Monthly Archives: March 2011

Thunderstorm Frenzy and Vacation Mystery

Posted on March 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

  • Thunderstorm Frenzy

Kayla has always been terrified of thunderstorms.  About a year ago, I was reminded of how much. 

After I picked Kayla up from after-school care, she and I needed to stop at the grocery store.  As we went in, a cloud was coming up from the west, but I thought we could get in and out of the store before the storm reached us.  Unfortunately, I was wrong. 

Right after we had gone through the check-out line, the leading edge of the storm hit, complete with fierce wind and driving rain.  Kayla wanted to stay at the store until the storm blew over, and I flat out refused.  She clung to my hand in the store and said, “But Mama, I am so light and I don’t want to blow away!”  I told her to hold my hand, as I was pretty sure I wouldn’t blow away.  Clinging to my hand like it was a lifeline and she was lost at sea, we hurried across the parking lot, where I safely deposited her in the car, after which I put the groceries in the back, got in the driver’s seat, and headed us back home.

Unfortunately, we have several stop lights to go through before we reach the house, and one of them turned red.  I stopped.  Kayla started pleading from the front seat, “Mama, please keep going.  I don’t care if you go to jail, let’s just go through the light.”  (Item:  There were nine cars ahead of me!).  I said wryly, “Thanks.” and she replied, “I don’t care if we both go to jail, just keep on going!” 

Luckily for me, the light changed then so we could keep going forward.  I was trying to help her, so I told her to try closing her eyes and instead of listening to the thunder, listen to the rain hitting the roof.  She tried that for a minute, then opened her eyes back up again with a “What now?” look.  I said to her, “Now, pretend that the sound you are hearing is either fairies or pixies dancing on the roof.”  At that, she opened her eyes wide, looked at me, and, this child who had been losing her mind in the thunderstorm, stated matter of factly, “Mom, you’re embarrasing yourself.”  At least she stopped thinking about the storm for a minute!

  • Vacation Mystery

Mark and I recently had the opportunity to spend some time on vacation at an absolutely wonderful place!  I am waiting for some pictures we took with an old-fashioned disposable camera to get developed before I talk about it, but I will definitely have a lot to share next week.  See if you can guess where the place was by the following pictures (no fair guessing if you already know where we went!):

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

Leave a comment

Posted in Out of the mouths of babes...., Travel, When things don't go as expected

Tagged , , , , , ,

“Daddy, Daddy”, Yawns and Waffles

Posted on March 17, 2011 | 1 comment

Kayla, when she was three

It is amazing the types of memories that I can recall now because I managed to save the information from e-mails and other medium on the computer.  Here are a few I found while looking through my files the other day.

  • Daddy, Daddy

All of us who have children have had the experience of constantly being interrupted by our children while we are trying to talk.  Here is a conversation that happened one day when Kayla was 6.

Mark and I and Kayla were riding somewhere in the car, and Mark and I were talking.  The conversation went like this:  

Kayla:  Daddy!  Daddy!  

Daddy:  Hush Kayla, Mom and I are talking right now.  

Mom and Dad continue to talk.

Kayla:  Daddy!  Daddy!

Mom:    Hush, Sweetheart, we’re still talking.

Mom and Dad continue to try to talk.

(Repeat above sequence five times, then continue).

Kayla:  Daddy!  Daddy!

Daddy: What, Kayla?

Kayla:  I want to talk to Mama….

On a similar vein, Mark, Kayla and I were in a store last summer, and she had just said, “Mom, Mom” one too many times, so I spent the rest of the time in that store following her around saying, “Kayla, Kayla!”  Mark didn’t hear me, but the store clerk did.  She must have been a mother also, because she was doubled up with laughter by the time we left the store!

  •  Yawns

One morning, on the way to work, both Kayla and I were yawning frequently, so after I made a particularly big yawn, I said, “That was a big yawn; That was a humongous yawn; That was one of the biggest yawns I’ve ever seen.”  She looked at me (I could see her in the rearview mirror) and said, “Are you speaking English?” 

