Don't Make Me Turn This Car Around.....................

If you were ever a child then chances are you probably had at least one family road trip. If you weren't ever a child then please say hello to the mother ship for me and I hope you've come in peace.

Growing up with a mother from Virginia who had a twin in California we spent many summers on the road to visit her side of the family.

Adventures were to be had on every trip and the memories made were of course priceless. I will say that I am very lucky to have been able to have so many adventures as a kid. Mom and dad certainly did their best to take us kids to some really amazing places along the way that without them I would not even realize existed.

This post however is not about those adventures. This is about the time between the destinations..... the car...........

Family car trips generally started the same each time. Mom would wake us all up at the crack of 3 AM and we would all trudge to the car fully dressed because none of us bothered to put on pjs knowing what was coming the next day. In tow we would also have our pillows and blankets and something to entertain ourselves. That something was generally a toy or book and by day two in the car it was used mainly to hit other siblings with. I preferred books myself as they caused more damage to the other siblings.

Now six children attempting to sleep in the back of a Dodge Caravan required a Tetris like skill by mom to determine who sat where and how we slept. Our baby sister Danielle was only a small child so she sat on moms lap when she was awake and when she needed to sleep she slept on a tiny cradle mattress by the sliding door in the car. Safety first! I don't think we even had a car seat in the car with her on trips.....ever.

My older brother Jeremy would lay in the very back on top of bags and blankets. That was his precious area that none of us were allowed to invade. My baby brother Charlie however, managed to invade it from the front of the van with a slight flick of his wrist.

It had grown quite late and Jeremy had made his way back to his nest to sleep and was undoubtedly slumbering soundly. Once again, our family motto of safety first meant that Charlie who was about three at the time was wandering the front of the van between mom and dads seats. He reached up and began to fiddle with the radio which dad had turned down so low that it may have well been turned off. Charlie twisted the volume knob all the way with one swoop and at the same moment Jeremy, who's ear had been resting directly against a speaker, shot straight up, flat as a rail, and almost seemed to hit the roof of the van.
As his younger sister who he relentlessly pestered I found great satisfaction in seeing that happen and chuckled to myself. Dad shut off the radio and we all settled back down.

While on a different trip sharing the back seat with my baby sister Danielle who was probably seven or eight we had determined that just stretching out end to end would be the most comfortable way to sleep. I awoke to her snuggling my foot like a teddy bear and kissing it. Awkward to say the least. Being the good sister that I am, I remind her of that often. I mean, what kind of sister would I be if I let her forget such a precious memory?

Gross things happen on car trips, like really gross things, things we shouldn't talk about and yet I am gonna talk about them. I am a rebel like that.

Imagine if you will a place where smells collide one siblings odor to another and three days of funk permeates the air. Only the occasional stop for gas would allow us to sponge ourselves off in the bathroom. That is a task that few young children will do willingly or without having to be reminded. Things got pretty funky in the car for sure. The small two inch gap that the rear windows angled opened to was sheer heaven if you were lucky enough to sit by a window that you could put your face by.

After a particularly badly needed rest stop we were all in good form and we had all made a quick change of clothes since we would be arriving at Grandma and Grandpas house that evening. We wanted to look as good as you possibly could after traveling three days by car without stopping. As you can imagine we all arrived pretty haggard looking. But I digress. We had just made our stop and mom had grabbed a few drinks for us kids to go with our homemade sandwiches that she made us. Charlie grabbed his drink of orange juice and guzzled it rather quickly. It was quite a large drink for such a small three year old. Do you know what happens when you put 12 ounces of juice in a 6 ounce package and add a dose of shaking car to the mix? Yep, you guessed it. Tragedy!

Charlie leaned over moms shoulder and began to announce that he didn't feel good. What came out was "Mom, I don't feel very bleeeehhhhhhhhhh............." Poor mom! Covered now in stomach acid rendered orange juice and all she could muster was "Lovely, it's in my garments." Dad stopped as soon as he could for her to change again but the smell permeated the car the rest of the night. Charlie was forced to hold a garbage bag the rest of the way as well just in case he needed to open the floodgates again. Needless to say when we arrived we were all very grateful to get out of that van.

On a subsequent trip it was dad that grossed both me and Danielle out. Sitting directly behind him with Danielle next to me. Everyone was in a pretty decent mood. No children had been threatened to be "left in Kansas and picked up on the way back" if we didn't knock it of so things were going well. Dad was just driving along and sneezed into his hand and of course wiping it on his jeans would have been just gross so he instead wiped it down the back of his head. I glanced up and immediately my gag reflex took over. I tried to say Mom but it just wouldn't come out past Mo ugh Mo ugh Mo ugh. I tapped Danielle and pointed and she then saw the horror of what I was seeing. The big grey green booger in the back of his hair, and I mean BIG. She yelled out "Gross!!! Mom, dad has a giant booger in his hair!" Mom looked and all she could say was "Oh Rodney!", then handed him a napkin to wipe it out. Thinking back on that now still triggers my gag reflex.

