Richie's accidental gift

Rich and I have spent a lot of time together these past several days. This evening, we played a game we haven’t in a while. Rich sat atop my bed as I crawled all around it very quickly and had him chase me and try to find me. He loves this game, and he laughs a lot whenever we play it.

But I suddenly remembered why we don’t play it very often when Rich accidentally crawled too fast and too far and went over the bed and landed on his head. He was probably more startled than anything, but he quickly began to wail. Can you imagine that? You’re having the time of your life, not a care in the world, when very suddenly you’re terrified and hurt.

Rich wanted to be held, of course. Karen arrived on the scene quickly, but I picked him up and held him right away. When Karen offered to take him, he just stayed with me and rested his head. The wailing calmed to a cry and the crying stopped a little later when Karen turned on an episode of Baby Einstein on my desk. I sat down in my office chair and held him, his head still resting on my chest. I sat there with him lying on me for twenty or thirty minutes. I think the last time he was that still and let me hold him for that long was probably before he could crawl. It was absolutely the greatest gift this Thanksgiving break.

Thanks, Karen, for sharing this picture.

The things we do for a free t-shirt

Upon purchasing my last textbook for this semester, the bookstore cashier offered me what is called a “Cardopoly” board. It’s a promotion from the card office to encourage students to visit various places on campus and obtain stamps to enter a drawing for prizes. It looks like a Monopoly board and tells you which places you need to visit to get your board stamped.

Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes of my life was accepting this challenge. At first, I saw that there were a few places on campus that were close by that would not be at all difficult to get stamps from. But as I ventured to buildings I’ve never heard of, I ended up visiting every edge of campus and walking about eight thousand miles. And while the game board told me which places would provide stamps, it offered nothing by way of how to get to these many locations. Exploration took the most time by far.

I wrapped up a few loose ends (of the game) after my stats class before turning homeward, the final of which required a visit to the Health & Wellness Center. Of course, this sent me down a steep hill and far away from my bus stop. At the bottom of that hill, exhausted and realizing I'd been walking around outside for most of the day, I called Karen. She offered to pick me up before I could even ask.

But I did finish! We went to the card office before returning home so that I could turn in my board and be entered into the drawing for some prizes (like a new iPad and stuff). The first 500 to turn in the board are given a free t-shirt. I think they said I brought the number up to somewhere in the 70s, so they handed me my shirt, swiped my card to enter me in the drawing, and sent me on my merry way.

I have never worked so hard for a t-shirt. I spent several hours visiting the far reaches of campus and now my body is exhausted. I guess the promotion worked though, right?

14 years from now, this is what I want from my kids

Mike (my brother-in-law) turned the big 4-0 this weekend, and tonight he had a pretty cool birthday party. All the kids were there from both families (of my twin sisters), and each one of his kids gave him a gift of something they want to do with him this year. (For instance, Jessica gave him tennis balls because she wants to play tennis with him.) It was really cool, and of course everyone was excited to see us (a.k.a. Rich).

We played this fun game at the end where everyone has three pieces of candy and either has to pass them to the right or left or put them in the center pile. The person with the last piece of candy wins the pile and all the goodies therein. At the beginning I kept thinking to myself, “I don’t want to win, because I would feel bad taking all that candy and all the prizes.” By the end, there was a Utah State banner, a big cup, some bubbles, and some tennis balls in addition to the stash of candy. And of all 15-ish of us there, who won? Me. I immediately offered a bunch of candy to the kids and gave away everything but the banner and the cup. It was tons of fun.

The banner, by the way, is going up in my office soon.