This week's Time magazine arrived on Saturday, and it's chock full of Top 10 Lists. A pithy way to sum up 2008, wouldn't you say? So, entering into the spirit of things, I give you ...
Top Ten Things We Did This Weekend (It's RIVETING! Really!)
In no particular order ...
1. Slept over at my in-laws' house out in Elgin. This was so we could execute the next item in a timely fashion (e.g. at 9:00 a.m., when our family is rarely seen in public).
2. Helped my sis and her hubby move all their stuff out of my in-laws' storage trailer and into the back of their truck and the attached trailer. They bought a house on Friday (woohoo!) and spent the weekend moving. We tried to lend a hand but in truth, it was probably more like lending a pinky on the grand scale of things.
3. Watched the last four episodes of LOST: Season 1. Ohmygosh I will just confess here and now before these witnesses that I am borderline addicted to this show. These characters are just so real that I stop just short of praying for them. :-) Tim will be drifting off to sleep and I'll nudge him: "But why do you think Kate's mom was so upset to see her at the hospital in the first place? And do you think Sawyer is going to tell Jack that he met Jack's dad in Sydney and his dad said all those good things about him? Huh? And what about that hatch???? Are you listening to me?" Nice.
4. Attended wedding of Kim McCartney and David Allen. Funny highlight: the bride did not appear until at least ten minutes after the ceremony began. Serious highlight: the wedding vows. In sickness and in health, for better or for worse ... Never fails to choke me up.
5. Saw old friends from our church family in South Carolina, here for the wedding.
6. Attended church meeting and enjoyed the Lord Jesus. Yes, dear Lord, You're much better than LOST.
7. Denied Yankee tendencies ("why pay money for a gadget when a little elbow grease is all you need?"), broke down and bought a leaf blower, rather than massacre my gardens with the rake. Blew, raked, swept, pushed wheelbarrow, watched hubby run the shredder. Good times.
8. Took Eliza shopping at two different Targets for a present for Ian. This is not my favoritest of ways to spend quality time with my daughter, but for her, it's golden. She was blowing kisses at me from the back seat, clutching her little pink purse.
9. Worked on Certain Homemade Gift for Certain Family Members, which requires HOURS of computer time. Please, please, please, Artscow, get it here on time.
10. Attended neighbors' Christmas party, at which we a) read the story aloud from the New Testament, b) sang REAL carols, none of this Santa-Baby business, thankyouverymuch, and c) saw our mailman. Yes. They invited the mailman to the party. And he came. The kids were thrilled. But slightly aghast at his appearing in civilian clothes. With his WIFE. In a REGULAR CAR! Can you imagine? As my brother would say, "That ain't right."
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
I need a pocket-sized camcorder
Here's something really delicious about winter weather in Austin. The sun filters down pleasantly all morning, you cavort jacketless in your yard while the temperate breezes whisper, you do multiplication drills in the driveway while bouncing a ball with your son and keeping an eye on the girls who are climbing all over your car. You cast a pitying mental eye upon those who are imprisoned in their northern homes by the merciless cold.
Then, some time in the afternoon, the wind picks up ("I really MEAN IT this time!") and literally, within thirty minutes, in the space of time it takes to, say, run in and out of Hobby Lobby, the temperature drops ten, twenty degrees. You yearn to gather your young and hurry into the warm, glowing house and pour homemade cookies and hot chocolate down their gullets to warm them in more ways than one, and so you do.
That happened today, but a few other things did too. Whether or not you have kids, do you ever wonder what a snapshot, or maybe a scrapbook page, of an ordinary day would look like? When Ian was a toddler, full of brilliant and quirky sayings and mannerisms, I was SO SURE that I would remember every single one of them, as if meteors can leave indelible trails in the night sky. Now I know better -- I can't even remember what that brilliant thing was a few hours later when recounting it to Tim. "There was SOMETHING she said, and it was SO FUNNY -- what WAS it?"
So before I forget, from today with the small folk who populate my house and are changing too fast, a couple snapshots.
-- They have this new game which I'll call "Oh My Gosh!" They'll look at each other and say, for example, in the most shocked voices they can muster, "OH MY GOSH!!! You ... you ... have TWO EARS!" Then they all collapse into hysterical cackling. You'd be amazed at how long this game remains funny. To them. :-)
-- I'm putting Caroline to bed, and tonight it's just not working. The lady doth protest too much, and though I've done the bedtime routine, she tries to run out of the room just as Ian scampers in. Noticing my edginess, Ian takes over and uses some chest-thumping trick to turn her tears to giggles. "Was Mommy a little grumpy with you?" he asks soothingly. "Don't worry, she doesn't mean it." Seeing I'm not needed, I'm heading out of the room when he informs me that HE will put her to bed, "after we read stories galore."
