British Humor

I was walking into Target this morning when two guys ahead of me tossed the remnants of their fast food breakfast into the garbage can. I started thinking about the sad state of the typical American diet these days, and I was reminded of a conversation I had the other day with my sister-in-law, Shannyn. She was over at her parents' house recently while they were hosting some friends from England. They were all sitting down at breakfast when one of their guests (I can't remember her name, so we'll have to make up one for her. How about Gwyneth?) asked if they had any "proper milk." (Now be sure to pronounce that with a British accent) Shannyn's family all looked around at each other, a little confused as to why the gallon of 1 % on the table wasn't "proper" enough for her.

"I thought I saw some proper milk in the fridge earlier," Gwyneth insisted.

Then Shannyn finally realized that she must be referring to her two-year-old son's whole milk. When she related this to Gwyneth, the latter didn't understand why everyone else didn't drink the "proper" milk too. Shannyn patiently explained that most people in the US don't like to drink whole milk because of the fat content. Gwyneth's eyebrows came together at this.

"Yes....but you people eat so many cheeseburgers!"

Now there's something to ponder.

One, two, three...ten!

This week Abigail surprised us by learning to count in Spanish! Erik was swinging with her at the park a few days ago and was counting each of their swings. He got up to "tres" and was taken aback when Abigail shouted, "cuatro!" A few days later, I was counting as I exercised, and Abigail joined in and counted with me (I let her lead out) up to ten! We practiced with her over the next few days, and finally at dinner the other night, after hearing her count to ten perfectly, I turned to Erik, beaming with pride, and said, "We have to get this on video."

Oh, when will I ever learn that children don't perform on demand?



And if at first you don't succeed, try again the next day....and you will still fail.



I'm learning. Slowly.

Our favorite old neighbors are back!

Our family is delighted to welcome my brother and sister-in-law, Caleb and Shannyn Weiler, and their son, Clark, to the ATL! After having had such a blast hanging out with us all the time this past summer in Provo, they realized they couldn't live without us, so they sold all their belongings and moved out here last month. Well ok, maybe Caleb's graduation and job offer in Atlanta also had something to do with it. At any rate, we are so pumped to have them in our neck of the woods! Clark and Abigail picked up right where they left off...

Characters...

Happy (belated) New Year!

What? It's 2009 already?! How can this be?

I just did my Thanksgiving post. I haven't written anything about Christmas! And the holidays are like so totally over. I'm so embarrassed.

Oh, blaaaa! Why am I always a month behind?

If I promise to do better this year, will you forgive me? Pleeease?

Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks? Would you be insanely jealous if I told you that I got to have this girl all to myself the other day? I thought so.

Abigail and I are very glad to be Maya's next-door neighbors.

Happy New Year! Well, happy 2009 anyway. Sorry again for the long absence. After two months of slacking off, I decided I needed to buckle down and finish my online finance class before its "due date," which is fast approaching. I made a smart move by enrolling in it the month before I left for my spring/summer adventure at the Y. BYU independent study gives you a whole year to complete the course, and that sounded like ten times the amount of time I'd need to finish it....Even when I got back in August, March sounded a long way off. So I enrolled in another class in September since I had so much time on my hands. I intended to finish them both before Christmas, but November and December both turned out to be utterly unproductive months for me. So....when I put up my new calendar a few weeks ago, March suddenly sounded a lot closer, so I quickly snapped out of slacker mode and switched gears into conscientious student mode.

So that's that. And since I took my scary exam yesterday (covering taxes and insurance --blech!) ....I am letting myself slip back into slacker mode for one day before returning to the grindstone. Just the final exam left now! Wahoo!

I thought I'd record a few things about Abigail to give you a taste of her developing personality these days. There's so much I don't want to forget.

These are some of the reasons why I love this crazy girl:

...she's so dang cute!
...she has a sense of humor
...because she does things like this (look at the feet)
and this
...and this. And they make me laugh.
...she reads with me (as long as we do it behind the rocking chair??)

