Three hundred and ninety-nine and sixty

This week, I went up home again to spend the last few days with my nephews.

Nathaniel, the four-year-old, continues to be funny. Back in December, he would say he had sixteen moms, houses, etc. Now when you ask him, the number of moms, dads, and houses ranges in the hundreds and thousands.

One night this week (Tuesday?) he was a total chatterbox regarding his other family members. He said he had three hundred and ninety-nine dads, and three hundred and ninety-nine and sixty moms, because some of his dads died. All of his moms changed their names to Ya-ping (the name of his one real mom) and his dads are all named Yu-ping. He said he liked to walk to his Jello house in Taiwan; I asked him how he got across the ocean, and he said he just puts his goggles on and walks. All of his houses are made of different substances: Jello, candy, shoes, people (they turn into rocks), and so on. There will even be lots of houses inside the Jello houses. His favorite moms and grandmas live in Jello houses, and his favorite uncles have all the houses in the whole galaxy. He said something about a mile, and Franklin (6) told him that a mile is really long (which, of course, it isn't). I told Nathaniel that last Saturday I walked fourteen miles, and he said, "I can walk 100 miles!" That day I asked him when he was going to go back to his house (for real), and he kept saying, "100 days."

Another day, I asked him how many brothers he had, and he said two. Then I asked how many moms, and he said one. Then he said, "Oh!" as though he just remembered he was supposed to talk about the others. He said he had "wifty hundred," but they weren't there right then.

On the 23rd, we went to my sister's house to watch the Bountiful Handcart Days parade. Pioneer Day is kind of a mini Fourth of July; if I were to add another holiday to the canon of holidays I formally celebrate, Pioneer Day would be the one. We lit off some fireworks after that, but there weren't as many fireworks that night as there were on the Fourth of July.

The next day, I didn't work, and we went to the Lego Store in Salt Lake, since the three boys are obsessed with Legos. Before that, we went to McDonald's, which is the favorite restaurant of kids, even though it's not good. Franklin "decorated" his straw.

Then on Friday they left, and I won't see them again until Christmastime.

Then I came back to Provo, where we have to prepare for more apartment renovations. I have to deal with the messiest roommate I've ever had (but who is otherwise a good guy), a roommate who decided he was too good for us, and a roommate who is a quintessential sweet bro--he's always with his bros and hasn't slept in our apartment for a month, and he doesn't talk to us and always wears polo shirts and eats nothing but protein supplements and Clif bars.