Everyone has a story. I happen to have a million and can't shut up about it.
I popped into mom’s house last night. She asked me how my day went. I told her it was good. Then I did a mental scan of how my day went and I laughed out loud.
“Do you really want to know how my day went?” I asked. She said she did. So I told her the honest truth.
Trent has decided he’s a little interested in going potty. In fact, he wanted to spend most of the afternoon just sitting on it. Incidentally, he never USED it. I’m not kidding when I say he spent most of the afternoon on it. I couldn’t just sit there while he sat there. I had to get dinner going and dishes done… so I left him.
You’re all shaking your head right now, aren’t you? You’re thinking, ‘IDIOT!’
And you’re all right. All of you. He decided to wash his own hands, and I didn’t hear the water running full force because I was doing dishes. When I checked on him, water was overflowing out of the sink and onto the floor. I immediately set to cleaning it up, and situations like this usually upset me. But yesterday, it didn’t really faze me. I was sort of proud of how I handled the situation. It wouldn’t have been such a terrible situation if I hadn’t have just washed every towel in the house. They were all wet! I went on a real hunt for towels and found just enough to clean it up. The floor needed to be mopped anyway, right?
I stripped my son down to his nothings.
His clothes were drenched anyway. I didn’t bother putting a diaper on him because I knew he’d want to sit on the potty again. I put the wet towels in the dryer and loaded the washer with a comforter. I thought there’d be enough room for a pillow too. Trouble was: it was a body pillow. A THIN body pillow, but a body pillow nonetheless.
Then I mopped the kitchen. And why not? It needed done, and my knees were already wet from mopping the kids’ bathroom.
My husband came home just in time to see our linoleum gleam. Minutes after he came home, I heard a strange sort of sound coming from the washer. I went to check on it to find…
A flood in the laundry room.
Our laundry room has a door in it -the back door. It’s a splendid set-up, really. I threw the back door open and started mopping up whatever water I could however I could. My landlord (my dad) happened to be a few feet away working on his tractor.
He asked me what my kids were up to.
I confessed to him I didn’t know. I was too busy mopping up my little flood to know. Apparently my kids saw their grandpa from the kitchen window. As I mopped, I saw my daughter sprint by in her tutu and boots. She had escaped through the front door. I thought about telling her to come back and ASK before leaving, but I was so concerned with shoveling water that I was pretty much incapable of noticing anything else. I shut the back door and started moving things out of the laundry room.
Some 5 gallon buckets full of flour.
Our 72 hour kits.
Our three-part laundry basket.
The broom.
The ironing board.
The carpet cleaner.
I threw open the back door again and caught site of something. My son.
I quickly went back to mopping up water and then it registered. MY SON! My naked son! Except he wasn’t quite naked. I looked closer. My dad was sitting on his tractor. My son was sitting next to him wearing a jacket. Then my son leaned forward and…
BARE BUTT CRACK!
I couldn’t help laughing. And laughing and laughing and laughing. When I went to fetch him and bring him back home, I noticed he was wearing his boots. His boots and a jacket. And that’s all.
My husband joined me in the fight to clean up the laundry room, we ate dinner, and last night I slept for 10 hours on the living room couch. I didn’t even make it to bed.
Yesterday might have been hair-pulling awful if it hadn’t been so darn funny.
Take this for instance: after I got the kids back inside my house from Their Great Escape (out the front door), I looked out of my window to see Dad tilling up his garden. Look behind him. His cows. They followed him! Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?
They sure know who their sugar daddy is.
After I took that picture, I walked back inside. I glanced at my flower bed. My barren flower bed. But I saw something pushing up through the dirt. You know what it is?
It’s a strawberry plant!! I planted strawberries in my flower bed last year and they failed miserably MOSTLY because I treated them terribly and a little because the flower bed wasn’t the best place to plant them. The best place would probably be somewhere in Georgia.
