My parents got married way back in the spring of 1972. They are still together, after 37 years of marriage. Was their marriage always easy? Were they both always happy in their marriage? No, it wasn’t easy. And no, they weren’t always happy. But they’ve stuck together and they’ve both worked really hard. And they are truly happy now. When I stayed with them a few weeks ago they were like newlyweds. It was sort of gross, actually. (And by “gross” I mean “super sweet”.)

My Dad always told us kids that the greatest gift he could give us was to love our Mother.

I think he’s right.

Did my Dad make mistakes? Sure he did. But he learned from those mistakes and became a better husband and father.

After reading my Grandma’s biography a few weeks ago I have a whole new respect for my father. My Dad isn’t a billionaire or a world traveler or the president of a corporation. My Dad has extensive degrees, a family he loves and who loves him, a house he’s worked hard to make nice, horses and animals to love and provide for, toys, and most of all, good memories with my family. My dad was raised without a refrigerator. Without electricity. He didn’t have running water in his house. He used an outhouse. Heck, there was a dirt floor in his house.

(I must remind you that my dad wasn’t born in 1842. My Dad isn’t even 60 years old! He should have had these things growing up. All nine of the kids in his family should have.)

By all account my Dad shouldn’t have succeeded in life. He wasn’t given the basics in life. And yet, he was taught, by his mom, what was right and wrong and what was acceptable. She named him a very prestigious name and hoped he would succeed.

And he did.

He has three bathrooms in his house now. And two kitchens. The only time he uses an outhouse is when we’re camping.

Nine years ago I moved from Utah to Seattle to marry The King. My Mom asked if there was anything from her house that I wanted to take to remind me of “home”. I only took a few small things.

One was a poem my mom’s had hanging on the kitchen wall my entire life. The other was this:

No not the shirt, but the hanger. A pack of these fancy hangers were given to my parents as a wedding gift 37 years ago. My siblings and I always fought over who got to use them in their closet. There are only a few of them left and they all look pretty shabby. When I moved out, I took two of them.

I’m thankful that 37 years ago my mom took a chance on a guy from West Virginia.  And I’m thankful that The King hasn’t made me throw out the shabby hanger.

My Sweet Babboo: Boys have wieners.

Isabel: That’s right.

My Sweet Babboo: Do you have a wiener, Mommy?

Isabel: No, because I’m a lady.  Remember, we’ve talked about this.

My Sweet Babboo: I think you’re tricking me.

Isabel: I’m not tricking you. I don’t have a wiener.

My Sweet Babboo: Show me!

The King: (from the other room) That’s right, boy!!  Remember that line when you’re a little older.

And thus concludes this installment of: Best Pick-up Line Ever!

So tell me, would this line work on you?

I think Babboo’s first word was “banana”. But, of course, he said it more like “nana”. It took him a while to say “mama” and he still struggles with his pronunciation a little. But the words, he knows them all. He even knows a few swears. (I am not sure where he learned them. Maybe daycare? Yes, let’s blame daycare!)

When My Sweet Babboo was still learning all of his words he sometimes called things by different names. He called marshmallows “color beans” and raisins “finneys”. Calling these two by the wrong name didn’t last long. He quickly learned they were called marshmallows and would even tease himself for ever calling them “color beans”. But there were two things that, as he got older, he still used the wrong word for them.

Babboo always referred to any type of pirate as a “garibaldi”. He never used the word “pirate”.

“Mommy, I think I want to play with my ‘garibaldi’ ship.”

He knew other people called them pirates. But to him they were “garibaldis”.

Babboo had this cute sticker book all about pirates and the meanest pirate was named Garibaldi. Hence Babboo using that word. The King and I knew what he meant when he said “garibaldi” and quickly so did everyone else we associated with.

(While in Spain, we found an ice cream shop with the same name and instantly got a little too excited and took multiple pictures!)

Another word mix-up he has always done is referring to chocolate milk as “apple drink”. Babboo has never had any type of apple beverage in his life (except maybe that one time he was sick and it was the only thing he could keep down). He knows brown milk is chocolate milk. He knows there is nothing apple related in milk. And yet all chocolate milk is referred to as “apple drink”. He’s even been known to say, “Some people call it ‘chocolate milk’. But I call it ‘apple drink’.” Seriously, he knows it’s not apple drink. He just likes to call it that.

