Tag Archives: daughter

Thoughts on the Way Home from Pri-Med

Posted on May 5, 2011 | 4 comments

Hi Everyone!

Tuesday night, Mark and I decided we both needed to go to Pri-Med as that most elegant of Southern illnesses, the crud, simply refuses to leave us alone even after two (Mark) and one (me) rounds of antibiotics, and it appeared we were headed South towards bronchitis.  Since we went, of course, Kayla had to go too. 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

We had a rough start to the evening when I discovered that on the day when Kayla knew she had the most homework to get done for the week, she chose not to do a single bit of it at after school care.  Not her best move with two sick parents!  So she was working on long division in the back seat of the car, while I was trying to help her from the front seat while Mark drove.  Long division is not the best subject to work on for homework at any time; she knows how to do it but wants someone to verify that each step is correct as she does it (not exactly equivalent to actual test conditions!) and if you don’t she tends to get frustrated.  Still, we prevailed somehow.

Kayla's Spring School Picture (Age 9)

When we got to Pri-Med, we had to wait for a while, which gave her time to finish the spelling and the long division, and then once we were in the examination room, we reviewed her science notes.  The doctor came in, looked at us, and sent us home after two shots each (Kayla was quite relieved when she realized it was her parents and not she that had to take the shots) and more prescriptions. 

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

It was on the way home that Kayla became thoughtful.  It had started to rain and she had been chattering away in the back seat without my really paying attention (don’t tell me you don’t do that either sometimes as a parent!) when something she said caught my attention.  I asked her to repeat it and she told me that she knew why clouds rained.  I asked her why, and she told me that just like we get full of water and had to go the bathroom, the clouds get full of water and have to go to the bathroom too.  That’s what I thought I had heard her say originally.  It’s not the most elegant analogy but at the same time, I couldn’t really fault her logic, either.  (When I was her age, we lived in San Diego and went to Sea World frequently, where they had a fountain show about water with a song, and the first lines of that song are indelibly etched in my brain for some reason – “The seas yield vapor to the skies, and the skies return it as rain.”  Isn’t that close to the same thing she is talking about?) 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

Then she chattered away some more before announcing that she was starting to not like barbecue, so she was afraid she was turning into a veterinarian.  We corrected her word choice to vegetarian, which she agreed was what she meant, and Mark explained that just because she didn’t necessarily like the barbecue at school anymore, didn’t mean that she wouldn’t like all barbecue, and that there were lots of other meats besides barbecue.  (I promise, folks, we eat lots of meat at home, and most of the time it is not barbecue.)  She was relieved, because I don’t think she really was ready to “turn into” a vegetarian.  

Breakfast with Cheese Grits

I explained that at the end of the school year, (we have about three weeks left) the cafeteria probably is trying to use up everything it can so there isn’t anything left to spoil over the summer.  This observation did not placate her;  she reared up in outrage and said, “Good Grief!  Why on earth don’t they use up all the cheese grits then!”  I wanted to say it was because she probably had eaten all of the school’s stock already  (last I heard, she gets six helpings of the things when they do have them at school) but I didn’t.  After that she got sleepy, which ended her reflections and let us put a sweet, tired little girl to bed when she got home.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Out of the mouths of babes...., Reflection, working mom

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Help: I Need a Break From News!

Posted on May 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone!

Today I am going to practice speed blogging, which is code for the fact that I tried switching my morning routine up by doing everything I needed to do to get myself dressed and Kayla and Mark out the door and the dogs fed (except for Mandy finishing up – bless her heart, when I came out to sit down and blog, she still was eating her food) and then write my post – but without getting up earlier, which is the second part of my plan for a smoother morning.  So, I am sitting here in a dress with (almost) perfect make-up and smoothed over hair and 25 minutes to write.  I suspect the getting up earlier is going to have to happen, too. 

  • Help!  I need a break from the news.

It has been quite a news laden few days, hasn’t it?  We had the tornadoes come through Alabama (and other states) on the 27th during the day and night in what was one of the worse tornado outbreaks in history, so we spent Thursday the 28th beginning to deal with the their aftermath, which was particularly immediate here in Alabama.  Then, on Friday the 29th, we had the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, who are now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, which received extensive media coverage throughout the weekend, and then Sunday night May 1 Osama Bin Laden was captured and killed and the media coverage since then has dealt exclusively with that. 