On one particularly awesome trip to California I managed to get the worst sunburn of my life. I was ten and we had spent a fantastic day at the beach with my mothers twin and I ended up with blisters the size of quarters covering my back and down the back of my legs. It was incredibly painful. There was no way that I would have been able to sit on the ride home so I was grateful that this trip only had me and my two younger siblings in the back. Charlie was five and Danielle was three. I was laying face down on the center seat in the van. My back and legs were covered with burn cream and gauze. I was in quite a bit of pain and in that haze I didn't notice that my little brother was playing on the back of the seat and laying across it. All it took was one slight tap of the brakes and Charlie landed right on my back popping the majority of my blisters. I thought I was in agony before but I was quickly schooled on what real pain was. I screamed out and broke into tears instantly as the pain hit me and it was only worsened as he moved and scrambled across my tender skin to get off of me. I just sobbed and sobbed in pain. Dad found a rest stop and mom took me into the ladies room and ever so gently yanked the gauze off my back as quickly as she could. I almost fainted with that pain that caused. She did her best to cover the now open blisters on my back with petroleum jelly and once again covered me in gauze. Charlie was terrified to go near me the remainder of the trip. I hope you all see now why I tried to drown him in the last post.

So while this post is not quite as hilarious as my previous posts, I wanted to talk about my nightmares and get them out. After all, 9 out of 10 counselors say that talking about trauma helps you forget it.....

Living life in Neutral Five

So there I was, perched at the top of the hill overlooking Twin Lakes....


Wait, wait, wait... back up. We need to start at the beginning.

Growing up I was lucky enough to live less than a mile from Twin Lakes in Clifton Idaho. This quaint little reservoir was surrounded by gentle rolling hills on all sides. Which I might add are very fun to play on with motorcycles and four wheelers going up and around the burms created by other riders.

It was actually quite rare that we hit the lake as a family although many of us went on our own or with our ward youth groups. On this particular occasion we packed all us kids into the car with our cousins Jamie and Stacey and Erin and Aunt Tracey and headed to the lake.

It was sheer pandemonium as the water was invaded and screaming peals of delight from happy kids ensued while the beginnings of sunburns took hold. After a few hours boredom sets in when your mother has repeatedly yelled at you to not drown your sibling. You realize that no matter how hard you try you just can't get them to drown without splashing and drawing her attention. So for yet another day Charlie would live.

Since drowning Charlie was now off the docket, my older brother Jeremy and I decided to climb the rolling hill directly behind where we were enjoying our lake time and see what our house looked like from up there. Apparently in our mind this would be a grand adventure and surely our house would look like a tiny little speck from the top of that miniature Everest.

Off we headed and up we climbed, our feet slipping and sliding in the soft sand and weaving our way around the cactus plants and sagebrush till finally our ascent brought us to the peak of that massive ridge. Okay it was really more like a bald mans head halfway buried and not that much of a ridge at all. We stared down at our house, which for the record looks exactly the same from that peak as it does from a mile down the road from our driveway.

After that giant let down of a view and precious energy spent to climb that hill my brother decided to head back down. As he started walking he told me that when I come down to make sure I walk sideways.
AS IF!!!  Why on earth would I ever take advice from him? I was certain that he was just trying to make me look like a fool when I decided to come down and that he would laugh at me. If there was one thing I knew for sure it was that he could not be trusted. I had been locked in enough closets and been given enough wedgies by him to know that was the most sure thing. Never trust Jeremy ran right through my mind.

By the time I determined that I would head down he was about a third of the way down the hill so I just set forth one foot in front of the other, clomping each foot down, facing forward. Wow I was amazed how easy going down was and I was making great time! Like really great time! Hell, I was running! Oh crap I was running and I couldn't stop! Like a blur I whizzed past him trying to grab his arm and ending up only with a large portion of his skin under my fingernails as my hand tore into his arm in an effort to stop. It failed.

What I succeeded in doing was throwing myself off balance and now instead of running I was tumbling and sliding, end over end, cactus after cactus. It was at this time I could hear someone screaming at the top of their lungs in fear. Turns out that was me. My bruised and scraped body came to a stop at the bottom of the hill with one final slide into home that would make a professional baseball player proud. My thigh looked like hamburger and blood and dirt covered me.

From somewhere in the distance I heard my five year old brother Charlie scream out, "Wow! Did you see that! She came down that hill in NEUTRAL FIVE!!!!"

