I Am Thankful For Dallin

     I have been asked many times why I would be crazy enough to have six children. People ask,"Why would you do that with all the work and expense that children are? Shouldn't half that many be plenty?" As a strong believer in God I can tell you that even when I was told not to have more children because of medical reasons, I felt strongly I was supposed to have each one of these children. I knew I could be a good mom and give my children 100%. I thought the reason I felt a push to have them all was maybe because each child was supposed to be here to make some great contribution to this world and to other people. That has proven to be true. Each one of my children has had a great impact on people's lives and the world is a better place because they are here. I didn't at the time realize that each one of my children needed to be a part of MY life to teach ME something, that I would be a better person because of things they taught ME. Dallin has taught me a lot in 18 years and I think he is just getting started. 

As you can tell, Dallin is well loved

     I wanted to start out with a few events in Dallin's life that stick out to me. When Dallin was 7 years old he fell at the playground and cut open the back of his head. The cut was deep and he bled all over his shirt. I took him to the doctor and his head was stapled shut with 5 staples. The next Monday at the end of the school day he started talking to one of his friends. Dallin told this boy that he had been shot in the back of the head 5 times. This boy didn't believe him. Dallin said, “Really! A man sneaked up behind me and shot me in the head with 5 staples”. This boy still didn't believe him so Dallin showed him his staples. When this boy saw the staples in Dallin's head he went running up the street yelling at all the other kids and at the parents in cars coming to pick up their children, “Dallin has been shot!”. I came to pick up my children from school and I wondered what all the commotion was about. This boy had caused everyone to panic. Dallin has a way of keeping life interesting. The next day this boy brought a staple remover and offered to help Dallin take out the staples. Dallin knows how to add a spark to things.

     Another event in his life that stands out was when Dallin was scheduled to go with the scouts on a weekend camping trip. He had packed up all of his camping gear and he was all set to go as soon as school let out on Friday. After school, he suddenly got very sick to his stomach and had diarrhea. He felt so bad that we had to tell his leaders he couldn't go. I felt bad for him being stuck at home feeling bad while his friends had fun being together. An hour after they left, Dallin felt fine again. He was healthy and happy and had a good weekend with his brothers and sisters. We felt bad about the timing of him feeling bad just for that hour he was supposed to leave on this trip. I even debated about whether to drive him up to where they were camping but I got a bad feeling about doing it, so I didn't. After the scouts and their leaders came back from their camping trip, they said that while they were out in the wilderness they all of a sudden had someone firing shots at them. Bullets zoomed past their heads and they couldn't tell where it was coming from but it seemed deliberate. The leaders said it was very scary and they felt very fortunate that none of the boys or them were hit. From what I remember I don't think the police ever found the person who shot at them. I have reflected on this many times and I have been thankful Dallin missed this trip. I believe in miracles because I have had so many miracles happen in my life and some that saved my life at critical times. I think there was a reason Dallin didn't make that trip. I think he was being watched over and protected. He could have easily been hit being big for his age.

Dallin on one of his other scout trips

     The things that have touched me about Dallin has been how he has reached out to befriend kids who didn't have friends. He has also stuck up for friends even when it has caused him misery. This past summer he tried to get permission for a friend of his to go on a big fun-filled church trip. This boy had had a very hard life and a bad home life and Dallin wanted to help make his life better. The answer came back no because it was too late to add him. Dallin felt so strongly about his friend needing him that he gave up this trip with all of its fun plans and stayed home and did things with his friend instead. I was very moved by how much passion he had to want his friend to have a better life. He also sticks strongly to his beliefs. One day coming home from middle school a boy told him he would give him 20 dollars if he would say a bad word. Dallin refused and the kids made fun of him, teased him and wouldn't be friends with him. He was very lonely for a while at school because he would not give in. If any of his friends used bad language in our house he would tell them they had to use good language or they would have to leave. I'm glad that he stood for what was right even if it risked him losing friends. He wanted to keep our home the happy peaceful place that it always had been. I hope to follow his example and be a better friend and not be afraid to stick up for my beliefs even when it is hard. 

Dallin has always been a good friend and our home has
been a place his friends liked to come to. 

     I also love the way Dallin can always make me laugh. There have been times when I have been in pain or having a bad day and he can always say and do the most random things that get me laughing pretty hard. He is incredibly fun to be with. He loves to grab and hug me too tight all the time and flash his heart warming smile. Being around him always lifts my spirits. 

These pictures he made on the computer show his sense of
humor and also how gifted he is on the computer.

Even as a child he wanted to take an active part in what every
one did. Here he is a detective investigating a murder.

Some claws he made out of paper.

My children make me laugh every day.

Instead of a snowman he made a snow toilet.