The three events are very different, aren’t they?  The tornadoes’ aftermath is horrible, and we in Alabama are just beginning to pick up the pieces and will be working to fix the damage for a very long time.  Most of the day Thursday (and a good part of Friday, even while we were keeping an eye on the wedding, those of us with electricity at least) was spent simply trying to find out if the people we knew in the affected areas and their families were safe and had homes.  In Alabama, no-one is much further than one degree of separation from knowing someone who either lost a home or a  loved one in the storm. 

The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was a lovely and happy occasion, and, whether you like it or not, an event worthy of the coverage it received – after all, one day, Prince William will be the head of State of many countries, including the United Kingdom (where he also will be the head of the military), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica and several other places.  (I admit, I had to look that up.)  I did get a little irritated at the ridiculousness of some of the style and fashion coverage, but it was an event deserving of world-wide coverage and at least it was beautiful to watch. 

Then the death of Osama Bin Laden – to me it was a solemn, somber event.  He needed to be pursued and captured for the terrible crimes on September 11, and if he died in the capture attempt, then he died.  But that death is also a reminder of all of the lives lost on September 11, 2001, and the terrible price we have been forced to pay in lives, money and in the shift in the fabric of our lives as a result of that day.  My family lost a cousin of mine in Iraq a few years ago, a lovely man who simply was serving his country at the time.  My daughter will never know what it was like to take a plane to the airport and have your loved ones waiting at the gate to meet you – remember getting off the plane and running to hug your grandparents, parents or friends right there when you came off the gangplank?  Or going to pick someone up, and standing eagerly by the window as you watched the plane pull up to catch that first glimpse as that someone got off the plane?  Or taking someone to catch a plane, and being able to stand in the gate area and wave and watch until the plane taxied away and began to take off even though you knew they couldn’t see you?  She won’t even know what it is like to get on an airplane without having to take her shoes off, an operation I never can manage without a great deal of awkwardness! 

So, until next Monday at least, can we just have a quiet, peaceful period of news where the main story is about a dog that saved its master by dialing 911 (or was that a cat?  I don’t remember), or inner city children from Los Angeles enjoying a field trip to Washington D.C. courtesy of an eccentric philanthropist, or the invention of the riding vacuum cleaner, self-folding dryer or self-emptying dishwasher or Congress engaging on a lengthy debate on something completely innocuous such as whether the possibility of farming raspberries in the middle of the Arctic ocean should be explored?  The breather would sure be appreciated!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., Reflection, working mom

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The Story Behind the Rule: A Scratch, a Rose and a Screen

Posted on May 3, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone!

From Rules I Never Thought I’d Need:  Do not cut the screen out of its frame in the window.  

When Kayla was in 1st grade, she had walking pneumonia.  Nothing serious, but it was very odd – she never coughed, she never complained of any breathing trouble, she just suddenly spiked a high temperature.  When she had a fever, she felt miserable, but once the Tylenol kicked in, she was fine.  In fact, she was the happiest, healthiest looking sick child I have ever seen.  It was embarrassing sitting in the doctor’s office trying to explain that she was sick when she was so bouncy and happy and looking into everything! 

The only way that the doctors found the pneumonia was through a lung x-ray, and that didn’t happen until the second visit.  The first time I  took her, they tested her for flu and strep (both tests came back negative), so  they decided Kayla had a virus.  When she wasn’t any better after about two days, I took her back to the doctor, and simply because there was nothing else left to look at, they took x-rays of her lungs.  It isn’t often you hear a doctor’s voice float down the hall with a loud “Ah-Hah!” 

All of which is a long way of explaining that she had missed 9 days of school for the year already when one Sunday afternoon, with Mark taking a nap and me working in the kitchen, she came out of her bedroom whispering and gesturing for me to come in there.  When I went, she showed me her arm, where there was a particularly wicked looking scratch – not deep, but jagged and red around the edges.  Because she absolutely could not miss any more school, I needed to know what caused the scratch so I could keep it from getting infected.  I noticed a rose sitting on her bedside table, but I didn’t think much of it – Kayla liked to pick the roses in the front back then and bring one or two in from time to time.

