Tag Archives: working mom

The Second Rite of Spring

Posted on April 4, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning everyone!  I hope you had a great weekend! 

From Print Shop 2.0

Our weather here was perfect, leading us to the second rite of spring.  (The first rite of spring is described in my March 23, 2011 post, “Spring!, Butterflies and Roosters.”)  The warm air and soft breezes, laden with pollen, begin to play tricks on the mind, and sudden images of me carrying a greatly enlarged metal typewriter stick, with a weird shaped mass of metal at the end of it that resembles a cross between a rectangle and an oval begin to dance through my overheated brain.  The sudden onslaught of ads for major tournaments such as The Masters feed the delusion and present images of me using said club to make graceful hits on a small, white pocked ball that send the ball soaring away at lofty heights only to be rivaled by the greats of the game such as Annika Sorenson and Nancy Lopez.  At that point,  my common sense is swamped, so I suggest to (or agree with) Mark that we should go play a round of golf. 

Such a moment happened this weekend, and before you could say, “Verily, verily I hath failed to hit the ball yet again,” the entire family was loaded into the car with two sets of golf clubs. 

My set is in almost perfect condition, even though it is over a decade old.  This is because my golf outings are usually limited to the first delusional outing each spring, and then the occasional trip with Mark.   The plan was to play at a course at a nearby city which often is uncrowded.  This works well for us because not only does it let me play as best I can under scramble rules with Mark, but Kayla, who usually acts as ball spotter and retriever with an occasional turn at golf cart driver if she begs long enough and hard enough, can come with us too and get to hit once or twice on the green .  (Scramble rules are where everyone who is playing hits the ball, and then everyone gets to pick up their ball and move it to wherever the farthest ball is.)  Most of the time, I don’t even try for a tee shot, just start my play about 100 feet or so from the hole. 

However, that plan was frustrated because the course we like was hosting a tournament, so no tee times were available, which led us to Plan B, the driving range.  Mark and Kayla reached the range first, so I had the opportunity to take a picture or two  before I had to start practicing myself.

Instruction!

Both Mark and Kayla get ready to practice

 

Mark right after one of his best shots of the afternoon

Kayla giving it her best effort!

 

Finally, it was my turn.  I reached the driving range, placed a ball in front of me, studied it carefully, placed my club up against the ball to be sure everything was in place, pulled back once, swung my club down slowly to double-check I would hit the ball where I wanted to, and then, everything on go, I pulled the club back one more  time and gave a mighty swing – at which time all the delusions in my head popped away.  The ball still sat exactly where I had placed it.  

The “missing of the ball” is the first event in my golf season every year.  Since we were at the driving range, I then began the process of trying to hack, ….er, hit the ball in progressively better ways to try to improve my golf game. 

There are unique rules to driving range play.  The first is that you will never hit a really good shot when someone is looking.  Resign yourself to it.  I do hit maybe three or four decent shots out of the 20 to 40 golf balls available to me each session, but they are always when Mark and Kayla are looking the other way.  The second rule is one of proportions – the amount of time I will get to spend hacking…er, hitting… the ball decreases geometrically to the number of balls Kayla wants to hit.  She needs encouragement and unlike adults doesn’t understand when Mom and Dad don’t see the good shots that she hits.  The third rule at the driving range is that just at the moment you decide that this is a really stupid game, you will never get good at it and you might as well quit, you hit a truly beautiful shot that stupefies your senses back into the delusion that you will be playing better sometime soon.   

While I was hitting, I unfortunately left the camera in a place where it could be accessed by all; hence Mark ( or Kayla) caught this picture of me meditating with the ball:

Pulling the ball into position

About an hour later, we finally had hit all of the balls in the bag of range balls we had purchased, (it takes a while when two of the players need two or three shots just to hit one ball) so it was time to head home.  As we drove home, I could already feel the memory of the bad shots (or non-shots) I had slipping away from me like water and the memory of the good shots expanding.  In another couple of weeks, the delusion will have set in again, and we’ll go back for more!

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., The quest for health, When things don't go as expected, 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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Morning Interrupted and A Splash of Color

Posted on March 30, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning (or good afternoon in the Central U.S. Time Zone and those points further east) everyone!
  • Morning Interrupted

Today’s title, “Morning Interrupted,” was far more prophetic than I ever intended it to be.  Not only was my early morning (i.e., pre 6:30 a.m.) routine left in shambles but my mid-morning schedule has been disrupted as well. 

