DC Part 1 of Many

In honor about this blog now being more about me than you... (wow, when I put it that way it sounds kind of rude!). An indulgent, indepth recap of my trip to DC. I tried to keep it bare bones for you. And I wrote this for our Bassett Family blog...so um, if I refer to "you guys" it means Blaine's family. Just an FYI :)

Friday May 11 -

I left Salt Lake about 10:30AM, I was relieved to sit by THE NICEST man in the world. He was probably 55-60 years old, owns a 600 acre cattle ranch in Kansas and was just a pleasure to talk to. It came up that I was mormon and he got a puzzled look on his face and asked, "wait, so, if you are mormon, what is your husband doing in DC?". Which made me laugh. Apparently he didn't realize that mormons were allowed to stray from the "homeland" :). We both had four hour layovers in the Denver airport and he was so kind and bought me lunch and kept me company for the layover. Probably seems weird to write so much about the person I sat next to on my first flight but it really changed the tone from being a scary thing to being a fun thing. So, be nice to people on planes! You never know when you are sitting next to someone who is terrified! (Unless they tell you, like I would!). Ha.

I got in to Washington Dulles around 9:30 that night. One of Blaine's co-workers (well, not exactly a co-worker...but an acquaintance who happens to be LDS as well) was so nice and offered to drive him to pick me up from the airport. We stopped at McDonalds for dinner and then he dropped us off at the Marriott Bethesda. Blaine had bought flowers for me, which was kind of a big deal since he had to drag them, along with his luggage around DC and the metro all day!  The hot tub was closed, much to Blaine's dismay.

Saturday May 12 -

Our hotel had a shuttle to the metro, which was nice. To get down in to the metro you have to take the worlds longest escalator, which was a fun adventure.

 Turns out I kind of have an irrational fear of mass transit too. The
subway kind of stressed (and grossed!) me out. I eventually got over that during the week, but it took a while : ) Our first destination was to Wingos. See-- being that this trip was sponsored by student loans, and that no matter what we did the trip was going to be pretty expensive, we did our best to save on hotels and meals. Groupon has a cool thing in big cities called "Groupon Now" where it posts a lot of deals that have to be used within a couple of hours. So we paid $5 for a $10 certificate at Wingos, and I had $5 of groupon credit, so this was a free meal. And we walked about two miles to get it :). Ha ha. It was literally a hole in the wall, but man, I've never tasted such good wings! The area Wingos was in was kind of a ritzy shopping district (Georgetown), it was fun to walk around and see Hugo Boss stores in really old buildings. I was in awe at how green the city was. 

Oh also while we were eating our wings I had a nice conversation with a policeman, and being LDS came up again. Man, if you ever go to DC don't forget to take your pass along cards! 

We then walked over to the Potomac where there was a big Crew race going on. It was kind of fun to watch for a while, seeing as how I've only ever seen people rowing in movies!

Then we rented a kayak. When I got in I kind of broke the seat. And as we were drifting while getting settled some dude in another kayak started freaking out, "watch my oar. Watch my oar! WATCH MY OAR!" And I was thinking, dude, I am not in control, you may want to get your oar out of my way. Oh well. Now we have a fun quote (WATCH MY OAR!).  Since the crew race was going on (which the guy on the doc so kindly reminded us of as we started paddling that way), we headed South down the Potomac. Saw a dead fish. I had a panic attack because I thought I saw a snake. And finally about half an hour in to our hour rental we made it to see the back of the Lincoln Memorial :) It was pretty darn fun!

Then we walked around "the mall" and just kind of got the lay of the land and saw the memorials and monuments and the white house. Blaine showed me where he worked. I thought my feet were going to fall off. I can't remember what we had for dinner that night -- I think we took the hotel shuttle to a mall and ate at The Cheesecake Factory (don't worry, I only got an appetizer to save $$). Oh yeah, when the table next to ours got their meal Blaine said something like "dang! I wonder what that is, it looks good!" And the girl just turned and told us what they had ordered and offered us some, it was so funny. Turns out they were LDS and in town for a DoTerra convention (DoTerra is the essential oil company my granola neighbor sells for). They were really funny and nice, it was a mom with two of her TWELVE kids. Crazy. I can't imagine raising 12 kids here, but they must have gotten some stares raising 12 kids in Delaware where they were from!

