Tag Archives: working mom

The Gulf Coast Beaches: Beautiful and Ready for Visitors!

Posted on May 16, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone! 

We recently had the chance to spend a weekend in Perdido, one of the beach towns that run along the Gulf of Mexico from Orange Beach, Alabama through Pensacola, Florida and on through Panama City, Florida. 

Mark letting me take a picture of him while driving

Kayla in the car
We left for the beach Friday after work, having left the dogs at their kennel/day care known as Cutie Patootie Dog Boutique.  It is, quite frankly, the only kennel the dogs have ever enjoyed (as opposed to endured), although they are always glad to come home.  I think it’s because they get to play with the other dogs that are there, which means Tyra gets a break from everyone, Darwin can play to his heart’s content, and Mandy only has to play with someone when she feels like. 
 
It took us about 3 hours to get to the condo we were staying at (I rented it from an acquaintance).  The condo was well-appointed and comfortable.  Kayla was particularly fascinated with the narrow metal spiral staircase that led up to the loft.
 

Kayla on the spiral staircase

 She wanted (or at least pretended like she wanted) to try jumping off the top step, but both Mark and I quickly nixed that idea. 

Perdido is only 8 miles from Orange Beach and Gulf Shores to the west, and only about 15 miles from the heart of Pensacola, although from where we stayed it was only 8 miles to the Naval Aviation Museum, which is high upon our list of things we want to do when we go back. 

Some of you may remember from last spring and summer that this area was affected by the BP oil spill.  If fear of oil or tar balls on the beaches along the Gulf is keeping you away, let me show you what the beach we were playing at (one of the Perdido State Park beaches in Florida) looked like:

View of Perdido State Park Beach

Here’s another view:

Headed out to set up camp

 This view shows our own little “beach camp” that we staked out for the day:

Our Beach "Camp"

Here’s a view from the beach towards the water.  The dark stuff is dried sea weed.

View toward the water

Interestingly enough, we did see some BP personnel drive by behind us while we were there.  There were about eight people with two trucks between them, each with a mounted trash can on the back.  They sat in the truck for about 20 minutes, then eventually two of them sauntered down to the waterfront, walked around for a few minutes, then walked back.  I couldn’t help but think that what BP really needs to be doing at this point is figuring out how to get the tons and tons of oil that settled onto the Gulf of Mexico seabed cleaned up instead of patrolling beaches, but BP didn’t ask my opinion, either. 

Mark and Kayla played with the football while I watched, which is always fun to see.  Kayla can throw and catch, but it takes her a little while to warm up and stop being afraid of the ball before she catches it.  Here are some pictures of her while playing football with Mark:

A precarious catch!

 

Deciding whether to throw or kick

Getting ready!

Of course, the most obvious reason you go to the beach is to play in the water. Mark and Kayla played longer than I did, but I went in a couple of times too.  The water was cold, but not frigid.  What’s the difference?  Cold is where you go in and after a while it doesn’t bother you too badly; frigid is when you go in the water and everything just turns numb.  Frigid is usually experienced only by parents who have children, who seem to be immune from any water temperature from cold to frigid and who assure them, “Really, it’s not too bad!” or Canadians, who seem to be used to it, or Californians, because the water almost always seems to be frigid off the coast of California unless it is an El Nino year (I lived in the San Diego area when I was a child).  I knew how much my husband loved my daughter when he spent an hour in the water with her one day with the water temperature at frigid.  Mark does not like cold – at all!

Headed out to play and swim

 

Caught by a wave

 

Trying the Back Stroke

 

Hugging Daddy

 

Getting ready for the next wave!

We got there about 11, and it was almost 3 when we left.  Even though Kayla told us it was “across the law” (she meant “against the law”) to leave, she had reached the point where she was shivering and needed to rest, not to mention her parents!

