Tag Archives: family

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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Reflections from the other side of 46

Posted on April 13, 2011 | 2 comments

Reflections from the other side of 46:

  • Do not salt home-made fries without wearing your glasses, or you won’t be able to see  the salt coming out of the shaker. 
  • Do pay attention to what you are doing in the kitchen; placing your hand on a burner that is still hot will cause extreme pain.
  • The floor keeps getting farther and farther away.
  • The print on books and menus keeps getting smaller and smaller.
  • My glasses keep getting more and more expensive.
  • Light bulbs are not as bright as they used to be. 
  • Your joints suddenly acquire a strange resemblance to Rice Krispies.  (Snap, crackle, pop!)
  • I thought I’d finished with exceptional mood swings and acne once I passed my teens.
  • It is NOT unreasonable to have the air conditioner on when the outside temperature is below 30!
  • An “all-nighter” now  is not.
  •  They say, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”  I’m not convinced.
  • Don’t say, “It could be worse.”  It usually gets there before it gets better.
  • Experience is the best teacher, but not always the most comfortable one.  
  • Love grows bigger, better, deeper and wider each year.
  • So do your relationships.
  • Your sense of humor gets better, too.
  • And always, no matter what age you’re at, “these three things remain:  faith, hope and love.  And the greatest of these is love.”

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

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Of Waves and Pens

Posted on April 12, 2011 | 11 comments

Good morning everyone!

  • Waves

 

One of the fascinating aspects of living in a small town is learning the language, both spoken and non-spoken.  For example,when a person honks their horn at your car, the odds are pretty good that they are just trying to say hello.  I learned this lesson over 20 years ago, when Mark and I traveled to a small town in South Carolina.

In the middle of town, on the main 45 miles per hour thoroughfare, we got behind an elderly couple going 25 miles an hour.  Not being from a small town at that time, Mark honked his horn, hoping to encourage them to drive a little faster.  When he did so, the driver, the man, looked in his rear view mirror to see who we were and turned to his wife and asked her, “Do you know them?”  The wife looked in the rear view mirror at us and turned to her husband and said, “No.”  They both took one more look to be sure, and then, on cue, not wanting to be rude, both of them waved at us on the off-chance we might indeed be someone they knew.  We waved back, and resigned ourselves to going 25 miles per hour until they decided to turn left. 

  • Pens

I have a junk drawer in the kitchen.  Well, actually, I have four junk drawers in the kitchen and need to pare down, but one of them is supposed to be the designated spot for pens and pencils, so I always know where I can get a writing utensil.  I have decided that this drawer is magic – the pens disappear from the drawer, and never turn back up.  Ever.  I buy 10 pack after 10 pack of pens, with a few good pens thrown in from time to time, but there never is a pen in there when I need one.  The pencils, however, hang around indefinitely.  I am beginning to suspect that the pencils are the main culprits.  How else can you explain a drawer with the same 20 pencils I put in there originally, and not a single one of the 50 to 60 odd pens remaining?  Someday, I am going to find the place to which the pens are magically transported, and suffer a serious injury when I open it and the flood of pens pours out on me, proving yet again that a pen is indeed mightier than a sword!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

11 Comments

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

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The Twins of Trouble and Easter Allergies

Posted on April 7, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning!  
 

Mandy (aka "Bad Dog")

 

Darwin (a/k/a "No-No")

  • No-No and Bad Dog at Bay

For those of you who have been wondering about No-No and Bad Dog, they are still alive and well. 

On Saturday we bought a four pack of stuffed animal chew toys, and so this week the Twins of Trouble’s (they look like twins, don’t they?) chewing efforts have been focused on the three of the four toys we went ahead and put out. 

I am glad the dogs like the toys, and even more amazed that they have lasted for a week!  Usually, it takes about a day, and then the stuffing has been released and strown all over everywhere. 

We still come across the occasional handkerchief lying on the floor in odd places, or the occasional shredded napkin or paper towel scattered somewhere far away from its point of origin or hear the occasional scrape of paws as they slide off of the kitchen counter, having ascertained that nothing is available for retrieval, but we haven’t caught either of them red-handed for a while. 

