I (heart) UTAH

Friday afternoon our family made the pilgrimage to Utah. We are planning on spending the week for the 4th July holiday. This morning I read an article in the newspaper that cracked me up ... when July begins Utah spends three weeks celebrating. Celebrating what? Under the guise of patriotism (and I don't doubt there are some sincere feelings of patriotism hidden in all of the festivities), every big and little town celebrates SOMETHING that, provided the local taxes are budgeted correctly, ends in an either "average" or "wow, that was waaaaay better than last year!"fireworks display. One would think that there could not possibly be reasons to celebrate for three straight weeks. One would therefore be wrong, and obviously not privy to the "charm and uniqueness" of all that is Utah.

Despite the obvious patriotic reasons for festive July activities, towns (large and small alike) in Utah deem this particular month as a reason to worship, better yet, idoloze, produce. Produce? Yes, produce. The briefest and easisest explanation of the phenomenon is that towns worship whatever their town grows best. The worship of the produce maye have started out small many years ago (I'm not really sure on that fact), but I know today it has grown into fulls scale madness. Not only are there parades, town celebrations throughotu the day (with overpriced vendor booths, cheap fair rides that my mom lever let us ride because as she said, "they were put together with nuts and bolts in a hurry" and therefore they would most assuredly fall apart while one of her four children happened to be riding one, chintzy entertainment by local American Idol hopefuls that missed the age cutoff date, and culminating fireworks displays. Some towns even have beauty pageants disguised as "scholarship pageants", uh-huh, whatever. Can you imagine your crown being that of "Miss Tomato Days" or Miss Cherry Days", or her royal "Miss Peach Days"?

Honestly, look it up online, I can't make this crap up ... just to name a few: Hooper, UT has "Tomato Days" down south they have "Corn Days", Brigham City, UT has "Peach Days", some town has "Strawberry Days" (according to my mom) and my little town of North Ogden, UT has "Cherry Days". Cherry Days is always celebrated on the 4th of July, so the two holidays sort of were just a merge growing up. You never celebrated the "4th of July", you went to the "Cherry Days Parade", and the "Cherry Days Beauty Pageant", you get the idea. If you grew up in Utah (as I did) you thought the worship of produce was normal ... it was not until years of living AWAY from the great state of Utah that I realized the whole produce idoolization might be a little "off".

So here I sit, home at my Mom's house, in Utah, looking forward to this weeks events and all that is Cherry Days. This year's theme is "Boots, Buckles, and Barrels of Fun!" Even I have nothing that words can properly express wondering what fool (or committee of fools as it may be) came up with that theme for the year. Where do Cherry's fit in with boots, buckles, and barrels of fun? Perhaps this week the mystery will unfold as we immerse ourseles in all that is North Ogden, Utah. My little sister Kati insists that the "mascot" for this year (a mouse in full cowboy garb riding around on a broomstick toy horse) looks like "Speedy Gonzales". I didn't even SEE a Cherry on the mascot logo (maybe Speedy ate the Cherries, and they were delicious, and now he is riding around whooping it up on his toy horse ... how does my mind even go these places, who can tell?), so I don't know WHAT'S UP WITH THAT MASCOT?!?!? I just hope there are souvenir t-shirts I can buy for the whole family to prove we were here. Mom thinks the local grocery story has them. Awesome. More, oh yes many, many more updates to come. Bet you wish you were! p.s. My mom made a homemade cherry pie yesterday ... I think one slice of her pie could bring world peace ... it makes me want to celebrate the Cherry. Go figure.

There are two requirements that face our children from conception ... they must be male, (as is evident from the obvious lack of any females in our little genetic codes) and they must be neurotic with at least ONE thing. Fulfilling these two obligations makes you the child of Jon and Cortney Eldridge.

I have written all to often about the neurotic behaviors of my first two children Drew (the pack leader) and Bradyn (the ultimate middle child). Let me introduce you to neurotic little genetic code #3, Caden. (See left) Notice the sheepish little grin on his face ... don't be fooled, he, like his brothers, is naughty all the way through and if you take your eyes off of him for a second, you're screwed. That wasn't a poetic way of writing, but it's the only definition, you are truly screwed if you leave this child to his own devices for more than 5 seconds.