We made it back in time to sit in the hot tub (thankfully!). And I think maybe this is the night that we were with three older women in the hot tub who had taken a road trip together to DC. We talked about the price of milk in our respective areas of the country : ) Oh and I had fun being cynical of the lifeguard who sat in the corner applying her makeup while kids were swimming in the pool. Awesome. 

Wow, Maybe I better take this one day at a time so as to not write the worlds longest post!

Out With A Bang

Do I really think I am going to die on a plane tomorrow? Meh...I'm like 60% sure that I won't.  But considering I white knuckle the calmest of flights, I know I am in for a long, exhausting, trying day. And if I come through it all in tact at the end, well that would just be great.

This anxiety does weird things to me. I've been really sluggish the last few days, I can't get myself to do anything but sit and think of the worst possible things that could happen. Add to this that I also suffer a fair amount of anxiety about leaving my kids. Don't get me wrong...I enjoy leaving my kids, I love time away from them, but boy do I ever worry about them. We have close calls all the time and I am the hyper vigilant helicopter mom. I worry they'll choke on food. That someone will back over them in a car. So scary. So anxiety is the name of the game for me for the next little while. I wish I could just not be so wound up about it. But, yeah, it is what it is.

In honor of all of my anxiety though we took today by the horns and just rocked it. I let Gwen miss school. Originally it was because she had a doctors appointment at 11am. But, it turned in to an entire day affair. She slept in two hours past the time that she normally has to wake up for school ( which makes me wonder if she is getting enough sleep normally?!). I made blender whole wheat waffles with lemon curd on top for breakfast. Then we had about an hour long dance party.

That was my favorite. I always had visions of dancing around with my kids and singing and laughing. The reality is more me singing, Gwen moping and rolling her eyes, Ivy crying, and Ben screaming and running around like a wild man. Not today! Today was awesome. We sang, we danced, the kids even got along with each other. That's huge for us.

We hit up the doctors office, Gwen's little growth on her leg isn't cancer (holla!). I had the kids in hysterics and I did impressions of them when they get their shots as babies. They literally had tears rolling down their eyes from laughing so hard (I guess you just never know what will be funny to kids, eh?).

Then we hit up the library, maxed out our card and prayed that that would be enough books to last Gwen while I am gone.

Stopped and grabbed a sub sandwich (and an extra extra large Dr. Pepper). Took it to the park to eat.

Then we played at the park, more specifically the swings. I swung as high as I could. It. Was. Awesome.

Then somebody's car ran out of gas and we gave them a ride to get a canister and gas. The kids were completely weirded out by it and weren't shy about saying so. "MOM! What is SHE doing in our car?". A bit awkward. Especially awkward when she came out of the  store with a gas canister AND a lighter. In the spirit of being overridden with anxiety I was sure she was going to blow us all to smithereens. She didn't. Also awesome.

Then I went to the mall. And I found stuff I liked (rare!). And the kids were good! They were entertaining each other!

I ran those suckers ragged today and they were being so good. It really was monumental.

Back home for some PBSkids.org while I tried to get some packing done (fail). A few more errands.

And finally we ended with a delicious healthy dinner of twist cones at Thanksgiving Point. Then prayers and scriptures. (I am ashamed to admit that they had to beg me to read scriptures, but man was I ever proud! "Mom, I love reading scriptures. Jesus wants us to read scriptures!"). Bentley prayed for me to be safe and to make lots of new friends in DC.

Really, if today were my last day, I couldn't ask for a better one. (Well, I guess I could ask for one where I actually get to see my husband, but..beggars can't be choosers ;).

Everyone cross your fingers and say a little prayer for me. I bet none of you guys pray for your pilots the night before your flights do you? (ha ha, I just love to give you all insights to what it is like to be certifiably insane--- at least my insanity has a specific trigger-- it would be exhausting to be this worked up about every day life!).

Peace out!