I feel so bad for that plant. I abused it! And STILL it wants me back! My husband took a class in college that described abusive relationships. He said that after someone abuses their spouse (or child), they go through a honeymoon stage. The abusive spouse (or parent) is exceptionally caring and sweet, but it eventually wears off giving way to the next stage which is less-honeymoonish. Eventually the cycle repeats itself. The spouse abuses, apologizes, and the couple enters the Honeymoon faze again.
I feel like I’m in the Honeymoon faze with my plant. I’m watering it and loving it and speaking kind words. But my black thumb will inevitably rear it’s ugly head and the plant will suffer. I’ve promised the plant I’ll change, but hey. I can’t change who I am.
And soon enough when visitors come to my door and ask me why my plant looks like it does -torn and terrible -I’ll tell them my plant is clumsy and that she probably fell down the stairs.
At that point, I would expect my visitors get suspicious and they’d never allow me to babysit their plants. EVER.
Did you know that a few weeks ago I told my husband I wanted to deep-clean the laundry room? Be careful what you wish for. I’m off to scrub. After I’m done scrubbing, I’m going to treat my strawberry plant to a spa day.
In the fall of 2009, my sister packed up and flew the nest. I told her then that “one of these weekends, I’m just going to pack up and come see you.”
Last month, I looked at my calendar and went, “Seriously?! It’s been THAT long?!” She’s graduating from college in May. I talked it over with my husbsters and then set aside the second weekend in April as THE weekend. Our Weekend of Fun. Then we proceeded not to make any more plans. We didn’t do anything really “fun.” I mean, we didn’t head out to any exciting parks or shopping centers (unless you count downtown Safford as exciting which I do. But not everyone does). BUT we ate! And we finished Ju’s puzzle! And then we ate!
As we were packing up, my husband mentioned that he wanted to take my lap top (“Lappy”) with him (he spent the weekend at his parent’s house). I felt like Andy at the end of Toy Story 3. My husband reached for Lappy. I yanked it away.
No! Mine!
“Do you really need it?” He asked.
“I usually blog in the morning…” I said.
“But, your SISTER.” He said.
And he had a darn good point. So I handed Lappy to him and finished packing. I spent an entire weekend Lappy free. My sister met us in a top-secret meeting point which happened to be a gas station a few hours from home. I went to the bathroom and saw a girl from our hometown who was a few years younger than I was.
“Hey!” I said as we washed our hands together in the bathroom, “Who needs facebook when we’ve got public bathrooms?”
That was the first of many tiny spontaneous reunions over the weekend.
I squeezed my family, said goodbye, squeezed them again, and then hopped into my sister’s car. I then proceeded to talk the entire drive to her house.
My best friend’s husband once suggested I make voice recordings of myself talking and then put the recordings into dolls for people to buy and take on road trips. I’m thinking about it. Seriously thinking about it. The only problem is that my voice has been constantly sore since I had my daughter. I’ve been to the doctor a few times and they can’t find any problems, but -as I told my sister on the drive over -I’m mildly suspicious that I have cancerous growths choking out my vocal cords (chords?) and that someday I’ll be rendered completely SILENT and mothers will make an example out of me.
“See that girl?” They’ll point, “She talked so much it almost killed her. The doctors saved her life, but she’ll never talk again. Let that be a lesson to you.”
ANYWAY.
After we got into town, we dropped my luggage and then went grocery shopping. We got everything to make won tons. We also got toasted coconut marshmallows because, hello? Amazing.
After a dinner in the which we stuffed ourselves beyond stuffing, we went for a walk. At 10 pm. Don’t worry mom, I took my pepper spray.
The walk afforded us enough room in our bellies for Horchatas.
The Horchatas at this place are SO delicious. They spoil you. You fall in love with Horchatas and then two years later, you buy Horchatas from someplace else because you think you like them AND your heart falls down into your chest. Your stomach heaves. Not to be dramatic, but it’s horrific. Devastating. Bleak. You end up pushing the glass of Horchata away, saying “I will never love again” in the voice of Princess Buttercup.
