Boys and Rocks

Boys like rocks.  They collect them.  I find rocks in their pockets.  I find them under the sofa and in the bathtub.  I find rocks at the bottom of the hamper and I find them in my dryer.  Thinking I might be able to contain the rock collection to a single spot, I gave my boys a nice mason jar to keep their special rocks in. 

Boys also like to shake things.  Especially if the shaking creates noise.  Noise that is made by their special rocks klinkety-klanking around in their glass mason jar.   

Just fyi, it doesn’t take a whole lotta klinkety-klank before a mason jar shatters. 

 

 

Things I Love About Today

Meant to post this last night…

1. Little red curls dancing just below Ella’s ears.

2.  Pool party with very good friends; friends I’ve missed so much.

3.  watermelon.  The good, juicy, drips-down-your-chin kind.

4.  the smell of chlorine mixed with sunblock–I don’t know, I just love that smell.

5.  Standing under an umbrella at the pool in a rain shower.

6.  Watching my husband cut up all of the fruit for the fruit salad.  He’s a domestic diva.  Or divo.  Or whatever the manly version of diva is.

7.  William — 6 year old William — making my bed for me.  Just to make me happy.    I could just squeeze him!

8.  Lavender.  Is there a better smell?   

9.  The Bluebirds in my birdhouse.  How I love them.  Really.

 

Going to the Doctor

Ella had her one year check up yesterday.  Since our baseball outing back in April I always find it helpful to write down a few “notes to self” for the next visit, in case I have forgotten the disaster that occurred at the previous visit.  So here goes — please do not overlook tip #1. 

1.  Ask a friend to watch the three children who are not being seen by the doctor.  Please, please ask someone.  You’ll regret it if you don’t.

2.  If you have to bring them all, bribe them to behave.  But if they misbehave, wait until you get back into the car to inform them that they are not getting their oreos.     

3.  Don’t peek out the venetian blinds that are tightly closed.  The children don’t even notice that they are there until you peek out of them. 

4.  Don’t ask any questions.  You don’t have time.  Your daily stipend of sanity will run out if you ask questions.

5.  Don’t use the hand sanitizer.  See #3.

6.  Be prepared to spend the remainder of the afternoon in snuggle mode.  Three shots are a lot for a baby girl to handle. 

WFMW

Okeedokee, so here’s something that works for me.  If you live in an area similar to mine (one with a LOT of development, a lot of trucked-in filler soil–and I use that term loosely), then you realize the challenge you have when it comes to gardening.  One way to overcome this obstacle is to try composting.  I haven’t done that yet.  Maybe someday, when I have the time to go out there and turn the pile everyday I might try it.  Once when I was a kid my parents had a “compost pile.”  They forgot to turn it or something and internal combustion raged and it caught fire.  Boy was that exciting to have the firemen at OUR house!  I think we got rid of the pile after that.  But I digress…

So my quickie tip is to save coffee grounds and tea leaves in a canister (I use an old plastic coffee tub), and maybe once a week take them and dump them in the garden.  If you cover them up with a little mulch, you’ll never even know they’re there, but your plants will.  Acid-loving plants love it.  It is also useful to spread them around the foundation of the house, where lime from the cement often leaches into the soil and neutralizes it, which can prevent some types of shrubs from flourishing.  The coffee grounds will provide a nice counterbalance.  Hopefully this will help some of y’all in your gardens!

For more works for me wednesday tips vistit Shannon over at rocks in my dryer.

 

Baby Steps

Ella walks.  Sure, it’s only a few steps before she falls, but it is a few steps nonetheless.  It is beautiful to see.  This morning the entire family was behind me watching as she stood there, prepared to show everyone what she could do.  She looked around in wonderment at us all watching her, and then she took a step, and then another, and another, until she collapsed into my outstretched arms.  And I held on to her tightly while she bounced in my lap as her Daddy and brothers and sister cheered loudly for her.  They were so genuinely proud of her.  And Ella beamed–ear to ear she smiled, with those four little pearly teeth showing, her dainty red curls barely visible below her ears, and rosey-pink cheeks just waiting for someone to pinch them.  

She walks now.  Pretty soon she will be running.  And in the blink of an eye it will be her first day of school.  Before I know it, I will be sitting in the front pew of our church, watching as her Daddy walks her down the isle.  Couldn’t time just stand still for a few of these moments?  Just long enough for us to grasp them; just long enough to comprehend the beauty they hold.     

Miss You Coco

Three years ago today, we lost our Chocolate Lab, Coco, after a brief illness.  I still miss him deeply, every single day.  After this long, I thought I would have been mended, but I still can’t look at his scrapbook without melting into a puddle of tears, without that ache in my heart that only surfaces when I think too much or too long about him.  I have his picture on my fridge as if he is still around, under my feet or snoozing on the couch.  There are other constant reminders of him…the hardwood floors that bear scratches from his nails, his collar that I keep in my top drawer, even my cookbooks that he shredded one day when he was a puppy.   

The Man and I have for years had a (nearly) nightly ritual of eating ice cream before bed.  Back when Coco was still around, we would clink our spoons on the bowl when we were finished eating, as a signal to Coco that it was his turn to lick the bowl.  Even now, I find myself clinking, and then realizing.  Perhaps that is the hardest part–the forgetting and then the remembering. 

I miss you something awful Coco.  I’m afraid I always will.

Happy Birthday Littlest One!

Today is Ella’s very first birthday.  How I have enjoyed this first year she has given me.  She is no longer a baby, but she will always be my baby.  Happy birthday, my precious baby girl.

I Guess He Really Wasn’t Hungry

So tonight supper began with the usual comments… (When you’re reading through these, make sure to do the whiney voice in your head)

“How many bites do I have to eat?”

“You just need to try a bite.”

“I don’t really care for this.”

“You haven’t even tried it yet.”

“The tomato has something on it.”

“It’s pepper. It’s fine.”

“I don’t like pepper.  I’m full.”

“Did you eat anything yet?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well then you’re not getting any ice cream after supper.”

“How many bites do I have to eat?”

etc.  I could go on ad nauseum.  It is literally the SAME conversation every night, perhaps with a different child.  Tonight it was Henry.  Well, after whining and complaining and asking encore une fois how many bites, he was on his way to finishing.  He put that last piece of chicken in his mouth, and I headed upstairs to get the kids in the bath while husband fixed up the ice cream for Henry.  Then I heard it.  The sound that will send a parent into a flurry of action in a split second. 

The gag, then the splatter. 

Yep, he did it.  He threw up his entire supper.  He had that panicky sound in his little four year old voice–worried that he just threw up, or that he wasn’t going to get ice cream, or more likely that he was going to have to start all over at square one, and eat another whole plate of those peppered tomatoes.  I guess he wasn’t that hungry after all.  But he sure did find room for that ice cream cone.  
 

 

How could we not give it to him after all that?!

Where I’ve Been…

Well, last week was kind of rough.  (I feel like I say that a lot.)  But anyway, Ella had what William had.  And what Henry had.  Only Ella did not do a whole lotta the sleeping thing.  Ella did a whole lotta the fussy thing.  A WHOLE LOTTA the fussy thing.  So I was a little busy with the fussy fusser.  

Sunday we did finally get to have a little fun and spent about an hour at the pool until the sprinkling started.    

 

 Oh, Summer, you are good for the soul.