Gratitude

The other night I stayed up until 3AM. I didn't intend to. It started out because I had an idea to follow up on a blog I had read about a year ago about a guy who had lost his wife suddenly. I just thought I would check in and see what had changed in the year since her passing (such a sad story). But then I made the mistake of reading some of the comments on his blog, which lead me to this blog. I had heard the story of Sheldon and Jace a few weeks earlier on facebook, they are friends of a friend of mine.[If you don't hop over to read- On Julie's 31st birthday her husband took her toddler out for a canoe ride on the lake behind their house, and they both drowned]. Wow,  reading her blog really did a number on me. I literally felt so much physical pain for her, such an aching, such empathy. I couldn't help but just sit and sob the whole night through. And of course, reading some of the comments on her blog led me to others. It was a long night full of tears, love, and mostly full of prayers of gratitude that I have not had to experience such tragedy, and pleading that I never will. 

It was timely to read those blogs when I did. I had had a hectic day, it was day 10 of being a temporary single mom. I had made it through the day but had hastily thrown the kids in bed, no story, a rushed family prayer, a quick goodnight and a sigh of relief. I think there was quite a bit of yelling in there too. As I sat alone in my bed reading I just wanted my family to be with me. I wanted Blaine by my side, and all of my kids in my bed. I didn't care if Ivy's feet were in my face, or if they were all fighting, I just wanted them close. It pained me to not be with Blaine. The pain eased only by the fact that he is not gone forever, just for a little while. And that I can call and talk to him on the phone each day. A luxury all of those people I mentioned no longer have. 

Lots of things struck me on those blogs. It was heartbreaking to read the posts that happened right before the posts that talked about the tragedy. These are normal people with normal lives. Doing fun things, having fun days, having rough days,  playing at the park and then BAM. It ends. It's over. A huge part of their life is gone in an instant. I bet they'd give anything to read their kids a story, to fold their husbands laundry. Julie talked about a dream she had where she was wiping Jace's face after he had eaten lunch. Such a simple thing, a thing we do twenty times a day, something we likely dread doing, and she misses that so much and would give anything to wipe his face. 

It made me realize too how we need to live for the now. For instance in the case of Julie and Sheldon, he had just barely finished optometry school. He had been in school for their entire marriage (10 years I believe) and then six months after finishing the accident happened. I am so glad Blaine is in school and following his dream. We've been lucky, our lifestyle hasn't suffered too much (thank you student loans!), and I really am enjoying life right now. The days are long, Blaine is working his tail off, but things are good. Blaine is learning and growing in so many ways. It's amazing to be a part of his growth and to watch his accomplishments. His work, for example, is practically on the back lawn of the white house ( he has fun making his way through protesters of some sort almost every single day on his way to work, exciting right?). I think if something happened to Blaine during school or shortly thereafter that I wouldn't consider the decision to do law school a waste of time or money, because he is truly a happier and more fulfilled person because of it. I just hope that we can always focus on being happy where we are at in each stage of life, because accidents don't care if you are just finally starting your "real" life, the part you've been waiting for-- or if you are in the middle of working towards that life. They just happen. So I'm determined to be doing everything I can to ensure our family is just living up every stage of life we are in. Sorry, random thoughts I know.

I've been thinking a lot about my kids too. Each of those bloggers I mentioned probably clings so tightly to any and every memory, snippet, post, picture, video, etc they have of their lost loved ones. I've been horrible at blogging or documenting anything for a long time now. Something about being back in Utah made my life seem completely boring and dull and overall not worth writing about. I had been writing this blog for the masses, to make you all laugh, and to be validated as a good writer. And I didn't have fodder for that any more. But...if something were to happen to the kids or Blaine, I know I would wish that I would have documented more of our everyday lives. So I am going to try to do that more. (I just heard a hundred of you go and delete me from your google reader feed, ha ha). Oh well ;) 

So now I am basically just rambling. But I love my family, I hope they know it. I also love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that has allowed me to be sealed to my family forever. So that if something ever did happen, I would know that this life is not the end. That we can be together again. What peace that brings! 

Now... off to write sappy individual posts about each of my kids. Look forward to that! 

Double Take

A few weeks ago as Blaine was having a lunch with a professor the professor casually asked Blaine if he was related to a Morgan Bassett. Blaine scoured his memory and came up dry, so responded that nope, there was no relation. The professor looked a little confused and said, "really? Because you remind me so much of him!". Apparently this professor had attended law school with said Morgan Bassett and they had been good friends.