Gentle readers, what are your snapshots from your ordinary day? I'd love to hear a few!
Then, some time in the afternoon, the wind picks up ("I really MEAN IT this time!") and literally, within thirty minutes, in the space of time it takes to, say, run in and out of Hobby Lobby, the temperature drops ten, twenty degrees. You yearn to gather your young and hurry into the warm, glowing house and pour homemade cookies and hot chocolate down their gullets to warm them in more ways than one, and so you do.
That happened today, but a few other things did too. Whether or not you have kids, do you ever wonder what a snapshot, or maybe a scrapbook page, of an ordinary day would look like? When Ian was a toddler, full of brilliant and quirky sayings and mannerisms, I was SO SURE that I would remember every single one of them, as if meteors can leave indelible trails in the night sky. Now I know better -- I can't even remember what that brilliant thing was a few hours later when recounting it to Tim. "There was SOMETHING she said, and it was SO FUNNY -- what WAS it?"
So before I forget, from today with the small folk who populate my house and are changing too fast, a couple snapshots.
-- They have this new game which I'll call "Oh My Gosh!" They'll look at each other and say, for example, in the most shocked voices they can muster, "OH MY GOSH!!! You ... you ... have TWO EARS!" Then they all collapse into hysterical cackling. You'd be amazed at how long this game remains funny. To them. :-)
-- I'm putting Caroline to bed, and tonight it's just not working. The lady doth protest too much, and though I've done the bedtime routine, she tries to run out of the room just as Ian scampers in. Noticing my edginess, Ian takes over and uses some chest-thumping trick to turn her tears to giggles. "Was Mommy a little grumpy with you?" he asks soothingly. "Don't worry, she doesn't mean it." Seeing I'm not needed, I'm heading out of the room when he informs me that HE will put her to bed, "after we read stories galore."
Gentle readers, what are your snapshots from your ordinary day? I'd love to hear a few!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Flying Lessons
"We'd like to have baby," read my sister's text message on Saturday morning. WHAT?!? Really? You're ditching the grad school plans after all and furnishing me with a niece or nephew? Giving my kids some wee cousins to dote on? Can I start shopping for slings? Can I cut the umbilical cord?
Wait a sec. WHY is she notifying me of this major life reversal via text?
Oh. She's responding to our conversation about having Caroline spend the night. Caroline is so firmly entrenched as "Baby" in the minds of her aunt and uncle that they'll probably be toasting her as such at her wedding rehearsal dinner.
So yes, Baby did have her very own sleepover with Uncle Allen and Aunt Kristen this weekend. She was reportedly the ideal guest, exclaiming "YIPPEE!" to everything they proposed, from pancakes for breakfast to going to the church meeting in the morning, and informing me of my sister's morning habits. "We snuggled in the bed and then we stretched like THIS and then we had little blue Altoids."
Meanwhile, her brother was enjoying our dinner guests, the Dixons and their three boys, and her sister was being carried away into a vortex of whirling girliness at the Girls' Night Out hosted by her dance studio. Pizza! Watching The Parent Trap! Making candy canes out of pipe cleaners! Playing some game called "Sally Walker!" Arriving home at 10:15 p.m. with fingernails painted alternately blue and pink! Can it get any better? Nope. For a five year old girl, folks, especially one who attends with her best friend, this is NIRVANA.
And I was so proud of my shy girl for deciding to go and for jumping into the fray when she arrived with nary a backward glance. And proud of my smaller girl for falling asleep without me and not skipping a beat when she woke up and found some one other than Mommy and Daddy in the bed.
It's funny, when you're with your kids all day, every day, surrounded by their often-intense needs and just sheer neediness. You feel like the gravity holding their personal universe together. Then they launch into the world for a few hours, taking practice flights under someone else's loving eye, and because you haven't figured out how to scale yourself down to the size of a fly and spy on them all night, you don't know every single thing they're saying and doing and feeling. You only know they're fluttering around with pieces of your own heart hidden under their wings. And because they know where the nest is and where and when they can return, you know they'll be just fine.
Besides, even gravity needs a break now and then. It ain't easy, holding a universe together.
Wait a sec. WHY is she notifying me of this major life reversal via text?
Oh. She's responding to our conversation about having Caroline spend the night. Caroline is so firmly entrenched as "Baby" in the minds of her aunt and uncle that they'll probably be toasting her as such at her wedding rehearsal dinner.
