Tag Archives: parenting

Sink and Sleep (or the Lack Thereof!)

Posted on September 13, 2011 | 8 comments

Good morning Everyone!

  • Sink

Sunday evening, as I was working on supper, Kayla walked by the kitchen and announced, “Mom, you don’t want to ask what I’m doing in the bathroom.”  I, of course, gave the only logical response, which is, “What are you doing?”  Answer:  “Mom, you don’t want to know.”  After two more rounds, I did the only thing a parent could do, which was to enter her bathroom to see what was happening.

Kayla’s sink was full of water, and she had one of her big bath towels in it soaking.  I started to have a conniption took a deep breath and looked at her for an explanation, and she, grinning proudly, announced that she had decided that she was going to help me out by washing her own clothes.  Her plan was to wash them in the sink every night, then hang them on her shower rod to let them dry.

I told her I appreciated the thought, but that it would work out better to use the washing machine to clean her clothes.  Then I had to figure out how to transfer the completely saturated towel to the washing machine without getting water all over the floor.  At least she was trying!

  • Sleep, or the Lack Thereof!

Sunday night, I only managed to get about two hours of sleep.  I really don’t know why, but I just couldn’t get to sleep.  Needless to say, on Monday, I wasn’t exactly full of sweetness and light but I did try to muddle through without being too terrible to be around.  After supper though, I started to clean the kitchen, snapped at Kayla about something, snapped at Mark about something, and then dropped a TV tray on my foot.  It fell sideways where its thin edge fell directly on the bone on the top of my foot and it hurt.  I yelled something like, “Ouch!” or “Verily, verily, I hath dropped a tray on my foot and it hurteth” except on a grander scale, and Mark, coming into the kitchen to check on me, told me to leave the kitchen until tomorrow and sent me to bed, 10 minutes before Kayla’s bedtime.  I didn’t argue, either.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

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Cruise (Not!)

Posted on September 9, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone!

I called my mother the other day from the car, and since Kayla was with me, let her talk.  Kayla was in a chatty mood, so she and Mom chattered away while I was driving.  It reminded me of the first time I can remember them having a lengthy conversation on the phone.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

It was back during Kayla’s kindergarten year, when we had already moved to where we live now, but were still going to church back in our old town.  On the 30 minute drive back from Wednesday night choir practice and GA’s, I called Mom and let Kayla talk for a while too.  Eventually, Kayla brought the subject around to spending the night at my Mom’s house sometime.  Kayla said something like, “We’ll have to figure out what to do with my Mom and Dad.  I know!  I’ll send them on a cruise.”  I asked how much money she had to use for said cruise, and she proudly told me that she had a dollar she would use.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Well, I let Mom and Kayla build castles in the air for a little while, but about the time Kayla started telling Mom what she would bring to wear “next Saturday” when she came over, I felt compelled to interrupt so that Kayla understood this sleep-over was not something that could happen right away.  (Mom lives about a six-hour drive away from us.)  I said gently, while she was still on the phone, “Kayla, I’m sorry, but you can’t spend the night at Grandma Dottie’s this week.”  Without batting an eye, she turned to me, with the phone in her hand, and answered firmly, “Then you ain’t going on no cruise!” and turned her back on me to continue her conversation with my mother.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

I laughed all the way home.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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

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Deer and Lizards

Posted on September 8, 2011 | 8 comments

Good morning everyone!

Darwin, the look-out

Darwin found his mind this morning, which was a relief.  There is some debate between the three of us as to whether he found it for a little bit last night, too, but the consensus vote (2 to 0, with Kayla abstaining) is that he was just tired.  What caused him to find his mind?  Two deer at the end of the court.

These are not our deer, but they look very similar! Our fawn was not spotted.

