Where the Sidewalk Ends

For Sale

By Shel Silverstein

One brother for sale!

One brother for sale!

One crying and spying young brother for sale!

I'm really not kidding,

So who'll start the bidding?

Do I hear a dollar?

A nickel?

A penny?

Oh, isn't there, isn't there, isn't there any

One kid who will buy this old brother for sale,

This crying and spying young brother for sale?

I read this to the boys tonight.  Brigham smiled and Mackay got super offended.  

M: "I don't wanna be sold for a dollar!" 

B: "No Mackay, we were talking about David." 

M: (With a suddenly coy smile) "Ok, that sounds great!"

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So today we are in church and for such a large audience the entire congregation was rather quiet.  Mackay was on my lap listening suspiciously attentively and the speaker says, "Imagine that you are in a boat and another passenger falls off the side.  He's trying to catch up but you are sailing away from him.  What would you do?"  Mackay's hand shoots up in the air, just like he has learned to do in school, and he patiently waited to be called on because he obviously had the right answer.  But we were in a room with over 150 people they were not going to call on him.  The speaker continued rhetorically, "What would you do…would you jump in after him?"

Unable to hold back any longer,"YES!!!" says the blonde-headed peanut in the fourth row rather loudly.  It took a while to get everyone in the congregation back under control so he could continue his talk.

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Brigham, "If we were fighting I'd Ninjaga-roundhouse kick him in the face!"  

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Another poem by Shel Silverstein for Brigham and Mackay

Us

Me and him, 

Him and me,

We're always together

As you can see.

I wish he'd leave

So I'd be free

I'm getting a little bit

Tired of he,

And he may be a bit

Bored with me.

On movies and ladies

We cannot agree.

I like to dance

He loves to ski.

He likes the mountains

I love the sea.

I like hot chocolate 

He likes his tea.

I want to sleep

He has to pee.

He's meaner and duller

And fatter than me.

But I guess there's worse things

We could be--

Instead of two 

We could be three.

Then in toddles David to sharp glares from numbers 1 and 2.

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David had his second birthday last week.  It wasn't his first rodeo--it was his second.  And quite frankly we just weren't terribly interested in doing anything too much.  We figured everyone was busy and it was a ways away for for family to come since Grandma Susie moved to Vernal.  So we invited KK to come up thinking it wouldn't be too big an imposition and Jonathan was over hanging out so we invited him too.  Then we get a text message and Kellie and Susie and Max and Sophie and Paul and Ava and Stellie-Jane are all on their way! Surprise!  I have an amazing family.  They decided that time is running short until we have to move on and there was no sense in wasting a perfectly good Saturday afternoon by not throwing a party.

Obs.  I'll be pretty impressed if he makes it to three and Mackay makes it to six.  Shortly after most of the party had arrived we all were out in the back yard finishing up raking some leaves and cutting down branches when we noticed those two missing.  Michelle went in the kitchen and caught both of them red handed and elbow deep into the very nice cake she had spent all afternoon baking and decorating.  They had destroyed it.  Badly.  Michelle went on time out and Mackay is still alive.  But not by much.  Happy birthday David.