So yes, Baby did have her very own sleepover with Uncle Allen and Aunt Kristen this weekend. She was reportedly the ideal guest, exclaiming "YIPPEE!" to everything they proposed, from pancakes for breakfast to going to the church meeting in the morning, and informing me of my sister's morning habits. "We snuggled in the bed and then we stretched like THIS and then we had little blue Altoids."
Meanwhile, her brother was enjoying our dinner guests, the Dixons and their three boys, and her sister was being carried away into a vortex of whirling girliness at the Girls' Night Out hosted by her dance studio. Pizza! Watching The Parent Trap! Making candy canes out of pipe cleaners! Playing some game called "Sally Walker!" Arriving home at 10:15 p.m. with fingernails painted alternately blue and pink! Can it get any better? Nope. For a five year old girl, folks, especially one who attends with her best friend, this is NIRVANA.
And I was so proud of my shy girl for deciding to go and for jumping into the fray when she arrived with nary a backward glance. And proud of my smaller girl for falling asleep without me and not skipping a beat when she woke up and found some one other than Mommy and Daddy in the bed.
It's funny, when you're with your kids all day, every day, surrounded by their often-intense needs and just sheer neediness. You feel like the gravity holding their personal universe together. Then they launch into the world for a few hours, taking practice flights under someone else's loving eye, and because you haven't figured out how to scale yourself down to the size of a fly and spy on them all night, you don't know every single thing they're saying and doing and feeling. You only know they're fluttering around with pieces of your own heart hidden under their wings. And because they know where the nest is and where and when they can return, you know they'll be just fine.
Besides, even gravity needs a break now and then. It ain't easy, holding a universe together.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Books of the Week
Besides math and Latin work, there wasn't a whole lot of what might look like schoolwork around here this week. But we sure enjoyed some good books! Here's this past week's menu:
(I'm posting the Amazon pics with links because I don't know how to just post the pictures and have them link in case anyone wants more info. Sorry for the shopping list look.)
We're re-reading this. If you haven't, you must. It's a gem of way to learn Great Lakes-area geography. Ian now knows the HOMES acronym that I learned at his age, so he can rattle off the names of the Great Lakes. But that's much less important than the amazing pencil drawings and humdinger of a story.
Heartwarming but not sappy grandmother/grandson bonding tale.
Oh, too fun! Who can resist Tasha Tudor's illustrations? It's a great story, too, and excellent for vocabulary-building, as Ms. Tudor doesn't talk down to the wee folk. A picture book, but more for 4-8 crowd, not so much the toddlers.
Ian's required reading this week.
Oh boy! We sure do love Kevin Henkes in this household! Lilly, Chrysanthemum, Wendell, they all make us chortle.
I think this book is to nature study what Paddle to the Sea is to geography. It weaves facts about elephant beetles, caterpillars, and whatnot into a gentle story with an old-fashioned feeling to it. Makes me want to pay better attention outdoors, and I'm hoping the children feel the same.
Cute story about manners. Thank you, Fergie. Oh, and we love the illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser.
If you have young girls, you've probably already been introduced to Fancy Nancy. As for the illustrator, see above.
Oooh! A new Penderwicks books, snatched up at the library! I'm already into it, although the plan is to share it with Ian very soon. What a great batch of characters.
This is a Daddy-Eliza thing. It's Farmer Boy. 'Nuf said.
(I'm posting the Amazon pics with links because I don't know how to just post the pictures and have them link in case anyone wants more info. Sorry for the shopping list look.)
We're re-reading this. If you haven't, you must. It's a gem of way to learn Great Lakes-area geography. Ian now knows the HOMES acronym that I learned at his age, so he can rattle off the names of the Great Lakes. But that's much less important than the amazing pencil drawings and humdinger of a story.
Heartwarming but not sappy grandmother/grandson bonding tale.
Oh, too fun! Who can resist Tasha Tudor's illustrations? It's a great story, too, and excellent for vocabulary-building, as Ms. Tudor doesn't talk down to the wee folk. A picture book, but more for 4-8 crowd, not so much the toddlers.
Ian's required reading this week.
Oh boy! We sure do love Kevin Henkes in this household! Lilly, Chrysanthemum, Wendell, they all make us chortle.
I think this book is to nature study what Paddle to the Sea is to geography. It weaves facts about elephant beetles, caterpillars, and whatnot into a gentle story with an old-fashioned feeling to it. Makes me want to pay better attention outdoors, and I'm hoping the children feel the same.
Cute story about manners. Thank you, Fergie. Oh, and we love the illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser.
If you have young girls, you've probably already been introduced to Fancy Nancy. As for the illustrator, see above.
Oooh! A new Penderwicks books, snatched up at the library! I'm already into it, although the plan is to share it with Ian very soon. What a great batch of characters.
This is a Daddy-Eliza thing. It's Farmer Boy. 'Nuf said.
Biserable Bobba
So apparently my once-mighty immune system is now a brittle shell of its former self, because after that dreadful bout with sinusitis, I have had the mother of all head colds for the past five days. It's gotten so unpleasant that I actually yielded to the gentle peer pressure exerted by the other large person in this household and used the Neti Pot. Twice.
I'm convinced this was a technique used at Guantanamo Bay. Tim had to help me, so basically, the love of my life was waterboarding me, trying to move that ocean of sludge on through while I used my childbirth breathing techniques to remain calm.
So, at length I yield. UNCLE! On the agenda this morning? Mama lies on her bed reading books to whomever wants to listen. We got about fifty of them at the library yesterday. Notably missing from the schedule? Housework. The co-op planning meeting. Any and all errands. Except for the acupuncturist this afternoon.
Off to drown my sorrows in some lemon tea and stuff my offspring with echinacea and Vitamin C.
I'm convinced this was a technique used at Guantanamo Bay. Tim had to help me, so basically, the love of my life was waterboarding me, trying to move that ocean of sludge on through while I used my childbirth breathing techniques to remain calm.
So, at length I yield. UNCLE! On the agenda this morning? Mama lies on her bed reading books to whomever wants to listen. We got about fifty of them at the library yesterday. Notably missing from the schedule? Housework. The co-op planning meeting. Any and all errands. Except for the acupuncturist this afternoon.
Off to drown my sorrows in some lemon tea and stuff my offspring with echinacea and Vitamin C.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Letters Home
Dear Grandmommy*,
Thank you so much for the dresses you snatched up for us during the Hanna Andersson sale.
I wish you lived closer so we could have tea parties together (Good Earth tea, of course), but in the meantime, I'm practicing my twirling.
Also, thanks for the goodies and books for our 3.5-day drive home. We read one of the books, Snowed in with Grandmother Silk, this morning in the front yard on Opa's** baby quilt. This is what Caroline did while Mama was lying on her back reading to me.
Love,
Eliza
Dear Papa***,
Wasn't it so fun when I was helping Daddy put your slippers on in the bathroom last week and when I was finished, I told you that you looked nice and fancy? Now that I'm gone, I hope you have someone to help you look fancy.
And remember when we took a walk up to the animal shelter together?
We were going to see Rosie the pig, but you ended up with a rooster on your lap. Plus me. That was wow! amazing! (as I love to exclaim).
Love,
Dear Nonnie**** and Aunt Kristen,
It was so perfect to pull into our driveway after hours and days of driving and find that you had come over and cleaned our house so we'd have something nice to come home too. You are the best! Our Mom was super happy about that.
And sorry about smearing bronze glitter glue all over the potty seat and scaring you into thinking it was us being incontinent in a #2 sort of way. We can't help our addiction to glitter glue. Thanks for cleaning it up, though.
Love,
Eliza and Caroline
* My mom
** My FIL
*** My dad
**** My MIL
Thank you so much for the dresses you snatched up for us during the Hanna Andersson sale.
I wish you lived closer so we could have tea parties together (Good Earth tea, of course), but in the meantime, I'm practicing my twirling.
Also, thanks for the goodies and books for our 3.5-day drive home. We read one of the books, Snowed in with Grandmother Silk, this morning in the front yard on Opa's** baby quilt. This is what Caroline did while Mama was lying on her back reading to me.
Love,
Eliza
Dear Papa***,
Wasn't it so fun when I was helping Daddy put your slippers on in the bathroom last week and when I was finished, I told you that you looked nice and fancy? Now that I'm gone, I hope you have someone to help you look fancy.
And remember when we took a walk up to the animal shelter together?
We were going to see Rosie the pig, but you ended up with a rooster on your lap. Plus me. That was wow! amazing! (as I love to exclaim).
Love,
Dear Nonnie**** and Aunt Kristen,
It was so perfect to pull into our driveway after hours and days of driving and find that you had come over and cleaned our house so we'd have something nice to come home too. You are the best! Our Mom was super happy about that.
And sorry about smearing bronze glitter glue all over the potty seat and scaring you into thinking it was us being incontinent in a #2 sort of way. We can't help our addiction to glitter glue. Thanks for cleaning it up, though.
Love,
Eliza and Caroline
* My mom
** My FIL
*** My dad
**** My MIL
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