March 18, 2018

March 18, 2018

Dear Kami and Caden,

The big thing on my mind this week has been sleep.  I know Caden has the same time change as we do, but Kami, I’m not sure when/if the Philippines does this too.  Mom has always said she hates switching to Daylight Savings, or back to standard time, or something – maybe it’s both, but it seemed to hit the whole family this time.  Sunday night was a rough night for me.  I dreamed for what seemed like the longest time about Burmese Pythons.  We had one in the house or something – a long skinny, demented sort of python and at one point I had to sit on the things head so it wouldn’t get away!  Yuck!  I hate snakes!  It was a very disturbing dream, but the one it morphed into was just as bad.  For some reason I was walking with the kids through the Millwork Shop knowing full-well that Lawrence owned it and was running it.  Needless to say, the quality of my sleep left a lot to be desired.  I woke up at about 4:30 and my back felt stiff as a board, so I grabbed a blanket and got on the floor.  I eventually fell a sleep until my alarm went off at 5:30.  I had my phone somewhere on the floor near me, and as I groped around frantically for it,(I supposed I was frantic because I didn’t want to wake up Mom, or maybe it was because I had been dreaming about snakes – and Lawrence) anyway, in my rush, I whacked my head on the leg of the bed.  It was a rough night.  I noticed something strange though, I didn’t have any trouble falling back to sleep while I was trying to pray that morning. 

The next night wasn’t much better.  I was dreaming that I was some sort of soldier and my weapon of choice was a bow.  However, when I was thinking about the dream the next morning I was thoroughly puzzled.  Every time I shot the bow, I would somehow put the point of the arrow on the bow string to shoot it.   It made perfect sense in my dream! 

On one of the nights, I went to bed before Mom and at some point awoke to her pushing on my face.  You can imagine how patient I was with that.  I growled, “What are you doing?”  she innocently replied, “You’re snoring.  I was just trying to get you to stop.”

I wasn’t the only one suffering from poor sleep.  One morning Pace woke up on the wrong side of the bed!  He was so cranky it was almost unbearable.  I was trying really hard to be patient with him and had thought I did okay, but apparently he didn’t agree.  I was getting my phone out of the bathroom just before I left for work, and as I turned around, Pace was right behind me, and I bumped him on the nose with my hand.  He howled like it was broken!  I picked him up and tried to console him, but I was in a hurry to leave and had to do a rush job on my sympathy.  A while later I received a text from mom that said, “ Can’t believe you were such a ‘jote’ (jerk) to Pace!  I told him I never want to hear him calling you a name again! (laughing in tears emoji)  Much howling and lamentation . . .”

Abe had his problems too.  I had to drag him out of bed one morning as he cried, “I just barely fell asleep!”  This was after a solid nine hours of sawing logs.   The next morning was even worse.  I had to keep shaking him and telling him to get up.  He got out of bed and as he stood there, I heard him mumble something that sounded like “Herd.”  I waited in confusion and he mumbled again and I figured out he was saying, “I’m tired!”   He spent the first half of scripture study with a blanket over his head and insisting on reading his verses without moving his lips.  When we told him he had to uncover his head and move his lips he stormed out of the room.  All the moving around must have woke him up because he came back a few minutes later and finished reading with us, and even managed to move his lips enough that we could understand him.

I haven’t mentioned Nolan or Isabelle yet.  Belled did pretty good.  One morning I told her to get up, and left the room.  I came back a couple of minutes later and she was fast asleep.  I woke her up, and she sat up, looked at the clock and laid back down and went to sleep.  Finally, the third time she got out of bed.  

Nolan was a perfect child, except when Abe was having his fit Nolan said, “he stayed up all night reading Calvin and Hobbes.” 

Mom was irate, “He did that after I told him to go to sleep?!” 

Nolan:  He probably did.” 

Me:  “Did you actually see him reading Calvin and Hobbes?” 

Nolan: “No, but he probably did.”

Me:  (I’ll spare you the lecture I gave about accusing people without knowing.)

I had another night of crazy dreams.   Mom and I were at a party that was being thrown my Bishop Christensen.  The house was like a warehouse where some of the rooms were finished like a home and some of them were just concrete and steel.  I was so tired, I just wanted to leave, but Mom didn’t want to go.  I was getting exasperated when two of the Bishop’s sons, (I don’t know where number 2 came from – the bishop only has one son.) offered to let me play some little handheld video game they were playing.  I tried but couldn’t figure it out.  When I woke up, I realized that I probably struggled with the video game because I couldn’t see the controls or screen with my eyes closed!

In other news, Isabelle had a concert Wednesday night, and she sang a special part with a group of four girls.   She is really fun to watch.  She smiles really big and looks like she is having a great time.  I think she is going to be a natural entertainer.  When I got there I strategically placed myself so I would be able to see her, but as it turned out, the conductor didn’t stand in the center front of the choir.  He stood in a direct line between me and Isabelle.  I was irritated and looked around me.  There were about eight feet of empty chairs to my right so I scooted down as far as I could.  I don’t know if he moved with me, or if he is just that wide, but I still couldn’t see her.  I looked back, and there were about twelve fee of empty chairs to my left, so I scooted back as far as I could, and was just able to see Belle, unless the conductor swayed.  Which he did.  Many times.  OH WELL!

Maddie had an intraschool track meet Friday.  She was nervous and I was nervous for her.  I picked her up from practice Thursday and she was pretty discouraged.  She is running hurdles (I don’t know why she picked the hardest event in track) and she couldn’t get her timing down.  Friday afternoon I went and watched her race.  She was running the 60 meter hurdles first and then would later run the 200 meter hurdles.  She came in 4^th out of five in the 60 meter.  I was feeling really badly for her.  I had to run the kids home and do some stuff at work, and by the time I got back, she had already run the 200.  I was expecting her to be pretty glum, but it turned out she was 2^nd in the 200 meter hurdles.  So she was pretty happy overall.

Sander Grover had his appendix out this week.  He was in the hospital most of the week.  Vernal also had a school shooting threat.  A kid from Jodi’s ward whipped out a gun during a class and hollered that he was going to shoot up the school.   In Preston, Idaho, where my cousin Marc is the Superintendent, a science teacher fed a sick puppy to a snapping turtle in front of some students.  The news went viral, and the animal rights people were demanding that he be fired.  The community quickly took sides and had petitions signed.  As it turned out, those in favor of keeping the teacher were over 1900.  Those in favor of firing him were 15.  The day after the big uproar, perhaps because it was clear the community didn’t care about the puppy, the school received “credible threats of violence”  and had to bring in law enforcement officers to guard the schools. 

We finished off the week with a barbecue at the Ware’s.  It was fun and I ate way too much.

Love,

Dad