Explanation of the word "fizzle"...
The other night at Mer's parent's, his dad busts out this album of his latest favorite pics. We are looking through them, there are pics of Mer-Bear when he was a young little chap, pics of some of their fishing trips, and pics of the other kids when they were little... then, there is our wedding day...
Dixon: "Oh... son, do you remember that day?"Mer: "Yeah..."
Dixon: "You do huh?"
Mer: "Yup... that's when Min was smokin' hot."
Me: "Was?"
Mer: "Yeah... now you are just hot... maybe just a "fizzle" now."
You can imagine the rest of that exchange. Dixon thought it was entertainingly funny. That is our relationship, tease, tease, tease. (Refer to the "Homer in a mu-mu comment.) Ah, I know he does love me... no hard feelings.
So, among other things...
You can't get anything done for you around this house unless you are Clint, or if it benefits Clint.
Example:Clint came over yesterday. We were trying to be hospitable and offered him something to drink. We went downstairs, the drink stayed up stairs. Once realized, Merrill asked Lynn to go and get Clint's drink. She immediately runs off. She gets back and Mer asks her if she'll go and get his too. Silence. No running off. Blank stares. I go and get it.
We had a good time at the Elder's BBQ. I want more fun times like that. Except the part where no bathrooms at the bowery is involved. That wasn't fun...We enjoyed the South Ogden days fireworks display from the InstaCare's little yard. I was so excited to be there without needing to pay out the nose for one of my kiddos! And who should show up to watch there too? The Dr. who tells me to get rid of the trampoline... nut-job.
The girls were having fun, running around and playing, picking these little flowers in the grass while we waited for dark to arrive. Lynn kept doing "the potty dance", with no bathroom around. So I offered her Christie's solution, go in the car in a diaper. She wasn't going for it. She and Ash wanted to be near Clint, shadowing his every move. So we just let them enjoy. After the fireworks display had concluded, Lynn was near tears. I asked her what was the matter, thinking that maybe she had an accident. She told me that I was going to be mad. So I convinced her to tell me, I wouldn't be mad. She said that she put something in her ear. So she learned her lesson second-hand from Ash to NOT put things in her NOSE, but apparently, and EAR is perfectly acceptable... Mer was livid. We were trying to clarify exactly what she had put in her ear. She told us a little white thing, a flower?
"No it's soft and squishy..." she said.
Clint solved the mystery by telling us that she had been playing with some styrofoam.
Ah-hah!
She sobbed the whole way home, me trying to reassure her that everything would be okay, but I was not going to the ER tonight, and Merrill letting her have it. I told him to calm down, she felt bad enough as it was, and he said, "Well I learned, after being humiliated, to not do things again."
"Well stop humiliating her! Getting her upset is not helping... and look what you turned out to be after being humiliated..." see, I get em in when I can...Needless to say, we stayed-up well after midnight, trying to get styrofoam out of an ear.
We prayed first, trying to teach her about faith, and set to work doing everything that I could think of. Nasal aspirator + water. Nope. Turning up-side down + shaking. Nope. Bobby pin. Nope. So, we tried to educate ourselves online. First of all, here's the "don'ts": don't use water to flush objects out of the ear. Don't use a bobby pin. Don't put anything else in the ear, trying to get the object out. Don't shake a child. Don't hit the head. Yeah, so my "common sense ideas"... not the safest. Some other ideas we tried: baby oil. Nope. Soaking her head in the tub, to try to get it our and to wash off the baby oil ;). Nope. So I told Lynn that sometimes, Heavenly Father's answer is to just relax, we don't have to work ourselves to death to solve a problem. Sometimes we just need time to think of a better solution. We read a book together and went to bed, her hoping that it would just fall out onto her pillow. Besides, online it also said that if bleeding, pain, or hearing loss weren't present, don't worry about it.
This morning, nothing. I had her draw me a pic of how big the piece of styrofoam was. She drew me her ear canal, and a little circle, where she thought it was stuck. Online forums taught her something else... when else would a five-year-old learn about an ear canal?
Did church, did Clint's homecoming, he was awesome.... talked about Faith of all things... Went out to mom's for her birthday.
We told her the latest saga of a small object lodged in a facial orifice. She got it out with an ear cleaner. 
That good ol' grammy... really, she's 55 now... senior citizen discount and all to prove the ol' part...Bummer comes in when we aren't gong camping as early this week as we thought... the camp we have, for the first couple of days, is a wee bit too close to the rushing river, a hazard for our sweet small children, all of the small objects that can fit in facial orifices is more of a hazard for my sweet ones though... anywhoo... won't be going until later...