 

After some minutes of whispered questioning so we wouldn’t wake Mark up, she finally mutely pointed to her bedroom window to show where she got the scratch.  When I walked over to it, at first I didn’t notice anything, but then I realized that there was no screen in her window, which explained where both the rose and the scratch came from – our roses are beautiful, but very thorny.  I then thought how smart it was of her to figure out how to open the scree…. At which point I realized the screen was not opened but gone.  Kayla had very neatly cut out the screen from its frame so that she could simply open the window and pick roses without having to travel outside. 

I think it had been out for at least a week, because the week before I had come across some screen mesh in my craft closet, and tried to figure out what on earth I would have needed that for.  If it hadn’t been for the scratch, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the missing screen for months.  

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in On the Home Front, When things don't go as expected, working mom

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The Weekend

Posted on May 2, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone!  I hope all of you had a great weekend.  We had a quiet one but it was enjoyable.  Before we get to that though, I wanted to thank all of you who read this blog – as of this morning, I have 5900 views! 

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Saturday, Mark and Kayla went on a mysterious shopping expedition, possibly having something to do with the approach of Mother’s Day, but which gave me the uninterrupted run of the house until about 2.  I used this unexpected bonus time to finish the laundry. 

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Having the laundry finished by Saturday morning is particularly enjoyable because it means there are only minimum chores to do the rest of the weekend, and gave us, on Sunday, that most blessed but most rare of days – a true day of rest.  Having had one, I have to say I could get used to more of them on a regular basis!

After the mysterious shopping expedition, and the subsequent nap, we decided to go bowling.  Bowling, for me, has improved greatly with the greatest of all bowling innovations since pins and balls – the gutter guard!  Without the gutter guards, I am pretty much a scratch bowler in reverse – I will hit the gutter each and every time I touch the ball.  With the gutter guards, I even get spares once in a while, and on a rare day, a strike or two!  Let’s just say that I am the master of the unintended ricochet shot. 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

On Sunday, after church, we took our afternoon nap (I have told you before that the Sunday afternoon nap is a solemn ritual at our house.)  Mark had told me to wake him up at 2, so I managed to shake myself awake about 2:30 to go get him up, but he decided he needed another hour.  So, instead, Kayla and I and the three dogs ended up in my bedroom watching TV for an hour.  To keep the dogs quiet I let them out, but after about five minutes, the dogs started pitching a fit, all three barking at full volume. 

Since loud barking is generally not conducive to continuing naps, I sent Kayla out to check on the dogs.  The barking didn’t stop, and she came running back in to tell me I needed to come out there.  When I got out there, I saw what the dogs were barking at – a grey-reddish animal at the bottom of the court our back yard hill overlooks.  Between Kayla and I, we got the dogs back in, which stopped the barking, and then gave us a chance to get a good look at the animal which still hadn’t left the court to melt back into the woods.  It was too long to be a cat or a dog, but we weren’t quite sure what it was until it turned its face where we could see it in a profile – it was a fox!  I have seen a fox in Alabama maybe once before, and then it was running across the road in front of me, so I was more worried about avoiding hitting it then I was in observing, but this fox was determined to put on a show for both of us.  It probably stayed in our sight for a good 15 minutes, strolling along the edge of the woods, stopping to scratch, and looking over at birds who were foolish enough to land on the “For Sale” signs in front of the lot.  It must not have been hungry, though, because it left the birds alone.  For the two of us, it was quite a small town wildlife adventure!

From LookandSee, a WordPress photo blog about living in rural New South Wales in Australia

The picture above may have been taken in Australia, but the grey fox we saw looked just like it!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., On the Home Front, working mom

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Mondays and Water Piks

Posted on April 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone!

We have made it back around to Monday again.  I hope everyone had a great weekend!

  • Mondays

I have to admit that I’m not that fond of Mondays.  It’s actually not the whole day I object to, but the getting up part.  Waking up on Monday after sleeping in on Saturday and Sunday is quite a shock to my system, especially since I am not a morning person.  (Apparently, from the whines and moans coming from Kayla’s room, it is a shock to her system also.)  The shock causes me to do weird and wonderful things, like looking for my glasses when I am already wearing them.  (I did that this morning; fortunately, it didn’t take me too long to figure it out!)  Until I began commuting to work about 9 years ago, I firmly believed that the thirteenth commandment was “Thou shalt not wake up before 6:00 a.m.”  Now I do it every Monday through Friday.  