After Horchatas (around midnight) we finally went to bed in the living room. All of us. We drifted off watching “Beauty and the Beast” and woke up in the morning to the menu playing background music on the screen. I woke up before any of the girls, and I wanted to take a picture rearry rearry bad of three “little” girls all bundled up in blankets sleeping away.
Once my seester woke up, we got dressed and walked to the fine arts area where the grass is lush and green. We had a morning devotional and both learned a little something about Passover.
Then we went back to the store and bought everything to make loaded scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs the way they SHOULD be made. Scrambled eggs really ought only to be made this one way.
Mira:
Cut up pieces of bacon, fry them until crisp, drain (most of) the grease, add chopped up green onions and bell peppers (we used an orange bell peppers because the green ones at the store looked like total ca-ca), saute until the bell peppers are soft. Add beaten eggs (I used a dozen because there were five of us eating breakfast). Once the eggs have cooked almost through but not quite, add a cup of grated cheese and a bunch of pineapple (tidbits or crushed, either one). Then let the eggs finish cooking.
And, viola!
Heaven! And I might say that I hate scrambled eggs, but I love loaded scrambled eggs. Thanks be to my mother for making them this way. The first time I made them for my husband, he thought I was crazy. After partaking, he commanded me never to make ordinary scrambled eggs again. I suggested he make a note somewhere that I was right and smart.
After our 10 am breakfast, we managed to shower and stuff. Then we took ourselves to my good friend Stephanie’s house. This was the one reunion I had planned, mind you. I had been looking forward for weeks to seeing Stephanie and her new (now four month old) baby. Did you know the house behind her is for sale? Bloody tempting…
We stayed long enough to watch Stephanie’s niece fall asleep with her head in a popcorn bowl, and then we drove off. I promised Stephanie that we would be planning a trip to see her and it WOULD be barrels of fun. My mommy taught me that inviting yourself over is naughty, but in Stephanie’s case I have to make an exception. Even if she doesn’t want me, I’m comin’ over! I love that girl.
What we did next is blasted amazing.
Okay, so we didn’t quite finish the puzzle, but we did make a ton of progress on it. The above picture wasn’t taken until later that night when we actually DID finish the puzzle. I like her face though. It’s almost like she’s game show co-host, presenting the shiny new car that MIGHT be yours if you win it.
I also managed to make it to the bank. This isn’t as boring as you think it is. When I met my husband he worked at the bank, and the reason I chose to bank at Bank of America was this: when I returned to college for Spring Semester, my roommates told me that a new guy had moved into town and that he worked at Bank of America AND that he was delicious to look upon.
“Hey,” I thought, “I need to open an account.” So I went. To Bank of America. As I walked through the doors, I spotted an extremely good-looking bank teller and I managed to peek constantly at him while I sat at the front desk and opened my account.
I snapped a picture of his window and texted it to him (Seeing as how he’s now my on true love. Oh, and husband.)
“Do you miss it?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he replied. I used to take all the time in the world making deposits at that window. I’d ask for help every step of the way, just to prolong the process.
“Where do I put my name?” I’d ask.
“Right here,” my future husband would say, and reach over the counter to hold my hand through it all.
We were ridiculous. We are ridiculous. And we will forever be so.
Puzzle-doing can really make a girl hungry, so we picked up Julianne the Second (Julianne has a best friend named Julianne and they’re precious) and went downtown. We stopped off at a few shops. This is where it got funzy-funzy. We loaded our heads with loud accessories and then I said, “Make a pucker face. You know, the classic Facebook Profile Pucker Face.” So they did. And I laughed at them.
They thought I was going to do it too. Puh-lease. Like I would. I mean, look how silly they look! Not that I’ve ever really minded looking silly.
After window shopping, we grabbed some nachoes and were lucky enough to visit with Christie Dobbs. She, of course, had forgotten all about me but still manages to send me email forwards faithfully. Dear girl.