Caden's neurotic behaviors range from a little wierd to truly absurd. Recently Caden has realized that he is an upwardly mobile creature, and no longer victim to crawling his way about town. I think the whole walking thing really took off when he spent some time outside crawling on the sidewalk with bare knees. He was fine at first, then I noticed he was doing some wierd army sort of Mowgli (think Jungle Book) monkey crawl. His feet were on the ground, and his palms were on the ground, and his rear was higher than his head. It saved his knees, but I think his palms got sore, because suddenly he was moving slowly into a more upward position, and wala! Now, he walks ... everywhere.

To most, walking is like breathing, you just do it. To Caden, walking is like ... being the most powerful superhero in the WORLD! He walks from room to room with his rounded little belly shoved forward, strutting his little toddler strut, very proud that he is now upward and now longer at level with the dog ... which has solidified Caden's place in the dog versus baby world that Caden is now the ALPHA and Caesar has jsut given up on life all together. Occasionally Caden will establish his obvious dominance over his older brothers as well. He enters a room, (okay, struts in the room in only a diaper) sticks his little arm up and finger out right at his brothers and says, "Wababatagagbaabay!!!" I have no idea what that means, but it is apparently very important judging from Caden's tone of voice. I think he is telling his brothers to bow to his obvious dominance. They don't, they laugh, and Caden leaves the room, head down, mumbling what I can loosely translate to be, "bite my ass."

Since Caden is "walking", he now also assumes everything is a sort of "riding" device. anything not nailed down is Caden's "skateboard" including my giant glass serving dish. One foot on the dish, and one foot on the ceramic tile floor, and that thing moves like a skateboard. Who knew? He has mastered the phrase, "uh-oh!"and when things truly get ridiculous with his brothers he hollers, "mamamammamamaaaaaaa!" Already tattling. Great. His worst trait, he bites. But he's not a mean biter and he never does it in retaliation or as a cage fighting maneuver, he does it because he "loves you". But, have you ever had your inner thigh clenched down on by the chompers of a 15 month old who thinks he is "loving you" as your cooking dinner? It's a sort of burning, seething pain that makes you think two things, "if I have enough loose thigh skin down there that the kid can chomp down, it's time for some more squats at the gym, don't yell, don't flinch, he thinks he's loving you!"

Caden's favorite toys are "little people". He got a truckload of "little people" and accessories for his birthday from Kristin and Ryan, Mark Sr. Jr. and Donna Magoon. I would like to thank them for the little people. I would like to thank them at 3 a.m. when I wake up to go to the bathroom and step on an ill placed "little people" and/or prop for the little people. Little people now cover my house ... and if I ever "lose" Caden, I just follow the trail of "little people", it's like breadcrumbs, and at the end there is always a Caden.

But, my all time favorite neurotic behavior of Caden's is his love of all things "soft and snuggly". He loves his "boon" from his Grandma Fish ... but I am afraid as of late the "boon" has taken a back seat to a new love ... Mommy's silk pajama bottoms. Caden stole them from my dresser drawer one night, wrapped them around his head, and proceeded to strut around grinning and then fell to the floor and "nuzzled" his head into my pajama bottoms. Since he's the third child and we don't question, but rather honor all things neurotic our children do, we went ahead and let him sleep with the said pajama bottoms. That was 3 weeks ago. He still sleeps with the pajama bottoms ... my little sister Kati said her husband was worried about their little one "suffocating" because when he sleeps he buries his head in his "boon" ... I told my sister that Caden sleeps with pajama legs wrapped around his neck, and he's okay, so Juan should simmer down, Emerson will be fine. Hey, my pajama bottoms, they are soft, I sort of miss wearing them!

There is more, so much more, but I just saw a "little people" whiz past my head ... which means Caden is soon to follow. Again, thanks for the little people Gelinas and Magoon families! = )