We let the dogs out every morning and let them back in once the barking gets to the point we can’t stand it any more.  Today they were particularly vocal, so Mark looked out the door while he was letting them in.  There was a small baby buck standing at the edge of the woods at the court that our house overlooks.  Of course, once the buck heard our dogs barking, he instantly froze, which only made them bark more.  We got the dogs in, and Mark and I watched from inside the house, while Kayla went outside to watch.  As soon as they were inside, he started to move, but he kept looking back at the water.  I wondered if another dog was barking somewhere, but the answer was much more natural than that – his mother came from the lake up to him, led him caty-corner across the court, and then took him back into the woods.  Now, how do I know that this caused Darwin to find his mind?  Ever since then, he has periodically stopped at the back door, looking out to see if he can still see the deer.  Ergo, Darwin’s mind has made at least a brief reappearance!  I am pleased to know the deer are still with us; these are the first we have seen for a couple of years from our house.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

I went to pick Kayla up from dance yesterday (it was the first lesson of the year), and was greeted by a crowd of people leaving the studio.  Kayla’s friend, Rebecca, rushed up to me and said, “Your daughter caught a lizard and she still has it!”  I said hello to Rebecca and her mother, but ignored the lizard comment since I knew my daughter knew better than to try to bring a lizard home with her.

I was wrong.

She greeted me at the door of the studio with something wrapped in a small piece of paper and told me that she had caught a lizard and the dance teacher had told her she could keep it.  I told her there was no way a lizard was coming into the house, and made her let it go.  It was such a small lizard that at first I thought it was a cricket, but a baby black lizard it was.  She wasn’t too happy about it, but I told her that I didn’t “do” lizards, and only allowed certain mammals as a pet.  (Sorry, Stella!  I know you love your iguana Zorro.)

Kayla told me that the lizard was a mammal, but even she knew that wasn’t right.  I reminded her that it was a reptile.  She thought for a moment, then said, “Well, I’ll cover it in fur and then it will be a mammal!”  Between you and me, I think the lizard is better off in the wild.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

FN.  My friend, Stella DeLeuze, owns an iguana whom she has named Zorro.  She writes a blog which contains interesting writing tips as well as stories about her trials and tribulations with Zorro.  If you are interested, look up her site at http://wordsbystelladeleuze.blogspot.com

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Posted in dogs, working mom

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Odds and Ends

Posted on September 1, 2011 | 8 comments

Good morning everyone!

I just have a little bit of this and a little bit of that to share this morning, so we will be jumping around some.

  • How do you know if you’re absent-minded?

I was, unfortunately, presented with two unmistakable signs this morning that I am, indeed, prone to be absent-minded.  The first was when, after trying on her own for about five minutes, Kayla came to me for help in finding the peanut butter.  After checking behind her on the counter and in the pantry, I suggested that she try the refrigerator, since every once in a while when I am not paying attention to what I am doing, I put the peanut butter in there.  See, Peanut Butter in the Refrigerator.  Sure enough, there it was, on the top shelf.

The second was when I couldn’t find my glasses.  After roaming our bedroom and bathroom and the great room looking everywhere I could think of, I suddenly put my hands up to my face just to be sure I wasn’t looking for my glasses with them already on my face.  (I have done that before.)  To my immense relief, they weren’t there, but the fact that I had to check is very telling.

  •    Free Slushies

Kayla announced at the dinner table the other night that she would be excited when she got to middle school, where “they” have “free slushies for 75 cents.”  She offered to bring one home for each of us, too.

Slushy

  • Mandy

Mandy is still eating interminably slow.  While this is great for blogging in the mornings, it presents many other problems in terms of morning preparations, since she won’t eat unless I am sitting here at the table beside her and she is extremely prone to be distracted.  When Kayla comes out for breakfast, she stops eating.  If Kayla leans down to pet her, she stops eating.  If Tyra wanders by, she stops eating.  If she hears any noise in the kitchen, she stops eating.  I bet a butterfly landing on a branch on the other side of the world would be enough for her to stop eating.  The only saving grace is Darwin; if he is anywhere in the vicinity of her and her food, she will eat faster – apparently Tyra is allowed to take her food away if she chooses (it’s been a while since Tyra has done that), but Darwin, as the junior member of the pack, is decidedly not.  Since he’s asleep and snoring in the den right now, I don’t think she has anything to worry about.