  • The Fountain of Water Pik

As soon as Kayla got her braces, we went out and bought her a Water Pik to use.  The Water Pik shoots a jet of water into your mouth that is supposed to push anything out of your braces that is not supposed to be there.  I had one when I had braces as a child. 

Given the way it shoots out water, I think it must be the antecedent to the Jet Ski.  I can see some future engineer cleaning his or her braces with a Water Pik, then having a “Eureka” moment – “you know, this same action could be used to propel a vehicle through the water!”  Whoever he or she is, I hope they  made a lot of money off of the idea.

Kayla and her Water Pik very much have a forced marriage, as in her father and I have to force her to use the Water Pik every day.  Last night, I told her to use her Water Pik when she was getting ready for bed, and in a second or two I heard it switched on in the bathroom.  The only problem was that I had been in her bathroom earlier in the day, and I hadn’t seen any water in it then, and I hadn’t heard any water placed in it before it started running.  So we asked her to be sure it had water in it.  There was a pause in the bathroom, then the Water Pik started running again.  I still hadn’t heard any water put in the thing, so I got up to go check. 

There was water in it all right, or at least there had been before Kayla started using it.  When I walked in the bathroom, Kayla had her mouth full of water and the water had also just started squirting out through her nose like a fountain.  I don’t think it was intentional, because she and I started laughing about it at the same time.    I’m still not quite sure how she managed to do it; I used a Water Pik for 2 years as a teenager back in the Dark Ages, and never had that happen! 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in On the Home Front, When things don't go as expected, working mom

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The Dream versus Reality

Posted on April 19, 2011 | 10 comments

I have a dream. 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

 In my dream, I have perfectly coiffed hair, stunning make-up, an elegant outfit, a house that shines in every sense of the word – dark wood floors that stay shiny instead of riddled with paw prints, none of those piles of clutter that inexplicably build up in odd nooks and crannies throughout the house – a daughter who has done her homework before I pick her up from day care, and three dogs sedately trotting beside me as I gracefully glide toward the door to greet my husband as he returns from a hard day’s work.  If I need a pen, a pencil, the tape, scissors, paper or any kind of widget at all (I never have figured out what a widget is, but they sure are mentioned a lot!), I can go (gracefully glide) immediately to the spot where the item is located.  As my husband walks in the house, he is greeted by the wafting aroma of a home cooked meal, completely from scratch, using the best recipes I can cull from The Joy of Cooking or The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.  Even though this gourmet meal is being presented, the kitchen itself is spotlessly clean.  I am completely caught up with all my chores at home, and all my projects at work have been finished at least five days before the deadline.  (Those of you from work who read this can pause to roll on the floor laughing for a moment. )

The gap between this dream and reality is very far indeed. 

(Those of you who have come to our house for supper do not see this reality – we make sure the house is picked up before you come over!) 

When my husband usually comes home from work, he is met by three frantic dogs, two of whom are doing their best to jump on him any way they can. 

 Having just finished and filed the brief that was due today at 4:30 right before I headed for the house,  I am now at 6:15 having a discussion (read argument) with Kayla as to why she failed to complete her homework at after school care rather than waiting until we got home.  I also am explaining to her (this concept is relatively new) that just because you didn’t have any worksheets from school doesn’t mean that you have no homework – after all, if the teacher gives you a study sheet and hints that you are having a test on the study sheet on Friday, she intends for you to review the study sheet in the intervening week. 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

 The kitchen is not clean, and I am doing my best to piece together a fairly quick supper because a) I failed to plan the meals in advance and b) we just got home and I have about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get Kayla bathed, fed, ready for bed and still give her some modicum of time to spend playing and having some quality time with us.  We usually have laundry lurking somewhere, whether unfolded in a basket or in the form of  ironed pieces hanging on the the mantel (and what ironing was done was done because Mark did it), and the pile of shoes in my bedroom (see,https://workingmomadventures.com/2011/03/03/earth-fare-the-longest-walk-general-von-bissing-and-the-birds/) is anywhere between two and four pairs.  As for perfectly coiffed hair – you can forget it.  I am lucky to have gotten it washed in the morning with enough time to let it air dry, and as a general rule my make-up is never perfect. 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

The dogs, if I walk them, with the exception of Tyra, have pulled me out of the door looking rather like a crazed Hittite charioteer without a chariot,  being pulled by dogs, not horses.  I have often wondered if I tried it on roller skates, how fast I could be clocked before I fell and seriously injured myself.    The inside of the refrigerator looks like a no-man’s land, with odds and ends in containers that I can’t remember what they were or when they were cooked. 