...she cleans her plate at almost every meal, even when Mommy makes Cuban Black Bean Disaster! This girl eats black beans like nobody's business. She will eat them straight out of the can. I was really excited about trying this Cuban Black Bean Soup recipe, but after I took my first bite, I realized that I'd made about 5 quarts too much. However, I must say it was a little reassuring to watch Abigail shovel spoonful after spoonful into her mouth and then lift the bowl up to her mouth so she could lick it clean! Hence the black bean soup all over her face. Erik was kind enough to say the soup was quite good....(What he meant was that it was tolerable if you dump half a can of Tony's Creole Seasoning in it. Erik would eat mud if it had that stuff in it.). To make matters worse, the next day "Tofu and Sweet Potato [I'm inserting Black Beans here since there were more of them than sweet potatoes or tofu!] Jambalaya" was on the menu. Another winner. And, unfortunately, another 5 quarts too much. If that wasn't sufficient to fiber-overload my family, I also fit a big pan of chicken enchiladas in that week (complete with--you guessed it! Refried beans.) A little glitch in the menu planning? Uh, yeah. Poor Erik called me one night on his way home from the hospital and ever-so-politely asked what was for dinner. "Well," I said taking a deep breath, "I was thinking...um...leftovers." I bit my lip and waited. Erik's turn to take a deep breath. "Sweetie," he said gently, "I don't think my stomach can handle any more beans tonight."

So we had spaghetti.

Ok, end of tangent. But don't you wish you looked that cute with black beans smeared all over your face?

...because she jams to Juanes and Maná with me!

And I love, I LOVE being loved by her! I'm so glad she's mine forever.

Merry Christmas! Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, by the way...

Finally, some pictures from Thanksgiving! I wish I could use the crazy holiday season as my excuse for being so far behind, but you all know the truth...

This past Thanksgiving we flew out to Arizona to attend the Stout family reunion (my mom's side). The timing couldn't have been better because Erik finished his last rotation for this year on November 21 and didn't have any residency interviews scheduled until early December. Erik and Abigail had never met any of my mom's family, and we weren't sure when else we'd have the opportunity to go visit them. I especially wanted them to meet my grandparents.

We left on the 22nd, a few days earlier than anyone else in my family, so we got to spend some nice time with my mom's parents in Mesa before we all headed up to Heber, where the reunion actually took place. It was a good thing we checked the weather forecast before we left Atlanta; otherwise we might have packed for typical Arizona weather. Heber, however, is in northern Arizona, so we had to kiss our visions of a warm, sunny Christmas goodbye and pack our suitcase full of sweaters. And heavy wool coats. And scarfs. And thermal underwear. And packs of Swiss Miss. Ok, just kidding. We had to leave the thermal underwear and hot chocolate at home since those darn airlines decided to start charging for a second bag!! (And did you hear? Now they're charging for one bag too! Sheesh people!)

So let me tell you a little bit about the reunion. There were 77 of us, 10 being under the age of two. One cabin. Seven bedrooms. (And "bedroom" might be stretching it a little bit. Some of them were about the size of a large closet.) Three toilets. Two showers. I repeat: three toilets, two showers. And it was snowing outside, meaning every sane body wanted to stay indoors (mind you, we do have some crazies in the family who preferred to be out rolling in the snow). So....I haven't left much to the imagination. It was crowded.

Really crowded.

It took some amazing acrobatic feats to get from one side of the living room to the other, which you had to do to get to the bathrooms or the kitchen. If you weren't extraordinarily coordinated, you usually stepped on someone's baby or one or more of the 20 people sprawled out playing cards.

Mealtimes were especially fun. Thank goodness someone remembered to bring the sharpee. Otherwise, I might've been sharing my red cup with all kinds of folks.

