Friday Morning, 6:45 a.m.
Me to Kayla: If you were well enough to go to your boyfriend’s baseball game last night, you’re well enough to go to school.
Saturday Morning, 10:00 a.m.
Kayla to Me: If I was well enough to go to school yesterday, I’m well enough to go see my friends this evening.
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And now the score is tied. Touché!
Have a great weekend everyone.
Nancy
Posted in Just stuff..., Out of the mouths of babes...., Parenting
Good morning Everyone!
Last weekend, Mark, Kayla and I went to Huntsville to attend a recital given by one of my sisters, who is a gifted soprano. The recital was at her church, so as Mark and I were looking for the church’s address on our Garmin. Mark asked what I was looking under, and I told him “Church of the Nativity.”
In the back seat of the car, Kayla (who fades randomly in and out of conversations these days with often hilarious results) said suddenly,” That’s a terrible name for a church!”
When asked to explain, she said,” The Church of Negativity? Who would want to go there?”
It took Mark 3 blinks and me 5 to contain our amusement where we could calmly explain that the deletion of two letters changed the meaning from something unpleasant to something wonderful.
She did roll her eyes at me when I announced after the explanation, “Coming soon to a blog near you!”
Have a great day!
Nancy
Posted in Child's Play, Children, Humor, Out of the mouths of babes...., Parenting
Tagged child, church names, church recitals, daughter, humor, meaning of words, names, nativity, negativity, parent
Good morning Everyone!
Bibliophilic Friday will return next week with a discussion of Helen Hooven Santmyer’s And Ladies of the Club, one of my all time favorites, but today I wanted to share a couple of funny stories with you.
1) Anesthesia Amnesia
A Trip to the Dentist
Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
Kayla has had the same dentist since she was 2, a wonderful woman she trusts. Unfortunately, ever since she was about 7, she also has had to have a lot of teeth pulled. So, while she doesn’t mind going to the dentist to get her teeth cleaned, she always is a little afraid that she is also going to learn that she has to have some more teeth pulled.
Last year, we found out that she needed to have four permanent teeth pulled out to make room for others, and the dentist recommended that we go to an oral surgeon so that everything could be done at once. The other option was to stay with Dr. Miller, and go back twice. Kayla instantly chose to go back to Dr. Miller.
The subject came up a couple of weeks ago, and Kayla started to share the story again. Indignantly, Kayla said, “She was going to send me to someone else who would have given me amnesia!” It was a few seconds before either Mark or I could stop laughing hard enough to explain that the correct word would have been anesthesia.
2) Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head
Tyra Running from the Rain
Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
Tyra also had a moment the other day. Tyra hates to go out in the rain by herself. She will happily go out on a leash with a human beside her, umbrella or no umbrella, but she does not do rain individually. We have accidentally had all three dogs out in a downpour before; Mandy and Darwin come in soaking wet, but Tyra will be bone dry – even if all three of them never left the patio!
We have had a pleasant break from normal August weather, with the temperature getting down into the sixties at night and very low humidity, which means, of course, that the dew has fallen several nights. The other morning, I let Tyra out and was talking her down the stairs. When she reached the second stair from the porch to the back ground, a drop of water from the roof fell on her. She immediately assumed that it was raining and started to turn back around. It took all my urging to convince her that it wasn’t raining and to get her started back down the steps again!
3) Don’t Worry, Be Happy!
Don’t Worry; Be Happy!
Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
Finally, we are always trying to encourage Kayla to dial down the drama she lends to every day ordinary events and I suppose somewhere along the way we have exposed her to the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” We were driving to Montgomery last weekend, and Mark was getting frustrated because the seat belt kept creeping up his shoulder until it hit his neck, starting to choke him. I’ve been there and done that and it is extraordinarily annoying. As he began to express his frustration, a voice came from the back of the car. “Hey Dad! Don’t worry; be happy.” Of course, we all had to laugh again!
Have a great weekend!
Nancy
Posted in Child's Play, dogs, Just stuff..., Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom
Tagged And Ladies of The Club, anesthesia, books, dentist, family, Helen Hooven Santmyer, humor, kids, parenting, pets, seat belts, working mom
Good morning Everyone!