  • Waffles

One day, when Kayla was 3, we made waffles together Saturday morning for breakfast.  I mixed most of it, but a few things I measured out and let her pour in the bowl.  She particularly liked the red baking powder can and kept trying to send extra splashes of baking powder in the mix.  Fortunately, I intercepted, and so our waffles were normal size and not the size of skyscrapers in Manhattan!  They were quite tasty, also. 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

1 Comment

Posted in Just stuff..., Out of the mouths of babes....

Tagged , , ,

Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? (The 5 year old version) and Wanting a Friend in the Tub

Posted on March 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

Continuing my trips this week down memory lane, I came across the following incidents memorialized in e-mails.  These incidents were really funny and just the kind of adventure that pops up for a working mom when she least expects it!

Kayla, age 5

  • Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

One day, driving home from work and school when Kayla was 5 (she rode with me for about an hour each way that year to go to a pre-school near where I worked), she and I had the following conversation:

Kayla:   Why did the chicken cross the road?

 Mom ( promptly):            To get to the other side.

Kayla:  No, to go play in the mud.  

Kayla:   Why did the pig cross the road?

Mom:    To go play in the mud?

Kayla:   No, because his mother was calling him.

Kayla:   Why did the turkey cross the road?

Mom:    I don’t know.

Kayla:   Yes, you do.

Mom:    To get to the other side?

Kayla (proud to have gotten another one over on Mom): No, to go play with his friends.

Kayla:   Why did the horse cross the road?

Mom (firmly):     I don’t know.  

Kayla:   To go eat. 

Mom:    That’s nice.

Kayla:   Why did the chicken cross the road?

Mom:    To go play in the mud.

Kayla:   No, to go get dressed……

And so it went! 

  • A Friend in the Bathtub

Woof, around age 13

About a month before that,  due to a mishap in the kitchen one evening, I had to mop the floor, so I popped Kayla into the bathtub to take her bath while I did it.  Kayla was just at the age where she could take a bath without me being in the bathroom with her, but I would leave the door open to be sure I could hear noise from the bathroom. 

I heard her calling Woof (our oldest dog then; our only other dog at that time was Tyra) over and over, but didn’t think anything about it until after a while Kayla called for me to come in – “Mom, you have to see this!”  (Never a good sign!).  Upon entering the bathroom, I discovered a tub containing one (very unhappy) 13 year old dog and one (ecstatic) five year old daughter, who explained to me that she wanted Woof in the tub with her because she “wanted a friend with her while she took her bath.”  I removed the dog from the tub, dried the dog, removed the child from the tub but did not dry her, cleaned the tub, re-ran the water, popped the child back in the tub (with strict instructions that the dog was NOT to be pulled back in again), cleaned up the copious amounts of water on the floor from the dog and child removal (hey, at least I had the mop out already, right:?), and went back into the den (making sure both dogs were with me – this wasn’t a problem, as Woof was walking very near to me, close to a nervous breakdown) and laughed silently until Mark got home and I could tell him.

Have a great day everyone!

Leave a comment

Posted in dogs, Out of the mouths of babes...., Pets, When things don't go as expected, working mom

Tagged , , , ,

The First Small Bloom

Posted on March 15, 2011 | 6 comments

Today’s post is provided by my first guest blogger, my husband, Mark.  He wrote this about a year ago.  It is very touching and well worth reading!

The other weekend I took my daughter to visit my father’s grave. Dad died before Kayla was born, so she only knows him through my stories. She has often asked me where he was buried, but I’ve never taken her to see his grave. Instead I’ve always reminded her that he’s not there so why visit an empty house. But last Saturday we found ourselves in the area with some time on our hands, and I felt the time was right for us to visit.