Then a light clicked on for Blaine and he remembered a year or so ago that his uncle had told him that one of his cousins was an attorney in New York.
So it turns out there was a connection, though Blaine wasn't familiar with this particular relative. So of course he wanted to find out more about this like-minded second cousin. After a few minutes googling he came across this picture...


Which, I don't know if you have seen my husband lately but he looks like this...

*Eerie Twilight Zone Music Playing*. Even our kids, when shown the picture of Morgan Bassett claim it is Blaine. I wish I had a better picture of Blaine's head positioned the same way and with no smile, because it would be uncanny. He looks more like this second cousin than he looks like his brothers and sisters!

Awkward Silences

I keep thinking about funny things that happen and wish I could blog about them but don't do so because, well...it's been half a year since I posted, it just didn't seem right to jump in and pretend like that awkward six month silence didn't happen.

Anywho (casually ignoring the six month silence). . . so the other day I went to IKEA. I was parked in the loading zone, because I was just running in for a sec. When I was done I got back in my van and was messing around on my phone for a bit before leaving. I looked up and saw a man approaching my car with his hand up in the air, in a friendly, "hey wait up lady, you dropped something" kind of way. He got closer and then tapped on the door. So I unlocked it, expecting him to hand over my purse, or receipt or something. Instead he picked up the mail that was sitting on my front seat and started riffling through it. It was then that I cautiously extended my hand to protect my purse, assuming that he was going to grab it and run. After he flipped through a bunch of my mail he looked up at me, and jumped about a mile high. Then he shut the door. Opened it again and said, "sorry, wrong car". And then went and hopped in to the dark grey Sienna parked right next to me. And then I laughed and laughed. It was a nervous laugh though because I really thought I was toast when he started going through my stuff.

We took a spontaneous trip to Disneyland a few weeks ago. It seemed like the right thing to do. You know with Blaine so busy in school, and our income of nothing, why not? No really, it was good. Except the part where everyone else in the entire world decided to go to DL at the same time. In February. And also the part where Ivy had just gotten potty trained the week before. Well, at least now I can cross off "visit every public restroom from Lehi to Anaheim" off of my bucket list (not fun folks, *shudder*).

We kept it a surprise from the kids, which kind of got tricky once my parents started loading their suitcases in to our car. "Oh yeah kids...Grandma and Grandpa are coming with us to pick up dad and take him to dinner...and then they brought their stuff in case they decide they want to sleepover or something". After we picked up Blaine from school and headed off "to dinner" at Wendy's. In Nephi (just where you should take your kids and husband and grandparents for a night out on the town), we decided to tell the kids. It was fun. We got video, I should post it but then I might lose my steam and never post this :). Gwen didn't believe us (because actually we often announce to the kids that we are going to Disneyland, and then tell them we are kidding...which now all of the sudden seems kind of rude). When it sank in that we were actually going she was on top of the freaking world! So happy! (side note: she's being bullied at school, and we were both so excited that she didn't have to go for a whole week! Much needed break from tears and drama). Bentley, upon realizing that we were serious, burst in to tears. Apparently he has a phobia of people in costume and the thought of seeing the characters was just too much (who knew?). Ivy... announced that she had to go potty for the first of ten trillion times throughout the course of the drive.

[NOTE: Hey, I found the video on this computer! But, it is uploading and currently says it will take 800 minutes to upload...and I have episodes of 30 Rock to watch, so I just want to post this, but hopefully I can update and insert the video in here in about 801 minutes]

But on to the funny story! So one night we were staying at the park pretty late. We got dinner at the pizza planet place (rip off alert!). As we were eating, Gwen finished and was laying on the bench and fell asleep. When we were all done she looked so darn cute asleep there that I took her picture. Then we picked her up to go. Ivy, not to be outdone, then laid on the bench and pretended to sleep so we would take her picture. Such a ham. We laughed and took her picture. Meanwhile Gwen had kind of woken up and in a state of somewhat delirium didn't want to be outdone. So she laid back on the bench with a dreamy little smile.

