I will tell you “Benjamin” a good story about Jacob. At Christmas
Mellissa wanted us to make a gingerbread tree and I am not very
meticulous and I was just throwing everything together and squirting
icing here and there and Jacob finally stopped me and said “Aunt
Lainie, Stop!!” and he proceeded to meticuously redo everything I had
done and carefully piece by piece build the tree slowly and with the
icing and make it perfect and I so enjoyed my time with him that I will
never forget that experience.

I will tell you “Benjamin” a good story about Jacob. At Christmas
Mellissa wanted us to make a gingerbread tree and I am not very
meticulous and I was just throwing everything together and squirting
icing here and there and Jacob finally stopped me and said “Aunt
Lainie, Stop!!” and he proceeded to meticuously redo everything I had
done and carefully piece by piece build the tree slowly and with the
icing and make it perfect and I so enjoyed my time with him that I will
never forget that experience.

That’s priceless

Maria can confirm or deny it.

And your words warmed my heart, and helped me feel better about my mother-hooding.

Also, I need to stop quoting stuff from other people’s Patriarchal Blessings. That’s just plain wrong of me. A Patriarchal Blessing is private. Especially if I get it all wrong. I apologize to you, Ben, for spreading rumors about your Blessing, and I shouldn’t do it in the first place. No wonder I get in so much trouble with Heavenly Father, and I don’t understand why?

But the truth is, I have NO memory of the scene you described before my wedding. Really, NO memory. Didn’t I stay in the hotel? Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway, I can’t remember much before I was married. For some reason, life started with Julie…-snicker-

I think it has something to do with faulty long term memory.

Lainie, my patriarchal blessing says nothing of the sort. It actually mentions something about “you’ll be lucky to make it past 30.” So…I feel lucky.

“Sainthood”?? OK, look, I stay up till 1a.m. on a sugar high, writing thoughts down that have taken about 2 years to finally form, and they mostly just paraphrase wiser and smarter people than me, and suddenly I’m a saint!?

Yikes, if that’s all it takes to be a saint, Ben Jr beat me to it before his second birthday (he knows how to use the computer better than Lily right now, scary).

I appreciate the thoughts though mom. All I wanted was to express myself about my family the way you did. not trying to turn this into a “no, you’re the best!” contest, so I’ll just say, your my parents, it’s all your fault!

Lainie, it’s just Benjamin (actually, just Luis), I’ve never started a rock’n'roll revolution, sung about blue suede anything, or worn a body length jumper suit with frills. At least not that I remember, some sugar highs I just wake up and hope nobody took pictures, cause I can’t remember nothing

And Buddy, I had no idea about Melissa. I’ve always thought highly of her and you know how I feel about you. I wish I could have seen more of your children grow up. Looking at the pictures of Jacob Ryan, I remember having him in the car with me after my mission, he was about 2, and we had the most funny conversation, though I can’t remember it. And then having dinner at your house that one Christmas, all four of them sitting at the table with HUGE smiles and looking about as excited as children could look. And now I have two of my own that are doing almost the exact same thing. And their mother means so much to them. Give Melissa my love, and tell her I’m just as big a dunce as the next guy.

And let me also say this, and I’m sure I speak for Maria too, “little” brother is no longer acceptable. I’m 33 with 2 kids…YOUNGER BROTHER is fine, but “little” left when I started paying for life insurance folks!

MOOOM, make them stop!

I don’t know where Luis was. Probably outside checxing out the car. I had to break up the fiasco, and I screamed at Ben, “You have exactly six hours to MATURE!!

Anyway…just thought I would offer that little bit of information to water down Ben’s Sainthood.

The “L” stood for Luis, because that is what his beautiful wife, Julie, calls him.

Now, I realize that this is a semi-public forum and I don’t want to embarass you or anything but, can you at some point in your humble little life sit back and be a just a tiny bit proud of yourself! You see these kinds of internal ponderings that result in textual outbursts are just the kind of thing that tips the balance in one’s wrestle to ‘waken’ that tiny ‘other realm’ entity inside us to steer their human a little more precisely. Just to brag on you a bit. I have an EX who has confided in me on numerous occasions that she cannot be in your presence for any great length of time without having tears come to her eyes and she cannot explain why. Of course I know why.