Yes, those are my pajamas. You think there would've been any cream cheese left for my bagel if I got showered and dressed before I ate?
I didn't feel quite as threatened as my nephew Lincoln did, though. He had to bring his sword to the table to make sure no one ate his bagel.

Now let me tell you about my room. First of all, I was thankful even to get a room. Since I fit into the category of "married, with a young child" I was blessed with a bed and a semi-private room during that week. The unfortunate couples who couldn't claim a young child were consigned to beds in the most public room of the cabin--the living room, where people were constantly coming and going. (When my grandpa found out he was assigned to sleep in the living room, he threatened to steal my baby!) And heaven help you if you were single! It was your lot to sleep upstairs in the loft, where your bare mattress was touching other bare mattresses on all four sides. (Not everybody slept in their assigned quarters, however. Some people just fell asleep wherever they pleased.)
When we got to the cabin, I quickly began touring, hoping to stake out a good room for my family before they were all taken. However, I quickly discovered that the rooms were not going on a first-come-first-serve basis. Uncle Dave, the oldest in my mom's family and the one who planned the reunion, had already taped signs on all the doors indicating who was sleeping where. I finally found the sign for the Heisses. We were sharing a "semi-private" room upstairs with my brother Caleb and his wife, Shannyn and their son Clark. (What is a semi-private room, you ask? It's a room without a door. Any person or wandering toddler who had a mind to climb the stairs would be in my room. There were also two adjoining closets --I mean, bedrooms--in the back, so the people in those rooms had to go through my room to get into and out of theirs.) Fun times. So I'll give you the breakdown:

Closet #1 slept Clark, Abigail and Adam in their pack-n-plays (if you saw the size of this room, you wouldn't believe we managed to squeeze in that many) and my noble parents. We put the three youngsters down early, all at the same time, and later my parents would sneak in as quietly as they could and somehow get into their pajamas in the pitch blackness.

Closet #2 slept my brother David, his wife, Char, and their 4 children.

Then Caleb and Shannyn and Erik and I shared the "semi-private" room. (Room, mind you, not the bed!) Now, being upstairs, the side walls of all our rooms were angled sharply inward by the roof. So if the rooms weren't already small and crowded enough, this definitely tipped the scale toward claustraphobia. Not only that, but I somehow lucked out each night and got to sleep on the side of the bed next to the wall/ceiling, so if I ever sat up in bed during the night (like, for example, the night all four of David's kids telepathically decided to start screaming at the exact same time!), I would smack my head on it. It happened more than once.

With all that said, you probably think this reunion was torturous! Well....it was...for some people. But not for us! Erik, Abigail and I had a blast! The experience, from start to finish, was a memory-building one that we will remember for the rest of our days. I always love experiences that supply me with good stories to tell later on.

So here were some of the highlights for me:

-Being surrounded by my family: It was definitely fun to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that I rarely get to see, but the family I'm really referring to is my own immediate one--my parents and siblings. Can I take a minute to brag? I can't talk about them without sounding cheezy, but so be it. They are the coolest people on Earth! The older I get, the more amazed I am by each one of them and the more I relish spending time with them. My parents--I could spend the rest of the night writing about them, and I still wouldn't be able to fully convey the warmth of their smiling faces, the depth of their wisdom and understanding, the clarity of their perspective, the pure goodness that radiates from them. They inspire me. They lift me. They love me. And they love my husband and my little girl. And let me tell you, it's a great feeling to be loved by your heroes. (Hey, I warned you I was waxing sentimental here!)

I love hanging out with my siblings too. I think the feelings are mutual....but not because I'm as cool as they are. It's for the simple reason that they can make me laugh. Everyone likes to have someone around who laughs at all your jokes, right? And I am a pushover! Ask my brother Michael. Or David. Or Caleb. Or Joseph. Or Hyrum. I can't help it. I seriously think my brothers are hilarious. I about split a gut every time we get together. Especially when they start telling stories about each other. Oh, good times! But what I love most is the wholesomeness (is that a word?) of their humor. Our fun is always good fun. Fun you can have and think back on without feeling guilt or regrets. That's what I love about being with my family. It feels so good! I feel good when I'm with them, and when we part ways, I still feel like I'm glowing. What's more, I always leave their presence wanting to be a better person--to be kinder, to be more honest and sincere, to work harder, to learn more.....and to spend more time with them.