And really we’ve never tried to correct him. Since we knew he knew he was using the incorrect word, we didn’t see the need to correct him.

Plus dude, it was so cute to hear him say “garibaldi” and get mad at anyone who dared call it a pirate ship.

Sometime last month, when he got his latest and greatest pirate ship, he dropped the “garibaldi” moniker and started called them pirates. He would laugh and say things to The King and I like, “remember when I was a baby and called pirates ‘garibaldi’?”

I missed hearing him call them that. My babbbyyy was growing up. But he was still saying “apple drink”, so I was okay. Sort of.

Last night, on the way home from The King’s parents house, Babboo said that he wanted some apple drink when we got home. We told him that would be fine and that we’d be home in a few more minutes.

“I don’t think I want to tell it ‘apple drink’ anymore. I want to call it ‘chocolate milk’.”

“It’s okay to call it ‘apple drink’. Mommy likes it when you say that.”

“I’m getting bigger.”

He’s right. He’s getting bigger. He can call things whatever he wants.

This morning, after he woke up, he requested some “apple drink”. My heart burst with love and I did not correct him.

He cal have all the “apple drink” he wants.

———————————

I forgot to tell you about my latest New Thing.  I got new hair.  AGAIN.

I decided to treat myself yesterday by walking over to Nordstrom on my lunch break to peruse their glorious make-up counters. I didn’t plan on making any type of a purchase. I just wanted to set my eyes on the summer’s new lip gloss.

Hey, a girl can dream.

Right in the middle of holding a new tube of Nars lip gloss in my hands a trying to talk myself into paying that amount for it, I noticed this teenage girl was standing a little too close to me.

I appreciate my own private personal space. Maybe I appreciate it a little too much.

So, this dumb girl was all up in my business. I became a little suspicious that maybe my purse wasn’t zipped and she was fixing to steal my iPod. I looked around, checked my purse, and realized this girl was just being sneaky. It had nothing to do with me.

I walked away from her and her super short cut offs and her perfectly tousled hair.

She followed me.

She was shifty and I’m paranoid.

Not a good mix.

I pretended to not notice her and she continued being shifty.

And then I noticed her slip two HUGE pallets of make-up into her oversized Gucci bag.

DUDE!

I was shocked and horrified. Here I can’t even afford a new lip gloss and this stupid teenager is stealing over $100 in make-up and putting it into her Gucci bag.

Seriously, I was pissed.

I stood there for a second, wondering what to do. I didn’t want to be known as a “rat” and tattle on her and then get beat up by her and her teenage hooligan friends. I also didn’t want her to get a way with it. Her stealing that make-up just raises the price for those of us who actually use their hard-earned money to make purchases.

I noticed a group of Nordstrom employees standing together in a corner discussing a new product line. I quietly walked over and tapped one of them on the shoulder.

“Hey, should I tell you if I see someone shoplift?”

“Um, YES!”

“Okay. There’s a teenage girl in short shorts with a huge Gucci bag who just stole a crap load of make-up!”

“Thanks. I’m on it.”

And then I quickly, but not too quickly, walked out of the store and back into the daylight, just hoping nobody saw me rat her out. (Hey, I don’t typically want to get beat up by a teenage girl!)

I was nervous the rest of the day that I had done something wrong. Everyone always talks about hating a rat and a tattle-tale. I know that people hate rats. But I also know that stealing is wrong and that when someone steals, it hurts the rest of us.

I’ve had some time to think about what I did…and honey, I’m glad I told on that girl. I hope they caught her and I hope she gets in some trouble and stops stealing.

Because it isn’t right to steal.

So tell me, would you have told on her?

I called my parents house from the Seattle airport last Wednesday.  I wanted to remind them to pick me up from the SLC airport.  Nobody picked up the phone at their house.  Totally out of character, it went to voice mail.

“Hey guys…don’t forget that my flight is coming in tonight.  You better be there to pick me up outside baggage claim!”

Thankfully both my mom and dad were there to get me from the airport.  (Holy crap, it would have made for a super crappy birthday if they forget to get me!)