Mandy and Darwin, but not while Mandy is eating!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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

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Hazardous Duty: Counted Cross-Stitch

Posted on August 26, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning everyone!

One of my favorite hobbies is counted cross-stitch.  My friend, Vonda, introduced me to the craft back in college, and I have been doing it ever since.  Counted cross-stitch is a form of embroidery which, strangely enough, uses cross-stitch in order to form pictures.  In counted cross-stitch, you are provided with a chart and a list of colors for your embroidery thread that you use to make a picture. 

Clockwise, from left: Original Picture, Chart, Completed Cross-stitch

So, for example, in the picture above, the post card on the left is the original picture.  On the top of the picture is the chart, where someone patiently translated the original picture into a counted cross-stitch chart.  On the bottom right is the completed counted cross-stitch portrait.   The only thing missing is the list of colors.  The fact that my daughter has not yet taken up this craft is not her fault, but mine – I have a patience problem when it comes to teaching it to her.  Still, one day I hope to have enough patience to work through a project with her.

Part of a series of Christmas Ornaments I made

Just like pixels on a computer screen, a counted cross-stitch chart can be used to make just about any picture that you would want.   That is part of the fascination, because, with the proper chart, I can make everything from small Christmas ornaments, up to large adaptations of works of art, depending on my mood. 

Four Christmas Ornaments I Made

You would not think that such a hobby can be hazardous, but it does have its perils.  Mark and Kayla have long known that if I am working on cross-stitch, and they wish to hug me, they need to approach warily – I have a (possibly bad) habit of storing needles conveniently on my shirt or shirt sleeve while I change thread colors and the unwary person who approaches me for a hug can unfortunately get pricked. 

Plastic Canvas Ornaments, in a "folksy" style

There are a couple of very good cross-stitch magazines produced in the United States, but, owing to the greater popularity of the craft in the United Kingdom as well as their centuries head-start on the topic of embroidery in general – let’s face it, royal women were working on embroidered tapestries and other types of embroidery in the United Kingdom before the Americas were even a rumor in the mind of the European world – the cross-stitch magazines from the United Kingdom are exceptionally good.  Although it is fairly expensive, due to shipping, to subscribe, I do buy some at a book store occasionally.

More complicated cross-stitch ornaments

 The British magazines almost always come with an extra gift, so they are sold in the bookstore wrapped in a plastic cover that includes both the magazine and the extra gift.  Having had the rare chance to go by Barnes & Noble and purchase a couple of new magazines earlier this week, I was anxious yesterday to steal about five minutes to look at them.  I got in a hurry ripping the cover off of one of them, though, and as I did so, the magazine flew out of the plastic towards my face and hit me right below the eye with the bottom corner where it is bound.  It has left a small (vanishingly small) scratch underneath my eye, and a nice straight black and blue line that would elicit inquires were it not for the fact that the circles under my eyes are so dark already it is hard to tell the difference! 

That's the one that got me!

Am I going to let this newly discovered peril stop me from engaging in this craft that I love?  Of course not!  Still, I intend to open cross-stitch magazines a little more carefully in the future.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

P.S.  Please forgive any typos today – I am trying write this with my daughter playing “scream at my imaginary class as loud as I can” in the same room with me.  This activity does not create ideal conditions for concentration on my part!

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Posted in On the Home Front, working mom

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Random!

Posted on August 25, 2011 | 6 comments

Good morning everyone!

I had trouble focusing this morning, so we will take a break from carefully crafted paragraphs and anecdotes with beginnings, middles and ends, and venture into the realm of randomness.  

1)     You never have a good hair day the same day as an important meeting.

2)     A child possess an innate ability to pick out the most annoying toy in his or her arsenal to play with at any given moment.  Usually, that toy was purchased by someone other than the child’s parents.

3)     Pay day always seems about two days too far away.

4)     Light bulbs always blow in threes, unless you have more than three reserve light bulbs.  Then the light bulbs continue to blow quickly until you have exhausted your reserve and there still is one light out.  