I drove by the cemetery and stopped on the road about 100 yards from where my dad was laid to rest. It was on the top of a small hill under the shade of some pecan trees. Someone had hung wind chimes in one of the trees and there was just enough breeze to make music. Kayla asked me how I knew where to stop since all the tombstones looked alike. I explained to her that some things you just never forget. As we crossed the distance from the drive to the grave I noticed her leaping and criss crossing in every direction. “What are you doing”, I asked. She said “I’m trying not to step on someone else’s grave, but I’m not sure which way everyone is buried”. So, I gave a brief description of how to know where to walk and within a few minutes we knelt beside my dad’s grave. She noticed that my mom’s name was inscribed besides Dad’s and that really bothered her, until I told her the name was okay as long as the dates weren’t filled in. That took a little time to sink in, but she finally got it. She wanted to know why my mom’s name was written with a first initial, and I told her it was because Mom hated her real name and never used it. Very few people even know it. The notion that my mom had a secret name really seemed to blow her mind. She tried her best to get me to tell, but I refused. So, Mom if she ever finds out, she didn’t get it from me.

She asked several technical questions, as only kids can, about what a funeral was like and how you bury someone. I was patiently explaining the answers to her when she noticed a grave near Dad’s that had my friend’s last name on it. I told her that was where his dad was buried. She asked me how I knew, and I told her that I had been a pallbearer at his dad’s funeral just as he had been at mine, that it was one of many shared experiences that have bound our friendship over the years. She asked me if I missed Dad and I told her yes, but that I knew I would see him again one day and that when I do we will never have to be separated again. Sounding a bit alarmed she asked if that was going to happen any time soon. I reassured her that I was in no hurry. I was enjoying life with her and her mom way too much to leave just yet. She asked me if I thought my dad would have liked her and what will he say when she meets him in Heaven one day, and I told her that he will welcome her with open arms and lots of love. She liked that, and so wanting to end the visit on a happy note, we got ready to go.

Just as we were arriving back at the car, she noticed a small flower blooming at the edge of the cemetery by the woods. It was one of those precious early flowers that bloom just in time to remind us that spring really is on the way and things will be brighter soon. Suddenly she took off running to pick the flower and take it to Dad’s grave just as fast as her little legs would carry her. When she returned to my side, she said, “I wanted to make sure that Grandpa Bill knew I want to meet him someday”. Then she stopped, hugged my leg and with tears in her eyes said, “No, that’s not right.” “Dad, I did it because I love you and I know you miss him.”

I don’t know if my dad could see her that day, but I do know my Heavenly Father did. And I’m sure it touched His heart as much as it did mine.

6 Comments

Posted in Out of the mouths of babes....

Tagged , , ,

The Day Mandy Came Home

Posted on March 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Before we had three dogs, we had two dogs:  Tyra, whom you already know about, and an older dog whose full name was J.P. Wooflesnort (which stood for “Just Plain Wooflesnort”).  Most of the time, though, we just called her Woof.  I called her my kitchen dog, because no matter what I was doing, whether it was cleaning the kitchen after everyone else had gone to the other room, or sewing or just reading in a room by myself, she always stayed with me. 

Woof ended up being the most flexible geriatric dog I have known.  Not only did she adjust to the death of our first dog, Shadow (who was a character in her own right), but she also adjusted to the adoption of Tyra, the adoption of Kayla, a move to a new home and the adoption of Mandy – all after the age of 9! 

Shortly before her birthday one year, Kayla started lobbying for a dog of her own – she said that Mark had Tyra as his dog, I had Woof as my dog, and so she wanted a dog that was hers.  In a fit of madness, I decided to help her in her lobbying efforts, and, because he loves us, ultimately Mark told us we could go to the Humane Society one Sunday to see if we could find a lab or golden retriever to adopt. 

Before he could change his mind, I loaded Kayla, Tyra and Woof into our Chevy Tahoe and headed off to the Humane Society.  I didn’t take time to change, so I was in my church dress and heels.  When we got there, I took Kayla with me, and left Tyra and Woof in the car.  We went in, filled out a form, then I told a very nice young man that I needed a dog that was child friendly, other dog friendly, and housebroken.  He brought Mandy out to us.