Powerful Spark (From Print Shop 2.0 Deluxe)

 Mark was out of town last night, so of course a round of thunderstorms chose to rumble in around 4:00 a.m.  Kayla is very afraid of thunderstorms, so she came padding into our bedroom around 4, and I let her go ahead and crawl up into the bed on Mark’s side.  Those negotiations taking a little time, Mandy and Darwin viewed them as a sign that it was time to get up, so they started jumping on and off the bed in great excitement.  You really haven’t lived until all four paws of a 55 or 60 pound dog hit you squarely on the chest at 4:00 a.m. in the morning!

I threw them outside into the thunderstorm to do whatever they felt they needed to. (Tyra knew better than to wake up.  Besides, she is not going into a thunderstorm unless she is thrown out into it, so she got to stay inside and asleep at the foot of the bed.) 

Once they came back in, around 4:10 or so, my only hope of getting any more rest before 5:30 was to separate Darwin and Mandy, so I put Darwin up in his carrier (he usually sleeps there or in the den at night – he only got to sleep in the bedroom last night because Mark wasn’t home and our routine was disrupted anyhow) and kept Mandy in the bedroom with me.  Mandy settled back down, but Darwin felt it was his sworn duty to bark with his loud “intruder alert” bark every time a strong thunder clap sounded over the house.  This practice guaranteed that even if Kayla could get to sleep, she was going to wake back up once he started to bark, which further ensured that I wasn’t getting back to sleep either.

After about 45 minutes of that, Kayla got up and ran into the bathroom and started to be sick.  I got her settled back down and we finally got maybe an extra half-hour before we had to get up.  After we got up, I took her temperature, and she was in that no-man’s land between 98.6 and 100 (at 99.3), so I gave her a choice on whether to go to school or not. 

She elected to go because the school is doing the Stanford Achievement Tests and she was going to try to finish the test (this is the second, and last, day of testing).  I let her off at school at 7:15 with a wish and a prayer, and toodled my way to work, where I hoped to have an uneventful, but fruitful, day. 

Alas, as you probably suspect, that was not to be!  About 9:45 the school called and said that she had left the test, with the principal at her side, saying that she was too sick to keep taking it.  I asked the nurse about her temperature, and she was still in that no-man’s land, although a little higher at 99.7, and hadn’t gotten sick again. Even though I wasn’t sure that she was any worse than she had been when I dropped her off, I left work and traveled back to our home town to pick her up.  It was a good thing I did; as soon as we got home, she was sick again, and then when I took her temperature, it was up around 101.6!  Fortunately, our doctor can see her at 2, and right now she is asleep on the couch, in which state I hope she stays for a couple  hours, since sleep is the best thing for her. 

I would like to go to sleep, too, but as every mother knows, your child will never get sick on a day when you are fairly caught up, so I have a project I get to work on for a while here at the house.  However, as I have said before, I am very grateful to the people I work with for their understanding about family and priorities and I am grateful that I can work on a project at the house to keep caught up.

All of which is a long way of saying nothing this morning, so far, has gone according to plan, but maybe the new improved plan will have better luck!

  • A Splash of Color

Even though a sick child is something every parent can sympathize with, I hate to end my blog on such a damp note, so instead I am finishing this entry off with a few pictures of some of the flowers around Key West that Mark and I enjoyed seeing.  This is a very small sample compared with what is avaible to see down there, but I hope it brightens your day.

Picture of a house taken from the Conch Train

 

Tubebuia Tree, Key West

Bougainvillea

Tabebuia Tree Flowers, Key West

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Dog Rules

Posted on March 29, 2011 | 9 comments

Good morning everyone!

Sunrise - Borrowed from "Five Acres with a View" on WordPress

 I found this sunset picture on the WordPress Blog “Five Acres with a View.”  Isn’t it beautiful?  I would have put in one of my own, but I usually am not up early enough to take one.  I am definitely NOT a morning person!

  • Thursday

Today, for some odd reason, feels like Thursday.  How disappointed I will be when Saturday comes and it is only Thursday! 

