Knife Thrower Extraordinaire with Character Plus

This handsome young man is Darren and my first inklings of how exciting he was going to make my life as a mother came when he was not even 2 1/2 years old.  One day I set him on the kitchen counter as I bent to pick up something on the floor.  I have never been able  to come up with a reasonable explanation for what he did next, but he picked up a steak knife that was just sitting there and threw it -- just missing my head.  It was close enough to give me a buzz as it went by, but thankfully, I kept my ears.  Several days later I was upstairs changing Aubrey’s diaper and I heard him saying, “Is that Daddy’s?  Is that Daddy’s?” as he came up the stairs.  He finally made it in to the bedroom carrying my big butcher knife/cleaver that must weigh about 2 pounds.  I had visions of him dropping that monstrosity and amputating his own foot.  Where did this ongoing fascination with knives come from?

His unlimited imagination and creativity extended into every area of his life.  When he got mad at someone, he preferred to make up his own bad words, and his favorite at  this age was “Splatty face.”  

His creativity came in handy when a neighbor of ours gave us some beautiful strawberries that he just loved, but were causing him some trouble allergy wise.  I didn’t want him to have anymore that day, so he comes up with, “Mom, I want some oatmeal (which he knew was OK)  with some strawberries -- WITHOUT the oatmeal. And I am sure that to his way of thinking, he was sure that  I would think that was a great idea.

A little later, Darren had been asking for some corn nuts.  I was sitting at the table eating some granola “so I wouldn’t throw up,” and Darren says, “Mom, I think I’m going to throw up.”  “Oh, then I better not give you corn nuts if you’re going to throw up.”   “Well, actually, I’m not going to throw up until Tuesday . . .” 

One day I was working on dinner and Devin and Darren were near me at the kitchen table talking.  I wasn’t really paying attention to their conversation until I heard them both trying to come up with the right words to a song they must have been working on in Primary.  Darren says, “Devin, I think it goes like this, “Reverently, Quietly, give a little clap.”  Then Devin says, “No, no, no, Darren, I think it goes like this,” and then totally off key sings, “Reverently Quietly, Help me find my melody. . .”  Whereupon Darren says very excitedly, “Oh yeah, that’s how it goes!!!”

Every family needs a couple of clowns.  We filled our quota and then some. 

One day when Darren wasn’t quite three, he and Dallin were standing in the bedroom comparing belly buttons, and Dallin brags, “Darren, my belly button is bigger than yours,” and Darren very graciously says, “THANKS, Dallin!”  Dallin just stared at him not knowing if he won that little contest or not. 

The kids were all sitting at the breakfast table around this same time and Darren said something that upset Dallin and Dallin said, “Darren’s lying.  Darren, you are lying.”  “No, I not lion.  I  a hummingbird.”    It was always hard for Dallin to argue with Darren because Darren always made him burst out laughing.  Things haven’t changed much.

One last little tidbit on Darren.  Jim took Darren to BYU-Idaho one year for EFY.  After helping him get his stuff to his dorm, they explored the campus.  Jim said they were walking through the Manwaring Center (the equivalent of BYU’s Wilkenson Center) and saw a hallway with the portraits of all of the Homecoming Queens of past years.  As they walked along looking at them, they came to a portrait of a Homecoming Queen from  the 70’s, and Darren asked Jim, “Did they pick them by their character?”