Cole Slaw Sucks

I hate cole slaw.  When I was a 3 year old child my very first memory of life was going to the next door neighbor's house and Ms. Deanna baby sitting me while my mom worked at the hospital.  I can still picture her front room and the kitchen/breakfast area quite vividly.  I used to sneak under the high chair by the sliding glass door and eat the dog food from the bowl kept under there.  Don't tell anyone.  

I remember all of this so well because that is where the I had cole slaw for the first time.  Deanna made me some for lunch and tried the shredded carrots and cabbage very tentatively.  I didn't like it.  Then she insisted, so I choked down a full spoonful.  She was so pushy that to this day I don't feel bad about puking all down her hallway as I ran to the bathroom.  I've never been able to keep the stuff down since then and really I don't care to try anymore.

Fast forward.

We do this thing in our family.  Every night we fight over getting teeth brushed, PJ's on, scriptures read and a family prayers said.  And some time's I really do mean fight.  

So after the prayer, we get up from our knees and do a big family hug.  It's a mess of blonde hair and arms trying to squeeze harder than dad can.  It's always pretty funny, particularly because David always ends up squished in the middle.  He can't read scriptures yet so he tends to float during the reading and stay floating during the prayer.  Usually he ends up in the middle of the circle because that where he can get the most attention.  

I don't know where it started but a while back we started deciding what kind of ingredients to the sandwich we were.  Like, it's a mommy-dAddie sandwich with a slice of provolone cheese, a dill pickle and mustard if they were wearing a white, green and yellow shirt that evening.  They would come up with what ever ingredient they wanted to based on their clothing color.  

So the other day it was particularly difficult to accomplish the bedtime routine and I got a bit "snippy".  I didn't make any friends and pretty much everyone was fed up with my hollering at them. But they also knew not to talk back to me any more.  So any shots had to be subversive.  

As we held close in our tight little family hug, each boy began imagining what they were.  Brigham said he was ketchup.  Mackay said he was cole slaw (despite wearing a purple shirt) and David was a pickle.  

I don't know if you caught that.  Mackay was cole slaw.  The one food that he knows makes dAddie so sick he throws up and won't even touch.  That little shit.  and I say that in the most loving Grandma B way.  He got me.  He got me good and all I could do was smile when he couldn't see my face and squeeze the whole mess of family even harder than my normal Anaconda Squeeze.  Because I really may not be able to wrap my arms around this whole group much longer.  

On a side note.  Grandma Ruth fell last week.  She broke her hip and had a replacement surgery done to try and fix it; though it doesn't look good.  I knew my Great Grandma Hicken very briefly and was as old as Brigham is now when I got the phone call that said she had passed away.  The tears I cried that afternoon in our trailer home in Provo still stick with me.  I hope Grandma Ruth kicks this but I fear for the worst.  It is sweet to hear my boys pray for her without my prodding.  They are good and she is great.