step because there is always a bit of a pool of water on it.  And then he'd climb the rest of the way up and slide down.  He's found it's a lot easier to lay on his tummy with his feet pointing down the slide than it is to sit in order to slide down, so that's what he does.  And then he comes around and stomps his little feet in the little puddle again and repeats the cycle. 

And I love how he is learning to walk even better.  He is running everywhere all the time, and all the while his sweet, huge cheeks that I love to kiss so much are flopping around.  It is just too cute.  I love that little fella.

The Sunday Funnies

Yesterday at church I was subbing in Primary.  During Sharing Time the teacher asked, "Can anybody tell me what salvation means?"  The first reply she got was, "Um, it's that wet stuff in your mouth."

After church Jill and Timmy each came home with a sucker.  They both really love suckers.  Timmy finished his before we even go home.  Jill was eating hers in a more civilized manner (Timmy and I are related, see?) and was taking her time.  Somebody gave her a little bag of M&Ms, and she dropped some under the table.  She set her sucker down to crawl under and get the M&Ms, and when she came back up she couldn't find her sucker.  We soon found it in Timmy's mouth.  I tried to grab it.  He resisted.  I tried yanking and then prying his mouth open, but he held on tight.  It soon became apparent that I was not going to be able to get it out.  We had to give it up for lost.  But Timmy was sure happy, and at least Jill had M&Ms.  His tenacity was surprising, though.

Promises

We've been talking a bit about promises lately and how we are to keep our word no matter what.  Yesterday we were watching Tangled, and it came to the part where Rapunzel says, "And when I  promise something, I never ever break that promise.  EVER."  Then Joshua said to me, "Mommy, if I promise that you'll give me a cookie, does that really mean that you have to give me a cookie?"

Forgiveness

 I know, I know.  This is a recurring theme with me, but it's something we all work on in our lives.

For the last month or so I have been thinking about all the stupidness of college.  Really, it was a great time in my life, but it was also a time rampant with stupidity.  We all felt so grown up and we were all not.  We all did stupid things, and therefore, we have to forgive people for the stupid things they did in college.  It's done and gone and we were all stupid together.

Well, does that mean that when we move on from college we're not stupid anymore?  No!  I'm stupid every day!  Therefore I have to forgive people who do stupid things even now and for the rest of my life.  Even when I'm 99 I'm sure I'm not going to be perfect.  As soon as I stop making mistakes I can stop forgiving, right? ;)

It feels really good to just remember that we are all human and to just forgive.  It is a divine gift and I'm thankful for the power of it in my everyday life.  Sometimes I have to forgive the same thing every day for a long time, but it's the daily forgiving that makes me a better person and gives me peace.

Silly

At Shop with a Cop in December, the four older boys were given a coupon for a free haircut at a local hairstyling college.  They are all getting shaggy again, so I think I'm finally going to make appointments and get those haircuts!  Just now I went onto the website for the college.  They have some little scissors at the top of the page that close and open again making a snipping sound whenever you click on anything again.  I think I must just be weird, but I like that sound.  I sat for a minute or two just clicking random links reapeatedly so I could hear it again.

I feel like I ought to say something more, but I don't think I can ask for any more brain function today.  I am way tired.

PS

I just wrote my weekly letter to family and forgot to mention that I was just sustained today (I think I was - we were a little late) as a visiting teaching supervisor.  So now I have 2 callings, but I can handle these. :)

Dear Timmy,

I love the way you grab my head and hug it really, really tight and then try to yank my hair out with your little fists and eat my eyebrows.  And how you grab my hair in your teeth and pull.  And how you give me open-mouthed kisses, even if I do have to watch out. (My poor recovering bruised arm is proof of that.  You bit it right at the end of Relief Society last week, pinching a tiny piece of skin tight in your little teeth.)  I love you, you silly boy.  Ow!

Sunk Costs

The other day Jeremy was reading his homework, and it was all about sunk costs (money that has already been spent).  He mentioned how funny it is that people place so much value on things they've paid for.  Whether or not that something is still really valuable, it's something that has already been paid for, so it had better be enjoyed, right?  Wrong!  In the business world you should not base your decisions on sunk costs.

I like Wikipedia's example.  I'll quote it here:

In the case of a movie ticket that has already been purchased, the ticket-buyer can choose between the following two end results if he realizes that he doesn't like the movie:

1. Having paid the price of the ticket and having suffered watching a movie that he does not want to see, or;
2. Having paid the price of the ticket and having used the time to do something more fun.

In either case, the ticket-buyer has paid the price of the ticket so that part of the decision no longer affects the future. If the ticket-buyer regrets buying the ticket, the current decision should be based on whether he wants to see the movie at all, regardless of the price, just as if he were to go to a free movie. The economist will suggest that, since the second option involves suffering in only one way (spent money), while the first involves suffering in two (spent money plus wasted time), option two is obviously preferable.

Now, most of us would sit and suffer through that movie because we paid for it, right?  Or if we have buyer's remorse about something we may just stick it out too.  This isn't to say we should do anything irrational or stupid.  We just shouldn't base our future decisions on whether or not we made good financial decisions in the past.

I think the same could be said for most decisions.  Are we making poor choices to continue doing something just because we've made the same choice in the past?  Are we continuing to do practice old habits just because we paid for them or because we might look cool by doing them?  If we're going to do something it should be for the right reasons, whether or not we've paid anything or done stupid things in the past.  If it's dumb to do something, I shouldn't do it, even if I've already paid for the ticket.  Right?  Of course, right!

I guess it all kind of leads up to one thing I learned on my youth mission all those years ago that really stuck with me.  It is that when you know something is right, you do something about it.  It is simple yet profound.  I know the gospel is true.  Therefore, I go to church and I try to live according to the things the church teaches.  I know that my children are gifts from a loving Heavenly Father.  Therefore, I try (and when I mess up I try again) to love them as He loves them and take care of them as He would.  It's a given that we're going to mess up.  It's a given that we will stumble, but because of the love of our Savior we can get right back up and try again.  Because of Him we don't have to hold on to the things we've done in the past.  We can move on to a brighter future.  What a wonderful gift.

Random

Yesterday I checked the weather report.  It said there was a small possibility of less than an inch of snowfall.  Judging by the snow I scraped off the windshield this morning, I'm guessing he misjudged.  Don't tell Jeremy, but I think it's wonderful and it made me so happy to see the sky all cloudy and snowing this morning.  It is always fun to wake the boys up with the declaration that it's snowing.  And seeing as how the snow keeps melting before we get around to sledding, we'd better go sledding right after school.  Two of the boys go snow discs for Christmas and we haven't been able to use them.

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I'm going to be 34!  I remember being a little girl and praying that the flowers would bloom on my birthday.  Funny, huh?

Little Timmy is having a hard day today.  He had a hard day yesterday too.  He just cried a whole lot and wouldn't eat.  Eating usually fixes things right up for him.  Well, finally at bedtime I came to the realization that he was cutting 4 teeth.  I believe they're his canines.  Poor baby.  Thank heavens for Tylenol to numb the pain and for TV to take his mind off it.  It's surprising how often turning on a movie calms him down.  He is very easily distracted by it.  I hope those teeth hurry up and finish poking through.

And speaking of movies, lately it's been bugging me a bit that in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Flint is a hero for fixing the problem he caused, especially when it broke things all over the world.

That is all.  Thank you!