My mom immediately told me how sorry she was that she missed my earlier phone call.  And then she began to tell me where she and my dad had been all afternoon.

The story starts with my parents deciding they needed some new barn cats.  The knew of someone who had some kitties to give away and so they stopped at their house to pick up a couple cats.

(You must remember that my parents live in farm country in the middle of small-town-Utah.  Their life is 100% different then my life in the city.)

They looked around the field for the kitties and couldn’t find them.  And so they drove to another house where they knew some kitties had been born and were ready to take home to their barn.

The owners of this second set of kittens told my mom and dad to just head to the back wood pile and pick out whatever kittens they wanted.  As they walked in the back field and got closer and closer to the wood pile they could already smell it.

Death.

Sure enough they found that one of the five kittens had recently died.  They mommy cat was nowhere to be seen.  Just four crying kittens and one dead one.

My dad put one his gloves and went to pick up the dead one, to bury it.  He quickly found that he couldn’t pick up the dead kitten.  It was tangled in some sort of netting.  Upon closer inspection they found that all of the kittens were tangled in this netting.

My dad figured the mommy cat had recently given up trying to save her babies and had abandoned them.  They looked around for her, but she was long gone.

My dad kept his work gloves on and pulled his leatherman tool off his belt and began trying to rescue the four kittens.  They soon discovered that the kittens skin had actually grown around the netting and was embedded in their little bodies.  My mom and dad spent the next tour hours gently cutting the netting out of the kittens skin.  My mom tried to best clean the effected areas and applied medicine to the wounds.

By this time the cat owners had joined the rescue efforts and the four adults were able to free the four kittens.  My parents decided that instead of only taking two of them home, like originally planned, they would take all four cats.  Hey, if you’re nursing two kittens back to health, you might as well nurse all four of them.

They got all the kittens out of the netting, put them in a box and headed home.  On their way they stopped at the hospital, where my mom is a nurse, and picked up some baby formula for the kittens.

When they got to their house my parents placed the scared kittens inside a huge pet porter box with some newspapers and clean towels.  My mom put out a little bowl of baby formula and three of the kittens quickly started drinking the milk.  The smallest gray one just stayed in the corner and wouldn’t drink.

My parents hooked up a heat light on the pet porter and  then left the kittens to head to the airport to pick me up.  By the time we got home and peeked in on the kittens they were all cuddled close to the heat light and sleeping.

By the next morning the three biggest kittens looked okay.  It was the small gray one that we were all worried about.  My mom and I both didn’t think the little gray one was going to live through the day.  Their little wounds didn’t look very good.  Some of the kittens were bleeding.  They had poop on their legs. My mom and I discussed whether or not we should bathe the kittens.  We decided against it.  They were pretty cut up and scared and we thought dunking them in a tub of soapy water would be too traumatic.  We decided to give them one more day until we washed them.

By that afternoon the gray kitten looked even worse.  If we didn’t do something, it was going to die soon.  It still wasn’t eating and didn’t seem interested in the small bowl of baby formula.  My dad suggested that my mom get a syringe and we try to “bottle feed” the gray kitten.

My dad had to practically force the kitty’s mouth open.  He was afraid of hurting her.  But, eventually, the gray kitten started to licking and sucking on the syringe’s end.  Once she got the hang of it she drank and drank.  Almost immediately we saw a change in her.

The next day we were still bottle feeing the gray kitten (who we named Bella).  My mom was still trying to keep their wounds from the netting clean and medicated, but their legs were covered in poop.  It was time to give them a bath.  My dad hand washed all of the kittens with baby wipes as best he could while my mom prepared a warm bath with special cat soap we had bought earlier in the day.

We cleaned out the pet porter and put in fresh newspapers, towels and a new cat littler box.  Believe it or not, the little kittens immediately began using the litter box.  They also were eating the soft cat food my mom put out for them.  In just two days all four of the kittens seemed to be improving.  We were now pretty sure that all of them would live.

Most of the kittens were still having trouble walking.  The netting had been wrapped around their little necks and legs and had left them all with open wounds, some of which were still bleeding.

