My clever Dad: Fractured Proverbs

From my dad's Sunday School lesson -- he'll tell you the wrong proverb, you come up with the right form.

a. Debt goeth before destruction.
b. Train up a show dog in the way he should go.
c. To every thing there is a mass, and an atomic number to every atom under the heaven.
d. CAST thy socks upon the washer: for thou shalt find it after many days.
e. A good lawyer turneth away wrath.
f. For as blood pumpeth in his heart, so is he

LDS urban legends: Cain

From the FAIR:

The notion that Cain somehow lived on, survived the Flood, and roams the earth today, is based on a single claim of David W. Patten supposedly meeting “a very strange personage,” dark and hairy, who “was a wanderer in the earth and and traveled to and fro.” (Thus managing to tie Cain to another popular urban legend: Bigfoot.)
This account was published in a biography of Patten written by Lycurgus Wilson in 1900. Wilson had a letter from Abraham Smoot giving his recollection of what Patten said. In historical parlance this is what is called a late, third-hand account—the sort of thing most historians would dismiss. This kind of testimony is simply unreliable, tainted by the passage of time and the fog of memory.
The story probably would have been forgotten if then-Elder Spencer W. Kimball hadn’t included it on pages 127–28 of The Miracle of Forgiveness. Kimball’s book has become a staple of Mormon reading, the book that many bishops give to members struggling with sin and many mission presidents assign their missionaries to read.
The passage where Kimball quotes Wilson is ... almost as a passing idea, “an interesting story” about Cain.
And so, quite innocently, Spencer W. Kimball perpetuated a Mormon myth that could (and should) have died out long ago.

Hyrum Knows the Drill

I have this hereditary thing that, when I don't sleep enough, I hurt all over. I was in a lot of pain today while we were having dinner and closed my eyes for a minute.

Hyrum saw me and said, "Daddy sleep. Daddy wake up!"

I explained that, no, Daddy was awake. Daddy just hurt. I listed everything that hurt: My head and my eyes, my throat, my neck, my shoulders, my back, my arms, my elbows, my hands but not my fingres (have to admit what doesn't hurt), my stomach and my legs and my knees and my feet and my ankles and my toes.

Hyrum said, "Daddy needs medicine. Daddy go to bathroom. Get medicine. Be happy."

Hyrum knows the drill. Better than I do.

Hyrum gets a hat

Mine. And he's very proud of it.

Sleeping Trauma 2 - a Daddy post

I have a very different story about Hyrum's sleeping than Joy. She takes care of him during his days and I take care of him (mostly) from when I get home to breakfast time. So the sleeping I concentrate on is his night-time.

Joy mentions in the next post how the napping policy started affected his night time sleeping. Normally, this kid is the antiDerrill - falls asleep quickly, stays in the bed all night, not a problem in the world. Amazing kid. Nothing like me. But when we tried to get him a nap, he would stay up a few hours, mostly crying, before getting to sleep.

Then for a few days, he had a MISERABLE time. He would stay up until 10pm or so, finally get to sleep, and wake us up at 2am with these piercing screams of pain and torture. I'd go in and find him reading a book, crying "Sleep! Sleep!" So I told him to go back to sleep. And he did. And went to sleep! Until 3, when he called out again, "Sleep! Sleep!"

After a couple nights of this, I started to have a chat with my son. This was not working and I couldn't imagine what had happened to my son. Who are you and what have you done with him? As part of the conversation, I asked him why he couldn't sleep. He actually answered! I wasn't expecting this. You may have gathered, Hy is not much of a talker and we spend a lot of time every day prompting vocal responses and teaching him to respond when people talk to him.

"Books," was his answer.

That gave me some pause. "Do the books keep you awake, Hyrum?"

"Yes."

"... Would you like Daddy to take the books away so you can sleep?"

"Yes."

Wow. So I took away the books. We turned his toy shelf to face the wall so it wasn't a temptation. He slept like a Hyrum again! (Babies wish they slept like a Hyrum.) Nary a peep!

So now at night, while he's fast asleep and we're getting ready for the night, I open his door to let in the cool/warm air (depending on the season), but put up the baby gate that he respects, and put a stack of books and a couple toys on the washing machine next to his door where he can reach them. He gets up between 5:30 and 7 and plays with the books and toys very happily and quietly until he thinks it's time for us to come and get him.

Compare this to his nap time ritual with Joy: he says "Books books books books" to her, (but he's not crying, Joy adds) because he's excited to read his books during quiet time. He wants em and he wants to see them spread out on the floor for his perusal and pleasure. During quiet time and sometimes in the morning, by the way, he also enjoys looking through the crack between the door hinges to see when we're coming so he can call out to us that he's ready to come out. We're pretty sure the one day he put himself in the corner in nursery, he was trying to look through the door crack for us to come get him.

Then he started another conversation with me. "Dad, we need to talk," he did not say. What he said was "books" when I put him in the bed. "Yes, Hyrum, there are a lot of books in your room. I'm going to take them away." Just the kind of 'yeah yeah, whatever' parents often give their kids. But then one night I listened, and I thought, and I asked, "Hyrum, when you say books, do you mean you want Daddy to take the books away so you can sleep?" "Yes." "Okay, I will take the books away."

This week, Joy was very nice and set up some train tracks for him out of masking tape on his floor. "Tracks!" he told me happily when we went to his room. I asked him some questions and he filled in a few details about how he had played with them. It was clear that he loved his tracks and was very excited by them. We sang and said prayers. Once he hopped in bed, he cried and told me again about the "Tracks." I asked, on the third time or so, "Do you want me to take away the tracks so you can sleep?"

"Yes."