5)     Mid-life female hormones and the antics of a 9-year-old child can be an incendiary combination.

6)  You never run out of spaghetti sauce in your cupboard until the day that spaghetti is your only option for supper.  You think.

7)     The urge to buy something increases in intensity geometrically to the amount of money not available to buy it.

8)     Nothing is certain except death and taxes – and the unpopularity of both.

9)     The Auburn football team always does better as an underdog.  Thank you, Associated Press and Coaches polls!

10)     Is there a limit to the number of shows that can be made about Bigfoot, Nessie and UFO’s?

11)     Reasoning with a recalcitrant computer is counter-productive; shooting it with a shot-gun is therapeutic.

12)     The only time a child will choose the option that you urge him or her to take is the time that you try to use reverse logic.

13)     Everyone is interested in the kitchen from the time supper is served, until the time dinner is over.  Unless you are No-No and Bad Dog – then your interest peaks after dinner is over, when you can illicitly scan table and counter tops for left-over food, and before someone comes to clean the kitchen and takes all those out-of-bound leftovers out of reach.

14)     You can learn to ignore the sound of a dog barking.  You cannot, however, learn to ignore the sensation of a dog standing on your hair to wake you up.

15)     Being a fan of the San Diego Padres and Chargers, Chicago Cubs and Bears and the Washington Redskins since the mid-1970s quickly teaches you not to bet on sports.

16)     I am a very blessed woman.  Thank you Mark and Kayla, my friends and the dogs for making my life wonderful.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Cooking, Football, Just stuff..., working mom

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Progress?

Posted on August 24, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone!

  • Dogs in the Shower

Conversation from this morning:

Kayla (reflectively, from the other room):  Mom, you know how I can’t drag the dogs into the bath with me?   (Rules I Never Thought I’d Need # 8  )

Mom:  Yes.

Kayla:  Is that true for showers, too?

My question to you:  Is it progress that she asked before trying out the experiment or should I be dismayed that she had to ask at all?

  • The (Now non-) Beeping Fridge

Refrigerators - Public Domain Photograph by Paul Morse

About three days ago, the refrigerator in the garage finally stopped beeping.  It had been beeping a sequence of five beeps every minute or so since around July 20.  (See, The Beeping Fridge.)  Last time I checked, which was this morning, the rest of the refrigerator was still working.  So, did we break the beeper through lack of attention or did the refrigerator just give up on whatever it was trying to tell us since we refused to listen to it?

  • Pencils

Vending Machine Pencils

Kayla did buy three pencils yesterday.  (See, Pencils.)  I did not see them or get a picture of them.  Would it surprise any of you to know that none of them were the “winning” blue pencil?

  • Pencil Sharpener

My Firm's New Electric Pencil Sharpener, Exacto Brand

I found it ironic that yesterday, after writing a blog post about pencils that mentioned pencil sharpeners, I was unable to find either a manual or an electric pencil sharpener at work.  Immediately, I asked that the situation be remedied, and now my firm is the proud owner of one electric pencil sharpener that will reside in my office.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in On the Home Front, working mom

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Pencils

Posted on August 23, 2011 | 5 comments

Good morning everyone!

I was sitting here with no idea of what to write about, when my dogs and my daughter saved me once again.

Darwin Barges In

Darwin has a rope toy that he loves. It is the only thing thick enough and long enough that I have been able to find that lasts longer than one day around him. (Right now we are at three weeks and counting.) He had picked it up and was shaking it around in order to entice Mandy to play tug of war with him, when all of a sudden both of them raced off into the bedroom. I looked up as they raced back into our great room, only to realize that Mandy was leading, with something long and white in her mouth while Darwin was chasing her with the rope toy. I managed to save the bath towel from Mandy without further damage, although she has made it clear to me that she thinks I am just being plain unreasonable.

Mandy and Darwin Confer

Then Kayla sat down to eat breakfast, but immediately jumped back up again, ran to her room and returned to the breakfast table to announce that she had put her money in her pocket after all.  Naturally, I was curious as to why she needed money.  She told me it was because she wanted to get pencils from the pencil machine.  (The school has acquired a pencil vending machine this year.)