We had sat down once between the two rounds of playing in the waves, and while we were sitting there, we saw one pelican dive for fish several times, and three dolphin go wandering by, probably investigating the same school of fish the pelican was interested in.  That had all three of us excited! 

Tune in tomorrow when I attempt to explain about Lambert’s and throwed rolls (an experience not to be missed!)  Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

4 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , , ,

My Kindle

Posted on May 13, 2011 | 8 comments

Hi Everyone!

I am running late today, not aided by the fact that neither Kayla nor the dogs have come up with anything interesting to talk about the last couple of days (besides Darwin losing his collar outside, we don’t know how, but we did find it again!)  So, the time has come to talk about my Kindle.

First of all, I love books!  I have shelves and shelves of books at the house, and a few of my office shelves devoted to some personal books also.  I had loaded books onto my phone before, but never did enjoy reading them that way.   

I got my first Kindle two Christmases ago.  I think Mark decided that I was incapable of not purchasing books (and that’s true – I still can’t go into a book store without buying something!)  and was looking for a space-saving option.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that I lobbied for it for months, too. 

The first one’s screen broke about four months ago, so I purchased my second Kindle then.  I cannot tell you how much I enjoy the Kindle!  The best things in my life are my husband and my child, the best gifts my husband ever gave me were the dogs, but the best non-living gift he ever gave me was my Kindle. 

The Kindle is small enough to fit in my purse (granted, I like really, really large purses, because then it is harder for them to camouflage themselves when I lose them somewhere in the house), and the one I currently have is holding 112 books on the device, with 10 magazine issues.  The books include books on science, children’s literature (for me, not for Kayla), science fiction, books on Christian living, history and computers.  Because I like to read such a wide range of books (and I usually am reading 2 or 3 or 4 at a time, depending on my mood), the Kindle gives me a welcome anonymity, so that if I want to read a book on the Franco-Prussian war or re-read Little Women, I can do so unapologetically and without needing to explain.  I used to feel a little self-conscious walking into a restaurant at lunch with some of the books I like to read, but now I don’t. 

Oh, and I have another 61 items in the archives, which include both magazine issue and books I have read and removed from the device, but which I can re-load any time I want. 

Reading my Kindle feels very much like reading a book; the type is made of ink that is electronically arranged, and for those of us whose eyesight is, shall we say, in a state of flux, the type can be re-sized up to a very large font, which is nice. 

Book shopping on the Kindle is fun, too, because I can do it any time of day or night.  There’s nothing like sitting in bed at 10:00 p.m. at night and book-shopping in the privacy of your own home!  In fact, book-shopping is a little too easy; I have to work to restrain myself a little bit.

The Kindle will also let me connect to the internet, although navigating the internet on the Kindle is a little cumbersome, so I only use it as a last resort. 

Because I purchased the cover that goes with the Kindle (and the cover for the new Kindle includes a built-in reading light that runs off the Kindle battery itself – way cool!), it feels very much like a book when I read it.  There is a button you click to turn the page, which feels much more book-like than scrolling on a screen like you do on the computer. 

Do any of you use a Kindle, or another type of e-reader?  How do you like it?  Do any of you have a version that has color?  How does that impact your reading?  What kind of back glare do you get with your reader?  (My Kindle has virtually none, but then it is not color, either.)  I would love to hear from all of you on this subject, because I am curious. 

Well, that’s enough for today.  Have a great weekend!  I hope all of you get a chance to read something good!

Nancy

8 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , ,

Why are the birds so happy? Don’t they know it’s morning?

Posted on May 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Hi Everyone!

It’s morning again, and I am still trying to shake off the tiredness that comes just from having to wake up before 6 (or 7 or 8 ) in the morning, in between rescuing various articles of clothing from Darwin this morning – so far I have rescued a shoe (in time to prevent damage) and a sock (already crippled for life, but just as a matter of principle I don’t think I should let him keep it.) 