Kayla loved her immediately, and even though I did notice that she did not particularly resemble either a lab or a retriever, she seemed to have a good temperament, so I told the shelter I would like to take her for a walk with my dogs.  So, shortly thereafter, I took Mandy out on a leash from the shelter and walked her with Woof and then Tyra.  That went swimmingly, so Kayla and I finished filling out the paperwork and paid the adoption fee, then went to put Mandy in the truck.

Because she didn’t come with a collar, I purchased one for her from the shelter, put it on her and tried to walk her out to the truck (which I had running to keep the air conditioner on for the other two dogs.)  Because the collar was too big, as I lifted her up into the truck, she started to struggle, slipped out of her collar and ran away towards the back side of the shelter.  I started to fly after her as best I could, and was helped by the fact that she stopped to watch a couple playing with their new puppy.  They held her for me until I could get there, then I carried her back and tried to put her in the truck a second time.  I don’t suppose she had ever been in a car or truck before, because she immediately slipped out of her collar for the second time, tore around the building and stopped at the same couple, who were still helpful, but couldn’t help but be amused at the sight of me flying back around the building in heels and a dress for the second time chasing after my new, ungainly dog.  The third time, as always, proved the charm; that time I held on tight enough to make sure she got safely into the truck, slammed the door shut, rushed over to my side of the car, pushed her back onto the passenger’s side to prevent her running out the driver’s side, and we headed towards home. 

However, Kayla and I decided on the way that we had to get Mandy a collar that fit her, so we stopped at Pet Smart before we got back to the house to try to find the right size collar.  We knew we couldn’t walk her in there on a leash, because she would run away again, but she is a very heavy dog to carry, and we had had to park at the back of the parking lot, so I had the bright idea that we would wheel her into Pet Smart in a grocery cart, thinking that she would not be able to jump over the edge, given that she was so short.  Mandy quickly proved me wrong, teaching me the important lesson that body length can make up for short legs, and sailed out of the grocery cart, running pell mell for the door of Pet Smart across the parking lot, completely oblivious to all cars coming her way and giving me my third run for the day in a dress and heels.

I knew in an instant that rather than have obtained a special present for my little girl, I was about to scar her for life by having her see her dog hit by a car, but Mandy was born under a lucky star, and cruised safely to the door of the Pet Smart, where another kind person held her for me until I could get to her.  I ended up carrying a fifty-five pound dog through Pet Smart in search of a small enough collar with a little girl beside me eager to share the story of the afternoon with everyone we met.  I can promise you that the collar we picked out definitely fit! 

Once we finished that purchase, we hauled Mandy back to the car on a leash, where the other two dogs were patiently waiting, then returned to the house where Mark was waiting to see the labrador or golden retriever we were bringing home.  Instead, he saw this:

He looked at her carefully, looked at Kayla and me, and just asked, “Were they out of retrievers at the kennel?” 

Have a good day everyone!

Leave a comment

Posted in dogs, Pets, When things don't go as expected

Tagged , , ,

Wake-Up Call, Lunch Money and Funny Bone

Posted on March 11, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone!

The Best Alarm Clock in the World!

  • Wake-up Call

I confess that I hoped to be writing this much later than I am, since, as a working mom, I had a rare opportunity to sleep in on a weekday, but Mandy had other ideas.  Mark got up at his regular time, and then after about fifteen minutes, Mandy jumped up on the bed and stood there quietly behind me for about 30 seconds.  (It is even odds as to whether this was her own idea or whether Tyra was egging her on.)  When I didn’t pay any attention, then she took her nose, and touched it gently and sweetly to my ear.   I continued to ignore her, so after another pause, she deliberately stepped on my side with her front paws, took another step so that I was between her front and back paws, finished walking over me with her back paws and jumped off the bed and circled around to the other side.  I still continued to ignore her, so she repeated the walk-over.  However, this time instead of circling around to the other side of the bed, she escalated by turning back to where she could reach my face from the floor , waited another few seconds and when I still didn’t get up, she started licking my face furiously, at which time I really had no choice but to start laughing and get up.  If I had rolled over to ignore her yet again, her next step would have been to jump up on the bed and walk on my hair.  That hurts!

