Another Skippy One

Skippy has been pretty funny lately.


Tyler drives this:

It is a Crown Victoria. A grandma car. Literally. His grandma’s car. But this week I was driving it... and Skippy was sitting in the passenger seat, reading. C-R-O-W-N... Crown... VICTORIA!!! Mom, it says Crown Victoria! Yep, it does. Good reading, Skip. Mom? Were you named after this car? No, Skippy, I wasn’t. Another minute goes by. Mom, how did you get your name? My dad gave it to me. Your dad? You mean, my great-grandfather? No, Skippy. Your grandpa. You know... Grandpa Hamblin? Another minute of silence. Grandpa Hamblin is your dad? Yep. At this point, he gets very serious. I’m sorry, he says. (I am confused) Why are you sorry, Skip? You know... because your dad died! (Ah, he has put all the pieces into place...) But at least you have another dad. (Okay, maybe he hasn’t put all the pieces into place) Um, no, Skippy, I just had one dad. What about Grandpa McD? Oh, well, he is your dad’s dad. What? And Grandma McD? (and now we have liftoff).

Later that same day.

You know, Mom, you just never make any sense! (This, coming from the child who has been in speech therapy since he was two.) Okay, well maybe sometimes you make sense. But not this time.

Hey, Skip, your teacher said you are doing really well on your part in the Elephant’s Child play. Oh, yeah. I’m a giraffe. I’m really very good.

The One Where He Even Did the Naked Ones

Okay, I may have to change that title. But for now, it stays. First, I apologize for being a delinquent blogger. The last two weeks has been a blur, and I know certain people don’t appreciate checking the blog and seeing the same post day after day after day... Annie...

And this is not going to be very clever, but here is my story. Sunday was the Perfect Storm. Mother’s Day meets birthday. That has happened before. The last time it happened was not my favorite. It was more stressful than fun. But this time around, the stars aligned and I almost felt like I had downed a vial of Liquid Luck. I had the perfect Mother’s Day/birthday. Church was amazing. In Primary they sang me that birthday song that says “Zippity-ay and Heidi-ho.” Who doesn’t love that one? I got to play for a song that a hundred youth sang, and it still makes me happy just thinking about it. I either got to be with, or get phone calls from, everyone that I love. I got homemade hamburgers. The missionaries even knocked on the door in the evening just to tell me Happy Mother’s Day. It was the best day I have had all year.

One of the highlights is a little gift Ethan gave me, which I lovingly call my iToy. Yes, it is an iPad. And here is how spoiled I am. He bought me the 16GB version at my insistence, and when, the next day, it turned out to not be sufficient to hold much of my library, he returned it for the largest... the 64GB. Now you know how truly spoiled I am. People keep asking me, “Is it really that cool?” Yes. Yes, it is that cool. I could go on for about an hour about the amazing apps I have on it, courtesy of another friend who spoiled me with iTunes $.

But anyway, this afternoon I showed Skippy (who is better than I at all the games) an application called “Art Puzzle HD.” In this application, you enter a museum. There are several doors, and behind each door are a number of famous paintings by Van Gogh, Chagall, Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, and many others. Most of the paintings are covered by cloths so you can’t see them. The first painting on the wall is visible, but blurry. When you touch the painting, it fills the screen, but it is scrambled into many different pieces, and you have to reassemble the pieces until it makes the original painting. As soon as you complete the puzzle, that painting is added to the wall of your gallery, and you can go on to the next painting.

I thought it was fun, and I showed it to Skippy, and then left him with Starry Night and went off to work on some music. A couple of hours later, he came in and announced to me that he had solved every puzzle in the third room, and that my gallery was full of beautiful paintings. He opened it to show me, and said, “See? I even did the naked ones.” And sure enough, he did.

The Sunday One About Being Grateful

I loved church today. For me, the theme for the day was gratitude. I just couldn’t help but be grateful for all of my blessings. I am grateful for my little ten-year-old girls that I get to teach. Here was the scenario I laid out for them today: You are a good girl. Your dad asks you to go check on your older siblings. But they see you coming, and they dig a big pit, and when you get there they put you in the pit. They take your favorite jacket and dip it in blood, and they go back to your dad and they tell him, “Oh no… looks like Kendell got torn apart by wild animals!” And you think the worst thing is that you are in a deep pit in the desert with no water… but no, some people happen by and see you, and pull you out, and sell you as a slave! And then you get to be a slave for about the next twenty years, while your dad thinks you are dead.

The key to the scriptures is to liken them unto ourselves, so that we can learn from them. I don’t know that I ever saw that I had much in common with Joseph who was sold into Egypt. But as we talked, we found that we all have trials that we are dealing with. Sometimes they are not nearly as terrible as Joseph’s… being sold into slavery by your brothers is fairly extreme, after all. But sometimes they are really just as difficult, and it is those trials that make us who we are. Joseph was “preserved by the Lord” so that he could be a hero and save his father, his family, and all the people from the famine. I don’t know what Heavenly Father’s plan is for me. The trials have been pretty thick lately. But I do absolutely love this quote from Elder Richard G. Scott, an apostle in my church, in which he talks about this principle. He says, “Were you to know His entire plan, you would never ask for that which is contrary to it, even though your feelings tempt you to do so.” I love that. Trust in the Lord. And be grateful.

And then the girls and I left our classroom to go into singing time, and again I was grateful... this time for a little humor. These twin boys got their heads caught in the railing outside the primary room. I guess I should have helped them, but my first thought was to take a picture instead, so that you all could be grateful as well. Happy Sunday!