Darwin

But outside, even with the windows shut, I can hear the many birds that inhabit the woods around our neighborhood chirping at the top of their lungs.  It’s a pleasant enough sound, but it does cause me to wonder, WHY DON’T THEY EVER SLEEP IN? 

Exhibit A: The Rooster That Crows at Dawn

If you are up early enough (and I try very hard not to be) they are even happier and louder immediately before sunrise.  WHY?  They don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time, although all that foraging for food certainly does take a lot of time, but always are up at the (pre-)crack of dawn anyhow.  They must have a lot of the foraging done before noon, because by that time of the day, at least our suburban birds have grown for the most part silent, except for the occasional red-winged black bird that likes to sit on telephone polls and make sporadic cries all afternoon.  The mocking birds will occasionally get into a spat around mid-day too, but other than that it gets pretty quiet. 

The Red-Winged Blackbird; Photo by Alan D. Wilson

Are they able to get up so early because they get to take a nap mid-day?  If that’s the case, how do I sign up for the whole mid-day nap thing?  I lost the right to take a mid-day nap somewhere around kindergarten and would really like to re-claim it at some point!  I kept begging Kayla to hold onto her nap privileges as long as she could when she was in pre-school and kindergarten, but alas, like most short-sighted 5 and 6 year olds, she couldn’t wait until she didn’t have to take one anymore!  The birds get to keep nap time; why can’t I?   

 All of which proves yet again that I am NOT a morning person.  I’m not the only one  – I suspect the Owl inherited the night because he didn’t hold with all this bright and perky morning stuff either!

The Great Horned Owl, taken by Peter Manidis (AKA falxius)

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

Leave a comment

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

Tagged , , , , ,

Key West: The Little White House

Posted on May 11, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a while since I talked about our trip to Key West, but I still have a few more things to share and today is as good a day as any to talk about one of them.   

  • The Little White House

First, a clarification:  Today I am talking about THIS Little White House:

NOT this Little White House.

While the Little White House in Illinois, as you know from a previous post, has personal significance to me (The Magic of the Little White House), the Little White House in Key West has historical significance to all citizens of the United States.  It used to be the home of Commander of the Naval Base located on Key West.  However, at some point, President Taft needed to come to Key West, so the base commander offered the president his house, and ever since then, this house at Key West has been available for the use of the presidents, both current and past, of the United States. 

President Truman used the Little White House more than any of the other presidents.  I think the guide said that he stayed there about 172 days during his presidency.  He used it as a vacation home where he could still conduct business. 

As you can see from the picture above, the house is nice, but not overly grandiose.  Outside of the entrance to the house, at least on the day we were there, was a sand sculpture of President Truman reading.

I would love to have pictures of the inside of the house to show you, but photography was not allowed during the tour.  The guides at the Little White House who conduct the tours work on a volunteer basis (although tips are gratefully accepted), while the admission fee for the house goes to maintaining and preserving it.  Our guide, whose name I remember because it was Nancy, gave an informative and interesting tour.  Of all of the historical houses Mark and I have toured, this one had a unique feel to us because of the fact that some of the furnishings, which are from the 1950’s, reminded us of items we had seen in our own grandparents’ houses growing up.  It made the history of this house, at least from when the Trumans were there, seem less remote.  One particularly interesting item of furniture was the poker table in the corner of the living room used by President Truman and his aides.   (A necessary clarification:  none of our grandparents ever had a poker table; it was the sofas, outdoor furniture, chairs and bedroom furnishings that reminded us of them.)

An interesting fact that we learned while touring the house was that, through President Truman’s time in office, the President of the United States was expected to pay for all of the state dinners and White House functions out of his own personal funds.  It was an enormous strain on President Truman, since he was not from a wealthy family originally.  After President Truman, Congress included a separate entertainment budget for the President to use on top of his salary, so that no other President would suffer the kind of financial strain that Truman did in the process of fulfilling his or her obligations as head of state. 