Yesterday the three of us went out to dinner, and on the way home Kayla was chattering away when she hit the topic of things she didn’t want to have happen when she got old. At the top of her list was having her face wrinkle. Mark explained to her that as life goes on, somehow it prepares you for the next phase of your life so that the things you once dreaded don’t end up seeming like a big deal after all.
Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
MIDDLE AGED
In the midst of this discussion, Kayla started to tell us something and then started to talk about our age. After a couple of stumbles, where she started to say that the two of us were young, she finally stopped and said, “You might as well face it – you two are middle-aged.” I told her it was a good thing she hadn’t said that around Christmas time!
HANDY
I do not think of myself as particularly handy. I can usually handle an electric drill after three false starts – one to figure out how to turn the thing on, one to figure out how to put the drill bit in and one to figure out which way the drill is supposed to be turning – and I can hammer a nail into a piece of wood without hitting a thumb or finger more than every other time but that is where my tool competencies stop. However, even a blind pig can find an acorn now and then, and yesterday was my day.
Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
One of the copiers at work was acting up. It kept thinking we wanted to use the manual feed, which was supposed to be closed, instead of the automatic feed. I decided that even though the manual feed was closed, I would see if I could press it even closer to the copier and hold the manual feed door shut while I encouraged the printer to print – and it worked!
Then I got home to find out that Kayla and Boo had managed to knock a lamp onto the floor, which broke the shade off. Kayla said she couldn’t put it back together. Repair was essential because it was my lamp for my seat in the den, the seat I sit in to cross-stitch, knit and write. I studied it for a minute, took part of the inner workings of the lamp and made a center screw stand a little higher, then used the pole at the bottom of the shade to attach shade and lamp back together again on that central screw – and it worked!
Photo Credit: http://www.clickartonline.com
I think I am going to be smart and rest on my laurels for a while, before I assume that my two little repairs yesterday makes me capable of tackling a really big problem, such as replumbing the kitchen sink. None of it is ever as easy as it looks on TV.
Have a great day!
Nancy
Posted in Just stuff..., On the Home Front, Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom
Tagged electric drill, hammer, Middle-age, Middle-aged, tools
Good morning Everyone!
I have a friend who works for an employment agency, and I mentioned to Mark that in the last two months, my friend has come across more jobs requiring experience in labor relations than ever before. Kayla was listening and suddenly became very still. Then she said, “That’s weird! Why would someone have to prove they can deliver a baby before they can get hired?”
Top of the morning to you Irish men and Irish women out there (of which I am one!) and have a great day!
Nancy
Posted in Child's Play, Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom
Tagged daughter, employment, humor, Irish, labor relations
Good morning!
We had to go to a funeral this week. Kayla has been to funerals before, but with the exception of the funerals for my grandparents, she had not been to a graveside service. I truly love my little girl’s sweet spirit – she informed me that she HAD to go to the funeral to show her support to the family members involved.
At 12, she amazes me by how alert and observant she is. After the funeral, as we were driving out of the cemetery, she looked over and saw a plot with three headstones. In the center was the name “Ferguson”; on the right, a stone with the name “Head” and on the left, a stone named “Gardner.” When she saw those, she was quiet, thinking for a minute, and then she said, “Those Ferguson people are showing off!” When we asked her why, she told us, “Not only did they bury themselves there, but they buried the head of their mansion and their gardener with them!”
Sometimes you just can’t help laughing!
Nancy
P.S. Ferguson was not, of course, the real name on the center stone; I changed it to avoid unwittingly distressing someone else.
Posted in Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom
Hi Everyone!
We were driving somewhere the other day, and Kayla was in an exceptionally bouyant mood.
We started the drive by giving her a surprise oral basic math facts quiz, which normally leads to tears and temper but which she cheerfully answered on this day. I threw out lots of addition and multiplication questions, all of which Kayla got correct, then I abruptly changed stream and asked: 9-5.
Kayla’s response? “Crap.” (She immediatelty followed that up with the right answer, 4.)
After a while, we also drove by a herd of cows, placidly grazing in a field. Kayla’s observation?
“If I were a cow, I’d be the meanest cow ever. You wouldn’t make bacon out of me!”
