My Little, Cute Obsession

It's so fluffy, I'm going to die!

But really, I seem to like small creatures way more than I should.

Like just this weekend I saw some baby goats who were, I kid you not, just four weeks old! Cutest. Things. Ever. They'd prance around and just bounce back when a bigger goat pushed them around. I really wanted to hop the fence that divided me from their cuteness and scoop one up.

Likewise, every day walking to work, I pass the BYU duck pond. I can hear the high-pitched quacking from the wee ducklings before I see them. I try to feed them bread, but the larger, less-cute ducks steal the bits of bread. Rude. I think my husband can fit at least three of those ducklings in his hand. So adorable! I just want to take an armful of them back home.

When it comes to cute things, I just can't help it—googly eyes; fur soft as silk; precious noses; tiny, pudgy fingers and toes. . . .

Ok fine, I have an obsession with little, cute things. Every time I see something cute (whether it be a chubby baby, fluffy puppy, or waddling duckling), all I want to do is grab it and hug it. They are so dang cute—it drives me crazy! I even had a hard time looking for pictures to put with this blog post because I couldn't stand all those images of cute creatures.

Thankfully, it seems I'm not the only poor soul who experiences this. One study explores the explanation that maybe seeing something cute brings out a certain aggression in us that makes us want to squeeze something, preferably the cute thing we are fawning over.

One suggestion for this phenomenon of aggression is that we want to take care of that cute animal or baby that we see, and if it's a photograph, we get frustrated because we can't reach it or, in real life, we can't just go around squeezing other people's babies and puppies. That frustration could turn into aggression.

Whatever you call it—obsession, aggression, frustration—cute things are cute, and I just want to squeeze them all. And there's nothing more squeezable than a teacup pig with an ice cream cone.

Couldn't you just eat him up?

My Dad is . . .

. . . well, this picture about sums it up.

Clearly, my dad is a fun guy to be around. His jokes, though goofy at times, still manage to make us smile and laugh.

I know it's a day late, but I definitely want to give a shoutout to my amazing dad.

One of my dad's best qualities is how thoughtful and kind he is to everyone. At church, he's always the guy who stays after the meetings to make sure all the chairs get put away. He'll escort little old ladies from their cars, open doors for them, and help them up and down stairs. My dad goes out of his way to make sure people have what they need and especially loves doing secret service like shoveling the neighborhood walks after a snowstorm. Once he even sprained his ankle while we were swimming because he wanted to teach his girls how to do a cannonball (we learned not to do one in the shallow end).

Another fun quality of my dad's is that he loves to tease people, especially his girls. I'm pretty sure it's one of his favorite things to do. Teasing us is one way that he shows that he loves us. He teases us about silly things, like how he tells Amber and me that when we were little baby twins, he could fit one of us in each hand (true) and juggle us (not true). 

One of my favorite things to do with my dad is to go on camping trips. He always makes sure it's a fun time and puts a lot of work into making sure everyone is having fun. My dad even baits our hooks for us when we go fishing and doesn't make me touch the fish once I catch them (yeah, I have this weird fear of fish). 

I am so happy I got to spend Fathers' Day with my wonderful dad! Of course, it wouldn't be a family get-together without a funny story coming from it. So my dad loves his sweets, and for Fathers' Day my mom made Reese's trifle. His portion was fairly big, but then my mom took this out of the fridge saying, "And here's my trifle!"

I don't know how he managed to survive with five girls in the house with dogs as the only males besides himself. But I do know that I have the best dad, and I love him very much.

What's in a Name? Apparently a Lot

I recently did something that forced me to change my name.

No, nothing sinister—I just got married!

With that marriage came a cute new name. (I loved my old name, Aimee Hancock, but now I get to be Aimee Robbins. Doesn't that just look so cute?) I love my new name, but I don't love the hassle that comes with it.

We haven't gotten our marriage license in the mail yet, and without it I feel like I'm in limbo. My nameplate at work says I'm Aimee Robbins, my new email address has my new name in it, and my husband (still weird to call him that!) calls me Mrs. Robbins (even weirder to hear him call me that!). But according to my bank, BYU, and my driver's license, I'm still Aimee Hancock. And I can't change that without a marriage license. So much that one little document can do!

One thing I never even thought of when I used to daydream about my wedding was having to jump through all these hoops to change my name. Some women choose not to change their names, for whatever reason, but I always knew that I wanted to take my husband's name. This way, I finally get to have a middle name—Hancock!

I've always wanted a middle name. Back in elementary school (back when it was fun to try and find out each other's middle names), I would always say my middle name was "Nothing" so I could play the guessing game with my classmates.

Hopefully soon, I'll get to truly and legally be Aimee Hancock Robbins. But for now, I'm saying my middle name is "Hancock."

My Angel of a Mother

Have you ever thought that your mom was the best? I think most everyone has, and it's because the world is full of amazing mothers. My mom is one of them.

One of the hardest things about going to college was leaving my mom. It was a bit easier since BYU is only about an hour and fifteen minutes from home, but with school and work, it was still hard to visit very often, and that distance felt very far when I was a freshman. Not having her just in the next room definitely took some getting used to. She had always been there to motivate me and to give me her opinions and advice.

Freshman year, I probably drove her nuts with all my phone calls asking her advice or just talking. Even now as a senior, I still miss my mom and probably still drive her nuts with the amount of phone calls and texts I give her (although I blame that on all the wedding planning that's been going around).