We gently played with them and kept them out in the sun, which they loved.  My mom kept medicine on their wounds and we kept bottle feeding the little gray one.

By time time I left on Sunday afternoon all of the kittens were drinking milk out of their bowl.  The gray one was even joining the others in eating soft kitten food.  They had (mostly) figured out how to use the litter box.

While nursing four kittens back to health wasn’t what I had in mind for my mini vacation to Utah, it ended up being the perfect way to spend my time there.

I’m anxious to see how well they are doing when we got back for the 4th of July.  Maybe they’ll even remember me.

My mom and I like to swap books with each other. When she came out to Seattle last month I sent her home with a pile of my books to read.  I knew I’d be in Utah in a month and could pick up my books then.  I wasn’t surprised when my mom had my books read and in a pile waiting for me when I went out to Utah last weekend.

“I have a book I want you to read,” she told me as I picked up the pile of my books to put in my suitcase.

“Will I like it?”

She told me she thought I would like it and ran into her bedroom to get the book for me.

I’m not one to judge a book by its cover, but this book was u-g-l-y.  It was bright green with a yellow rose on it and looked like it has been printed at the local copy shop.

“Your dad’s sister wrote this book about their mom’s life.”

My heart stopped for a brief second.

My dad’s mom died of lung cancer before I was born.  She left behind her nine kids.  Five of the kids came to live with my newly married parents.  I know nothing of life before my Grandma died.  Heck, I really don’t know much about my dad’s life before he married my mom.  It’s just always been understood that life was hard for him and that we didn’t talk about it.  We knew my dad had always loved his mom and didn’t speak of his father.  His father died a few years ago.  I had never met the man.  He died alone.

End of story.

Until this weekend when my mom handed me the ugly green book with a yellow rose on it.

Thanks to years of research, old journals, letters and interviews my aunt was able to write a biography about my dad’s mom.  My grandma.  A women I never met, in this life.  A women whose picture I’ve only seen a few times.

As my mom handed me my grandma’s biography she offered some advice.  “When you read this, make sure to remind yourself that this is your Grandma.  Remind yourself that the little boy in this book is your Dad.  Remember that this is real!”  I excitedly grabbed the book from my mom and promised her that I would read it.  I asked her if my dad had read it. She told me he had, but that it upset him.

I didn’t ask why.

I put the ugly green book in my suitcase, knowing that I didn’t want to start it while on my mini vacation.  I knew it would be a heavy and emotional book to read.  I knew I’d have to think about it a little before I started the book.

As soon as I sat down on the plane back to Seattle I pulled the green book out of my bag and started to read the back of the book.

What is it like to be married to a psychopath?

From out of the mists of memory comes a compelling story.

This is a story of one woman, yet that story of her womanhood is powerful enough to touch the hearts of men.

May social justice and mercy grow in the aftermath of all courageous open women.

**I sit here at my keyboard and think of how to explain what this book means to me.  I am at a loss.**

This book is amazing.  A-MA-ZING.

I haven’t finished the book, yet.  In fact, my dad is only four in the book.  I’ve got a lot of book left to read.  So far my grandma is pregnant with number five of nine.  They just barley got a phone and electricity.  Still no running water or heat in their 100 year old house.

I truly can’t find the words to explain how it makes me feel to read about my grandma’s life.  To read about my dad, a baby, being attacked by a dog or my grandma being worried about the snakes getting her babies.

I knew my dad was raised in the back hills, but this book in intense.

I kid you not when I saw that I’m not even half way through the book and already there has been infidelity, child molestation, AND EVEN MURDER.

For reals, people!

My grandma lived a miserable existence and tried her best to make the most of it.  No wonder my dad loved her so much.

I love her to.

And I wonder if she is watching over me.  And I wonder if she knows me and loves me.  I wonder what she thinks of me and my own little family.  My life is a cake walk compared to her life.  While I complain about having to clean my four bathrooms, this woman built an outhouse for her little family and fed them food they found in the garbage.

As soon as I’m done with this book I’m pretty sure I’ll be making a phone call to my aunt who wrote it.  I haven’t talked to this aunt in twenty years.  But I want to thank her for writing this book and allowing me a small glimpse into the life of my grandma.