Michael

Well, I started to talk about Michael a long time ago and never got past his birth story. And since then he's asked me a few times if I was ever going to finish writing about him.

Probably not. Your first child is everything new; makes you realize that you're not as smart as you thought you were; makes you wonder if you really know how to do anything at all. It will never be finished.

I used to get so upset when people said my baby was bald. Hmmm.

Michael is very smart. He was using ten-word sentences before he was two years old, and he had (has) an amazing memory. One time when he was about 20-months old we were driving along the freeway and he started telling us about a billboard that had been on that same freeway, but had been changed about six months earlier. He's still too smart for his own good (certainly too smart for my own good) and if he puts his smarts to good use he will go far.

Two of my favorite little-Michael stories:

For Michael's first Christmas I took him shopping with me. We looked at toys and I showed him a popper--you know, those little push-toys with the balls inside that pop around like popcorn when you push the toy across the floor. He loved it! Every time we went to look at toys at the store he would grab one and push it back and forth. So one day Bruce and I took him to the mall with us so we could finish up our Christmas shopping; Michael could just barely walk if we were holding his hands. As we walked past the toy store we saw a whole rack of those poppers just outside the entrance. Michael had been walking with Bruce, and they headed to the poppers. Michael grabbed one, dropped to all fours and crawled away down the center of the mall as fast as he could, pushing the popper in front of him--to the delight of the last-minute-Christmas-shopping crowd. He loved those poppers!

Check out the look on that baby's face!

When Michael was about two-an-a-half Bruce was getting ready to graduate from Salt Lake Community College. One day we went with Bruce to the school because he had some paperwork he needed to get done (and we were going to go shopping or visiting or something afterward). Well by the time Bruce was close to finishing up, Michael was getting a little bored. So I told him, "Daddy's almost done--let's go beat him up the stairs!" So Michael ran over to Bruce, started kicking and hitting him, and then ran up the stairs. I was a little shocked, until I realized that Michael had just "beat up Daddy" and then beat him up the stairs as well.

Michael with "soccer-man" on graduation day

Michael was our only baby for three years, and I think younger siblings were kind of a shock to him. Suddenly the attention was split two ways; three; four . . . But he's far outgrown the shock, and his little brothers and sisters like him a lot. Within this past month Michael has taken three of his siblings out to the movies. And Jessica will go to him for help in my absence (even when Bruce is home.)

Michael makes a plaster relief picture of Anubis preparing to remove the brains from a dead pharaoh

Michael is a great help to me; he keeps an eye on the kids and the house while I run errands, and sometimes he even cleans up around home--voluntarily, without me asking first! How's that for a teenage boy? He's a deep-thinker, and can argue any point until I almost could agree with him. He'd make a great lawyer. But what he loves is creating, and it's fun to see his artwork and hear the ideas he comes up with.

Yes, my baby Michael is a great guy!