The Hazard Chronicles

This week in church we made it all the way through Sacrament meeting without ever having to leave the room. Now, I haven't been keeping track so I could be wrong here, but I am pretty sure that is the first time that ever happened since Addy and Jack were born.

This week was one of those weeks that was just good but not necessarily spectacular. We didn't do anything super special. We didn't have any scary experiences. We just lived life and watched the time go by. It's nice to have a week like that every once in a while. If I ever have more than a few of them in a row, however, I start getting bored.

Well, Rachel doesn't want me to write about the topic I have chosen for today. See, for the past four years we have crafted the blog to depict an elaborate illusion that our family is perfect. Well, I am about to ruin all of that. Right now I am super frustrated at our 3-year-old. And I think that is okay. I am a good dad who loves his children very much (see last week's blog), but who also gets very very annoyed at times by their behavior.

Evelyn- do you ever stop talking? Ever? Seriously, you will talk and talk and talk. And that is totally fine EXCEPT for the fact that you expect us to listen to you all the time. I simply can't do that. It is impossible. Believe it or not I have other things to do in my life besides listening to you and I cannot give you 100% of my time 100% of the time. And when those times come when it isn't your turn to talk it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to sit at the top of the stairs bawling, or in the back seat of the car screaming, or tugging on my hand whining and causing a scene.

But how do I teach you this? I have tried ignoring you thinking that you would learn not to get your way by crying. But you don't learn. You will literally cry for hours at a time. I know this because I have let you cry that long. You aren't "getting it." But the problem is that you won't just go away and do this in your room. Oh no. You follow me around the house forcing me to listen to every agonizing scream and whine until I am at the utter brink of insanity. And just know that while I am pretending to ignore you, I'm not. I can't. It is impossible to focus on anything while you are like that. But I don't want to "give in," as easy as that would be, and let you think that it was the constant barrage of whining that did it. And so I keep ignoring you and you keep crying yourself to sleep and then I keep going up and giving you hugs in your sleep while totally feeling like a bad dad for putting you through all that. Please, Evelyn, just learn to be considerate of other people. Please, for all of our sakes, be just a little bit less annoying.

Okay. Rant over. I hope she goes back and reads that some time in the future and realizes what a pill she could be.

And if that is the case, then I also want you to know, Evelyn, that yesterday I went on a fantastic date with you. We started by going to the "rock climbing park" with Mom and Addy and Jack. After the park just you and I went to Jack-in-the-Box for lunch and ate at a real restaurant. You thought that was very cool and grown up.

After our lunch we went to Tubbs hill and you led the way and we hiked all the way to the top. While we hiked I told you a story about how Mudgy Moose and Millie Mouse became friends. You liked that story a lot. You kept saying that I was like Mudgy and that you were like Millie because we were good friends too. Then you told me a story about an elephant, a giraffe, a horse, and a zebra. Your story had absolutely no plot, but it was fun to see your imagination working and I liked it anyway. The whole time we were out there we also collected several sparkly rocks to bring home and show to Mom. At the end of the day you looked at me and said "Daddy, that was a good date." That totally made my day.

Anyway, I need to go and make dinner. And while I am doing that I am trying to control my frustration level. Sometimes it would be so easy to just turn into a monster and start screaming. But I won't. Instead, I'll just write about it. It's therapeutic. Sorry Rach.

This week we made oatmeal cookie dough. It never made it to the oven.

Very cool, Addy. Very cool. I see you are trying to make up for the cookie-dough picture.

Here's Evelyn at the "rock climbing park." This wall is about 12 feet tall and overhanging. I am so proud of my girl for climbing to the top without any help and without getting scared. She is my monkey.

Rachel wanted me to put this picture up. It is of her at this stage of her pregnancy. I'm not exactly sure what stage that is. She is due in February. You do the math. (17 weeks)