We had to really watch out every April Fool's Day.
We never knew what he was going to do to us. 

     I am also thankful for Dallin's compassion. I have had three surgeries in the last 10 years, one on my hand after I crushed a bone in my finger and two surgeries to reconstruct and add plates and screws to my neck. Sometimes I would be in so much pain I would just lie on the couch and cry. Dallin would sit by me and hold my hand or spend a long time rubbing my back where the pinched nerves would knot up my muscles. It would have been so much easier and more fun for him to be outside playing with his brothers and sisters or friends but he chose to sit by me and talk to me and rub my back and try to make me feel better. His love and compassion always helped me get through another day. I will always be thankful for what he did for me. This is one of my fondest memories. I am so thankful he has the gift of love and compassion.

Dallin and Haley made me some duct-tape roses that
took them a long time to make

Dallin was so loving and good to me through all this. It still
makes me cry to think about it. 

      Dallin came last, so while all the other kids were in school it was only him and I. Dallin wanted to go everywhere with me and do everything I did. We got really close and had some fun times together. I cried when he went off to kindergarten. I missed how much he made me laugh and having a fun buddy with me everywhere I went. I cried when he left for college. I miss his hugs, smile and him making me laugh every day. I am thankful for you Dallin. Thank you for all the things you taught me and those times you comforted me when life was hard. 

Being Indians in the backyard

After field day at school

I also loved being his scout leader for quite a few years

Dallin drew himself as Robin Hood. He is one of my heroes. 

A Guinea Pig named Harry

    With each one of my children I learned something from them that I have held deep in my heart. One of the things I learned from raising Dallin was the depth of love a person can have for an animal. I had a lot of pets growing up, ones I loved and spent a lot of time with but nothing has ever compared to watching Dallin with a guinea pig named Harry. It touched me.

    We had a family who attended our church who had Harry for a pet. They got tired of all the work it took to take care of him. They asked us if we wanted to take him. Dallin had just turned eight years old and he wanted a pet badly for his birthday and he begged me to let him have Harry. He promised he would take good care of him. I folded to the pressure and Harry was delivered to our house. It was love at first sight between Dallin and Harry. We fixed up a cage for him and he became an adopted member of the family. Dallin loved Harry. I have never seen a child love a pet more than he loved Harry and by this time we had had a lot of pets come and go at our house; mice, hamsters, cats, lizards, turtles, fish, birds, mice, etc. Dallin spent all of his free time with Harry. He would do his homework with him and take him where he went in the house. He fed him well and he would take him outside to eat the grass on warm summer days. He would even give him a bath every week. It was a familiar sight to see Dallin with Harry asleep in his lap. Harry now loved Dallin as much as Dallin loved him. They had forged a strong bond of love.

Dallin and Harry

Harry being cuddled after a bath

This was taken on the last day of his life. Harry was eating grass while I
trimmed some mattes out of his hair.

    Then almost a year later, in June, Dallin gave Harry his weekly bath, fed him and put him to bed for the night. When we got up the next morning Harry was dead. Dallin was devastated and held Harry all morning and cried. He didn't want to bury him. I finally convinced him that we had to bury Harry. We made him a pretty little coffin with a soft inside and buried him in our pet cemetery, which had grown quite large over the years from all the pets we had had. Dallin painted Harry's gravestone and we had a beautiful funeral and put some pretty flowers on his grave. Dallin was so choked up he couldn't talk so I did my best to give a loving speech of our time with Harry. It was a very sad day. 

Dallin made Harry's headstone

I have never seen a sadder little boy

    I thought after the funeral and a few days Dallin would be fine and he would be able to go about his summer being a happy kid, free from school to play. I tried to plan fun things for all of us to do to get his mind off his grieving. None of it helped. Every morning and spare minute I would find Dallin sitting by the empty cage or out by Harry's grave with swollen red eyes. He was having a lot harder time than I thought he would. The days turned to weeks and the tears were still flowing every day. I prayed over how to help him feel better. I kept feeling like Dallin just needed another pet to love to fill the void left by Harry.