One of the most enjoyable experiences of the whole reunion for me was sitting with my parents and siblings and their spouses in our "semi-private" room one night, everyone sprawled out on the floor and mattresses, and listening to David wax eloquent with his impressive Harvard-law-grad vocabulary and oratory skills about the great benefits of reading. Caleb has never been the avid reader David has, so David was trying to pursuade him to "see the light" and recognize that reading is the most effective means of gaining knowledge. Caleb really held his own against the newly employed attourney, however. The two went back and forth, with occassional comments and insights from the rest of us, and it turned into a very stimulating debate. As much as I enjoyed the content, though, I had a lot more fun just watching the two interact--both so different, but so respectful and open-minded and intelligent. I wish political debates were more like that....

-Watching this....

That's my mom, known affectionately by her family as "Sis," with her two brothers. They are the three oldest in the family and were really close growing up. I can count on less than one hand the number of times I've seen them together. That's one of the sacrifices my mom has had to make all these years, not being able to visit her family out West very often. So this was a magical moment for me to see--the three of them standing in the middle of the kitchen with their arms wrapped around each other, talking and laughing together as if nothing has changed in thirty years. Maybe nothing really has.

-Driving home with my family in a whale-sized RV that averaged 40 mph!!
Believe it or not, Erik and I agree that the trip home--slow and wobbly and full to the brim with vomit as it was (for details, keep reading)--was worth the whole trip, and we'd do it again just for that. Erik said that was the highlight of the trip for him. I can't tell you how it thrills me to hear my husband say that.

Here are some of the memories from the ride home that I'll savor for the rest of my life:

-Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Erik completely engrossed in conversation with my parents. My mom was driving; Dad was in the passenger seat, and Erik was sitting on a cooler behind them, leaning forward so his head was right between them. Despite the lateness of the hour, Erik's voice was alive with energy and enthusiasm. I found out the next morning that he stayed up and talked with them until 6 am. I still don't know all the things they talked about that night, but it made a big impression on Erik. He wrote about it in his journal. So did my mom.

-Watching my little girl melt the macho-hearts of my younger brothers

Come on, doesn't she melt your heart too?

-Sitting in a circle one night with Bethany, Joseph, Hyrum and Melody, our heads bent together as we took turns telling stories about our most embarrassing moments growing up...and laughing our heads off. We were literally holding our sides in pain. For those who don't know my family, the aforementioned siblings are younger than I am. Bethany is a senior (18), Joseph just turned sweet 16 in November, Hyrum is almost 14, and Melody, the baby of the family, is 10. I can't believe how much they've all grown and matured since I left the house. Joseph and Hyrum are growing like weeds. They are all such good kids. I would be incredibly happy if my kids turn out like they have.

Just a side note here: the night described above was our first night driving back to Atlanta from Arizona. Like I said, it was a night that'll be preserved for the rest of my life in the category of "warmest and fuzziest memories." We all hugged and kissed goodnight and told each other how much fun we'd had, and then we separated to our various sleeping places.

The next morning I woke up, refreshed from a very nice sleep in the comfortable, queen-sized bed in the back of the RV, to find that Joseph and Dad had been puking their guts out all night long....among other things equally as charming. Before too long, Bethany was bent over a bucket as well. The poor thing practically camped out in the bathroom that whole day. And afterwards she and Joseph slept like rocks for about 24 hours. The nasty bug caught up with Erik one day also, and he spent a good part of one day in bed.