  • Lunch Money

Kayla was worried this morning – she might miss second breakfast.  Let me explain.  The school sends home each Thursday the amount of lunch money remaining in her account.  This Thursday, she did not have a balance, but we owed the school 10 cents.  If you owe the school or have a zero balance, you cannot have breakfast until money is posted back in your account.  Although I am sending a check with her today, it won’t be placed into her account until right before lunch, so breakfast at school will not be available.  She explained all this to Mark, who came out to check if I had lunch money to send with her.  As Mark said to me, “She told me she gets first breakfast (at home), second breakfast at school, lunch at school, snack at school, snack at Learning Lodge and she says you’re usually good for a snack right when the two of you get home, but she is worried she about missing second breakfast in case they have cheese grits!”  I gave her a dollar just in case the school was serving cheese grits and sent her away smiling.  Mark was buying her breakfast at McDonald’s, so she was getting extra food for first breakfast, too.  It reminds of the time when, a young and inexperienced couple with no children, we took our nephew, who was about Kayla’s age at the time, to the Kennedy Space Center, and he told his mother after the trip, “It was fun, but they only fed me three times a day!”

  • Funny Bone

I was walking by our kitchen desk area and hit my funny bone hard on the chair in the kitchen.  It was not, as anyone who has had this experience knows, funny at all.  It was one of those self-censoring moments – right when I hit, I started by saying “Gawww….” and remembered to shift streams to finish with “lly gee whilikers!” 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

2 Comments

Posted in dogs, Out of the mouths of babes...., When things don't go as expected, working mom

Tagged , , , , ,

Dance Picture Day, No-No and Bad Dog Strike Again and The Light Bulb Conspiracy Continues

Posted on March 10, 2011 | 2 comments

Picture, if you will, a rectangular room with echoing acoustics and a hard cement floor, populated by around a dozen mothers who have established squatters’ rights at various positions along the wall, each surrounded by a plethora of paraphenalia, including hair materials, anywhere from three to five costumes, make-up and shoes, along with at least 15 3rd and 4th grade girls, who make enough noise for at least thirty, and one brave dance teacher trying to shepherd the 15 girls through group and individual pictures in each of the three to five costumes.  That picture will give you a pretty good idea of the annual event at Kayla’s dance studio known as picture day, which happened yesterday.  The noisiest picture is the one taken of the girls in their tap costume.  At that point, the 15 girls talking at a decibel of 30 girls geometrically expands to a noise volume somewhere around 90 girls, since the sound of their talking increases to cover the noise of the tap shoes.  The picture above is one I took of Kayla in her tap dance costume.  

Here is Kayla in her ballerina costume.  I think it is really pretty.  This was the second or third photo for the girls, and while I can’t show you the expressions on the mom’s faces, while the girls still are having a good time, most of us are starting to reflect on the uncomfortable aspects of the hard cement floor, although we are having a good time visiting with the other mothers and learning that our children are not unique in the foibles and follies they display to us every day.

The last costume for Kayla was her gymnastics costume, so she decided to do a back bend for me.  I am really impressed; I have never been that flexible.  Since it was the last picture for the day, all of the mothers still remaining were cheering the gymnastics picture taking process on, and most of us were calculating how we were going to drive straight home without doing any errands so that we wouldn’t have to wait for our child to change before we left.  Every time the photo room door would open and a girl scurry out, our hopes would rise that they were done, only to be dashed as each girl explained something to her particular mother and scurried back into the photo room.  Kayla came out three times because she wanted to update me on her progress and I came within an inch of telling her the last time that under no circumstances was she to come out of the photo room again until they were completely done.  I didn’t though, because she truly was just trying to help.

Once the gymnastics photos were done, it didn’t take long for most of us to clear out of there.  