My ego was as badly bruised and as bloody as my leg. Jeremy made it down yelling, " You moron! I told you to walk sideways!" He actually had the nerve to say it like he had earned the right to be trusted!
"Shut up Jeremy", was all I could muster. Mom ran to me and as tenderly as she could she advised me to go sit in the lake. You know, she just wanted to make sure every possible bacteria and germ had its equal chance to enter my raw and chewed up thigh. Like a moron I sat in the lake as they packed up the stuff and we got into the car to head home and treat my wounds.

We arrived home and mom said, "Go run a warm bath and put baking soda in it with you and soak for a few minutes to get it clean". I followed her instructions and did just that. I found out years later that while I was nursing my wounds they sat in the car and laughed at me for quite some time.

Go figure, for some strange reason this nasty wound which covered then entire right side of my thigh got nice and infected and I wound up at the doctors office having it scrubbed and having gravel, yes gravel removed from it. Ouch again. I am very lucky not to have a scar on my leg from that incident but I will tell you this, I have learned that I can go through life in NEUTRAL FIVE and survive!!!

Neutral Five has now become a family saying to remind us to slow the hell down when we start acting out of control and patent is pending on the phrase. Okay not really but maybe I will look into patenting it.

Mouse Print Fudge

Growing up you could always count on Mom to make delicious homemade treats on a fairly regular basis. One of our favorites was ice cream and homemade fudge sauce. On one particular night Mom had made a particularly delicious batch of fudge sauce and I believe she had doubled the batch to save some for the following evening. Somehow it didn't manage to get put away before everyone went to bed.

It sat in the pan overnight on the stove and was enjoyed by more than just us kids. Now in the past we would have of course gone straight to the fridge to get ourselves a large spoonful to savor before Mom caught us (yeah we were sneaky like that) but this time we noticed a horrible sight of the fudge left out. When we approached we noticed a small divot out of the fudge surrounded by tiny footprints that appeared to have been dancing around with excitement at the discovery. Some little mouse surely had a tummy ache that morning considering it had gorged itself on all that fudge.

Alas with no desire to eat the fudge after seeing the tracks Charlie and Danielle started stirring it up.
After several minutes of playing with it we heard Jeremy coming upstairs and didn't think much of it. They continued playing in it and before we could say "Bob's my uncle" Jeremy had gotten a very large spoonful of the fudge and put it in his mouth.

We stood their silent and motionless and our mouths were probably slightly agape at the sight of our big brother eating Mouse Print Fudge.  I think I was the one who declared "EWWWW! A MOUSE WALKED ALL OVER IN THAT!"

A look of sheer terror crossed his face as he bolted for the sink to spit it out and attempted to sterilize his mouth with scalding hot water. After several mouthfuls of water he finally turned on us with a vengeance. Now clearly this was not warranted as we didn't have even a split second to warn him before he let his own gluttony put him in that situation but alas I still wound up with a dead arm because he had caught me when Charlie and Danielle manage to escape and he punched my arm till all feeling was gone.

Mom at that point had walked down and asked what was going on and I told her a mouse was in the fudge and it was bad and Jeremy ate some. She scolded him for eating it and I just kept my mouth shut as I really didn't want to lose feeling in both arms.

The Great Bat Massacre of '86

 Shortly after our family moved to Idaho we discovered that a large colony of bats had decided to make our humble abode their home as well. We discovered the colony in our very large attic and to avoid having them come throughout the remainder of the home unwanted my Dad and "Uncle John" determined that we needed to exterminate them.

Now being from a family that always put the safety of us children first we were instructed to don long sleeved shirts and put on one of Dads gazillion hats. We all did so and their was an air of excitement coursing through each of us siblings and Johns sons who had chosen to take part. We each carefully chose the weapon we would be using. My weapon of choice was a tennis racket but others had chosen weapons such as baseball bats, 2x4's, BB guns and pellet guns. We were armed to the teeth and ready for war!

As we each ascended the spiral staircase made from raw split logs we admired the workmanship and each step towards the top took us further and further away from the trivial things of our childhood as we each ascended to the rank of Private in the coming war. We were soldiers and we were ready.

We stood there looking around determining which bats to kill first and Dad and John had determined that two sheets of plywood leaning against the wall held the vast majority of the bats between them. He and John ran at the plywood and with a deafening thud the cracking and crunching of thousands of tiny bones signaled that the massacre had begun.

Left and right bats began taking flight to save their lives and left and right children and grown men were swatting them out of the air to crush beneath our feet or shoot with the BB and Pellet guns. Arms were flailing everywhere brandishing weapons as bat after bat was knocked from flight to its certain death. One or more bats were knocked between tennis racket and baseball bat multiple times as we played a gruesome game of "I bet I can hit my sibling with a dead bat". Not a game for the faint of heart.