Most of the time, you see Darwin running by with a stuffed toy in his mouth, and Mandy in hot pursuit, or vice versa.  Occasionally, they are each holding one end of the same toy and running around the room in tandem.  One toy has been put carefully aside by Tyra, who doesn’t chew hers; her chew toy is a treasured doll that she doesn’t allow anyone else to mess with.  The other two toys appear to be interchangeable.  When we got home yesterday, and I was trying to let the dogs out to the back yard, Darwin, with one of them in his mouth, took a spectacular running start toward the back door, until he realized he was going to run out of floor much faster than he expected.  At that point he put on the brakes, sliding five feet plus on the wood floor and only stopping once his momentum took him underneath Mandy, pushing both of them outside.  I’m not sure Mandy knew what hit her; she is so low to the ground that this may be the first time anything has managed to slide under her. 

  • Easter and Allergies

Wednesday is our busiest day.  Not only do we have the regular activities of school and work, but Kayla has dance after school, and then we go to our church for Wednesday evening choir practice.  Currently, the adult choir is getting ready for our Easter performance, which is a beautiful musical arrangement entitled “A Hill Too Far Away.”  It has a great message and I am looking forward to our performance on the 17th, but it is a fairly demanding work, at least from the alto standpoint, with notes ranging from a low G up to the D that is an octave away from middle C.  When the choir finished practicing one particularly demanding song last night, we burst out into so many coughs that we sounded like a tuberculosis ward.  We couldn’t help it – all of us laughed. 

I have long known that God has a sense of humor; why else make sure that Easter and allergy season always coincide?  Maybe He just wants us to remember who actually gives us the ability to sing.  I also, however, have a sneaking suspicion that He laughed along with us when He heard all the coughing at the end of practice.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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

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Cheese Grits and Pugliese Bread

Posted on April 6, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning everyone! 

Even though it was a cold night, at least it was a stormless one!  We all got some much needed rest.

A Breakfast with Grits

  • Cheese Grits

Saturday morning, Kayla woke up and asked me to fix her cheese grits.  For those of you not from the Southern United States, grits are a breakfast food, consisting of flakes of coarsely ground corn and mixed with boiling water to make a porridge-like substance.  It is, I am told, very like polenta.  I would not know, since I have never been tempted to try polenta given my dislike for grits.  Kayla, however, loves them. 

Unfortunately, there was a problem with her request for grits Saturday:  I have never been able to make grits to her satisfaction, which means up to the culinary standard set by her Grandmas Dottie and Pat.  The last time I tried two years ago, I received enough of a critique from her majesty that I resolved to myself that it would be a very long time before I made grits for her again.  However, after a time lapse of two years, I decided that her home grits probationary period had run, so I was willing to give it another try, with a couple of caveats.  The first was that I wouldn’t make cheese grits since I only had shredded cheese, as opposed to a single slice of American cheese to place on top of the cooked grits, which is the way Kayla insists cheese grits should be made.  The second caveat was that no matter what, Kayla was not to tell me how much better either grandmother’s grits were, or give me continuous suggestions on how said grits should be cooked, since I intended to (strangely enough) follow the package instructions.  I almost had to perform a swearing-in ceremony on the last condition, but she finally agreed. 

She did try hard to comply with both conditions, but she had one or two minor slips.  She started to tell me the grits were too watery when I poured them in the bowl for her  but she quickly bit it back and said,”Never mind.”  Then, once she had possession of the grits, she got up, went to the refrigerator and condescended to put the shredded cheese into her grits after all.  I assume that was because she found some flavor to be lacking.  However, since she never did explain the thought process behind the adding of the cheese, technically she did not violate the “no criticism” rule.  

  • Pugliese Bread

I like bread.  While not exactly a connoisseur, I am interested in different kinds of breads and the variations in flavor and crust that can be attained, so when, on Saturday at Costco, I walked by two loaves in a paper sack labeled “Italian Pugliese Bread,” I thought I would give it a try. 

I have now concluded that “pugliese” must be Italian for “crust that can’t be cut with a chainsaw,” or perhaps “pugnaciously tough crust” since even our best and sharpest bread knife could only saw about halfway through the loaf vertically – and that only with a great deal of effort – after which you had to bend the bread to finish breaking it off.  It was not quite as difficult to cut the bread horizontally, but it still wasn’t easy.  Surprisingly, the bread when heated in the toaster oven with a little butter on it was not too tough to eat, although it was a little chewy.  Still, I am going to learn the Italian words for “soft crust that can be cut” before I try any more novel types of Italian bread!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Cooking, On the Home Front, Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom

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