After dinner, we raced home and slipped into our Sund’y best. We went to the Gila Valley Temple to do baptisms. My sister, it must be mentioned is a PRO at them. I’m not. At all. The last time I did baptisms was in October in Snowflake (aka Home Temple) and it was with my husband. This time I was baptized by someone who wasn’t my husband and I was awkward and lost and confused and couldn’t figure out what went where and when and where the right rooms were and how I was supposed to walk and talk and speak… in general, I was humbled right down to my white socks.
Which is okay.
And good for me.
But not for the kid who baptized me because I stepped on his foot accidentally. Grace isn’t exactly my forte. Because I don’t want to forget: Julianne was baptized for an Alice Cooper (and I sniggered) and one of the temple workers was named Dave Matthews. Red letter!
After baptisms, we went back to the store for more food on account of our wanting dips. Namely: spinach and vanilla bean cream cheese. We came home and THEN finished the puzzle. For realsies.
All of Saturday, we were freezing. Nature played a little joke on all of Arizona. The week before was so hot that we all turned out heaters off and cranked our ACs. Then came the storm, and Mother Nature had a laugh. Because we had eaten so much since I’d been there, we weren’t hungry. We sort of stared at our dips and willed our stomachs to want them, but they didn’t quite. But we decided we definitely could manage some hot chocolate from Denny’s.
We checked the clock and realized we would have to leave RIGHT THEN to make sure we got our food and service before Sunday officially started.
The hot chocolate was a gross disappointment. And when I say “gross” I mean it quite literally.
That’s Deanna and Stephanie. Stephanie started dumping packets of this and that into her cup. The other girls followed her lead. I didn’t though. Moms know better than to take in sugar before beddy-by time.
After hot chocolate, we went home and ate dips and fruits and Hawaiian sweet rolls to our heart’s content. And then we slept. All of us. In the living room.
Sunday morning, I followed my sister around. She took care of her Sunday biddness (she’s the Relief Society President and had a lot to attend to) and I held on to her lush red hair and followed her wherever she went, wagging my tail behind me.
While she was in Ward Counsel, I ran into Andra Jensen! There was much joy and rejoicing as we caught up and laughed and laughed and laughed. Spontaneous reunions! Huzzah!
My husband and children came in the middle of sacrament meeting to fetch me. Have you ever had two little kids in a single adult sacrament meeting? It’s snort worthy. Single adults know how to be pin-dropping silent. Little kids do NOT. And that’s okay. If you’re not the mother of the little children. Then you’re a little nervous about the whole thing.
Julianne sent us on our way completely filled to the brim with good food and good memories.
I love that girl. Love, love, love. LOVE.
More than my Lappy.
Last night after the kids went to bed, my husband lit a pretty oil lamp in the living room and we sat up late talking. When we talk we always gets on the subject of “Remember when…”
I ended up opening up my old blog, and we read and read and read. We were laughing so hard we were in stitches. My daughter is a RIOT! I mean, it wasn’t funny at the time that she did everything she did, but I am SO glad I wrote it all down.
I can’t believe that life is going on. It’s sort of sad. Lacy wears 4T now. When we buy her clothes, we shop in the LITTLE GIRL section instead of the baby section. It’s not right! It’s not right!!!
That was her four years ago. Don’t you love that face? She was falling over. I make that same face when I fall over.
Needless to say, we both got very baby hungry last night.
I guess he didn’t like playing horsie for Barbie.
Oh my heart strings. They may not survive this post.
Do you think I can place an order for one of these? Can I just send up a prayer to the Lord.
“I’d like a baby. The usual, please…”
“… and can you make sure that this one STAYS small?”
I wrote this late last night and then fell asleep before hitting “Publish.”
I’m feeling a little like Bing (Crosby of course) (It just NOW hit me that my neighbors might be direct descendants of the Great Bing -Crosby, not Chandler – but given that they’re all athletes and Bing was… Bing… I’m betting the relation is distant).