Now, press pause on that thought for a minute, and travel back in time with me three weeks to our school shopping expedition where we bought two dozen pencils for her to use at school.  Fast forward to yesterday, and view her book bag which at the time had one dozen pencils in its front mesh pocket that I could see, and another dozen in the front pocket without mesh which I found while checking her homework.

Electric Pencil Sharpener

With that in mind, you will understand why I was at least mildly curious as to why a child already overly gifted with pencils would wish to acquire more.  She at first tried to tell me that the pencils from the pencil machine were already sharpened.  That’s probably the wrong tactic to take in a family as blessed with the gift of kindler and gentler satire as we are.  I gasped and said, “Oh no; you might possibly have to find a pencil sharpener in the school so you can sharpen a pencil.”  She looked at me, and I added, “Even worse, you might have to use a manual pencil sharpener.”  At that point I knew I won the logical argument, because the half-smile that plays across her mouth when she knows she can’t win the discussion but doesn’t know how to back out of it arrived.

Manual Pencil Sharpener

So then I said, “Let me guess.  The pencil machine has pencils that are really pretty.”  Straight faced, she told me that wasn’t why she wanted them at all. 

Vending Machine Pencils

My curiosity unsatisfied, I again asked what was the big deal about a vending machine  pencil and she told me that every so often a student gets a blue pencil from the machine with the words “You Are A SeaCoast Winner” printed on it, and that if you took that pencil up to the librarian, you would get a prize.  I asked her what the prize was, and she had no idea.  It’s not that I really begrudge her spending her own quarters for pencils, but my poor pens are already vastly outnumbered by the pencils floating around the house, and I really would like to be able to save at least one or two of the pens.  (See, Of Waves and Pens.)

A Winning Pencil Without the Right Words

Still, as a mom, you have to pick your battles, and I wasn’t willing to engage over 3 quarters when I am sure we have more important battles looming in the near future (can you say homework and reviewing basic math facts?) so having shown that I could have won the discussion if I wanted to, I let it slide.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

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Anniversary!!

Posted on August 22, 2011 | 12 comments

Hi Everyone!

Today marks the six month anniversary of my blog.  I want to thank each of you who subscribe to it, read it regularly, comment on it and forward posts.  It really makes a difference knowing that someone out there likes to read what I write.

In six months, I have reached 58 subscribers through e-mail or WordPress and five to 9 subscribers (Feedburner changes its mind daily) through an RSS feed.   Including this post, I have written 136 posts and had 10,821 views.  Those numbers are way beyond my wildest dreams when I started writing on February 22.

The First Picture I Put In A Post

I have, in that six months, taken three trips I have had the privilege of sharing with you, one to Key West, one to Pensacola, and one to Destin. 

The Hemingway House African Tulip Tree with the original Key West lighthouse in the background

I have cooked cheese grits for my daughter once, and only once (see, Cheese Grits and Pugliese Bread and Cheese Grits, the Sequel.)  I have added at least three more rules to my list of “Rules I Never Thought I’d Need.” (See, Just When I Thought I Could Retire the List and Of Kongs and Water Squirting Implements.) 

I was able to share some of the beautiful Southern spring with you, a little bit of the better part of summer, and am looking forward to fall when I can show even more. 

I also have had the privilege of introducing you to the wonderful women I work with at my office, while reserving the privilege of introducing you to the other wonderful women I work with in the Birmingham office as well as all of the wonderful men I work with.  (See, A Tribute to the Women of Main Street.)

You even have given me the courage to start a second blog, The Football Novice, something I never would have dreamed of doing six months ago.

Most of all, I have tried to share with you the wonderful chaos that is my life as a wife and mother with a full-time outside job and three crazy dogs.  I hope I have made you laugh along the way, and can’t wait to share more with you as time goes on.

Tyra: Crazy Dog No. 1

Mandy: Crazy Dog Number 2

Darwin, Crazy Dog Number Three

Have a great evening everyone!