  • Dog Rules

Researchers tell us that dogs that live together create their own hierarchy.  The ideal hierarchy for human families with many dogs (like three!) is for the dogs to understand that the humans are primary and then they fall in line after that.  I know my dogs view Mark as the Alpha pack member, but I am curious as to how they view me.  If I put enough authority behind my voice (the command tone, which I am not very good at unless speaking to 9 year old girls who have ignored my last two requests), then they will listen to me, but most of the time I believe my title with the pack is She-Who-Feeds-Us-Every-Morning.  This title at least grants me instant popularity, if not authority. 

One area where their hierarchy demonstrates itself is feeding time.  Mandy and Tyra are fed together in the kitchen/breakfast area but in two separate bowls, while Darwin is fed separately in the bedroom.  (He has an unfortunate tendency to want to wander by other dog’s food bowls and say “Hi!” while they are eating.  After he says “Hi!”, he then wants to share their food, which is not a popular option with either of the other two dogs!)   

Tyra and Darwin eath both speedily and well, but Mandy simply refuses to eat until one of two things happens:  a) a human sits on the floor and hand feeds her every piece (not happening, at least not by me – Kayla has caved a time or two), or b) Tyra has completely finished her food.  However, Mandy is an exceptionally slow eater, so the designated human (me) ends up sitting at the kitchen table for at least 20 minutes, if not more, waiting for her to finish eating.  (And here some of you have been admiring me for finding time to write this blog – it is not diligence, simply an urge to keep from being bored out of my mind while Mandy dines!) 

 I have to stay by the two of them in any event because Tyra, whose behavior is normally impeccable, has been known to saunter over to Mandy’s food bowl occassionally and start to eat from it, even though Tyra still has food of her own to eat.  Mandy simply steps aside without so much as a whimper and lets Tyra eat.  However, heaven help Darwin if he even breathes as he walks by Mandy’s food bowl on the way to the water bowl.  She is quick to lets him know that her food is not his, and there will be no sharing!

The hierarchy between Tyra and Mandy is also demonstrated at night.  Because I go to sleep before Mark, Tyra and Mandy come into our bedroom with me at bed time, while Darwin stays with Mark in the den.  Tyra insists on jumping onto (or being picked up and put on, now that she is not quite as spry as she used to be) the bed and staying at its foot on Mark’s side until he comes to bed.  (It’s like having a hot water bottle for your feet, only better, Mark says.)  However, even if Mandy jumps onto the bed, she is off of it again before lights out.  Basically, as middle junior dog, she is allowed to visit, but not allowed to stay!   

Well it’s time to go – No-No (Darwin) has just sauntered out of the bedroom with a handkerchief, and Bad Dog (Mandy) is trying to get him to play tug of war with it, so duty calls! 

 Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in dogs, Pets, When things don't go as expected

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Rules I Never Thought I’d Need

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 187 comments

When I pictured being a mom, I realized that it would be necessary to have rules of conduct for my child.  That being said, after over 6 years of being a mom, I have compiled a list of rules I never expected to need:

Do not cut the screen out of its frame in the window.  (The need for this one arose when she was 6.)

Do not put anything in your ear, including rocks, without consulting an adult first.  (Age 4.)

Do not put anything in your nose, including wooden sticks, without consulting an adult first.   (Age 4)

Which led to:  Do not put anything in any body part for any reason unless a parent says it is okay, with the exception of food or drink in your mouth.

Do not cook eggs on the stove without a parent’s presence and permission.   (About age 7:  this one is harder to justify because the one time that she did cook the eggs by herself, she did a good job and remembered to turn the stove off, which is more than I do sometimes!)

Do not try to pierce your ears with the end of a paper clip, even if it looks like an earring hole is there.  (Age 6 and 7).

The controls on the dashboard in the car,  including the radio, are MINE!  Please leave them alone.  (This has been a running battle ever since she was old enough to ride in the front without a car seat.)

Do not drag a dog into the bathtub with you.   (Age 6).

Do not dump the entire bottle of shampoo in the tub to use as bubble bath.  (Ages 6 through 8).

Do not dump the entire bottle of liquid soap from the sink in the tub to use as bubble bath.   (Ages 6 through 8).

Do not dump the entire bottle of conditioner in the tub for reasons I have yet to understand.   (Ages 6 through 8).