Kayla’s dance teacher constantly amazes me with how calm she can remain in the midst of the necessary chaos, and still steer everyone to where they need to be and answer about fifty questions being shot at her in every direction.  She goes through this every day this week, with dancers ranging from age three up to age 17 or 18! 

  • No-No and Bad Dog Strike Again

After a couple of quiet days, No-No and Bad Dog reemerged yesterday to remove from my bedroom one Merrell and one sneaker and a handkerchief.  I am guessing that No-No (Darwin) scored the shoes because they were not in a dilapidated state but instead just plopped down in the middle of the den floor in the hopes that I would notice.  I am certain that Mandy scored the handkerchief because I caught her red-handed with the handkerchief in her mouth and a mournful expression on her face when she realized that she had been caught.  The mournful expression was not because she was sorry for anything she had done, but because she knew that the handkerchief was about to be taken from her.

 This morning, the intrepid duo managed to score a cheap ring from a McDonald’s Happy Meal.  I removed it from Bad Dog as she was chewing it.  No-No was staring at it and Mandy, simply waiting his turn.  A second ago, while I was writing this, my Merrell just got dropped in the den again by No-No, who is puzzled as to why this troubles me!

  • The Light Bulb Conspiracy Continues

As I told you in an earlier post, we have light bulbs that tend to go out in clusters, and, being tired of that, we put in light bulbs that are supposed to last two years in each of the flood lights in the den.  The other light bulbs in the house have now escalated their attack.  In two days, we have had four bulbs blow in various parts of the house.  The first was the end light over the breakfast bar.  Mark went ahead and replaced it that night, even though I asked him if he wanted to wait until we saw which other lights chose to go out.  The next morning, the middle light on the breakfast bar, a flood light in the bedroom and a bulb over my vanity all went out within ten minutes of each other.  I guess the bulbs feel like they have to make up for the ground they have lost in the den!

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

2 Comments

Posted in dogs, Just stuff..., Pets, working mom

Tagged , , , , , ,

Lie v. Lay, The Marshmallow House, Cam Newton

Posted on March 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

Hi everyone!  It looks like we might be in for a wild weather day today; I could hear the wind rushing through the trees and playing with the garage door this morning, and it sounded pretty fierce.  Batten down the hatches and stay safe!

I have a better picture of Darwin now that I am putting into the “About Me and the Purpose of This Site” page.  Here it is:

The center of the door knob he is standing under is 34 1/2 ” from the floor, and he is about 4″ shorter than it, so from the floor to the top of his head is about 30 1/2″.  In our family, that is a big dog!  

  • Lie v. Lay

Many, many thanks to my friend Toni from Lousiana, who provided a great explanation of the difference between lie v. lay.  Here is her post:

Lie vs. lay
Lie means that the actor (subject) is doing something to himself or herself. It’s what grammarians call a complete verb. When accompanied by subjects, complete verbs tell the whole story.
• Lay, on the other hand, means that the subject is acting on something or someone else; therefore, it requires a complement to make sense. Thus lay always takes a direct object. Lie never does.

Lay has a direct object……”to set something down”
Lie has no direct object…..”to place oneself down or to stay in a horizontal position”

Example:
Lay down the beach blanket so that we can all lie on it.

So, to further cement the difference in all of our minds, I offer the following:

I laid the dog beds down on the floor.  Here are pictures of my three dogs lying down, one on the floor and two on dog beds:

Mandy lying on the floor:

Darwin lying (well really for him I would say curled up) in the dog bed that it is too small for him but is his favorite:

Tyra lying on one of the several dog beds that she chooses to use:

So, to end this grammatical lesson and to refer back to the sentence that gave rise to the question, Mandy, in her alter-ego of Bad Dog, stole the handkerchief from the bedroom, laid it on the floor and then proceeded to lie down on it in order to pretend that she hadn’t done anything.  (See the post of Friday, March 4).