An actor rides a Roman-stule horse-drawn chariot in Jerash, Jordan, during a rehearsal for 'The Roman Army and Chariot Experience,' a one-hour show held in honour of Julius Caesar, and part of Jordan's newest tourist attraction(AFP/File/Khalil Mazraawi)

This is the problem with the dream – it makes me feel continually inadequate, and I am doing it to myself!  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have decided that the dream is the way most people live, and if I don’t measure up to that, then I am not worthy.  While I should (and am trying to) do better on keeping the house picked up (understand, Mark does pull more than his fair share here; I am the one that has the organizational/neatness issues), it will never be perfect.  In fact, I wouldn’t want it to be, since for the three dogs to be trotting sedately beside me I would have to have a different trio than the lovable mutts that romp beside me through my day, for me to have a daughter that does her homework perfectly and on time every day, I would have to have a different daughter, and for me to have the floors sans paw marks, I wouldn’t be able to have the dogs.  (Well, actually, I could also have lighter wood, but that wouldn’t look right in the house, either.)  There probably would be a lot less laughter, too.

So, I guess rather than tasking myself with inadequacy, I will change the things I can, accept the things I can’t, and pray for the wisdom to know the difference.  I also will go read the latest book on how to keep things organized, once I find it after threading through the shoes on my bedroom floor and searching in the clutter stack that is growing on its own in the corner…..

If you can relate let me know!  I would love to know that I’m not the only one  out here.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in dogs, On the Home Front, Pets, working mom

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Best and Worst

Posted on April 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

Hi Everyone!

PHIZ Illustration of Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.  It was the day when my sweet daughter demonstrated her extraordinary love, and the day when my mischievous daughter had all my buttons pushed in about 10 minutes.  With those of you who have kids, isn’t that the way it usually is?

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Mark had a cold this weekend; colds are harder on him than on most people because of reasons there are no need to go into here.  He still got up and went to church, but couldn’t stay for Sunday School, since he wanted to save enough energy for the Sunday night choir service.  Kayla and I stayed for Sunday School, and then once we got home and had lunch, the solemn ritual of the Sunday afternoon nap began.  (Almost every Sunday, Mark and I take a long nap – I’m embarrassed to say that it is one of the highlights of my weekend!) 

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

 Mark didn’t sleep very long because of his cold, and once he woke up Kayla bebopped out of her room, where she gets to sleep or play quietly as she chooses during nap time.  When I woke up at 3, she came into my bedroom to tell me that I needed to come see Daddy immediately.  When I asked why, she told me that he was freezing cold, even though his temperature seemed normal, and she had already given him two blankets and she didn’t know what else to do for him.  As I headed from the bedroom to the den, she also firmly told me that I needed to give Daddy a kiss.  Then she paused and added, “But you need to do it somewhere where it won’t hurt him.”  (One of Mark’s side effects from running a temperature is extreme pain.)  Now, how much more sweet and loving can a daughter get?  Not much!

Kayla Playing Around At Halloween

Then we came to the 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. time slot, where she squirmed, talked, played school and just generally made those noises kids can make that hit a nerve somewhere at the base of your spine and shiver on up to your brain to the “guaranteed to irritate” button.  Towards the end of this time,  we were driving Mark’s mom to take her to the concert with us, and Kayla insisted on being the center of attention.  I was close to my last shred of patience when we pulled up to the church.  (To other parents:  doesn’t that always leave you in the proper mood for worship?   It would be interesting to see videos of families with children under the age of 12 right before leaving for church, and compare that to when they arrive at church.  Sometimes the picture is very different, at least in our house!). 