The Little White House is still available for the use of the President, or those people whom he designates, even though it is maintained under a private budget.  I know this not only because our tour guide told us so, but also because we had tried to see the Little White House once before, years ago when we stopped at Key West for one day on a cruise, but it was closed to the public because it was being used by Colin Powell for a peace summit. 

The tour begins and ends in a little gift shop built into the porch of the house; it is fun to browse through the store and look at the souvenirs and books available for purchase.  The store manages to maintain a proper presence as a gift shop while still preserving the dignity of the house as a whole, which is not an easy feat.

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

2 Comments

Posted in Travel

Tagged , ,

A Triple A Day: All of the Above and Art Work

Posted on May 10, 2011 | 6 comments

Good morning everyone! 

  • All of the Above

Kayla’s grades from the week before come home in a red folder every Monday.  Yesterday, she came home with one of the few not so good grades that she gets from time to time.  I never get upset at what she makes if she was trying, but I do get frustrated when she earned her “not so good” grade because she chose not to study the study sheet conveniently provided to her at the beginning of the week. 

When I had the temerity to suggest that she should have studied more, Kayla got quite cross with me.  The test was multiple choice, and Kayla snapped out, “Well, she (ie., the teacher) should have explained what ‘all of the above’ means.”  I asked if she had noticed that more than one answer was correct.  She told me yes, so I explained that “all of the above” meant that all of the previous answers in the question were correct.  She said, “Oh.  I kept looking above me trying to figure out what the answer was talking about.”  So, she either gets credit for creative thinking, or creative excuse making.  My vote is for creative excuse making; what’s yours?

  • Art Work

I got caught the other day.  Usually, I wait until the dark of the moon in the dead of night, put on dark camouflage and rubber soled shoes, tiptoe carefully through the den to the kitchen, past the three or four creaking spots on the wooden floor, gingerly place the articles in a plastic garbage bag, ferry them to the outside trashcan while I hold my breath and then breathe a sigh of relief as I re-enter the house unnoticed.

What am I talking about?  The multitude of paper that Kayla brings home from or creates during school, day care, and nap time at home.  It doesn’t take long for a parent of a child in school or pre-school to realize that at least some of that paper must to be disposed of, or you will have to buy a new house with a room solely dedicated to storing paper.  By now, we would need a house the size of the Biltmore estate!  Don’t misunderstand me; I save some of her stuff every year, and take pictures of other items but at some point something has to go! 

Sunday night, however, I got in a hurry and when she wasn’t looking slipped some posters she had pulled out of a coloring book  (they were just posters, folks; she hadn’t colored on them, or done anything to them, just pulled them out of the book) into a garbage bag.  I thought I had them well camouflaged, but didn’t realize they were face up pressing into the side of the plastic where she could see them.  She tried to tell me they were in there; I tried to tell her she was mistaken (yes, I know that was wrong of me, but I was desperate); ultimately she pulled them out of the trash bag to prove to me that I was wrong.  Sigh.  The upshot is I have two posters sitting on my kitchen counter that probably will be there until the year 3000, or at least the next night without a moon! 

Art Work from 2007 That I DID Save!

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

6 Comments

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

Tagged , , , ,

Zoo Day and Pictures

Posted on May 9, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone! 

I hope your weekend went well.  Both zoo day and Mother’s Day went well, so I am now awake, rested, refreshed and ready to face the new work week.  (All right, at least I am awake!)  For a change, I managed to wake up and start writing before the sun rose – the birds appear to be much more enthusiastic about this whole “pre-dawn” thing then I am.  Morning people, how do you do it?

The trip to the zoo was fun.  Basically, the school buses pull up to the zoo and let the kids off, the kids are distributed to assorted parents and then all of us are turned loose for the day with instructions to return at 11 for lunch and 1:00 for bus loading.  In addition to Kayla, I had her friend Rebekah with us.  There is a walk through aviary in the front part of the zoo that Kayla wanted us to go through (twice), so that’s where we started.  Kayla found a feather in there, so I took her picture holding the feather.  I took Rebekah’s picture holding the feather, too.  To forestall any issue about whether Rebekah or Kayla got to keep the feather, I told them they needed to leave it in the enclosure.