  • The Marshmallow House

Kayla came home on Monday with a house she had made from toothpicks and marshmallows.  I thought it was really cute, but a defect in the construction materials had her pretty disgusted with it.  The following is a photographic portrait of why she didn’t like her house:  

I think it’s really fun to watch it collapse over and over, but she wasn’t as amused.  I still told her she had done a good job, but she is not sure.  Mark didn’t think watching the house collapse was nearly as funny as I did.

  • Cam Newton

We decided to get Kayla established with a doctor here in our home town (really, after four years, it probably was time!), and so she had her first appointment yesterday with him – we were discussing her seasonal allergies and what she could take.  He was trying to make conversation with her, so he asked her what she watched on TV.  She told him that she liked to watch I, Carly and football.  He kind of smiled and said that if she liked football, then she is in high cotton down here.  I asked her to tell him who her favorite quarterback was, thinking pro football and expecting that she would say “Peyton Manning” because she always asks in a pro game if Peyton Manning is the quarterback.  She answered, without hesitation, “Cam Newton.”  I started to laugh, and said, “No, sweetheart, I mean your favorite pro quarterback.”  Again, without missing a blink, she answered, “Cam Newton.”  It’s not the first time I have been outsmarted by my own daughter! 

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

Leave a comment

Posted in Just stuff...

Spring: Scene II, The Mangled Toothbrush and The Assembly After-Party

Posted on March 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone! 

  • Spring:  Scene II

It turned cold again yesterday, but down here we did just avoid freezing temperatures, so the blooms are still out in full force.  This has been one of those rare years when the tulip trees have been able to bloom for weeks without being cut short by frost.  Most of the tulip trees have finished blooming, but there are a few late starters who are just beginning to reach full bloom.  

The second act of spring is in full swing with the spectacular show being put forth by the Bradford Pear trees.  Just to give you an example, here are pictures of Bradford pear trees in full bloom.

The yellowbells finally made their appearance about two weeks ago and they are blooming well, too.  For those of you who wondered what a yellowbell looks like, here it is:

Finally, I have seen a number of the following bushes blooming, also.  I have no idea what their real name is, but I have made up the name “Snowball Bush” for them.  They have their own beauty.

Spring is always spectacular in the South, and this year may be special if we can avoid a killing frost.  The next act:  the dogwoods and the azaleas! 

  • The Mangled Toothbrush

Apparently toothbrushes can be added to the list of things that dogs can eat without getting sick.  When Kayla took her bath Sunday night, she decided to put both Mandy and Darwin in her bathroom, but then she made the mistake of leaving them alone in there with the door shut for about five minutes while her water ran.  When she came back in, one of them (my bet is Darwin, because the toothbrush should have been too far back on the counter for Mandy to reach) had pulled a toothbrush onto the floor, and between the two of them they had chomped through the plastic top and managed to eat about seven eighths of the head of the toothbrush.  Neither Mandy nor Darwin looked the worse for wear, although the toothbrush was in a sad state! 

The Mangled Toothbrush

  •  The Assembly After-Party

While I showed you yesterday the pictures that Kayla painted for Mark and me Saturday and Sunday, I didn’t get a chance to tell you how those pictures were presented.  Kayla announced at about 4:30 p.m. on Sunday that she was calling an assembly for Mark and I that would take about two minutes.  Shortly thereafter, she had both of us seated on the couch and she began to speak.  She told us that her (pretend) school was running a charter program for art, and that these paintings were the work of two of her students and she wanted to show them to the whole school.  Mark interrupted her to say something, and she gave him a very stern eye and said, “Obviously they run assemblies differently at your school!” and continued talking.  She continued speaking for about four minutes, at which point she was gently reminded that she had said the assembly was going to be two minutes.  She responded with an airy wave of her hand, “Okay – the assembly’s over; now it’s time for the after-party!” and walked off into the sunset, aka the kitchen, in search of the dogs.

Have a good day everyone!  

Nancy

Leave a comment

Posted in dogs, Out of the mouths of babes....

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Three Hour Naps, Three Jello Snacks and Three Things I Didn’t Need to Know

Posted on March 7, 2011 | 3 comments

Good morning everyone!  I hope each of you had a good weekend.  We did.