*While all of this was taking place there was a nice guy sitting at the table next to us, smiling and enjoying his dinner*

We laughed and told her it was time to go. Then she inched along the long bench toward the guy sitting at the table next to us. We giggled, "Gwen, come on let's go". Which is when she lifted her head, put it on the guy's lap and wrapped her arm around his leg. Oh my gosh, I was dying! I kept saying "Gwen, Gwen, open your eyes, we have to go". Nope, she wouldn't have it. So there she was, cuddling with some complete stranger. He was so funny too. I could tell he was pretty worried about the situation. You should have seen his face. Finally after a painful two minutes or so I was like "Gwen, DUDE, that is NOT GRANDPA!" Her eyes shot open, and she looked up at the guy, and practically ran to the nearest exit. Oh man, the words don't describe it but I'll put it this way...I will never complain about the price of that pizza (which ironically is all that I did during the meal) because that memory is so worth it.

What a good sport that guy was!

Well that about sums it up, but just to glaze over a few more quick points (for posterity)!

* Blaine is rocking law school! It was scary to decide to go back to school, to quit a perfectly wonderful job in the rocky economy, but seeing Blaine learn and grow and just...THRIVE has been awesome. I can only hope that sometime I find something that I am just as passionate about and excellent at. In fact right now he is taking a shower and I can hear him reciting his oral argument for the moot court competition tomorrow. I love it! He is seriously amazing and I would have spent the rest of my life kicking myself if we hadn't taken this opportunity!

* I'm doing the 30 day shred. Today was day 5 and I wanted to die. Since I don't work out on Sundays I get to do the workout twice on Saturdays (morning and night), so that will be really fun tomorrow. Blerg!

*Gwen loves reading. She reads for hours a day. I love it! She is still struggling at her new school. (We changed from the Charter to the local school which has turned out to be one of the worst decisions ever! Oh hindsight...sigh....), but she has made a couple of friends so that has helped. She is growing so much and she will be as tall as I am soon. Craziness.

*Bentley and I are both pretty sad that he doesn't get to start kindergarten this year. Boo! He finds it hard to be motivated to do anything besides watch shows or play electronics. Which drives me crazy. I try, oh how I try! Puzzles! Games! Bubbles! Parks! In fact one time I told him since he wanted to watch shows all day and never played with his toys I was going to give all of his toys away to his friends. A few weeks later I told him that one of his friends was coming over and he got all excited and said, "Is he coming so we can give him all of my toys so I can watch shows all day?!?" So, needless to say, I am on a quest to find something that the boy will love that doesn't involve electronics. Any ideas?

*Ivy is insane. I feel like that is all I can say about her ever, but seriously...where did she come from? She is a ball of crazy energy. Take for example the three nights in a row that we left Disneyland at 11PM and she hopped (not walked, not got pushed in a stroller) all the way from the Disneyland castle to our shuttle stop, which was like half a mile away. Then as everyone on the shuttle was in zombie mode Ivy was chattering away about Disneyland and how much she loved it. She's bossy, she's stubborn, she's spoiled as can be...but man I love her!

Okay well, I think we're good now. Hopefully I will find the motivation to write once in a while. Because I miss it. A lot. The end.

Locker Room Revisited

A couple of months ago a friend asked if she could use one of my blog posts as a monologue when she auditioned for a play. She found a post she thought would work and we worked together on revising it. She auditioned for the play, scored the lead, and the highlight of my life was that I got to see the play AND see my name in the program (she thanked me in the program, that's huge!). Anyway, it was really fun and just yesterday I saw something in the gym that reminded me of this monologue inspiring experience...someone was combing their eyelashes with a toothbrush. Is this normal? I should make a poster "Everything I Need to Know About Personal Hygiene I Learned in the Lifetime Fitness Locker Room". Because really? It's true.


Locker Room
by Kristi Bassett

I grew up in a family of five. But it was kind of a weird family of five because I had three siblings who were older....like, WAY older (I may be slightly off here but I believe my older siblings were ages 17, 14 and 13 when I was born). And my brother Shawn, who was just four years older than me, was too busy plotting ways to raise my parents blood pressure to pay much attention to me. So - for all intents and purposes I was basically raised as an only child, with some of the joys of having siblings thrown in there - like being impaled by horse chestnuts each fall and having to watch Shawn turn his eyelids inside out just to torture me while riding in the backseat of the car (gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking back on it).