When coming to college, I wasn't only leaving my mom: I was also leaving my coach. It was really hard knowing that I wouldn't be playing competitive sports anymore after high school (besides intramurals, which are super competitive!) and that I wouldn't have my mom to coach me. She had been my coach since I was tiny, probably since I could walk and hold a ball. My mom knows a lot when it comes to sports, and she's willing to help anyone who wants to learn how to play and truly cares about his or her success.

My mom is hilarious and always makes me laugh. She is the most sacrificing, loving, and forgiving person I know. She does whatever it takes to make sure her children and those around her are happy and have everything they need. My mom is still kind to even those who have wronged her. She's the only one who can tell Amber and me apart from our baby pictures and who always treated me like an individual instead of "one of the twins." I love how crazy she gets during games sometimes. Sports are one of her passions, and it's fun when she shows it.

I don't know how she raised us four girls (with only one bathroom!), dealt with our drama, fulfilled her church callings, coached junior high and high school teams, and was a school teacher, all at the same time. I know she did even more than that with all her volunteer work she did, and I'm probably still leaving some things out. I really don't know how she did it. She's truly amazing.

Mothers' Day was yesterday, but I still wanted let my mom know how much I care about her and how much she means to me. I'm so thankful for all that she's done for me. To partially steal from a cute movie that my mom loves, here's a little poem that sums up my mom: "She taught me sports, she's always there; she makes sure my cupboard isn't bare. My mother is beyond compare."

I love you, Mom!

Taking Time to Unplug

You know you're hooked on technology when forgetting your phone at home puts you in a panic. Sad, but true.

I was on campus working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the day I forgot my phone, and not having a phone almost felt like I was missing an arm. It was awful. I would jump and search around for my phone every time my coworker's phone buzzed next to me, only to remember that mine was safe at home. The wrapper next to me would catch the light every so often and make me think it was my phone glowing with a new text from my Wesley.

The office was mocking my pain.

Once I was finished at work and left my computer, I was cut off from technology completely. It was a weird feeling. I couldn't call, text, or snapchat anyone or look up an address on my map app (I'm way too dependent on that thing, but this is the life of someone born without an innate sense of direction). No one knew where I was and had no means (short of sending smoke signals) of contacting me.

With nothing else to do as I clomped down the hill, I actually paid attention to my surroundings. The bright tulips were opening and dripping with water from their shower from the sprinklers; fuzzy, newborn ducks were quacking as they furiously splashed after Mama Duck; the scent of freshly mowed grass tickled my nose.

I felt free—free from Big Brother and from all the distractions of technology. It was just me and the wide world.

As nice as technology is, sometimes it feels good to unplug and power down in order to connect more with the beautiful, real world.

Do You Speak My Crack-a-Lackin' Language?

I'll admit it: I am just a bit crazy about quoting movies. OK, really crazy. Even toeing the line of obsessed, I suppose. Let me tell you why. 

Ever since I can remember, staying home sick from school was actually kind of fun.  Best. Day. Ever! I got to stay home all day and watch whatever movies I wanted. Of course, I always picked Disney movies because they make me happy and they were about the only kind of movies in the house. My sisters and I wore out the VHSs (wow, am I that old?) because we watched them so much.

Because of this, my sisters and I became experts of those movies. We could watch a movie once, maybe twice, and already have favorite quotes picked out and have most of the movie memorized. The other zillion times of viewing the movie was just for the giggles and so we could quote along.

My sisters and I would even have entire dinner conversations completely in movie quotes. If we had chicken pot pie, there was always a “I don’t want to be a pie. I don’t like gravy” in the conversation somewhere. Or when passing the salt, “Ooh, take it Kronk, feel the power,” to which the response was, “Oh, I can feel it.” My poor parents were usually lost, and our witty quotes went right over their heads.

Now, I'll be talking to people and quotes just slip out of my mouth, like daisies. At that point, either they think I'm really clever because—regardless of whether or not they know I'm quoting—it was cleverly woven into the conversation, or they think I'm really weird. My quote slips right through their fingers, and they can’t grasp what I’m saying. My quote-loving heart bleeds a little when this happens.

 

Luckily, I found someone to marry who speaks my crack-a-lackin language. I like him, I like him so much. You hate him compared to how much I like him. He has bewitched me, body and soul, with his clever tongue and witty remarks. There will be many quoting fests between us, to infinity and beyond.

Ducky Love

At BYU, there's a duck pond just south of campus. It's one of my favorite places, especially when there are little ducklings to fawn over. There are always lots of kids at the pond who either chase or are chased by the ducks. It's a great place for studying, having a picnic, or just relaxing.

It's also a popular place for couples to go on dates.  After all, what's more romantic than lobbing tiny pieces of bread to ducks and watching them squabble over it? Little do the couples know that the ducks also have love on the brain.

There are two ducks in particular that I always see together. I call them the Married Ducks because since they're always together, it's easy to think of them as being married (if ducks do such a thing).

One night, the Married Ducks found their way to my apartment complex and were waddling around the pool in front of my apartment. They were so cute that I fed them a piece of bread. I tried to lure them closer to me, breadcrumb style, but they were too smart for that and made me use what's left of my softball skills to throw the pieces of bread over the fence to them so they didn't have to move.

They come back to my pool from time to time, and I get ridiculously excited and rush inside to grab some bread (you would be excited too if you were desperate for a pet and your apartment complex banned them). It makes me happy to see two little creatures so happy together, toddling away, wing in wing.