    I took Dallin to the pet store and the first animals he wanted to see were guinea pigs. The pet store had quite a few. The guinea pigs would try to bite us and they didn't want to be held. Harry had been so sweet and cuddly that these pets were just not the same. We went through the store and nothing seemed to be working out. My heart sank. I dreaded taking Dallin home to his misery. I knew I just couldn't stand to see him crying by Harry's grave anymore. We left the store and we started watching the cats playing in the outside window of the store. The cats were expensive and we were on a tight budget with six children. I said a quick silent prayer in my head, “Please Heavenly Father, help me find a way for Dallin to feel better. I just can't stand to see him so sad.” I had just finished this little prayer in my head when a lady with a pet carrier came up to us and asked us if we were thinking about buying a cat. She had in her carrier four baby kittens. We sat down on the floor of the mall outside of the pet store and she let Dallin hold the kittens. One of them quickly climbed in his lap, cuddled up and fell asleep. Dallin and this little kitten both fell in love with each other at that moment and my prayer was answered. The pet store owner at one point came out of the store and said to the lady with the kittens, “You aren't giving those kittens away are you?” because she regularly sold them to him. She told us she wanted the kitten to have a home where it would be loved and she gave it to us for free. This lady and kitten were the answer to a mother's prayer. We took the kitten home and I saw the cloud of sadness lift as Dallin soaked up loving this new pet. He named her Cuddles. Dallin and Cuddles spent a lot of time together and this little kitten would spend a long time just licking Dallin's face and hair every day. They loved each other. 

Dallin and Cuddles

Dallin smiling again

Cuddles would lick Dallin for long periods of time

    Cuddles grew up and she went on to have two batches of kittens. We also got a lot of fun out of them. I was always touched by Dallin's love for animals. 

This cardboard cat was made by Brett. Brett and his friends liked to put it out
in the street to watch cars drive around it thinking it was a real cat
in the dark. This kitten was always inspecting this fake cat. 

This kitten loved to do tricks

This is a cat we got from a shelter. It was a cat in bad shape with open
wounds. It followed us around in the animal shelter purring. We just had
to take him home. 

    This wasn't the only way Dallin showed compassion and love. I will write more in my next chapter. I will forever remember Dallin's love for Harry and Cuddles. It touched my heart. 

"I Want Your Family"

    A few years ago I became friends with a man at church who had had a rough life. He had lived a life addicted to drugs and alcohol and he grew up in a family where everyone fought and hated each other. Now they rarely even saw or spoke to each other. I admired him because of his fight to rise above how he was raised and what had happened to him and for his strong desire to help other people. He wanted to be there for people who had traveled the same road he had. He spent hours trying to help people with drug and alcohol addictions and to find God and come back to church. He was amazing to watch and listen to. Some miracles had brought him back to God and he felt like he owed God something. I will never forget the day he approached me in the hallway at church and said, "I want your family". I was surprised by this and I asked him why. He told me that he had watched us laugh, play and have fun together and he wished he could have had a family like that growing up. He told me he would have traded all he owned for it. I encouraged him to build that kind of life with his wife and children since there was nothing he could do to change his past. While we were talking my two daughters came around the corner with their arms linked together and they were laughing and singing. He pointed to them down the hall and said, "See what I mean. I want your family."

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    I have thought a lot about this since, about how much I take for granted and what makes me happy. I grew up in a family of eleven children. We are and always have been a very close family. I wanted that for my children. I have been around families that yell and scream at each other and I did not want that for my children. I think I was born without an anger gene. Anger has never made sense to me. I think there is a calm peaceful way to handle everything. After Dallin was born I had six children to watch over and raise. I had a few people at different times tell me that my children would walk all over me because I never yelled at them, that they would not know who was the boss. It was just not who I was. I couldn't be like that. I remember worrying about whether these friends were right, if I was too soft and mellow. Once I was very frustrated with my children and one of them said, "I think Mom is upset and she might actually yell at us." I didn't and I never could. I was more likely to cry than to yell when I got feeling overwhelmed. I was outnumbered 6 to 1 while my husband Winn was at work. I worried a lot over whether I was tough enough. But I started watching my children and how much they loved each other and how peacefully they resolved conflicts and I came to a point where I was glad they never learned yelling and anger from me. They were peaceful, got along great and loved each other. I am now happy I am missing the anger gene. Maybe it is something we learn from our parents. My parents never yelled at me. I didn't yell at my children and I seldom see my children lose their tempers.

Most days I was out-numbered 6 to 1

    So here came my sixth child and I got to watch these children of mine learn to love him and each other. There were a lot of times I was touched watching them help, love and look out for each other. Dallin was blessed to be at the end. All of his older brothers and sisters loved to show him things, teach him things and make him laugh. I had gotten my wish to have a family that loved each other. I feel thankful to be living happily ever after and to have the kind of family that other people want.

Here are some pictures of my children learning with Dallin how to love.

Adam always jumped him softly to sleep when he was tired and crabby

These two brothers shared every birthday together

Getting a ride in a doll stroller

Dallin sometimes got into things or ruined his brother
and sister's things.  He was quickly forgiven.

He drew all over himself

A family sandwich 

This is one of my favorites. Dallin was sick and his brothers and sisters
 were playing him songs and telling him stories to cheer him up

I wanted to teach my children to love each other