Growing up, I was in the habit of saying my personal prayers before bed. Once I hit 22 and I had one into-everything kid and was pregnant with another, I sort of got in the habit of dropping nearly dead the minute my daughter shut her eyes. I got out of the habit of personal nighttime prayers. Thanks to the Personal Progress Program, I got BACK in that habit! Hooray!
Something I love most about nighttime is the way I start mentally listing things I’m grateful for so I won’t forget them in my prayers. Without even realizing it, I’m improving my bedtime mood (which is usually pret-tee sour). Anyway, as I wandered through the house and put away this and shoved aside that, I realized that tonight’s Mental Grateful List is note worthy. I think any and all gratitude lists are note worthy, but hear me out about today. I liked my list so much I played with the idea of posting it on facebook. It was rather short.
“Tonight,” the post would say, “I’m grateful that dinner’s plates were disposable, the markers on the couch were washable, and the kids are asleep.”
Then I remembered that I was also grateful for my nice, warm bed.
THEN I heard the rain thrashing against all of my windows, and I thought of my flannel pajamas waiting for me in my bedroom. Then I thought about the cookies and milk I could have before drifting off.
Soon, my mind was a-whirl with things I’m just really grateful for today. I want to share them all with you because I think you’ll appreciate them. Ready?
#1) Paper plates.
#2) Washable markers.
#3) Sleeping children.
#4) BEDS.
#5) Homemade flannel PJ’s.
#6) Rain. Where I come from, rain is a good thing.
#7) Homemade cookies and milk before bed.
#8)My husband.
#9) And his job.
#10) The fact that my husband was able to come home a little early today.
#11) The fact that on account of his coming home early today, he was able to investigate the SMELL that’s been coming from beneath the loveseat.
#12) The fact that my husband will do whatever he can to keep me from seeing a dead mouse.
#13) The fact that my husband got RID of the dead mouse.
#14) The fact that the smell is gone!
#15) The fact that my husband played slave today because Wednesdays are my busy days.
#16) The fact that I only ate one cookie with my milk, a true accomplishment for me.
#17) A tiny, tucked away space on the Internets where I can write, write, write. Write, write. Write.
And so I say, as my dear friend Bing Crosby would sing: If you’re worried and you can’t sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep, and you’ll drift off to sleep counting your blessings.
Hopefully your list of blessings has nothing to do with dead mice.
Amen.
I live in a very small town, which you know. What you may not know is that small towns are rife with traditions. We always celebrate Founder’s Day. Founder’s Day always starts with the firing of the anvil. There’s always a pancake breakfast. On Christmas Eve night, Main Street is always lined with luminaries and it’s so beautiful I tear up every time I drive by them. There’s hay rides and parties and casseroles and neighbors and a real sense of community.
At the heart of the community is the school. Our little town operates around the school schedule: the Friday night football games, the awards assemblies, Homecoming Week, and the concerts. Once a year, the high school auditorium will fill with town folk for one reason: The Play.
The Play is a sound tradition in our school and town. It doesn’t matter if The Play is a play that’s been done before. The actors are different! It doesn’t matter if lines are forgotten, dance steps are missed, or actors walk into the wall and hit their head square on a fake telephone as they try to exit the stage (Dayna). All that matters is our kids get the chance to shine, and they deserve it. I took part in four plays, one every year of my high school career.
Bye, Bye Birdie (I was on the sound crew)
Crazy For You (I was Patsy and for the life of me can’t find the pictures from that play)
Lil’ Abner (I was Mammie, my very favorite roll)
That’s me with our foreign exchange student, Mitch.
Meet Me in St. Louis (I was Rose)
That’s me on the left with Erin.
And here’s some of the cast:
I have so many great memories of those plays. The late rehearsals, the smell of the dressing rooms, the make-up, the piano, the adrenaline rush that comes when you hear your cue.
Well happy days are here again:
It’s time for The Play!
This year they’re performing Guys n’ Dolls under the direction of Kyle Gardner.
