J.D. Beans

My little brother, Joseph, turned eight on Sunday. He had what was apparently a really cool party the day before. I don't know all the details, but I do know that it involved a bouncy castle, a pinata, and large piles of rocks and sand. Those sound like the ingredients of a good time to me!

Joseph was baptized on Sunday. I wish I could have been there; I'm sure the whole thing was amazing. The best part about his birthday (for me anyway) was when he woke me up early Sunday morning (my time anyway) so that I could wish him a happy birthday. For his birthday I emailed him and promised to take him out for a day when he gets here later this month. That's what I did last year for him, and we enjoyed ourselves, so I figured why not have a repeat performance. Last year I also took him to the store and bought him a toy. I was planning on doing that this year, but it was going to be a surprise. Joseph, however, making sure he was getting his money's worth. When he called, he said "I got your email. But last year you also took me to a shop and let me pick out a toy too. You should do that again this year." Little punk, ruining the surprise.

Anyway on his birthday, I got to thinking about him and what an awesome kid he is. Everyone who meets him thinks he's pretty much the neatest kid in the world. And he is, so it works.

In honor of his big oh-eight, I decided to thingy about ten super-sweet memories I have of him. I would have done eight, as it is his eighth birthday and all, but I worried that I might be expected to do an encore next year with nine things, or that I might have to do the same thing for other family members' birthdays, and those lists could get long. I just don't have that much brain power. I could do it, I'm sure, but that's a lot of expectations guys, gee whiz! Anyway, here are ten great memories of Joseph, in no particular order:

1. When Joseph was two, we hid in a pile of stuffed animals with only our faces sticking out to scare Cassie.

2. When he was six, we were eating lunch at restaurant and for some reason there was an uncomfortable silence. To fill the void, Joseph sang "Awkward, ever awkward," to the tune of "Called to Serve".



3. At my sister's wedding, Joseph (who was five) slow danced with our cousin, Olivia (who was probably two at the time).

4. Just last fall, Joseph decided that he had to be a Utah fan (as in the U of U) because he lived in Utah. He made a "Go, Utah!" sign and put it up on the door of the apartment he and my mom were then living in. Mortally ashamed of his behavior, I took the sign down, threw it at him, and stationed myself at the door so he couldn't put it back up. Seemingly offended, he locked himself in the bedroom, planning on decorating the whole place with "Go, Utah!" signs. However, he was also carefully watching under the door of the bedroom for me to move. The second I did, he came pealing out of the bedroom, cackling like a maniac, racing to put the sign back up. I tackled him from halfway across the room. We then compromised. I let him put the sign up on the safest place he could think of: the toilet. He has since seen the light and become a true blue cougar fan.

5. Right after Joseph learned how to walk, we taught him how to sumo wrestle. We would zip up a couch pillow into his footy pajamas and let him run into us like that. Of course, he would fall right over. The great part was, with the pillow in, he couldn't get back up again. Don't worry, he thought it was funny too.

6. He got one of those jumper things that hang in doorways when he was a baby. One day after grocery shopping, we put him in there and as we were putting the food away, someone stuck a package of crackers in the jumper behind him. Joseph could see the crackers just out of the corner of his eye, so he would try to turn around to get them. This would cause the whole jumper to turn and he would spin around and around chasing the crackers like a dog chases its tail.

7. When Joseph was six, the center of his life was a series of toys called B-Daman. He would talk non-stop about them. At this time, we were having the missionaries over for dinner every Sunday night. The goal of everyone at the table was to get Joseph to talk about something else. We failed every week. He would start up talking about B-Daman and if would only stop if someone spoke directly to him, when he would pause and "listen". Instead of responding to whatever was said to him, however, he would carry on with the B-Daman train like he never stopped.

8. Last summer, Joseph informed me that the only way he would like my future children is if I had triplets and if they were also ogres, like on Shrek.

9. When he was an infant, we taught him how to kiss people. His version of a pucker was to open him mouth as wide as it could possibly go.

10. At age three, Joseph declared our friend Paul to be his favorite brother. Shortly thereafter, he deemed Paul his favorite sister as well.

If you don't get some of these stories, I apologize. Most of them are probably "you had to be there"s. Luckily, most of you who read my thingy were there, at least for some.