Fortunately, shift change had arrived, and sweet child came back on the scene.  She sat through an hour of Easter music with no difficulty and impeccable behavior, and enjoyed it very much.  I think though, that she used all the patience she had available to her in that hour, because once she and I got home, the antics started again.  Let’s just say I was extremely frustrated by the time I got her in bed.  Then she reached out to give me my good-night hug, and somehow none of the rest mattered anymore.  I guess the entire day was the best of times, after all!

Kayla and Mandy right after we got Mandy

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Growing Up

Posted on April 14, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning everyone!

It’s pretty surprising, but when I woke up this morning, I realized that we had reached Thursday, with an excellent chance of reaching Friday tomorrow.  This week is flying by! 

The older I get, the quicker time passes.  Only yesterday Kayla was 3, and I was reading her a bedtime story, and now she is a beautiful young lady of 9!

Bed Time Story when Kayla was three

Kayla's Spring School Picture (Age 9)

That’s quite a change in just 6 short years! 

As she grows, I enjoy seeing her personality develop, and, in spite of any small mistakes she makes along the way, I love the beautiful sweet intelligent person that she is growing up to be.  (Of course, we haven’t hit the teen years, yet, either.  I have heard through friends that the reasons children are so sweet in their elementary school years is to give the parents enough memories to allow the children to survive their teens.) 

To give you an idea of the difference in maturity, one Saturday afternoon when Kayla was five, Mark was taking a nap in our bedroom while I was doing some chores in the great room and Kayla was (supposed) to be either napping or playing in her bedroom.  Suddenly, a piercing wail/scream came out of her bedroom.  I rushed in to find her holding her hand, crying at the top of  her lungs.  Even though I am not a doctor, it was quickly apparent what was wrong – a staple was pressed into the bottom part of her hand.   After some pleading, chiding and exhortation on my part, she finally allowed me to take her hand and pull out the staple.  Being a rational human being, I asked her how the staple came to be in her hand, assuming that it had to have been an accident.  Well, I was wrong – she told me she had decided to staple her hand to see what it felt like.  She certainly found out!  It was actually a brilliant, if accidental, diversionary tactic on her part, since due to the distractions involved in removing the staple, it took me another four or five minutes to realize that the stapler had been in her bedroom originally so that she could staple pictures onto her wall. 

Now, at age 9, the stories (for the most part) involve little things she says, or does.  For example, this year Kayla has blossomed into an avid reader.  She has read tons of books for school, and has over 100 Accelerated Reader points for the year!  She also has two or three books at home she is working on.  Now those of you who grew up in the same house with me will understand why I find this next so amusing – when she is really concentrating on what she is reading, she doesn’t hear or notice when someone is speaking to her.  I can remember coming home from high school, starting to read, and then suddenly realizing that my youngest sister had been speaking to me for about five minutes without my having heard anything! 

Last night, we ate on trays.  (I know, I know, it’s not the best way to eat supper, but we had choir practice at church and it was already 8 by the time we sat down to eat, so trays it was!)  I forgot to put a fork on her tray, and rather than calling out to me to bring her one, she put her tray down and started to go into the kitchen to get her own.  I apologized for neglecting to place a fork on her tray, and she veered off course to come around to me, give me a big hug and say, “Mom, it’s okay; it’s nobody’s fault, you just forgot!” 

Then, this morning, I called to her that it was time to get up and on the second call, I heard a voice from her bedroom calling cheerfully to me, “Mom, I need help.”  I went in to look, and somehow she had managed to roll herself tightly into her top blanket during the night and needed someone to pull the bottom of the blanket out from under her.  She looked rather like a large caterpillar in a purple cocoon.  She thought so too, because when I asked her how she had gotten wound up in her covers like that she answered with a bright smile and laugh, “I don’t know, but I must have  thought I was a butterfly!” 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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

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Cheese Grits, the Sequel and Where only the Brave Dare Go

Posted on April 8, 2011 | 1 comment

Hi Everyone! 

