Please, Teach Your Children

From the title of my blog, you may think that I'm going to talk about something serious.  Well... you'd pretty much be wrong.  The venting Paily is back!  Don't know if she's your favorite, but she's here anyway :)  Today I will be venting about a random teen that I don't really know.  This is how heartless I am.

My parents live a short distance from me.  Besides a short 2 month time this year, I haven't lived at my parent's house since 2009.  During that time, I never really noticed a random kid.  He wasn't my favorite.  Let's call him... Buford.  Buf for short.  Now, I honestly don't know this kid's name.  If by chance that is his name... well then I feel bad for him.

My first interaction with Buf was right after I went an bought a bunch of furniture at a garage sale.  This was while I was engaged to Hod, and I didn't have a place to keep it at my apartment.  I called my Dad who was serving a mission, and asked him if I could keep my newly acquired furniture in his mostly empty garage.  Being the loving father he is, he said yes.  Some dear friends of ours helped us move the furniture with their trailer, and their jeep.  As we pulled up to my parent's house to unload the trailer, this random kid came riding up on his bike.  This teen was just full of questions.  "What are you doing?" "Who are you?" "Where did you get all of this stuff?" "Why are you putting it here?"  During all of this time, he never offered to help.  But we almost ran him over multiple times as we moved furniture.  The female of my couple friend was staying with her 10 month old daughter.  She was still in her car seat and sitting by the jeep.  This sweet 10 month old has some health problems, and had been unable to gain weight.  Because of a cleft palate, she had a hard time eating.  To fix this, the Dr.'s put a feeding tube up through her nose and right down into her stomach.  It was a little different looking, but it wasn't hard to figure out was was going on.  Well, Buf saw the child and immediately became focused on her.  He started to reach for her, like he was going to pick her up, and then paused to ask, "What's that thing got up it's nose for?"  First of all, wow... you are lacking in English skills.  Secondly, Thing?  Even though she had a tube going up her nose, she is still very obviously a baby.  The good news is, we were finishing up, so we quickly packed up and left.

Buf has become a regular on my street.  From that day on, I learned that every time I would stop at my parents house, he would magically appear.  He always had the same questions, "Who are you?"  "What are you doing?"  "Why are you doing that?"  It became rather annoying.

During the two months that I lived with my parents this summer, I became very grateful to have access to parking inside of the garage.  I learned that if I parked inside of the garage, I could close the door before being accosted by this teenager.

I don't consider myself special though.  He is always doing this sort of thing to my parents.  My Dad's response is to give sarcastic answers.  For example, while weeding in the garden, when Buf ask's my Dad what he is doing, Dad responds something along the lines of, "Picking bananas."

I don't think that Buf is a bad guy.  Nor do I think he has unpleasant intentions.  However, he has ZERO social skills.  Someone really needs to teach this kid!

My Mom has told me that she tries to make sure she is always doing yard work when he's not around, because otherwise he always comes up and starts talking.  Sometimes he tries to help.  But that is only when he is sure he knows what he is doing... but he normally doesn't.  When you try to correct him, he doesn't take it very well.

Even though I have moved out of my parent's house, I have kept the automatic garage door opener.  This is so I can visit my parents with a little bit of safety, without having to worry about being accosted by the neighbor kid.

This weekend, we had another run in.  And I found it quite humorous.  My family has a tradition of going to the General Relief Society Broadcast together.  I met my Mom and L5 at my parent's house to carpool up to the Stake Center to watch the broadcast.  As we were leaving my parent's house, I saw Buf walking towards us.  He was carrying a basketball... and using it to try to hide an apple.  My parents have quite a few apple trees.  While they were on their mission, we didn't take good care of the apples, and they were normally full of worms.  Eventually, they would fall off of the tree and become deer food.  However, this year, my Dad has done a great job of taking care of his apple trees.  As a result, he has quite a nice crop of apples.  My parents are kind, and for the bulk of my life, I remember them telling our neighbors that they could have an apple here and there as long as they asked, and as long as they ate it.  Home-grown apples look quite different than store-bought.  I wasn't trying to be a tattle-tale, I was just making an observation, and I said to my Mom, "Look, it's Buf... and he has one of your apples."

Mom was not very pleased.  She stopped the car and asked him what he was doing.  He stammered.  She asked him where he got the apple.  He stammered some more, motioning over to the trees.  Mom pointed out that they were her trees, and she would like him to ask before taking them.  Buf responded that they always fall on the ground anyway.  But, Mom wasn't backing down.  She told Buf that yes, sometimes they do, however, they weren't on the ground, and he needs to ask before taking someone else's apples.  Buf looked ashamed, and said he was sorry, then with his tail between his legs (Ok, he doesn't have a tail) he turned towards his home.

I do NOT understand this kid.  But this is what he is always doing.  He wanders the town, and talks to all of the neighbors.  He seems to have no grasp of courtesy, or proper actions.

So, this is my request:  Please, teach your children.  Just the basics of social skills.  Please.  And maybe, someday, my parents can be outside without fearing that they will be bothered by a random neighbor kid.  And maybe, someday, I will feel like I can go visit my parents without having to run from my car to the house to avoid all of the questions.

Seriously.  It totally bugs.

I Need To Tell You Something...

Many years ago, I was introduced to this song.  It has since been a life-long dream to make it a reality.  And finally, that day has come.  Please, sit back, and enjoy it's goodness.



Life is pretty great.  And I'm pretty random.

I'm In Love

It's true.  I'm in love.  I love Hod.  AND I love this little friend:

Introducing, in her world-wide debut...... Baby Bucket!