We then worked our way around South and North America, including a visit to the reptile house (not my favorite place), the spider monkeys, several tamarin species, the jaguar and the ocelot.  I had to explain to both girls that the “cute” ocelot was not the kind of cat one would really wish to have in their house!  We also saw a sloth bear and several Patagonian capys (imagine something that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, but about three times as big as the rabbit.)   The girls had the chance to go by the otter exhibit also, which is always popular. 

The giraffes and lions are at the very center of the zoo, so you really can’t miss them as you travel across the zoo, and the female lion, the only one out on Friday, was roaring.  With just a little imagination you can see what an eerie sound that would be out in the wilderness. 

After lunch, we rode the train, and then I succumbed to the same temptation that seized most of the other parents at the zoo – I took the girls to the playground, turned them loose and found a comfortable bench.  I was certainly not the only parent found on the park benches around the playground! 

Of course, Mother’s Day was this weekend, and Mark and Kayla had a special surprise planned.   They had gone to Sears and gotten their portrait taken for me.  In addition to having several photos in various sizes printed out, they also purchased the disk of their photos, with a full release of copyright, so I can share some of the pictures with you (Hang in while I go see what Darwin is tossing up and down in his mouth…..ahhh, it’s one of my headbands, but I got it before too much damage was done.  He’s not too happy with me.) 

Anyway, here they are:

I am thrilled with them and am a lucky woman to have such a wonderful family! 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

2 Comments

Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

Tagged , , , , , ,

6000+ views, Style and Dog Update

Posted on May 6, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone! 

I am really excited to have passed 6000 views yesterday; thank you for reading this blog!  A view happens every time someone comes to this blog to read something, not the total number of readers, so some of you have done a lot of reading to help me get here.

Kayla just announced that she had her own style; Mark told her that with respect to grammar that wasn’t entirely true.  They are joking with each other as they leave the house, which is always a fun way to start the morning.

Kayla with "her own style" for herself and her pumpkin last Halloween

 

Today is the 3rd grade field trip to the Montgomery zoo.  I am one of the chaperones, and very much look forwarding to it.  I am (again) very grateful to the people at work for their flexibility with a working mom.  I also am lucky about being chosen as a chaperone; for some reason, whenever there is a field trip and I ask to be a chaperone, I get chosen.  I don’t know if that says something about me, about Kayla or both! 

Kayla's First Train Ride at the Zoo (age 4)

I haven’t written much about the dogs lately.  I cooked hamburgers for supper last night on the George Foreman grill, and Mandy came to the kitchen and parked herself between the counter where the grill was and where I was standing in the hopes that a stray speck of meat or fat might fall her way.  When she parks somewhere like that, you can’t move her – it’s like trying to move Mount Rushmore! What she really was hoping was that I would leave so she could lick the fat that drips off from the grill into a special holder, but I was aware of this plan (having observed it in action before) and so put everything out of her reach when I was done, much to her disgust.  That did not stop her from investigating the issue, anyway. 

Mandy, the immovable object

 

I left two pair of shoes out in the bedroom the other morning, and while I was blogging Darwin entertained himself by bringing them out one at a time and “plopping” them down on the floor in front of me to get my attention.  When it didn’t work, he then considerately only chewed one of them, on the place where the shoe manufacturer had sewed on a loop to help you pull the shoe on.   

Please let me go chew something else!

As the weather warms, Tyra is starting to feel a little better; she has twice been able to jump on the bed at night this week without being lifted.  She looks so proud of herself when she does so, but is even prouder when she manages to get one of us to lift her up! 

Tyra Happy

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, and have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

4 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , ,

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

4 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , ,

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

Leave a comment

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

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

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

2 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , ,