We spent part of the weekend at Monica's house for a barn deck raising. Inviting a couple of Mormons to a deck raising is just like inviting some Amish to a barn raising - except just one guy shows up with a car trunk full of tools and he expects to be fed immediately before work begins. Also, that deck isn't finished by nightfall... or even within the month... and may not be up to code.

Three little maids at play

While Monica and The KingofHearts worked outside, I took on the job of avoiding physical labor keeping the kids out of their hair. It involved having the children make their own lunch and color their own Easter eggs.  So I'm sure we left the house in much better shape than when we arrived... not.


I've mentioned before that our friend Marielle wears hearing aids.  Or at least she did.  Now, Mari has a hearing aid on one side and a cochlear implant (CI for short) on the other.  She'd recently gotten new ear molds (pink!) and was showing them off to The Shortlings, who looked on with appropriate envy.  Later that night, I had this conversation with The Caterpillar:

Caterpillar:  "Mom. I need a CI."

Me: "No, you don't."

C:  "But I WANT one."

Me:  "Well, honey, you don't need one.  CIs are for people who need them."

C: "Well, I need a CI."

Me: "CIs are for people who need them to hear better. Like Mari. You can hear fine."

C:  *pointing* "Well, I can't hear very well out of this ear."

I forgot about this conversation until the next day when we were invited to our neighbor's house for one of his family get-togethers.  There were about a dozen adults in the room and the kids were all running around the house like rhesus monkeys.  After we'd been there for awhile, our neighbor's son and daughter in law approached me.  

"What's wrong with The Caterpillar?  I didn't know about it."

Me:  "Huh?"

"You know.  Her hearing."

Me: "Huh?"

"Well, why won't you get her a hearing aid?"

Me:  "Wait, what?"

"She says she can't hear and she needs hearing aids but you won't buy them for her because you don't want to spend the money on her."


So glad I taught these children to talk.