Read:
The Joseph City High School Music Department presents the timeless musical comedy “Guys and Dolls” in a special three-performance run, April 7-9, 7:00 p.m. Performances are at the B.G. Bennett Auditorium, located at 4629 East 2nd North Joseph City, AZ on the High School Campus. The show is directed by Kyle Gardner. General Admission tickets are $5 and sold at the door so get there early.
Set in Depression-era Times Square, Guys and Dolls is about a couple of big city gamblers and the women who love them. It tells the overlapping stories of high-roller Sky Masterson (Dallin Baldwin), who falls in love with mission worker Sarah Brown (Mackenzie Fields), and lovable rapscallion Nathan Detroit (Austin Gardner), engaged for 14 years to Miss Adelaide (Malisa Farnes), a headliner at the Hot Box Club. Nathan runs a famous floating crap game, and an ongoing plot line involves his quest for a safe place for the game as Adelaide continues her quest to convince him to marry her. Meanwhile, Sarah, mistakenly believing that Sky set up an illegal game at the mission, tries to fight her affection for the charismatic crapshooter.
Considered one of the finest musical comedies ever written, Guys and Dolls is packed with one unforgettable song after another—not to mention loads of romance and charm to spare. With beloved tunes such as “A Bushel and a Peck,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” “Luck Be a Lady,” and “The Oldest Established,” there is plenty of toe-tapping to be had. If you are the betting type, you should know that Guys and Dolls is the odds-on favorite to ride to the winners’ circle of your greatest Broadway loves. These gents and dames have an irresistible mix of naughty, nice and hilarious.
I cleaned the fridge out.
I know you don’t want to hear about it, but I’m afraid I have the floor. It all started when I spent the entirety of Saturday failing miserably at my job. We all have those days, don’t we? Sometimes the lawyer loses a case. Sometimes the janitor slips on his own mop. Sometimes the waitress drops the plate. Sometimes the editor misses a comma.
Sometimes the mother can’t gather the courage to… do anything, really.
And so I sat down and was ever-so-steadily and gradually buried alive by my own children and in my own house. Sunday I wallowed in it because I’d really rather not break with my grand tradition of resting on Sunday. Also, you might very well replace the words “with my grand traditions of” with “that one commandment about.”
I woke up this morning with renewed resolve, and if you were to come into my house this very minute, you would point your finger at me and accuse me outright of lying. Because my house looks terrible, that’s why. BUT I did work. I just focused on those hideous hidden areas we all have that no one else knows about.
Like the fridge.
In my defense, the fridge is generally cleaned somewhat regularly. I just haven’t happened to give it a proper scrub down lately. Maybe ever. I can’t be sure. I can’t be bothered.
I filled the kids’ tub up with warm soapy water and dunked the crispers in it. Then I went back to the fridge, opened the door and gasped.
There was a substance: unknown cascading down the inside of the fridge. It had been completely hidden by the crispers. Now, now… before you go barfing your way away from the computer…
I must tell you what this substance: unknown did for me. It inspired me in two different ways.
#1) It totally and completely grossed me out to the point that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO RID MY WORLD OF IT and I proceeded to make an afternoon of it, scrubbing until my arm and hand were literally cramping from exertion.
#2) I wrote something of a mental sonnet about it. Or maybe it was more like a tribute. It really deserved one, don’t you think? I’ll tell you why.
I’ll also tell you that cleaning my fridge is entirely disconcerting. Aside from the guilt that comes from throwing away wasted food, there’s the matter of Tupperware that comes flying at you when you least expect it. Just when you think you’ve bleached the last of them, you pull the bottom left crisper out only to be surprised by Tupperware tucked far in the back filled with only MOLD knows what. I’m not even going to talk about what happened when pulled the bottom right crisper out suffice to say I jumped all the way from my fridge to my stove.
If I’d have had the strength of the sledge, I wouldn’t have done that.
Friends, if you do nothing today (and by “today” I mean “tomorrow” which actually starts in 42 minutes) I’ll understand. But if you DO do something, I might suggest you make that something “clean the fridge.” You won’t come out smelling good, but you’ll feel like a million.
(one last note: I once came in third in a spelling bee. I might have come in first if I would have been able to spell “refrigerator.” They let me go to the county spelling bee, but I lost there as well because I couldn’t spell “tempestuous.” T-E-M-P-E-S-T-U-O-U-S and I’ll never forget it.)
A few days ago, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. I took my kids with me. That is to say: I took my son, Trenton, and my daughter, Rapunzel.
Rapunzel is very particular about being called Rapunzel. Under no circumstances is she to be called Lacy or honey or sweetie or little miss or Ace (a nickname that has somehow weaseled it’s way into our vocabulary). Before going to the store, she put on a dress-up dress, her church shoes, and asked for some hair flowers. I quickly put five temporary hair flowers together, clipped them in her hair, and off we went. As I pushed the grocery cart around, she made her way under my arms. She put her feet on the cart and held onto the cart’s handle for balance. Once she had it, she FLUNG one arm out as I pushed the cart around. It looked something like this, except her arm was flung farther out and her head was tilted and one leg kicked back for effect.
“Are you being silly?” I asked.
“NO!” She said, defensively, “BE-YOO-TI-FULL.”
She has no enunciate these things, you know. Her mother is so slow.
I laughed at that, and then I had to wonder what Heavenly Father thinks of us sometimes.
(image taken from mykethemakeupguy.blogspot.com)
Are you being silly?
No! Beautiful!
Are you being silly?
No! Beautiful!
Beautiful!
(image taken from fearlesscreativity.blogspot.com)
Beautiful!
(image taken from blogs.smarter.com)
Beautiful!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to do my daily tweeze.
Dandelions have always grown in abundance here.
When I was a little girl spending countless hours running amok outside, I used to gather them up for my mom. I’d parade in the house with a grubby little “bouquet” and hand it over to her. I knew that they weren’t the prettiest flowers in the world, but as I watched her fill the bottom of her tiny toothpick holder (shaped like a flower vase) and place the weeds inside, I felt that they were acceptable to her. She would leave them in the windowsill above the sink, and I would stare at them -WILLING them to somehow sprout into a lush wildflower bouquet worthy of someone as wonderful as my mother. They never did though. They only withered up within a few hours, making the area in which they resided lose considerable property value.
Lately, my Lacy has taken to bringing me beautiful flowers. She takes her plastic purple tea cups in the bathroom, fills them with water, and then packs all manner of “shrubbery” into them for me. I remember what it was like to give little gifts to my mother -how proud I was of them -how the excitement mounted in my chest as I gathered dandelions and DREAMED of her reaction as I presented them to her. I presently have two tea cups in my house: one filled with dead dandelions and one filled with cast-off branches from our bushes. BUT I also have something I would have given my piggy bank savings for as a kid:
(please note the dead branch in the middle. Please.)
An absolutely beautiful floral arrangement to give to my mother!
Lacy, as you may or may not know, is SOCIAL. When we first moved in to our house over a year ago, we didn’t know our neighbors all that well. She soon bridged that gap. As soon as she learned that our neighbor’s name was Gloria… Lacy immediately set to calling her Aunt Gloria. As Lacy jumped on her trampoline, she’d strike up conversation with Aunt Gloria via shouting over the fence.
“AUNT GLORIA! HOW OLD ARE YOU?!”
And I’d rush to hush her.
Aunt Gloria has always been much more than kind to my children, who have -on more than one occasion -trespassed on her lovely garden. She’s let Lacy gather shells in her dirt. She’s let Trent get acquainted with her people-shy cat.
And most recently, she’s sent Lacy home with the most beautiful flowers in the world.
Everyone in the world should have an Aunt Gloria.
And here’s something completely off the subject: how do I get my bed back?
When I’m in bed and the kids crawl in, I’m more apt to roll over and sleep in an unnatural position (so as to accommodate them) than to force myself out of bed to put them back in it. Three nights ago, I saw my son come into my room in the middle of the night.
“Go back to bed,” I said. He didn’t reply. He just crawled into my bed, made his way under my arm, patted it, and said, “I lubba you.”
And four hours later, we woke up thus. How could I chase him away after THAT?!
Anyway, I don’t know what to do. My husband suggested solving the problem by purchasing a king size mattress.
And here’s something rather MORE off the subject:
Last night, I took Lacy to the bathroom in Target. She was absolutely taken by the toilet paper.
“Look! It’s a mama and a baby! Oh, they are so cute!”
She also named them. I can’t remember the baby’s name, but I distinctly remember the mother toilet paper was named Wacy.
This is me and the girl who stayed up past midnight to watch “Tangled” last night. Every scene was her “favorite part.” Movies have seemed so much richer since she came along.
Movies and springtime and dandelions and my bed and life in general… all richer.
I laughed hard exactly five times yesterday.
#1) While I was working in the kitchen in the morning making cookies, my son started singing. Here’s a little background: Santa Clause brought my son a neon green fish that looked like Lacy’s neon pink fish. Lacy named her fish a few different things before settling on Glinda the Good Fish. Because Trent isn’t old enough to think of his own pet names, Lacy took it upon herself to name the green fish Jesus. We tried in vain to dissuade her. Really, we tried everything. There’s something radically irreverent about a fish named Jesus. I expected lightening to strike the tank at anytime, but it never did. Anyway, we don’t have to worry about it anymore. The green fish died. We found it dead in the tank minutes before leaving town to visit Grammy. We broke the news to the kids on the drive over, and when Lacy arrived at Grammy’s house, she spread the word… “Jesus died!” I told this to my brother, and he suggested we save the fish until Easter to see if it came to. Sadly, the fish has been flushed. The bright side to this story is that I thought I didn’t have to worry about lightening striking anything. I counted my eggs before they were hatched, it would seem. And I couldn’t help but laugh as I listened to my son sing one of the only songs he knows by heart:
“He’s makin’ a list and checkin’ it Christ.”
I corrected him and he now sings it correctly. Though it took one more, “He’s makin’ a list and checkin’ it Chr–TWICE.” But he did get it. And that’s all that matters.
#2) Lacy has some markers. I bought them on clearance at Wal-Mart and they hardly ever come out to play. They are special occasion markers. As I was getting ready for mutual and my husband on sitting on our bed, our little Lacy Lou came plowing into our bedroom, her arm covered in blue marker.
“TRENT DID THIS!” She cried, holding out the offending blue marker, “So I just said ‘DEMMIT’ to him!”
I popped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, “What did you just say?” I asked.
“I say Trent did THIS!” She held out her arm, “And I was so mad so I just said ‘demmit’ to him.”
Dad took care of that situation. Sometimes the best solution to a problem is the cause.
#3) Curiosity got the better of this cat, who -for some reason I’ll never know -wondered what it would be like to be a pair of dirty jeans.
I’ve come to believe it’s my lot in life to hear thuds followed by screams. Such was the case yesterday. Any good mother would have just pulled the kid out. But I asked her not to move while I got the camera. These are the things we never want to forget.
(no children were harmed while these pictures were taken. Apart from being shaken up, she was absolutely fine.)
#4) One of my Beehives told me about the book she’s reading. She gave me an introduction into what the book is like, and it went something like this: “It’s like an old book. Not like ‘old’ old, but like set back in time. Like…” she paused here to gather her thoughts… “okay, like you know when they used to kill people that they thought were witches? Like that. The book happened around that time but it’s fake. The story isn’t real… like the Titanic.”
Instead of correcting her, I just nodded and proceeded to make notes on the paper in front of me of what she was saying so I’d be sure not to forget it.
#5) Trent busted out what he likes to call his Battle Cat last night. Prepare to be scared.
Heaven help the David who goes against THAT Goliath.
