I Come Bearing Gifts

This week, Tanner and I went to Phoenix for his clinic appointment at Phoenix Children's Hospital. After his appointment, I dropped him off at his cousins' for 24 hours of fun with the girls, who are on fall break. After leaving him, I went to the funeral for my friend's mom, and spent some time with her and her family. Precious time.

The appointment went well (for those interested in receiving notifications on Tanner's progress, shoot me an email and I'll send you the website registration information). As happens sometimes when I've been anticipating an event with a little bit of stress, I promptly sprouted a migraine as soon as it was apparent all was well. You'll hear more about what happened while I was waiting for the migraine to pass in my next post. I'm mentioning it now, because I'm falling victim to a weird compulsion to share every detail related to the trip. I may go back and delete this whole part before this post is through. You never know. It's all fluid until I hit "Publish Post".

Anyway.

After I slept off the migraine on Tuesday morning, Mike's sister and I took the kiddos out for a late lunch, then Tanner and I took our leave to head home. But first we stopped at Cabela's to browse. You should know that Tanner's sisters think it's patently unfair that he gets to have all this fun on his Phoenix Children's trips. Those who keep up with his medical reports have heard a little about this consternation. It's not a big, noisy deal but it's there, simmering under the surface. And, as time goes on and it's apparent Tan's doing pretty well, the grumbling gets a little louder, because let's face it, he's spending a few hours with doctors and then is just having a good time. Restaurants, Cabela's, movies, Bass Pro Shop, cousin time, whatever.

So, after nearly a year of these monthly/bi-monthly sojourns, it dawned on me that maybe I should take a little something home to the other kids from these trips. Maybe I should make it a habit to just bring them a little something. And so I picked up a few things.

Here's what I shared with my loving family members, waiting at the homestead for our return from the Valley:

• a pair of wool socks for Mike for the coming winter
• a small pocket knife for Adam
• chunks of fudge wrapped in parchment paper and made with real cream and butter for Adam, Macy and Karlie
• sour candy drops for the girls, that actually came out of a barrel.

Umm, does this gift list sound familiar to anyone? Anyone? After pulling the last gift out of the bag, it hit me. I really am stuck in an endless episode of "Little House on the Prairie."

Only I'm not "Half-Pint," as my sister (affectionately?) calls me. Oh no, it couldn't be that simple. I'm bringing rustic little gifts back to the family after leaving them behind for a trip to the big city. Let's face it.

I'm Pa.

I'm not sure what to do with that.

Love from the farm,

Teri