Not a lot, but some.

Leo crawled.

The Post That Ends With a Smash

When I was younger, our family used to keep a big ole journal of things we talked about during family night that week.

I remember that part of this was complaints or Issues that the family had to Deal With that week. I suppose now that this was our parents' attempt at involving all the kids in a sort of democratic problem-solving real-worldy situation, but it tended to end in nothing but blood and tears. And some pretty brutal passive aggression.

If you flip through the journal, you'll find some inspiringly snottish entries that we came up with all by ourselves.

Sarah thinks that we should all take our dishes to the sink after we eat instead of leaving them on the table because it's polite and proper and it saves people time when it's their night for the dishes.

Mom thinks that we should make sure to flush twice if it doesn't go down the first time, or go get Dad as soon as there's a problem.

Rachel thinks that people should ask before taking other people's clothes especially since they always stretch them out anyway.

Becca thinks people shouldn't make implicit comments about other people's body types during Family Meeting.

and so on.

It got to be such an awful moment during family night that eventually we banned the practice altogether.

Instead, we started family night by filling in good things that we'd done that week. These are far more entertaining, and just about as uncomfortably revelatory as our Issues entries.

Sarah played a great game on Saturday [code for: she didn't win, but we all took the time to go and watch, so we better write it down].

Becca finished Little Women this week. [code for: Becca has no friends].

Heidi went poop in the big girl potty. [code for: well, you know].

A few years ago, before I married Jon, I was home for a few weeks in the summer. We had a family night and just happened to take out that ole journal again. Having wised up, we went straight for good things and skipped over The Issues.

We started with the youngest and worked our way up the sister list.

As it turns out, that was a very productive year for me. I'd won first place in the best paying fiction contest on campus, was awarded a scholarship for academic excellence, had a paper accepted at the Wordsworth Summer School in the UK, was granted two scholarships to attend and present at the conference, plus I received my BA in English.

And then it was Rachel's turn.

Rachel is The Oldest sibling and tends to suffer the most from my insatiable over-achiever mentality (again, read as: no friends). She is a sweet and charming person who has always been in high demand in our shared social worlds. But on top of that, she is perhaps the best person to have around when you need someone to take charge in a crisis (as you will see later on in this post).

But as it turns out, this year was not as kind to Rachel as it was to me.

Her entry was:

Rachel got a great base tan this year.

No I am not even joking.

So I confess that as I started jotting down our family achievements for the week I was worried that Jon would not even have a good base tan to record, but since then he's outdone me on several accounts, as you will also find out later in this post.

I was inspired to write down a few good things that have happened in the Ogden pod recently. Mostly because I've never really outgrown that desire to enter in, point by point, all the little things that tickle my chin with pride. But also because this was a week for firsts for us, and these are firsts worth recording.

For starters, I just found out that I won:

3rd place in the Elsie C. Carroll Essay Contest
2nd place in the Mayhew Specialty Short Story Contest
1st place in the Anne Doty fiction contest

I also presented a chunk of my thesis at the English Symposium on Friday, and I went to see Markus Zusak at the Provo Library on Saturday, which meant that I heard him speak at around 6:00pm and waited until about 12:15 am to get his signature on my dog-eared copy of The Book Thief.

For Leo this week, I have this to say:

He eats Cheerios like a maniac
Is fun to party with (we really can bring him anywhere, and he is a total delight, as we discovered at our lemon-flavored dinner party this week).
Scoots like a maniac
Didn't even cry as we painted him yellow and orange at this year's Holifest



And Jon:

Was accepted at University of Texas, Dallas
Has discovered that Leo laughs when you say "cat" to him
Didn't even cry when we painted him yellow at this year's Holifest



Nor did I, now that you mention it. In orange.


Though there, Leo looks less convinced.

Yes, we had a great time at Holifest. We smeared our family with colors and ate delicious vegetarian food and enjoyed the reactions of the crowds as we wandered the temple grounds. Most of them thought Leo looked cute, and a chorus of "awwwws" and "cuuuuutes" echoed after us where we went. A few crusty mothers shot dirty looks our way, but we figured that was because they must have forgotten their babies at home and so were jealous of our technicolor babe in arms.


Heidi came with us this year. It was such a spooky delight.


We had a lovely time, dusting each other with rainbowed corn starch and trying to remember not to lick our painted lips or scratch our powdered noses. After a few hours it was time to head back to Provo.

The walk from the temple back to our little white Nissan was a long one. At first, when we passed people Leo was lively and chirping. We amassed scores of compliments and awwws and cuuuutes, but as Leo began to calm and quiet and slip into sleep (looking a little more dead), the awwws were more often accompanied by "poor thing" and "who does that?" and "whoa, that's a real baby!" I am not sure who brings fake babies out and about, but several people made this comment so it must happen more often than I realize.

At the car, we stripped out of our most powdered layers and buckled up for the 20-minute ride, sheets and old towels spread beneath us to catch our shedding colors.


We were happy and bouncy and chalked up with rainbows and high spirits.

(Eminem Leo)

And we were not, could not, should not, have been expecting this:

We'd passed through a green light with a steady stream of traffic. Cars on the left passed us so fast. Then the car in front of us was stopped and Jon said "Oh no!" and slammed on the breaks and

crunch.

No one was hurt. We were safe, safe, safe. The car in front of us was dinged by us, and we think that driver hit the car in front of her before we hit her from behind. We pulled into a parking lot at a bank by the side of the road, and waited for the police to arrive.


After they finished their report, we got in our little dinged thing and tried to start our car.

It was silent.

We spent the next hour or so making phone calls, to Rachel first, then to Mom, then six or seven auto repair shops. None of them open. Finally, the last number we called picked up, the man said we could tow in our car and leave it there over the weekend. As we waited for Rachel, we saw three cars get into the same wreck we'd just gotten into. It was a treacherous intersection, and looking back, we're not sure how it could have been avoided.

Rachel ended up saving our hides and our money. After we called, she got in touch with her close friend Mike. His parents lent him their suburban and a few tow ropes. Rachel and Mike drove down to pick us up and tow us out, so we didn't need to afford a tow truck. Mike pulled us to the auto repair shop, a slow and knuckle-clenching ride, with Jon steering our dead beaten car from behind.


We've both thought through the accident time after time, neither of us knowing what Jon could have done differently. It was a dangerous intersection, and Jon is a safe driver. It was bitter consolation to see the accident repeated, but we felt good knowing we didn't misstep.

In all likelihood, the Nissan is totaled. Jon has fond memories of that car. It was his first and only car. It was the car that drove us to dates, that drove all our belongings from one place to another, and that drove us home from the hospital when Leo was born (and we drove as if over eggshells).

So this week, I will write two:

One for Rachel:

Did what she always does when someone, anyone besides herself doesn't know what to do: she took care of it.

And one for Jon:

Did just what he should have done, could have done, would have done and still the car was wrecked.

And that's one for the books.