What a wise child I have! He may not say much, but he understands and he knows himself. I sure love him! I would probably be a better person if I were more like him.

Stawberry Picking - a Joy post

[DW says: you all are so lucky to get 5 posts from the Mommy tonight. Let's hear it for Joy!]

I am so glad that Hyrum and I finally got to go strawberry picking. When Vicky left she lamented about not ever having gone strawberry picking before. Up to that point I had never thought there was a lack of it in my life. Now granted, I am not planning on going again, necessarily, but I am way happy that we went this time. A friend Katie and her son Richard O. were going to a place that had pretty good prices and wasn't an hour away. She was looking for someone to go with here, so Hyrum and I volunteered.

Hyrum has still not forgotten the experience and still with mention it when ever he sees a strawberry. He and Richard started by being helpful and picking strawberrys and putting them in the buckets, but time wore on and they got into running down the isles together or after each other, sometimes they even would hold hands. But the end was worse than the beginning, because when my back was turned not only was Hyrum throwing out individual berry's from the picked bucket, he also upturned the whole thing on the ground. Which I mostly enjoyed the sport of the most. They were both ready to go when we left, but it was a great experience and I was glad I had remembered to bring lunch for Hyrum since it took a few hours. Hyrum has tried strawberrys in their natural form and I blame much of it on that experience. I felt like a good mom that day :)

Oh Yes - a Joy post

At some point Hyrum stated saying a wonderful phrase that eased his mother's heart. The phrase is "OH, YES". He says it with much feeling and determination as a regular response to anything he agrees too, or at least he did. As any parent of a two year old feels that if they ever get over saying No all the time it would be wonderful and just figuring out that there is a yes is awsome.

Lately his favorite response to most questions is "OKAY" that is supposed to mean a lot of things, like Yes, lets do it now,  what are we waiting for or of course.

ABC now and always - a Joy post

I think I may have mentioned this one too [with video!], but I am trying to do some catch up.

Hyrum really loves his ABCs and Numbers infact, I tend to call them his best friends. He even knows the ABCs and can sing the song by himself.  But it is still more amazing to us how fast he can sing them. He now can even sing them fast enough to sing them along with his Alpha Bug and he sometimes says the letters faster than the bug does. He used to skip letters when he sings fast, but now he doesn't. [Derrill thinks he does lose the letter O occasionally as he races through LMNP.] Well, a true race I think he does, but when he sings along with the Alphabug, I don't think he does.

Hyrum writes - Joy post

I feel like I have already blogged about this, but hear goes.

Hyrum loves to draw. His first letter that he learned how to draw was H. He started drawing Hs the day that we studied the letter H in the letter a week club. It was his day, since his name starts with an H. I made some Hot dogs wrapped in bread for the snack. We went to the club and we practiced writing, Hand painted a letter H and at no time did I see any chance he would be drawing an H. Nothing similar, but he LOVED hand painting. We have done it once since then (Thank you Shari for the paint-he painted for at least a half hour straight).

When we got home that day, sometime later he was drawing on his aqua doodle and told me "H", "H" I went over to see what was on his doodle and indeed there was an H. He drew several of them and counted them too. I was so amazed that he was able to do it. He had no direct model, nothing written in front of him for an example. Just the memory of earlier that day or before and he drew and H. He has drawn Hs ever since. Now he draws a W at times. He's drawn a D a couple of times and said it was a D. He drew Ms on accident - he really wanted to draw a W. I'm waiting for him to try to draw a Z. It's one of his favorite letters.

On day (the one I alluded to above) Hyrum and I were finger painting at  home. We were talking about the letter Y. I have some letter sponges, so after he had pushed the paint around for a while, yellow, blue, green, and purple which formed something like a dark green on green paper, I gave him a sponge Y to sponge up his paint and make Ys on other papers. So the surprise that came with this activity was as he was dutifullly making as many Ys as he felt like he could and then asking for new paper, he put two Ys next to each other and said, "W". I looked at what he had on his paper and YY did look just like a W. What an amazing kid.

Sleeping Trama - Joy post

Letting go of naps for my son has been very difficult for me, even if it hasn't been difficult for Hyrum. I think that he was trying to let go of the last nap before we even got him his big boy bed [right], but the freedom that came with the big boy bed was a little more than I could handle perminently at first. I was desparate to hold on to that last nap feeling like when he napped I was a really good mother (for my peace of mind, but I felt for his health too). Well, after a few days or a week, I decided to have him sleep in the play pen for his nap, but I started in our bed room. That was commical, because after a couple of days he learned to tip the bed so that he could crawl out.

Then I tried putting him in the play pen in the bathroom. He would rock it something awful and still not go to sleep some days. Then I finally just had him stay in the play pen in his room (I don't know why I didn't try that in the first place. With this method he was getting more naps, but he stopped going right to sleep at night. Finally I acknowledged that I had done all that I could (durring those time I would also spend over a half hour singing to him and holding him in my arms or making him lay on the bed-it was really tramatic for me as well as a little for him-sometimes it was just a game for him).  He was showing by not going to sleep at night that he was really not needing those naps that I was just positive that he needed.  So, after trying some disapline techniques at night, we finally just gave up on the nap and started calling it quiet time and let him deal with wether he slept at night. We just let go of the control and it was peaceful for us too. He took a little time to readjust his schedule in the evenings, but without unneeded naps he finally got regularly to sleep at the normal times again. We just started putting him to bed a little earlier for night on days he didn't get a nap.

He does take a nap durring quiet time now, but it is his choice and we all seem to be happier about it now that I have let go of feeling trama about it. The letting go times have begun. Let the good times roll.