This picture has nothing to do with anything else I am writing about today; I just like it.  It is from a trip to Gatlinburg in 2008.

  • Three Hour Naps

Even though we had a lot we wanted to get done this weekend, we still found time for naps on Saturday and Sunday.  Usually I end up taking about an hour and a half to two hours, and then I’m up, but for the first time in a while I took three hour naps both days.  Mark slept even longer.  Even Kayla (reportedly – with Kayla doing the reporting) slept two hours on Sunday.  At least we should be caught up on our rest!  Kayla used the time when we were napping and she wasn’t to paint pictures with watercolors for Mark and I.  Since I have the prerogatives of a proud parent, here is a photograph of her pictures:

For anyone in need of interpretative guidance, the top picture on the left is of the woods, with a stream running through it, the top center picture is of a golf green,  and the top right picture is a picture of the house, with our red brick as best as she could render with the water colors at her disposal, and the rose bushes in front.  If you look closely, there is a door and a door bell, but I am not sure my photograph is good enough for you to see that.  The bottom row is pretty self explanatory!  On top of painting these pictures, she managed to keep both No-No and Bad Dog quiet in her bedroom under their alter-egos of Mandy and Darwin (although one of the two if not both reverted to form since something  plastic and bright pink was rended to shreds; however, it doesn’t seem to have been anything important).

Kayla and Darwin This Morning

Kayla and Darwin This Morning

  • Three Jello Snacks

When we come home from school every day, Kayla and I have the same discussion – whether or not she is going to “get some snack.”    Most of the time it depends on how long it will take to fix supper and when the three of us will be able to sit down and eat it together.  If it looks like we are going to be eating a little later, I will let her have something. 

On Friday, Kayla asked if she could have a little cup of orange jello.  I told her yes, and didn’t think anything more about it.  To both Mark’s and my surprise at supper, she didn’t want to eat much.  We do not force her to clear her plate, but a certain threshold of food consumption is required before she can have dessert.   That threshold had not been reached, but she decided to stop eating anyhow.  I was a little concerned about this, since she normally eats very well, but right before she left the table, she looked at me with a mischievous grin and announced that she had had three orange jello cups.  She must have been operating on the principle that it is better to beg pardon then ask permission, but she wasn’t really begging for pardon either!

  • Three Things I Didn’t Need to Know

Over the course of my adult life, I have compiled a list of things that I learned that I didn’t really need to know.  These include tidbits of information like “if you leave the oven on at 350 degrees overnight, you  will NOT burn the house down,” a dog can eat a tube of neosporin ointment and not get sick,” and “Indian Hawthorn may be poisonous, but Darwin and Mandy chew on it all the time and are all right.”  I added three things to that list this weekend.

1)    Blue eyeshadow will rinse easily out of a tub.  And lest you accuse her unnecessarily, it was not Kayla’s fault that the blue eyeshadow ended up in the tub, but mine.  I got trigger happy in putting up my makeup containers, and picked up the big case in which I carry all my blush and eyeshadow to put it up without realizing that it wasn’t latched.  Voila, the blue eyeshadow in the bathtub.  Several other items slipped out also.  I leave it to your imagination as to whether I said at the moment everything spilled, “Verily, verily, I hath spilt my make-up case” or something stronger!

2)   If you leave a wooden clothespin on the vent of the toaster oven for two days, it will not ignite. 

  3) And the last thing I learned this weekend needs little explanation – If you are looking for your glasses while you are wearing them, it takes a while to find them!   

No one took me up on explaining “lie” v. “lay” on Friday.  If anyone can explain a quick way to tell the difference, along the lines of “your prinicipal is your pal”, please leave a comment.  An explanation as to whether the “.” comes before and after the parentheses would be welcome, too.  Otherwise, I will have to look the answers up myself! Have a great Monday everyone!

3 Comments

Posted in dogs, Out of the mouths of babes...., Pets, working mom