What I am trying to say here, is that I never learned how to be a girl. Really, I didn't. I mean sure, I would sneak off with Stef at recess and discuss the intricacies of menstruation. And once on a shopping trip with her family we even pooled our money together and bought deodorant (which we secretly applied while riding in the back of the station wagon). But I didn't exactly have anyone around who I could mimic- who could teach me the ins and outs of being cool, boys, and most importantly of things like make-up.

I mean, sure, I tried to mimic my mom - which is how I assume most girls learn how to primp and pamper. Growing up in the 40s she clung tightly to the trend of nearly shaving off your eyebrows and then penciling them back on, creating a look of permanent surprise. But when I tried to do the same thing I wound up shaving an eyebrow completely off and cutting my eyelashes precariously close to the lid. And maybe some people can pull off the uncle Fester look, but unfortunately, I am not one of those people. My quick thinking saved me a punishment when I falsely accused Jimmy, my childhood friend, of being the mastermind of the assault on my face. And though my eyelashes and brows have long since grown back, she’s still working on treating Jimmy civilly.
What I desperately needed was someone two or three years older who was infinitely cooler than myself, who could be my mentor. I needed DJ from Full House or Topenga from Boy Meets World, but unfortunately I hung around with more of the Kimmy Gibbler crowd, and it showed.

The moral of the story is that the locker room at the gym baffles me. I’ve never been around so much estrogen! There are women in there primping and prepping in ways that I never even imagined. Straightening Irons, finishing creams, powders, potions, it’s overwhelming! These women are dolling themselves up more for an afternoon play date than I did for my wedding! I can’t say I blame them, rather, I admire them! I want to look nice, I want to pucker my lips and trace them and make kissy faces in the mirror without looking like a moron. People probably think it's a bit odd to see me gawking as they meticulously apply their make-up, but I simply can’t help it, I want to learn!

The bottom line is.... I saw someone blow-drying their eyelashes yesterday. And I don't understand why. Is this something I should be doing? Am I unaware of some health hazard resulting from simply letting your lashes air-dry? Does it make them darker? Curlier? Or have damp lashes just gone the way of my beloved boot cut jeans? Are they sooooo 2009? I am kind of panicky about it because as much as I want to embrace my femininity and apply the knowledge I gather from the gym locker room, I can sense a revisiting of the whole "shave the eyebrow" incident, only this time involving fire and eyesight impairment rather than just social suicide. But on the other hand, they do say that pain is beauty...

What else am I missing out on? And for the love, will someone just invite me over for a sleepover and teach me the fine art of putting on eyeshadow? I'm 28 years old, I think it's time I know.

4

Wow. Time flies when you are having fun, eh? Not sure how this little guy went from 0 - 4 in about two seconds, but he did! Having Bentley and Ivy so close together really through me for a loop (I know, you are thinking...really? She's not over it yet? But nope, not over it yet.). I think the hardest thing about it (besides trying to care for a newborn while puking my guts out) was that I felt like I didn't really get to pay enough attention to Bentley while he was just a little guy.

So it has actually been kind of fun this past month as Gwen has been gone at school all day and I just have the younger two at home. I feel like I am getting to see a fun side of Bentley (and Ivy). It's been fun to get to spend more time with him and to make up for some serious lost time while I was in a state of "two baby delirium" for a couple of years (I can hear twin moms laughing hysterically, I know dudes, I'm not as tough as you. I admit it).

Anyway, just thought I would give a little Bentley update for posterity's sake here on Bentley's fourth birthday.

Bentley finally started preschool, which he absolutely loves. He's been dying to go since he first found out about preschool about two and a half years ago. I am so grateful that he is finally old enough to go (misses the school deadline by two weeks, sigh). He goes to a little preschool a few houses down and looks forward to it every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 12:30-3.



Which is when he used to take a nap. And which is when he still does take a nap on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One of my very favorite things about Bentley is that he still takes naps. Willingly, readily and most of the time happily.


