Trampolines, Dinosaurs and other dilemmas in my life

Little B takes a three hour nap everyday. On some days I can't wait to grab my book and read almost the whole time he's down. Today is not one of those days. I have a million thoughts going through my head and since I'm the only adult here, this here blog post is my sounding board. I have held the following conversations with myself, out loud even. But, I just don't cut it sometimes. Lets start our discussion with trampolines. When I was wee lass my older brother bought our family a trampoline. What a nice kid right? We had to bury it before our mom would let us play on it. I think most people use a tractor to dig out the hole for a trampoline. Doing so not only makes sense, but it's so much faster! Of course the family I came from is not like most. We dug the hole out using shovels. I was all gung ho about it for about a minute and a half. I don't know if the ground was frozen or what, but when I went to put my shovel in the ground it didn't work. Instead it fell over and that's when I lost my enthusiasm. I tried to help by running the back of the shovel along the top of the grass to pull the grass out. I don't know if I thought grass was magnetic and would stick to the back of the shovel as I pushed the shovel along the top of the grass or what, but whatever I was thinking didn't work. My dad asked me to stop doing that so I put the shovel on the ground and skipped happily into the house. I had tried to help, it didn't work so I got to watch out the window as my dad dug and dug and dug. I was so disappointed that he didn't finish it in one afternoon, or two. Let's not forget that my dad worked from 5:30 A.M until 10:30 P.M. so he was digging this hole on his day's off which were Wednesday and Thursday. It's not like he had a lot of time to dig. Which brings us full circle to the tractor theory. Why didn't he just use the tractor from the farm? It makes so much sense! Anyway, he didn't, instead he dug when he could and after what felt like forever the hole was dug, the trampoline was assembled and we were aloud to play on it! Oh man how we loved that trampoline. My fondest memory is jumping without peeing my pants. Heaven knows that if I jump on a trampoline now, peeing my pants comes with the territory. Not to mention I am terrified of being bounced too high and B can bounce someone like nobody's business. It's truly a life threatening ordeal. I digress, let's fast forward a few years. We now have three littles and they love that both of their grandma's have trampolines. Well, not anymore, but before Grandpa and Grandma K moved, they had a trampoline. B and I have talked about how dangerous they are. That if we ever got one, we would want to bury it. We didn't know how to hold the dirt back.  My dream trampoline would be buried, but we would dig a hole, using a tractor of course, along the sides and base of the hole we would pour cement, add a drain so water could drain out when it rains. That way the trampoline is buried so it's safer for little ones. But, pouring all that cement and adding a drain is basically making a pool but instead of adding water we add a trampoline and that just seems like a lot of money. Lets just skip the trampoline all together and save ourselves a whole lot of money. This last Saturday a family in our ward was moving. The new house they're moving in to sits on the lake. They don't have a backyard due to the lake so they couldn't take their trampoline. I was there helping them clean so they could leave that afternoon. She was talking about all the things they had left to do and mentioned that they couldn't take the trampoline. I had a moment of pure insanity and asked if we could have it. What?! What was I thinking? We can't bury it in our backyard. Not only are we renting, but we are not going to pay for a cement lined, drain inserted trampoline hole just to leave it behind. Even as I write about it all I can do is shake my head. I'm such an idiot! I mean that in the kind of way like when Rizzo the Rat on Muppet Christmas Carol leaves his jellybeans on the other side of the fence. He squeezes through the bars, gets them and comes back. Gonzo looks at him and says,"You can fit through the bars? You're such an idiot!" Anyway, if you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, watch the movie and then you will. Anyway, I can't believe that sitting in our backyard right this second is a trampoline that neither B or I wanted and in a moment of wild woman talking I actually said that we wanted it. There's no mat over the springs and no net around it. M and K were so happy I'm pretty sure they cried a little. Little B turns into a kamikaze on it. He darts across it at lightning speed laughing his head off as B and I sprint around the entire thing trying to save him from a sure death. After about three minutes of the insanity of having a 18 month old on an un-netted, spring exposed death trap we decided we needed to invest in the pad that sits on top of the springs and a net. Well, to get those two things is almost as much money as buying a new trampoline that comes with the pad and the net. Now what the heck are we supposed to do? We can't just take the stupid thing away. There's a good chance that M and K would never speak to us again. We for sure would be the reason for years of counseling and the root of all the injustices in their lives. But, we don't want to pay for a pad and a net to put on a very used trampoline if a new one is truly only $20 more. But, we were not planning on buying a trampoline now or ever really. The whole thing is so annoying! I don't know what possessed me to tell Dottie that we wanted her old trampoline. If only we could rewind time right? Then I would tell her we don't want her trampoline just like I told her that we didn't want her gigantic fish tank or computer desk or drum set. I have nothing else to say other than I can't believe we have a trampoline. Lets change the subject. Lets talk about dinosaurs. I don't believe in them. In my mind they are like big foot and the loch ness monster. I think that the bones are fake and that it's all a big hoax. I know I know, I'm crazy. I think I stopped believing in them when I was about 14. I don't know what happened really other than I just think they're crazy. I have nothing scientific to back me up. Rumor has it that one of the prophets didn't believe in them either. I don't remember which one. I think it was Joseph Fielding Smith. But rumor also had it that the Salt Lake Temple was going to be closed for two years for major renovations, so take the prophet not believing in dinosaurs with a grain of salt. Last night we went to dinner at a friends house and another family came too. The second family's parents were in town. We were sitting on the couch after dinner and I said we should talk about dinosaurs. Everyone agreed and then I said, "I don't believe in them." The guys in the room said,"Like that they didn't ever exist or just not on this world?" I said that they never existed. One of them asked me about fossils. I told him I think they're fake. He kind of laughed and said,"kind of like it's a conspiracy theory?" I said sure. B is a rock star and supports his crazy wife in her moments of total stupidity. He piped up and said,"There's nothing said about them in the temple." Which is totally true. One of the wives said,"Well, there's nothing said about Iguanas either but those are totally real!" I started laughing and said she's right. Then the mom spoke up with her theory. She thinks that since animals were created before man was, that the dinosaurs lived and died before men were even created. That's the best theory I've heard. I like that explanation. Clearly I am not totally set on my not believing in dinosaurs if I'm swayed that easily. I'm still not totally convinced that they were real and that they roamed the earth, but I do like her idea. It makes sense because rumor is, I know another rumor, but, I've been told that each day here is like 1000 years in heaven, so if dinosaurs were made on the day with all the other animals then they would have been here long enough to live and die before we got here, but only barely. Man came right after the animals right? You would think that Adam would have seen at least one and maybe even said something like, And it came to pass that as we were walking we saw a great beast of an animal and it ate Thad who was the son of Markus.. Or something like that right? I'm not trying to preach false doctrine. Please don't panic mom, I still have a testimony, the church is true, I'm just thinking out loud. Dinosaurs. I can't wait to get to heaven to find out about those. If they lived did they get back into heaven? They seem too ferocious for heaven. Hum, I wonder. my final dilemma,  tampons and shrinking tata's. I'll spare you the details but both of those things causing me grief, just sayin. Well, I guess I've tortured you long enough. I'll sign off and go stare at our annoying trampoline and ponder if dinosaurs existed or not.