I just can't get enough

I know I JUST posted like 3 hours ago, but Mark & Carson got home & I was reminded of a bunch of things I wanted to write down. They've been in Rexburg yesterday & today & it was SO weird to be home by myself!

Anyway, we did haircuts on Friday. Why we put ourselves through it, I'll never know. We did Mark's & the clippers broke just as I was finishing. Mark managed to put them back together & we tried to do Carson's hair. We let him hold the clippers & said, "See, it's just a tool. Like Daddy uses at work." We gave him a sucker hoping that would keep him occupied, but it just got covered in hair & he was spitting & wiping his tongue. Anyway, once we got started he started screaming & crying like he was being tortured - I would've felt bad, but I know haircuts don't hurt. Anyway he starts screaming "No tanks! It's juss a toowuh! No TANKS!" (no thanks, it's just a tool). Mark & I could not keep a straight face - our son is screaming bloody murder, outside on the patio, trying to be polite & convince us that it's a tool not for cutting hair. So we ended up only getting the sides & back done before the clippers died again. I don't know that Carson could've handled much more anyway. So he's short on the sides & quite long on top. It's fairly horrendous. If we had clippers that worked, I'd try to "fickitz" (fix it), but as for now.....he just looks like he has a really bad hair cut!

Carson's Book of Mormon has some pictures tucked in it. They're ones I used for a nursery lesson on "The Book of Mormon Teaches Me About Jesus Christ" & they're of Jesus healing the sick and coming to earth as a baby, etc. So he looks at the pictures while I read a couple of scriptures. One night he's looking at the pictures & says, "I luff Jesus. You luff Jesus too?" "I do love Jesus, Carsie. And Jesus loves you." "Yeah!" Aah, I melted! Tonight while we were reading, he showed me the picture of the nativity & I told him that Jesus came to earth as a little baby. And he told me in the other pictures "Jesus came to eeth. Dehr He izz."

We have to sit in his room until he falls asleep (any pointers on how to stop this would be much appreciated!). He rolls around for a few minutes & then drifts off. It usually takes about ten minutes. Tonight when I was in there he was extra restless & ended up coming down to the end of the bed where the chair is & saying, "My cubbers ahr boken." (my covers are broken) So I fixed them for him & fell right to sleep.

In other news, I just finished reading "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows. I LOVED IT!! It's historical fiction about the occupation of some of the islands in the British Channel. It's written as a series of letters between the main character, Juliet - an authoress, and her friends. It was such an easy read & all the characters are so endearing & easy to picture. It does give some details of concentration camps, etc. & uses some mild expletives & the Lord's name in vain - sort of - sometimes. So be forewarned, but I don't feel bad recommending it. This is the author's last paragraph in the Acknowledgments: "If nothing else, I hope these characters and their story shed some light on the sufferings and strength of the people of the Channel Islands during the German Occupation. I hope, too, that my book will illuminate my belief that love of art - be it poetry, storytelling, painting, sculpture, or music - enables people to transcend any barrier man has yet devised."

This made me chuckle because Mark gives me such a hard time about looking in people's windows at night when we drive by: "Night-time train travel is wonderful again! No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no blak-out curtains. All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt as if we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I don't consider myself a real peeper - they go in for bedrooms, but it's families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions."

Without giving too much away, she gets worried about meeting the people she's been writing to: "in these past two or three years, I have become better at writing than living....On the page, I'm perfectly charming, but that's just a trick I learned. It has nothing to do with me." That's exactly how I feel about my blog!! I put a lot of stuff on here & who knows who reads it, but would I share it with a friend who came to visit - in real life?

One last quote. I thought this described motherly instinct to a T: "Of all the things that happened during the war, this one - making your children go away to try to keep them safe - was surely the most terrible. I don't know how they endured it. It defies the animal instinct to protect your young. I see myself becoming bearlike around Kit (a 4-year-old girl). Even when I'm not actually watching her, I'm watching her. If she's in any sort of danger (which she often is, given her taste in climbing), my hackles rise - I didn't even know I had hackles before - and I run to rescue her. When her enemy, the parson's nephew, threw plums at her, I roared at him. And through some queer sort of intuition, I always know where she is, just as I know where my hands are - and if I didn't, I should be sick with worry. This is how the species survives, I suppose, but the war threw a wrench in all that. How did the mothers of Guernsey live, not knowing where their children were? I can't imagine."

Anyway, I loved it!