He is really in to puzzles right now. It's kind of fun as Gwen never really got in to them so much. He's conquered the 24 piece puzzle and is now loving 48 piecers. And I love Dollar Tree for having such a nice selection of puzzles for $1. When the puzzles get too easy we take two of them and mix all the pieces together for an added element of fun.


He's a master at the bigwheel. That happened over the summer. At the beginning of the summer we had a bike parade and we were kind of the laughing stock of the ward for a while because of how slow we were. But he really picked up on it and I think he is ready to move on to training wheels. Luckily he just got a spiderman scooter ($3 at a garage sale!) and a wiggle car for his birthday. We'll have to get some good time in before the snow starts to fall!


Bentley LOVES to sing. And he loves to sing loudly. It's really made me reconsider the music I listen too. I never thought it was bad, but nothing makes you realize how bad the music you listen to is like your 3 (well now 4) year old belting out songs at Costco. His very favorites are "Tonight Tonight," anything by Owl City, and basically any song you hear on the radio more than five times a day. Yeah, I think I am going to invest in some educational songs and start playing those because that kid can memorize lyrics so quickly! He'll hear a song once and then start singing it.

He is so sweet. Seriously. Gwen is so tough and stubborn that I have kind of learned that I have to be stern with her. But Bentley as soon as he can sense you are upset with him quickly apologizes. Most often he will burst in to tears as well. He just wants to please everyone so much. It is such a relief to have a kid that actually...I don't know... like feels remorse. The other day I was rushing to get the kids in the car so we could pick up Gwen in time. I had told Bentley to grab his shoes and get in the car. I then took out the garbage. When I came in I hollored "Bentley, get up here!". No response, then "BEN!", then forgetting how tender he is "BENTLEY, GET UP HERE RIGHT NOW!". Then I heard some crying. I went downstairs to find him, but he wasn't there. I finally found him in the van, in the garage, with his seatbelt bucked, sobbing. He heard me yelling for him and he couldn't get out of his seatbelt to come find me. And the whole time he was exactly where I had asked him to be, he was so quick that he got out there in the two seconds I was outside taking out the trash. What a sweet, obedient boy.

On the Fourth of July he was tossing a pillow around and somehow fell backwards and hit the back of his head on our coffee table. The corner of the coffee table. I could hear it. I knew it was going to be bad. He cried but I didn't see any blood. It was kind of weird. Then I moved my hand and my hand had blood on it. Then I almost passed out when I saw his small puncture wound on his head. We took him to the instacare where he got two staples put in. This is the first instance of stitches/staples in the Blaine Bassett family history. And I learned that I don't think I can ever. EVER. Be a nurse. I almost tossed my cookies like ten times throughout the whole experience.

He LOVES church. He talks about his primary teachers nearly every day. One day he came home and said, "Mom and Dad we have a big problem". The big problem was that Sister McCorriston (his teacher) wasn't there that week. A few weeks later he excitedly came out of primary to tell us he had figured out why Sister McCorriston had been missing for a couple of weeks - she had had a baby. So cute. He really listens to his primary teachers too and can tell us every week what he learns.

Whenever we ask him to do something, particularly something not fun like going potty, his shoulders immediately slump he looks down and says in a droll voice, "this is gonna take forevvvvvver". I don't know why, but he always says it, and I always think it is hilarious.

For our family reunion this summer we did a family marathon. For two hours we all ran as much as we could and tried to see how many marathons we could collectively run. I thought Bentley would stay in the stroller the whole time but oh no! That kid ran. A lot. In flip flops. When all was said and done I think he logged in about three miles by himself! We really need to get him some running shoes!

He loves to give kisses, and he has some seriously huge lips. No one but me really likes receiving the kisses though, and ironically he doesn't like to receive kisses either, just give them. To his sisters. Blaine and I pray often that he isn't going to be that kid in elementary. You know, the one that runs around kissing people.

The other day when I gave him a haircut I guess I had cut it too short and he said, "this haircut makes me look too much like Grandpa Genessy". Grandpa Genessy is bald. Ha ha.

Bentley is a pure delight to have in our family. He seriously makes me so happy. I love being with him, and everyone he meets just loves him. I feel so lucky to be his mom and so sad to see how quickly he is growing up. I tell him all the time that I want him to stay little but he says he eats too many vegetables so he is going to keep growing. Darn it all.