It’s not a good idea, either, to dump all of the bathroom dixie cups in the bathroom sink and then fill it up with water.  (Age 6, but she had help from a visiting 4 year old.)

Do not wash your hair with conditioner only.  (Age 8 through 9).

Soap is required for a bath to really be a bath.  (Age 5).

And, last but not least,

Paper is not a proper treat to give a dog.  (Age 9).  (Darwin and Mandy liked it  but at least Tyra was smart enough to say no.  I guess I should be grateful Kayla didn’t decide to hand out socks for all!)

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in When things don't go as expected, working mom

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Spring!, Roosters and Butterfly Farm

Posted on March 23, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning everyone!  We have made it to Wednesday, and the weekend is in sight. 

  • Spring!

The same thing happens to me every spring – no, I don’t mean allergies.  At some point in the spring, I find myself wandering through the garden section of  the local Wal-Mart or Home Depot, looking at all of the flowers and vegetables that are available.  Even though I know any flower I plant has a less than 40% chance of survival (it’s the whole watering thing that gets me), visions of luscious gardens on a par with those at Calloway Gardens or Bellingrath gardens dance through my head, causing me to fall into some kind of a trance.  I wake up from the trance headed toward the car with a buggy full of flowers to plant that probably will die since they are not cacti and can’t live without watering.  Sigh.  I did manage to restrain myself somewhat this year; I got two big pots of peonies for the front porch (last year I managed to keep two similar pots alive through about June), some grass seed and fertilizer to use on bare spots in the back yard, and then caladium, lily and gladioli bulbs for two specific (small) areas in the front.  I envy all of you out there who are great gardeners!

  • Roosters

On to the roosters – here are two pictures Mark took for me of a rooster in Key West.

The most unusual thing about the roosters of Key West is the fact that is it not unusual to see one – they (and the hens and chicks) wander the streets freely and are protected from any harm by a city ordinance.  I never did quite figure out why there are so many of them and why they are allowed the run of the city streets, but they don’t bother anyone  and their colors are striking.  We not only saw a lot of roosters, but a couple of hens with their chicks following them at various places.   I was trying to imagine what it would be like for our family to live in Key West, and couldn’t get much past the image of No-no (Mandy) and Bad Dog (Darwin) repeatedly escaping from our yard to chase the roosters, and being brought back by the Key West police with multiple citations for us to deal with!

  • Butterfly Farm

For those of you who were wondering where Kayla was in the middle of all of this, she was having a great time with her Grandma Dottie.  One day, for example, they went to the butterfly farm, where no less than three butterflies landed on her! 

Mom said that Kayla sat still as long as this butterfly was sitting on her foot, and that that was several minutes!  One of the attendants was kind enough to take their picture together.

You have to look really close at Kayla to see it, but there is another butterfly on the foot that is toward the front, which is why she is standing so still. 

Kayla likes a lot of insects.  About the only ones she doesn’t like, and won’t handle or come near, are stinging insects like bees and wasps, spiders and cockroaches.  I have learned how to kill spiders if called upon to do so (revolutionary though that is to those who knew me in my youth) but I still won’t do cockroaches.  Mark has to be called in for a job like that.  Fortunately, we have only had one to kill the four years plus we have been in this house, and it conveniently appeared on a night when Mark was home!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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The End at the Beginning, Vegetarian (Not!) and The Beginning after the End

Posted on March 21, 2011 | 2 comments

  • The End at The Beginning

For those of you who didn’t know, or couldn’t guess from the pictures on Friday, Mark and I had the chance to go to Key West and stay for a few days during Kayla’s Spring Break, since Kayla wanted to spend Spring Break with my mom in Florida.  Key West is a long way from Alabama, so we finally got down there last Monday.  The very first thing we did once we got there was to drive to the end of U.S. 1.  This is a picture of the sign marking the end of U.S. 1.   It gave me quite an unreasonable sense of accomplishment to have driven to the end of U.S. 1, but doing so,  and traveling by car down the entire length of the Keys from Miami to Key West, are two things I have always wanted to do, and I finally got to do both on Monday!  Hence, the title:  at the end of U.S. 1, our vacation began!

  • Vegetarian (Not!)