Baby Bucket comes to you all the way from my uterus.  She enjoys sleeping, doing cartwheels, getting the hic-ups, and kicking me in the ribs.  She is currently weighing in at 4 lbs, 14 oz (give or take 1/2 lb for error) and is expected to join our family sometime near the beginning of November.

Hod and I got a bonus ultrasound, because I haven't been able to gain weight.  Today I ate a HUGE breakfast trying to get my weight up.  As of today, I have gained a total of 7 lbs.  That's not a lot when baby weighs almost 5.  But she is doing great, so the Dr is no longer concerned.

And I am perfectly enamored with this sweet little girl.

(Sorry it's not a great picture, I was too lazy to scan it, so I just took a picture of the picture with my phone.)

I Will Stop Avoiding You

Tonight, right after Hod went to work, I went to go fill my car with gas.  I am blessed to have a Sam's club card, and as they have the least expensive gas in town, that is where I go.  Any of you who have gassed at Sam's know that there is always a random worker, wandering around.  They sometimes come over and try to make conversation.  Pretty much, it's always awkward, and I usually try to avoid all eye contact in hopes that they won't come over.

As I pulled into the filling station, I noticed that it was completely empty.  This is unusual.  Especially for a busy Saturday night.  I worried that I may have to talk with the random worker, but as my gas light had just turned on, I had no choice.  I pulled into the middle station, and started the process of filling up.  As I got out of my car, I noticed that another car had pulled up behind me.  But this car was very poorly angled to get gas.  As I started the gassing up process, the driver got out of his car, looked a little shady, and then climbed into his back seat.

Now, I tend to be pretty unobservant.  There have been multiple times that I have been somewhere with Hod and he has had to steer me away from a creeper of sorts.  Or, I'm about to walk into someone.  All sorts of things.  I'm just oblivious.  And this whole pregnant thing has made it worse.

Yet, my creeper alarm was going off with this guy.  He just kept looking at me.  I don't know what was going on in the back seat, but this guy was ... leering I guess.  It was just very uncomfortable.  I worried that I was just freaking out.  It was light outside.  And the gas station is right on a busy road.  But still something just felt off.

Enter the trusty Sam's Club employee.  He walked up to me and started talking.  Just every day stuff, but he kept looking over his shoulder at the guy in the car behind me.  As my car was almost full, he turned to me and asked me if I was ok.  I told him yes.  He then told me that he just thought maybe he should come and stand by me "just in case".  I was quite grateful for his kindness.  I finished putting gas in my car, and wished the employee a good evening as I pulled away.

I don't have a clue what was really going on, but I am glad to the kind employee who came and stood by me to make sure everything was fine.

Thank you Mr. Employee.  Sorry that I used to avoid you.

I Should Have Been A Doctor

Hey, Yo's.

Here's another boring update on my life.  For those few readers who don't know me... well you probably don't really care.  For the rest of you, who is mostly family, I've been told you like this sort of thing, so here we go!

Here's my story:  My job was extended through the month of September.  This is very good, cause I like having money.  Along with this, for the past two weeks, I have been working every day, instead of every other, because my coworker has a very sick daughter who is in a very special hospital 2 hours away.  I'm finding that working every day makes it very hard to clean my house.  My days are currently spent working and taking care of my dear husband.

Now about Hod: He was supposed to have surgery last Friday.  He didn't.  This is because of a Dr who never saw him who said the surgery was optional, and he wanted to leave early, so he canceled it.  In the process Meany-pants-heartless-Dr ticked us off, and we ticked him off, so we will never be going to see him again.  Tuesday Hod went to a new Dr.  We discovered that Hod has a massive infection that is attacking the whole of his digestive system. New-nice-man Dr thinks Hod has had this for 3 years.  It is also attacking Hod's prostate.  (Sorry if this is TMI, but some people would want to know.)  This infection is caused by being put on too many antibiotics, thus killing all good bacteria in your body, and then letting the bad bacteria take over.  Ok, so this massive infection is a yeast infection.  And it's bad.  However, right now Mr. Nice Dr. is very worried about saving Hod's prostate, as he is only 22, and wants to have more kids.  So, Hod is on a SUPER strong antibiotic.  Mr. Nice Dr is aware that this will make all of the infection symptoms worse.  But it is kind of a last resort to saving Hod's prostate.  Hod is taking his medication, and is in a lot of pain.  He has a fever that is bouncing up and down, and his kidneys are starting to bother him.  Hod has been put on Dr. ordered bed rest. Our job is to watch his fever, and pain level.  If either becomes extreme, he is going to be admitted to the hospital, and possibly go in for emergency surgery.  If none of that happens, then we will see if the antibiotic can save his prostate.  If it doesn't, then he'll be having a procedure anyway, (though we aren't yet sure of what one) and we may get to consider the adoption option much sooner than we had planned.  They are worried that he may have Prostate Cancer.  However, we have been assured through multiple blessings that he'll be healed.  So that is helpful in getting through this.

Baby:  She's growing strong.  I'm not gaining weight, so we have an ultrasound scheduled to make sure everything is cool.  But she is very active, and she moves all the time, so I'm not super worried.  Last week I got my Rogam (or however you spell it) shot.  And it actually wasn't too bad!  I've had the shot twice before, and it is just a giant needle they stick in your behind.  The two I had before were similar to getting a Novocaine shot, they took FOREVER!  But this one was less than 10 seconds.  It was pretty sweet!

And that's all for the Bucket family.  I'm wishing I knew more about how to take care of my hubby, but we'll trust the Dr's and it will all work out.