So....with the delightful sounds and smells of influenza ringing in our ears and hovering around our noses, we continued our cross-country journey with a little less umph than when we had commenced it. Not that I could complain. For one thing, I didn't get sick (well, not until the following week when we were in Charleston...), and for another thing, my sweet little daughter was likely the vector....

We also made a stop at the Snowflake, AZ temple on our way home. That was the first day on the road, when everyone was still happy and healthy.

This picture just cracks me up. Didn't I tell you Joseph is growing like a weed?

I think Uncle Dave's family summed up the reunion best. They had t-shirts made for this thing. The fronts read "Stout Family Reunion, 2008." On the back were the words "I survived." Here are two brief, funny clips that capture some of the delightful chaos of the Stout Family Reunion 2008. I've entitled them "Breaking Fire Code" and "Stuck in the Bathroom." In order to appreciate the second one, I have to provide a little background info. The door of the main bathroom in the cabin consistently refused to open without someone on the outside slamming his full body weight against it, so it became a regular occurrence to hear some poor stranded soul in the bathroom banging on the door, calling for help. If you listen carefully, that's what's happening in the background of the second video. Enjoy!

Road trips

I've had several posts-in-progress of late that I've been trying to finish, and I'm finally going to start unloading them. Now that Christmas has come and gone, I figure it's about time I published something about Thanksgiving and our recent family reunion in Arizona. Erik and I decided to fly out early and then ride back with my family. As the reunion date got closer, I started thinking about what it was like to travel cross-country with my family. It had been a while since I'd done it. One night I started reminiscing about some good times we had on family road trips in old Big Red. So here's a heavy dose of stream-of-consciousness for you. (Our Thanksgiving Reunion post is coming soon so stay tuned!)

I love trips. I still haven't outgrown the giddy anticipation feeling I always got the night before when I was little. In fact, I think that was half the fun--the anticipation. Tabitha and I had a tradition of staying up all night right before we left on a family vacation. Our excuse was "packing," but that didn't take very long. We just liked staying up. The later it got, the more excited we became.

It wasn't just the vacation itself that we looked forward to, either. We loved the road trip itself. At least I did. Family road trips were special occasions--welcome departures from our daily routines. No school. No evening chores. No scheduled bedtime. And lots of yummy snacks we didn't usually get to eat. The only part of our normal daily routine that Mom and Dad still adhered to was morning devotional, in which we'd sing, pray, and take turns reading from the scriptures. And usually, we were too excited about the trip to offer much resistance.

Family road trips meant getting up extra early in the morning to finish packing and load the car. My parents always had high expectations of being on the road by 6 am, but that never happened, no matter how early we got up. Never. We teased my parents that if we added about 6 hours to their departure time goal, we were usually right on the money. That was pretty much true. But now I wish I had helped more and teased less....because it takes Erik and me FOR-EV-ER to get out the door when we go on trips. When we go anywhere, actually. And we just have one kid. When I multiply that by 10, it doesn't look good. I think my merciless teasing will come back to haunt me. Maybe the key is not to have great expectations??

Family road trips meant Mom's homemade trail mix, which she only made for road trips. I always ate mine in a strict order, from least to greatest on the scale of deliciousness: peanuts first, then the raisins, followed by the chex cereal, and then, after putting it off as long as I could......I'd savor the M&M's, one by one. Sometimes, when I was feeling generous, I'd share some of my peanuts and raisins with Caleb, who always devoured his portion within minutes of receiving it.

Family road trips meant unlimited pleasure-reading time. I always packed at least two or three books to read in the car. My favorite time to indulge myself was when everyone else was asleep. This usually happened a few hours into the trip, when the initial excitement and sugar-high started to wear off. For some reason, I took secret delight in being the only one awake (except for Dad, of course). It made me feel like I was getting ahead or something. Ahead in what, I don't know. My book, perhaps. But somehow, I felt like it was a great treat no one else seemed to know about. And I liked that. (Hmmm...Middle-child syndrome symptoms?) Sometimes my mom would wake up and start talking with my dad. If I were sitting up front, I liked to listen to them. Even if I didn't join in the conversation, I still felt like I had them all to myself, and that was definitely a treat. But if I did become part of the conversation, I counted that as another special privilege.