Nancy

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Football Memories

Posted on August 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone!

Since I still have football on the brain, I wanted to talk to you about my football memories.  FN.

My earliest football memories stem from my pre-school years, when my family lived in Annapolis, Maryland.  I can remember my dad sitting in front of the television on Sunday afternoons sound asleep.  Either myself or one of my sisters would try to sneak into the den and turn the channel to something more entertaining than a boring football game (remote controls had not yet been invented; you actually had to go to the TV set and turn a knob) only to have him announce, while still sound asleep, “Touch that dial and you will be called “Stubby” for the rest of your life.”  Since my dad was a naval officer, and we were in Annapolis because he was stationed at the Naval Academy, we also could not help become aware of a rivalry between the Navy and the Army, although I’m not sure we really understood that it stemmed from football.  I do know that I was in sixth grade before I realized that the Navy and the Army did not exist to fight each other, but rather to join in common cause to fight our nation’s enemies.  I really think, given the choice, they would prefer to fight each other anyhow, but they have called a truce in the interest of national security that is only broken when the Army-Navy game is played each year.

Then, after several years, I started high school in the Washington D.C. area while Joe Theisman was the Redskins quarterback and Joe Gibbs was the coach.  Dad made sure to instill in all three of his daughters a love for Redskins football, although we noticed that he was very conflicted when the biggest rivalry game of the season would roll around – the Redskins v. the Cowboys.  Dad always wanted the Redskins to win, but the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback, Roger Staubach (who was a Naval Academy graduate like Dad) to look good.  Either shortly before or after we left the D.C. area, the Fun Bunch began their antics, which just made a football game pure fun, and the Hogettes began their long attendance at Redskin games as well.

We moved from D.C. to Alabama.  Over time, I learned that college football was even more important than professional football, at least in Alabama.  I am ashamed to admit that during the first few years we were here, my Mom and sisters  and I looked upon the Auburn-Alabama game as a great time to do Christmas shopping – no-one else was out during the game.  It took about four years, but we too ceased to go out during the Auburn-Alabama game, and instead stayed glued to the television to see the outcome of the game.  Even as transplants, we picked sides – myself and my youngest sister are Auburn fans, and my middle sister is an Alabama fan.

That passion for Auburn football only grew when I attended Auburn, met my future husband and began going to games as a college student.  The one year we were both at  Auburn together, we had student season tickets by the Auburn Yacht Club.  They were a great group of students to sit beside.  Every score or large gain led to high fives down the entire row whether you were a member of the Yacht Club or not, and that year, because a running back named Bo Jackson was playing for our team, there were a lot of high fives!

After I graduated from college and Mark and I got married, we watched both college and professional football.  We have struck a nice balance now; we watch Auburn football with a great deal of emotional investment, but we watch NFL football simply to enjoy the game, although there are many teams that we like and we usually know who we want to win the game that we watch.  (All right, I admit the year the Patriots went undefeated in the regular season, we got pretty involved in the New York Giants’ attempt to stop them from getting that record on the last game of the regular season.  That was one of the best football games I have ever seen, and the funny thing was that it didn’t make a difference to either team in terms of where they would stand in the playoffs.  Still, I don’t believe the Giants would have beaten the Patriots in the Super Bowl that same year had they not put in the extraordinary effort I saw that day, even though they ultimately lost that game.  That effort taught the Giants that the Patriots were not unbeatable, and they believed that all the way through to the final game!)

We are now intent on passing along the football traditions of our family to Kayla, and she is taking to them quite well.  She is already an avid Auburn fan, and the first question she asks at the beginning of any NFL game that we watch is “Who are we going for?”  She likes Peyton Manning and Cam Newton as quarterbacks, and I can’t wait to see how far she goes in her love of the game!

Do you have any special football memories?  Are there any teams you are particularly a fan of?  If so, I would love to hear about them from you!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

FN.  I suspect the Football-on-the-brain syndrome has a lot to do with getting my new website, The Football Novice, up and running as well as with the start of the NFL pre-season!

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