As with any good trip, the journey to the destination had its moments, also.  The funniest came on the first leg of the trip, when we met my Mom and Kayla ( who were driving back to Mom’s house in a separate car) for lunch at the Cracker Barrel in Tifton.  Because St. Patrick’s Day was approaching, Mom decided to have corn beef and cabbage, which Cracker Barrel usually only sells during the first part of March.  Kayla finished eating before the other three of us, and was looking at what Mom was eating, so Mom, deducing that Kayla would not be interested in the corned beef or the cabbage, asked her if she would like to try some of the potatoes or carrots that came with the corned beef and cabbage.  Kayla looked at her and said emphatically, “I am NOT a vegetarian!”  Mark and I had to laugh!

  • The Beginning After The End

We reached home Saturday, and so yesterday we spent just kind of catching up on things.  While we were gone, pine pollen season arrived in Alabama.  Pine pollen season is extraordinary; a fine yellow-green dust covers everything that is standing still!  For example, here are two pictures of one of our cars from Sunday.  It is a black car, and had no pollen on it when we arrived at the house on Saturday.  After only one night of sitting outside, this is what it looked like:

Pollen Close-up

 

The plus side of pine pollen season is that it also means that the roses in front of our house have started blooming again.  For someone like me, who has a brown, not a green, thumb, (It’s the watering part that I fail at – as well as the weeding once the temperatures around here reach the mid to upper 90’s and stay there until at least September) the roses around the front of our house are a dream come true.  They are called Knock-out Roses:  they need no work (I know this because I have done nothing with them the entire time we have been in the house, except to have the  man who works on our yard for us to trim the bushes in the fall) and they bloom profusely all but about two months out of the year!

It was nice to have the roses greet us when we got home!

I have a lot more to say about Key West, and will spend several days saying it, but for now, it is time to get ready for work.  

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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

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Thunderstorm Frenzy and Vacation Mystery

Posted on March 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

  • Thunderstorm Frenzy

Kayla has always been terrified of thunderstorms.  About a year ago, I was reminded of how much. 

After I picked Kayla up from after-school care, she and I needed to stop at the grocery store.  As we went in, a cloud was coming up from the west, but I thought we could get in and out of the store before the storm reached us.  Unfortunately, I was wrong. 

Right after we had gone through the check-out line, the leading edge of the storm hit, complete with fierce wind and driving rain.  Kayla wanted to stay at the store until the storm blew over, and I flat out refused.  She clung to my hand in the store and said, “But Mama, I am so light and I don’t want to blow away!”  I told her to hold my hand, as I was pretty sure I wouldn’t blow away.  Clinging to my hand like it was a lifeline and she was lost at sea, we hurried across the parking lot, where I safely deposited her in the car, after which I put the groceries in the back, got in the driver’s seat, and headed us back home.

Unfortunately, we have several stop lights to go through before we reach the house, and one of them turned red.  I stopped.  Kayla started pleading from the front seat, “Mama, please keep going.  I don’t care if you go to jail, let’s just go through the light.”  (Item:  There were nine cars ahead of me!).  I said wryly, “Thanks.” and she replied, “I don’t care if we both go to jail, just keep on going!” 

Luckily for me, the light changed then so we could keep going forward.  I was trying to help her, so I told her to try closing her eyes and instead of listening to the thunder, listen to the rain hitting the roof.  She tried that for a minute, then opened her eyes back up again with a “What now?” look.  I said to her, “Now, pretend that the sound you are hearing is either fairies or pixies dancing on the roof.”  At that, she opened her eyes wide, looked at me, and, this child who had been losing her mind in the thunderstorm, stated matter of factly, “Mom, you’re embarrasing yourself.”  At least she stopped thinking about the storm for a minute!

  • Vacation Mystery

Mark and I recently had the opportunity to spend some time on vacation at an absolutely wonderful place!  I am waiting for some pictures we took with an old-fashioned disposable camera to get developed before I talk about it, but I will definitely have a lot to share next week.  See if you can guess where the place was by the following pictures (no fair guessing if you already know where we went!):

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

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“Daddy, Daddy”, Yawns and Waffles

Posted on March 17, 2011 | 1 comment

Kayla, when she was three

It is amazing the types of memories that I can recall now because I managed to save the information from e-mails and other medium on the computer.  Here are a few I found while looking through my files the other day.

  • Daddy, Daddy

All of us who have children have had the experience of constantly being interrupted by our children while we are trying to talk.  Here is a conversation that happened one day when Kayla was 6.

