Fat Lip

A half hour ago my sister came over with her four-year-old daughter cradled in her arms. The girl had been running and tripped on the porch, hitting her lip on the pavement. Her front tooth had gone completely through her upper lip. Both of her front teeth were quite loose, and I think that she will be toothless in the following week. She was pretty good; she just cried softly while my mom tried to see the damage. The inside of her lip looks like hamburger. She wouldn't let us take off her bloody clothes to wash them.

As my mom was taking care of my niece, she told about how all of us kids had had similar injuries. Janelle was playing in the bathtub with EmmaLee, and cut her lip on the metal soap holder. Sarah was running with a pencil in her mouth and tripped. Last but not least, I cut my lip tripping into a coffee table. History repeats itself.

Urine-soaked Pants

The same day I had the weird missionary ask me how old I was, I had another mishap. (That day was so bad, it deserves two blogs.)

I got back to the office smelling like soup, and, since I work with my sister, my niece was there. (My brother-in-law and my sister do a type of "shift change" where they switch who takes care of the kids. They are there for about five minutes while their parents switch cars.)

Little Cassie can drink her weight in water, as I have seen her drink an entire jumbo soda at Sam's Club. That day she had peed through her diaper and onto the seat of the shopping cart. So I am no stranger to her accidents.

A moment after the children arrived at the office, I sat down at the computer desk to send a report. Instantaneously, I was soaked to my knees. Cassie's pee was dripping off of the chair, soaked through layers of fabric padding, and my clothes had quickly absorbed it.

Luckily, I was able to take a break and go home to shower and change my pants. On the way over, my car was filled with the strong scent of someone else's urine. I even had to disinfect my wallet, as the pee had seeped through my pocket.

I got back to the office clean but cranky. What do you expect, a positive attitude?

Feeling Old?

I'm only twenty-three years old, and I can honestly say that I have never felt old. Also, I have never felt like an old maid. An experience last week almost made me feel that way. Almost.

I volunteered to can beef soup at the cannery to help needy families. Actually, I just volunteered because Brother Shweider snagged me at the temple because there weren't enough people going. I'm not that generous.

There were only two people there from our branch: me and my home teacher.

For the entire morning, I was standing straight across from a tall, gangly missionary, complete with freckly skin, red hair, and glasses. He had a habit of sticking his large nose out in front of him and following it, like Tucan Sam, only not as cool. He had small, vacant eyes that would stare at objects for a long time.

The object of his desire was a newly-graduated girl of eighteen years, full of hope and dreams for her first year of collage. She was also full of delicious gossip from her high school: gossip that would be obsolete in a couple of weeks, when she would forget these people's names entirely and be wrapped up in a new college boyfriend. Ah, sweet youth.

I was enjoying this conversation that I didn't even have to contribute to; I just had to stand there and let the sweet words float to my ears and take me back to my former hopes and dreams of college. As I was daydreaming, I noticed that the red-headed missionary was staring intently at my face, his eyes squinting with scrutiny.

"How old are you?" he asked in a nasally voice filled with awe and plain nosy-ness.

"Twenty-three," I told him, thinking this was going to be the beginning of some light chit-chat.

"Oh," he said, and walked away.

He continued talking with the eighteen-year-old about high school gossip and what college was going to be like.

Two hours later, I was getting motion sickness from looking at the cans of soup go by on the conveyor belt. I took a second to look up and stretch my back and was startled to find that the red-headed missionary had been staring at me for quite some time, sticking his nose out and squinting as he analyzed every feature on my face.

"Are you married?"

"No."

Silence.