Family road trips meant endless rounds of B.S., my favorite card game. When I asked one of my older brothers what it meant, he told me "bologna sandwhich" which I believed for many years. For those of you who have never had the privilege of playing the game, I'll quickly summarize. The more players, the merrier in this one. All the cards are dealt, and whoever has the Ace of Spades begins by placing the card face down in the middle and saying, "One Ace." The next player is supposed to put down one or more two's, and the succeeding player one or more three's, and so on. Whoever gets rid of his cards the fastest is the winner. However, as the name suggests, this is a bluffing game. So if it's your turn and you're on "three" and don't have one, you put down a different card, still saying, "One three" as you lay it down. If you manage to fool your fellow players, you pat yourself on the back, and the game moves right along. (or, if you're like my brothers, as soon as the next player puts his card down, you start shouting and laughing obnoxiously about how smooth you are and how dumb everyone else is) BUT if there are discerning eyes (and/or obnoxious brothers) in the group, someone might call out, "B.S.!" and then, to your horror, half a dozen hands scramble at once to flip over the last card and reveal its true identity. If you have bluffed, you get to add all the cards currently on the "table" to your own hand, while enduring the laughing and mocking from said obnoxious brothers. No big deal if the pile is small...but usually you're not that lucky. I well remember, with a shudder, the sinking feeling of imminent doom that came over me whenever the pile had grown to gynormous proportions and I realized I didn't have the right card I needed for my next turn. I tried all kinds of different tactics over the years to conceal the rising panic in my chest at those moments, but inevitably, one of my older brothers would see right through my false bravado. I could never look on the bright side of owning three-quarters of the deck, unlike my brother David. He's a good bluffer (yes, the recent Harvard law grad, that's the one), but occasionally he'd get caught and have to add the stack on the table to his hand. Whenever this happened, he managed to turn the situation to his advantage. He would immediately begin making piles of each individual card he had, in ascending order. Whenever anyone laid a card down after that he'd shout, "Wait! Don't go yet!" to the person next in line, and we'd all have to wait impatiently while he went through all his cards to make sure he didn't already have four of that particular one. He often did, or he'd have at least three of them so he'd call out "B.S.!" either way. The game quickly became a drag until David's hand slimmed down.

Did I say this was going to be a brief summary?

So card games were always a fun part of the trip. Can you picture all of us kids trying to play cards together as we sit on four different benches within our 15-seater Ford clubwagon? We were definitely stretching the seat belt law. We were always buckled, but I'm not sure a seat belt does any good when you're sitting on your ankles facing the rear of the car. Or when you're hanging over the bench in front of you for a better view of the game, with your bum out of the seat entirely. Fortunately we never got in any accidents.

Family road trips meant singing till our voices gave out or some unfortunate soul in the back who was trying to fall asleep begged us to quit. Mom was a big advocate of this tradition. She was usually the one who started it. She'd say, "Let's sing!" Then starting with the oldest on down to the youngest, we'd each pick a song for everyone to sing together. With a few exceptions, none of us are great singers, but it sure was fun. There were always one or two of the boys who'd complain at first, but almost inevitably they'd join in after a while, and a few songs later, they were grinning with the rest of us. That always made me happy.