The funniest one, though, was last weekend when we were returning from a wedding in North Carolina and were looking for a fast food place to get breakfast. For years, I would get biscuits from McDonald’s but in the last few months, I have switched to a preference for cinnamon rolls from Burger King. When Mark pointed out the McDonald’s, and I suggested we keep looking, Kayla, demonstrating her ever increasing grasp of our family’s gift of gentle satire, said sorrowfully from the back seat, “Mom, I’m sorry about your relationship with McDonald’s.” It made all of us laugh.
Have a good weekend!
Nancy
Good morning Everyone!
80% of the time Kayla makes perfect sense, but then there’s the other 20% of the time…
On Thursday, Kayla tells me that her (huge, bright green, state of the art) Nike backpack that we bought this year is too small. I suggest that she go through and trim down what seems to permanently reside in said book bag. For some reason, that solution is not acceptable.
On Friday, when we are already running about 15 minutes late from the time we normally leave, and after I have been waiting in the car for her for five minutes, she comes out of the garage door carrying her purple and white backpack from last year, announcing that she has switched over to it because it is bigger.
On Monday, she exits the house after me with a small red and white backpack that is smaller than anything she has ever carried to school. The reason? Her other backpacks were too big!
Kayla has emphatically refused to take gymnastics for the past two years, and has decided this year to give up dance, so of course, Sunday afternoon, when I hear strange thumps and bangs in her room and go to check, she has set up a kind of gymnastics routine/obstacle course in her room with pillows that she wants me to watch!
Yesterday, we had a soccer game at 5:30, which means that the kids are supposed to be at the field by 5:00. That time-table is fairly difficult for us to meet but we managed to have just a minute or two where I could stop at a nearby convenience store and buy her a Gatorade and myself a soft drink. When I got back in the car, she wanted me to open her Gatorade and I told her no, she needed to finish getting on her shin guards, socks and cleats before I would do so. (Experience has taught me that I need to get what I want first, or I never will get it.)
She fussed mildly, but then announced as we were pulling into the parks and recreation area that she “ought to give me a break because she would be a mother some day.”
I glanced sideways at her, and then said, “There’s more to it than that. Has anyone told you about the curse yet?”
She was curious. “What curse?”
I answered, “They call it the parent’s curse. When you have a child, she will be exactly like you.”
Kayla was silent for a minute, then asked, “Exactly like me?”
I answered, “Yes.”
She thought about it a minute more, and then said, “I need to change some things!”
The Daily Homework Dialogue:
Me: Kayla, do you have any homework.
Kayla: No.
Me: Really?
At this point I get one of three answers.
Kayla Answer 1 (Angry): Really, Mom, why don’t you believe me?
Kayla Answer 2: Well, yes, but I’ve already done it.
Kayla Answer 3: Well, yes, but I’m almost done.
Have a good day everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Child's Play, Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom
Tagged backpack, daughter, family, homework, humor, kids, parenting
Good morning Everyone!
Here are the latest updates from the wild and wonderful world of “conversations with a ten year old.”
PURPLE
Riding to the movie Saturday:
Kayla: Sneezes, then announces, “Mom, my snot is purple.”
Mom, ignoring the fact that she could have gone all day without that particular information: You’re okay.
Kayla: Actually, my hands are purple.
Dad: Why are your hands purple?
Kayla: Actually its my fingers.
Dad: Why are your fingers purple?
Kayla: I don’t know…
Mom starts laughing, effectively ending the conversation.
An example of the kind of “nothing” that goes on at our house…
NOTHING
Another conversational trick that Kayla has adopted lately is the convenient use of the word “nothing.” She however is using it in a slightly different context than the designer of the word intended it to be used. Most conversations go like this:
Mom, hearing strange and ominous sounds coming from Kayla’s bedroom: Kayla, what are you doing?
Kayla: Nothing.
Mom: What kind of nothing?
Kayla, more angrily: NOTHING!
Mom sighs, then gets up to investigate, certain to find that “nothing” actually means something, and usually something that she’d rather Kayla not be doing at the moment.
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Child's Play, Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom
Genuine Blogger Award, 6/13/2011
Tales from the Mom-Side 