Pacifiers and Polywogs

Today marks one week since we cut the tip off of Nathan's beloved pacifier. When we gave it back to him that night he sucked once, pulled it out, and handed it to us. "Broke," he said. He hasn't used it since. He wanted to hold it while he went to sleep those first couple of nights and we have had more tears than usual, but all in all, it hasn't been too bad. The worst part has been sacrament meeting. During the last few months our goal has been to only let Nathan have his pacifier while sleeping, except during sacrament meeting. When he started to get restless during the meeting, we would pop it in his mouth and he was truly pacified. It was then easy to hold him on my lap and keep him entertained with a toy. This last Sunday we didn't even make it past the opening prayer before Jared was in the hall with him. We'll have to figure something else out.

"Broke"

Four days ago we got our first family pet...polywogs. One of my most treasured memories is going down to the Virgin River with my dad, Shonna, and Michelle. The sky was grey when we started our hike to the river, but we didn't think anything of it. After the excitement of catching several polywogs (tadpoles, guppies, whatever you happen to call them), large raindrops started to fall and the thunder began to clap. I clearly remember racing home as lightning struck all around us (or so it seemed). It was so much fun. Hmm. I wonder if that is where my love of crazy weather began. Anyway, we got to watch the polywogs grow and slowly morph into frogs...then our pets disappeared as soon as they got strong enough to hop away (Don't worry we kept them outside in a bucket. We didn't have stray frogs hiding in our beds). It was such an exciting learning experience for me. I am grateful for a father who took the time to do that with us. Well, last week Jared found some frogs sitting next to the pond outside. On Friday he took the kids out to try and find them. He came home ecstatic because instead of frogs they had found frog eggs. He insisted that we go and get a bowl for them that night, so we did. I thought he was a little overexcited and there was no need to rush to get one, but I was wrong. By the next morning half of them had hatched and by that afternoon they all had. We have been amazed at how quickly they have grown. We are drawing pictures of each stage in hopes it will help Brielle remember the whole process.