Broken Light Switch

McKay comes into the kitchen tonight and asks, "Dad, can you come turn my light on for me?" Randy says, "You can reach your light switch. Just go turn it on." McKay answers, "No, I can't, Dad. It's broken."

"What?" Randy says. "What do you mean it's broken?"

McKay replies, "Tanner shot it."

Tanner suddenly looks very sheepish, and says, "I shot it with my air soft pistol." I covered my mouth to hide my smile and then I had to try to quit laughing.

"I'm sorry," I said to Randy. "I know it's not funny, but it really is." Then I asked Tanner, "Whatever made you think that it was okay to shoot your pistol in the house?"

"Well," Tanner says, "I was trying to shut off the light without getting out of bed. It worked, but I didn't think it would break it."

I'm really laughing at this while Randy is trying to punish Tanner. "Go get me $10 out of your piggy bank," Randy tells Tanner. When Tanner has left the room, I say to Randy, "You're making him pay for the light switch as punishment, so no more being mean about it."

When Tanner comes back, Randy holds the money in his hand and tells Tanner, "When I was about your age, I kicked a Nerf football (**Randy wants you all to know it was a Nerf Football) in the house. It went right through the window."

(It was the the small one closest to the door. Who knew that I would have a picture of the house?)

Kilee asked, "Did you have to pay for it?" 

"No, I didn't." Randy said. Tanner started to smile. "And neither do you." And Randy gave the money back to Tanner.

The End.

About Grading Papers

I'm supposed to be grading papers. I've locked myself in the camper (or I've locked the kids out of the camper) so I can quietly focus on grading papers.

But clearly, I'm not focusing. I'm blogging instead. I went to my blog and then started catching up on all of your blogs (I sure do miss all of you. I wish you lived closer, or I lived closer, or something closer). I thought about Amy and how long it's been since I've seen her and her boys are growing so fast and day after tomorrow one of them might break with tradition and come to BYU-I.

And then I realize that I'm doing it again. It is procrastinating. It is finding all these other things to do besides what I should be doing. I used to do it in graduate school. I would have a paper to write and I would clean the house, do the laundry, fix dinner, and when there was literally nothing else for me to do (or Randy was yelling at  encouraging me to get to work), I would sit down and whip out that paper.

The problem here is that all those papers are already whipped out. I just need to whip out the grades.

I should have been a math teacher.

Happy Mother's Day

Today in Primary, the kids filled out an "All About My Mom" questionnaire. I thought I'd share the answers with you.

How old is your mom?
McKay: 12 or 13
Kilee: 37
Tanner: 39 (Randy later told him to err on the low side, not the high side)

What is your most favorite meal that your mom cooks?
McKay: chicken nuggets (that's a hard meal, let me tell you)
Kilee: egg muffins
Tanner: chicken and rice

What do you like to do with your mom?
McKay: read books
Kilee: go shopping at the mall (that's probably her favorite thing to do, with or without her mom)
Tanner: cook

What is your mom's favorite thing to do?
McKay: movies and stores
Kilee: go to Idaho Falls
Tanner: be with family (this is much closer to the truth)

What's your favorite thing about your mom?
McKay: spending time with her at night and having desserts
Kilee: her outfits are dang cute (that's seriously what she wrote)
Tanner: she's friendly

But the comment of the day goes to McKay. When we were sitting down to dinner tonight, after a long round of "Happy Mother's Day" from the other kids,
McKay asked, "Mom, when is Happy Little Kids Day?"