As the massacre wound to an end and few bats remained lying on the floor having yet to be completely dispatched, I insisted that I wanted to shoot one too.  Someone handed me the BB gun and I pointed it sure and true right at its stomach and pulled the trigger. Did you know that a bat will survive that? Cocking the BB gun again I pointed it directly at its tiny head and more specifically directly into its open mouth with its tiny fangs and pulled the trigger.

The battle for our home was now over. We had defeated the flying vermin and we were true soldiers having fought on the front lines of extermination and not one soldier was lost.

I Would Like To Report A Kidnapping......

We all had a favorite toy growing up. I was no exception. My favorite was my Pooh bear with a wind up butt that played his theme song. Oh how I loved that chubby little stubby all stuffed with fluff Pooh bear. He went everywhere with me.

One day he was missing. He couldn't be located anywhere and I was quite upset. My baby had disappeared. We launched an all out search and rescue effort involving the entire family, neighborhood, local police, US government and Canada all to no avail. Well okay it was just me and Mom looking but we certainly put forth the same effort that the above mentioned others would have had they known of the kidnapping. I was devastated, he was gone forever and my little tiny heart was broken. Never again would I hear the Winnie the Pooh theme without feeling a pang of sorrow for my little guy who had been kidnapped.

Fast forwarding to about five years old and Mom had purchased a number of flowers to plant in the flower bed right out front of the house. She enlisted my little hands with a small spade to assist in the planting. She would point out where to dig the next small hole and I would follow orders and dig. This process repeated several times until I hit something hard. I continued to work my spade around that hard object until it was freed and I pulled it upwards. I was shocked and horrified to discover in my hand the music box to my Pooh bear as well as some tattered remains of his stuffing and fabric body. I cried. I tried to wind the music box but alas years of it being buried in the moist ground through several winters had rusted the mechanism and my baby was completely dead. Murdered in the prime of his life. It was generally accepted as fact that the prime suspect was my brother Jeremy. He was however never arrested and charged with any crime in connection with the murder.

As a way to deal with my grief I located a crib mobile music box that played "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" and continued to carry that around and play it relentlessly for a very long time. That mysteriously disappeared as well............

Let The Trauma Begin, No Escape from the Crib

Life for me began rather quietly, I... Oh who are we kidding? It was every kid for themselves from a very early age. I am far too young to remember all the gritty details and it's probably also my mind blocking out the trauma but there has always been talk of Jeremy covering me from head to toe in Desitin while I was trapped in my crib as a young infant. I am not sure if he was trying to protect me from any possible rashes or if he was doing his best to camouflage me into the crib sheets so Mom couldn't find me and thereby reclaim the title of the cutest in the family for himself.  That crib had further use as a torture chamber when my siblings would tell me that there were ants crawling in there with me to which I know I probably screamed bloody murder. I got even with all those imaginary ants in my bed later in life as I discovered magnifying glasses and sent them all straight to hell where they belonged. Yes, in my world nap time was a very dangerous time, anything could happen.

Trauma tends to stick with you for life whether you realize it or not. I am almost certain that the reason I get ornery after taking naps now is because my mind goes right back to the early traumas of nap time when I couldn't escape.

Hardly a Princess

Growing up was not an easy task for me. I am honestly surprised I even survived. Planted in a family with five brothers and sisters and I was lucky enough to be between the two boys, well lets just say things got a bit rough. I recall a time when me and my younger brother Charlie were certain that the other would give in first and we continued to choke each other until someone stepped in. I don't recall who stepped in to stop us but that's probably because I was mere moments from black out. I am sure he would have blacked our first though. I don't recall the reason for the attempted murder but it could have just been a challenge to see who could kill who first. There really was not a chance in the world that I was going to grow up to be anything other than a tom boy.

It would be a true statement that if you put a gun or a wrench in my hand and I will smile instantly. I mean who gets excited over the gift of an impact gun other than me? Thanks for that by the way Dad. I recall my first mechanical experience helping my older brother Jeremy bleed brakes on the Dodge truck he was restoring. Yep, I was hooked from the start. I am the girl who will turn her head instantly when I hear the roar of a muscle car and I will never turn down the opportunity to drive a fast car and I will not drive it slowly either. I think I get my adrenaline junkie gene from my Dad who used to race at the Bonneville Salt Flats when I was a kid.. I got my license at 14, yeah for living in Idaho, and let me say that NO 14 YEAR OLD SHOULD HAVE A LICENSE. Well if they are anything like I was they shouldn't. Do I know the top speed of a Ford Taurus? I would say that there is a good possibility that I do... Sorry Mom but I never put a scratch on it so no harm done right? I bet Dad knew its top speed too.

It's all Mindy's fault

Well here it is, my blog. We can all blame Mindy for this one for planting the idea in my head.

Heaven knows I was certainly born perfect and through my life I have become less and less so. Thus, this is my journey to imperfection. You are now along for the ride so I will apologize in advance.

I hope you will all enjoy the updates of my crazy life as I post them.