  • Cheese Grits, the Sequel

From Print Shop 2.0 - Rising Steam

Last night, Kayla was helping Mark while I was cooking supper.  I left the kitchen to go check on them, and when I got to the room, Kayla said to me, “I wish I could have cheese grits for supper, like the ones they make at school or that Grandma Pat makes.”  (Steam started rising from my stomach toward my ears.)  She then added, “That’s because they have the right kind of grits and cheese.”  (The steam hit my head and started to roll around my eyes in advance of a full whistle blast.)  She reflected a minute, then added cheerfully, “Well, you have the right kind of box but not the right kind of cheese.”  (Small wisps of steam began to slip out from my ears.)  At that point, I told her that she probably should quit while she was behind, and went back to working on supper, which, for the record, was NOT cheese grits and probably won’t be for some time!

  • Where Only the Brave Dare Go

The Inside of My Refrigerator (Not!) From PrintShop 2.0

I really looked at the inside of my refrigerator last night.  To really look at the inside of your refrigerator means that you have to intentionally look at every item on every shelf, as opposed to the instant identification search you do most of the time – ie., you want milk, locate milk, grab milk and return the rest of the refrigerator’s occupants to the comforting, cool dark that they love. 

When I did look, I saw that the inside of the refrigerator is beginning to be a very scary place, which means that the time to clean out the refrigerator has arrived again.  The last time I went through the refrigerator, say six months ago (Mom, I am just kidding – I have cleaned it out since Christmas!), throwing out all leftovers and other items I could not place a date on, I found three science experiments involving fermentation (I didn’t know until then that it was possible for lima beans to ferment), two new kinds of penicillin, three mutant bacteria that did NOT have good intentions for humanity, and four cures for cancer.  If you see the HazMat team headed toward my house this weekend, you will know what caused it!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in On the Home Front, working mom

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Kayla’s Day Off

Posted on April 1, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning everyone! 

Isn’t it great that we have made it to Friday?  I am so looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, at least as much as Mandy will let me! 

Kayla, as you may have guessed from my entry “Morning Interrupted,” could not go to school yesterday, but toward the afternoon she was feeling much better and was able to eat, for which I am thankful.  I had a conference call I had to take between 2 and 3, so she suggested that I turn on the WII so she could play games.  We almost got into a fuss then, because she asked me to help her get the right game on the machine, then got mad when I tried to hold the WII control so I could make the right selections.  Since neither one of us relinquishes control gladly (although I do get to pull rank, which usually guarantees a win, although often accompanied by high drama), it was dicey for just a moment, but we slid past the awkward moment.  Right as things were about to get rough, the WII put itself on the right game, in the right place, where she could start playing, and my phone started to ring with the conference call at the same time. 

The WII entertained her for about a half hour, then she decided to follow the dogs around and take their pictures.  She did a good job, too.

Here are some of her photos.  (She told me I could use them for my blog.)  I am not sure, and probably am better off not knowing, what she bribed them with in order to get them to sit still for some of the shots.  I have a suspicion that paper, which is not to be used as a dog treat, was involved.

Close-up of Darwin

Tyra in the Kitchen (Mandy and Darwin are in the background)

All Three Dogs Entering the Kitchen to Investigate the Crinkling Paper

Mandy Lying in State in the Kitchen

Five minutes before the end of the conference call, Kayla re-entered my bedroom to ask me if she could take out the trash.  In whispers I asked why and she told me that she was cleaning so that we could “paint together” when I finished.  I had housework to do when I finished my call, but what is a mother to do when her daughter asks that way?  The upshot is we painted some wooden and plaster-of- paris Christmas ornaments for about 2 hours.  (To work:  I early in the day had realized this day with her was going to have to count as a vacation day.)  Here is what we ended up with:

Our ornaments

She painted all of them except the train engine in the lower right corner, which I did.

This morning, Kayla is awake and well, with that “bounce-back” happy quality kids have once they are better from an illness.  She wanted to skip breakfast, but Mark and I insisted on at least a piece of toast.  When the toast was ready to be buttered, she came to stand by me and the toaster oven, and while she was waiting, she announced:  “Mom, I smell something spicy.”  She paused for a second and then said, “Oh.  I am standing by the spice drawer.”  I allowed as how that would make things smell spicy, and she laughed and said, “The aroma [yes, she really did use the word aroma – pretty good for a third grader!] is coming up here!”  She opened the drawer to make sure, I guess on the theory that if the drawer wasn’t what she was smelling she was going to refuse to eat the toast, but the drawer checked out, so the toast got eaten!

Have a great weekend everyone!  Talk to you Monday.

Nancy

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

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