Especially warm and fuzzy are the memories of listening to my mother sing at night, as most of us were drifting off to sleep after a long, hard day of eating snacks and playing cards. (We never stopped at hotels on our trips; we always drove straight through. Back when I was a young whippersnapper, I didn't have any trouble curling up against a cold window pane or leaning against the warm body of another sibling and sleeping peacefully through the night. If I tried that now, I don't think I could get up in the morning.) My mom's singing voice is very soothing to me. I remember I'd lie awake and listen to her and feel like everything was right in the world. I felt safe and perfectly content with life. She would sing songs from her childhood that I never heard anywhere else. They were songs she only sang on road trips. I don't know why. Maybe they're part of her special collection of "family road trip" memories. They all sounded like country songs to me, and I don't mean Garth Brooks country. I mean Laura Ingalls Wilder country songs--songs that seemed to belong to a different era, a different people. Songs that would be sung around a prairie campfire, accompanied by fiddles and little girls dancing in long cotton dresses. There was something so wholesome and refreshing about them; I felt like I belonged to that time and to those people. My mother's voice as she sang those songs seemed to unlock doors in my mind and reveal places and things there that I'd never visited, and I'd just close my eyes and let myself wander, let thoughts and feelings take shape and drift away as they pleased. If there's a place between wakefulness and dreams, I think I found it on those nights.

Mmmm....I love family road trips.

Still Alive

Ok, I know I haven't written anything for over a month and some form of excuse or explanation or apology (or perhaps even an update!) could be reasonably expected by my readers.....but I hope you'll forgive me for putting off the excuse/explanation/apology/update till tomorrow (or....another day...in the near distant future....I hope...) and just telling a funny story from my day.

I was on the phone with my mom this afternoon when Abigail came into the kitchen moaning and began tugging at my pant leg. When I asked her what was wrong, she promptly stuck her finger up her nose and said, "Uva!"

Here's your Spanish lesson for the day. Any guesses for what "uva" means? Booger? Nope. Snot? Nope. Good guesses, though. "Uva" is the word for "grape." Abigail also refers to raisins as "uvas." She is crazy about raisins and would eat them all day long if I let her, but I can't handle the diapers so I set a limit.

I'm an awful multi-tasker, so Abigail's odd behavior didn't quite register. I patted her on the head and continued talking with my mom. A second later, Abigail was whimpering again, pointing at her nose and saying, "Uva!"

Hearing Abigail whining in the background, my mom asked if I needed to go. "No, no," I chuckled into the phone, "She's fine. I'm not sure what's wrong with her. She's pointing at her nose and saying, "Raisin!" I finished the last half of my sentence in slow motion. I stared at Abigail. "Do you have an uva in your nose?" "Yeah!" she said energetically. I started laughing. "Mom, there's no way she could have gotten a raisin up her nose! Her nostrils are as small as mine!" (For those of you who've never had the fortune of looking up my nose, I will go ahead and tell you that I have pathetically puny nostrils. I was often teased about it growing up, although to this day I don't understand why people find so much amusement in the fact. An older brother who shall remain nameless once offered me a dollar to prove to him that I could pick my nose. He wouldn't believe it until he saw it........Yes, I can pick my nose.) My mom reminded me of a time when one of my nieces, as a baby, got a popcorn kernel stuck up her nose somehow, and it wasn't discovered for quite some time...not until after it had taken root! (no, not kidding!) However, the clue came in the form of rank breath, not protruding popcorn roots.

"Oh, no!" I told my mom. "Abigail's had really bad breath today!" My mom grunted. "Better check her nose!"

When I hung up with her, I ran and got a flashlight and coaxed Abigail onto my lap. Shining the light up her nose, I immediately saw, to my amazement, what was unmistakeably a raisin in her left nostril. Laughing, I fetched a pair of tweezers and tried to get it out. Abigail didn't appreciate having tweezers shoved up her nose for some reason, so she resisted, and I decided after a couple tries that I'd wait for Erik to come home. I didn't want to push the raisin up any further.

When Erik came home, I held Abigail down while he inserted the tweezers and removed the raisin--the gigantic raisin, I might add. I had assumed it had to be only part of one because I couldn't wrap my brain around how she could fit an entire one up that little nose of hers.

Abigail's left nostril, which had been running for a good part of the morning, magically stopped after her little operation. However, the bad breath still lingers....???