MaeLyn's Musings

This bright and clear morning, as we walked through 4 degree temperatures to school, we discovered a sewer drain that had no snow immediately around it, and steam was rising from it. Josh entertained me the rest of the way to school by telling me that this sewer is inhabited by an amphibious two-headed fire/water dragon. This dragon eats rats or mice - whatever it can catch and easily cook or boil for dinner. I think he said one head breathes fire, and the other water. He also informed me that in the Book of Mormon, where it says the Lamanites had their stuff stolen while they were asleep (I'm guessing he got this from Hel. 13:34 or Ether 14:1), their stuff was actually stolen by robber dragons. These robber dragons live in China and don't have wings, but they are very good at climbing. Apparently God transported some to America so that they could steal the Lamanite's stuff. Incidentally, in our family scripture reading yesterday we read Alma 43:44 where it says the Lam...

Josh made these in art this week, and he wanted me to write about them. Here is what he said about them, in pretty much his own words. (He even took the pictures himself!)  This is a dog dragon and his nest. This is when the dog dragon helps some fishermen get to safety at Waterfun's palace. Waterfun is Josh's god name. (Sometimes Josh pretends to be a god.) The coiled bit at the top is the dog dragon's nest. The nest is portable, and he has many places to put it, some on land, some near the palace, and some even in the water. Never say, "A dragon is protecting the house" when it is this dragon, because the dragon will destroy it.

Did you ever wish that in your home, you had a room of requirement - like at Hogwarts, a room that would change to meet your exact needs at any given moment? Or maybe even several of them? Steven and I were discussing this last night, and here were a few of the ideas we came up with that we would like to have: 1. A children's playroom. This would include sound-proof walls (except maybe if someone were in serious pain and needed help...) and an ever changing supply of appropriate toys and activities the children could do.  Any toys removed from this room would be automatically sucked back into it as soon as a child was done playing with it. This room would ideally never be seen by parents' eyes.    1b. An offshoot of this room could be a Lego room, and would include a building table, bins for the different kinds of Legos, and a coinstar type sorter that you could dump assorted Legos in, and it would automatically sort them into their proper bins. Occasionally, the flo...

I read my sister's blog today, and in it, she mentioned some of the games we used to play when we were little. She mentioned pretending our beds were pirate ships, and pretending there were tiny people living in our backyard. This set me off on a trip down memory lane, thinking of the things we did when we were young. With this sister, I remember making homes for tiny people in some cement blocks in the side yard. I remember making up plays to the music of the Nutcracker. I remember trying to scare each other at night in the dark. I remember playing "secretary", using a lite bright and Lego constructions for computers. I remember celebrating our parents' anniversaries by making our own restaurant, and even making it a dinner theater, singing songs like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head". I remember playing in the trees in front of our house - how one was her house, and the other was mine. I remember posting street signs around our driveway and riding our ...

What did you do when you were a child that got you in the most trouble and how did your parents handle it? In trouble? Me? I was always a perfect angel! I never got in trouble! Okay... I do remember one time... It seems I had an imaginary friend as a little girl. Her name was Suzy I think. Anyway, at dinner one evening I was pretending to be her and not behaving quite as nicely as my usually angelic self. My frustrated parents would tell "MaeLyn" to behave and I would reply, "I'm not MaeLyn, I'm Suzy!" Finally, my frustrated parents showed me to the front door and told "Suzy" to go home and send "MaeLyn" back. I ended up sitting on the front porch, a very confused little girl. I realized, of course, that I really was "MaeLyn" however, it didn't occur to me that I could just walk back in the door, say "I'm MaeLyn" and that all would be fine. It was very clear in my mind that my parents had just kicked me out of...

This morning Peter came to me with his hands full of his stuffed animals (his four favorites) and told me that it was their birthday! "Penguino is 4, Little Blue Bunny is 3. Monkey is 2 and Chippy the Chipmunk is 1." He proceeded to have a birthday party for them, wrapping presents in things he found around the house, and then he made me take pictures of the birthday boys with their gifts. Then he brought me a piece of paper to write about the party. First I had to list the animals having the birthday(Chippy the Chipmunk, Little Blue Bunny, Monkey Down and Penguino), then list the presents they received (ball, checker, bear) and what the presents were wrapped in (blanket, boots). When we left to do some grocery shopping he insisted on bringing all four animals along, and stuffing them all into cupholders for their car seats. He was disappointed when I wouldn't let him take them into the store, and so he sat them all on my drivers seat to wait while we were in the stor...

I know that I was once a very imaginative child. I know that I had imaginary friends, even imaginary puppies (named Copper and Penny) to keep me company as I was growing up. My children seem to have inherited the vivid imagination. John had Tinky and his brother Bonko, and an entire family of their relatives. (He made a family tree showing them all once.) Joshua has an Aunty Rita from China who he visits sometimes, and who gets sick and has her own birthday. I could deal with those just fine. I'd listen to my children tell me stories about their friends and discuss them amongst themselves and they never bothered me too much. Now Peter's stuffed animals have suddenly become very opinionated entities. Recently he's been telling me, "Chippy (the Chipmunk) doesn't want me to have that spoon." "Chippy and Penguino don't like that blanket." "You left Penguino in there in the dark. He's crying!" I'm wondering if this is a psychological...