Mark and I and Kayla were riding somewhere in the car, and Mark and I were talking.  The conversation went like this:  

Kayla:  Daddy!  Daddy!  

Daddy:  Hush Kayla, Mom and I are talking right now.  

Mom and Dad continue to talk.

Kayla:  Daddy!  Daddy!

Mom:    Hush, Sweetheart, we’re still talking.

Mom and Dad continue to try to talk.

(Repeat above sequence five times, then continue).

Kayla:  Daddy!  Daddy!

Daddy: What, Kayla?

Kayla:  I want to talk to Mama….

On a similar vein, Mark, Kayla and I were in a store last summer, and she had just said, “Mom, Mom” one too many times, so I spent the rest of the time in that store following her around saying, “Kayla, Kayla!”  Mark didn’t hear me, but the store clerk did.  She must have been a mother also, because she was doubled up with laughter by the time we left the store!

  •  Yawns

One morning, on the way to work, both Kayla and I were yawning frequently, so after I made a particularly big yawn, I said, “That was a big yawn; That was a humongous yawn; That was one of the biggest yawns I’ve ever seen.”  She looked at me (I could see her in the rearview mirror) and said, “Are you speaking English?” 

  • Waffles

One day, when Kayla was 3, we made waffles together Saturday morning for breakfast.  I mixed most of it, but a few things I measured out and let her pour in the bowl.  She particularly liked the red baking powder can and kept trying to send extra splashes of baking powder in the mix.  Fortunately, I intercepted, and so our waffles were normal size and not the size of skyscrapers in Manhattan!  They were quite tasty, also. 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? (The 5 year old version) and Wanting a Friend in the Tub

Posted on March 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

Continuing my trips this week down memory lane, I came across the following incidents memorialized in e-mails.  These incidents were really funny and just the kind of adventure that pops up for a working mom when she least expects it!

Kayla, age 5

  • Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

One day, driving home from work and school when Kayla was 5 (she rode with me for about an hour each way that year to go to a pre-school near where I worked), she and I had the following conversation:

Kayla:   Why did the chicken cross the road?

 Mom ( promptly):            To get to the other side.

Kayla:  No, to go play in the mud.  

Kayla:   Why did the pig cross the road?

Mom:    To go play in the mud?

Kayla:   No, because his mother was calling him.

Kayla:   Why did the turkey cross the road?

Mom:    I don’t know.

Kayla:   Yes, you do.

Mom:    To get to the other side?

Kayla (proud to have gotten another one over on Mom): No, to go play with his friends.

Kayla:   Why did the horse cross the road?

Mom (firmly):     I don’t know.  

Kayla:   To go eat. 

Mom:    That’s nice.

Kayla:   Why did the chicken cross the road?

Mom:    To go play in the mud.

Kayla:   No, to go get dressed……

And so it went! 

  • A Friend in the Bathtub

Woof, around age 13

About a month before that,  due to a mishap in the kitchen one evening, I had to mop the floor, so I popped Kayla into the bathtub to take her bath while I did it.  Kayla was just at the age where she could take a bath without me being in the bathroom with her, but I would leave the door open to be sure I could hear noise from the bathroom. 

I heard her calling Woof (our oldest dog then; our only other dog at that time was Tyra) over and over, but didn’t think anything about it until after a while Kayla called for me to come in – “Mom, you have to see this!”  (Never a good sign!).  Upon entering the bathroom, I discovered a tub containing one (very unhappy) 13 year old dog and one (ecstatic) five year old daughter, who explained to me that she wanted Woof in the tub with her because she “wanted a friend with her while she took her bath.”  I removed the dog from the tub, dried the dog, removed the child from the tub but did not dry her, cleaned the tub, re-ran the water, popped the child back in the tub (with strict instructions that the dog was NOT to be pulled back in again), cleaned up the copious amounts of water on the floor from the dog and child removal (hey, at least I had the mop out already, right:?), and went back into the den (making sure both dogs were with me – this wasn’t a problem, as Woof was walking very near to me, close to a nervous breakdown) and laughed silently until Mark got home and I could tell him.

Have a great day everyone!

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Posted in dogs, Out of the mouths of babes...., Pets, When things don't go as expected, working mom

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