5/11 3:00 p.m. – Amy brings home a pile of disks filled with pictures that I agreed to compile into a montage for the First Graders’ end of the year celebration. Two of the teachers sent over 500 pictures each while one only sent about two dozen blurry pictures. My goal was a 10-15 minute […]
Our daily wake-up and feed me alarm had something extra to say in addition to the usual, “I hungry. My tummy growling.” The cryptic, “Something’s on the kitchen floor” caused both Doug and I to imagine a dog accident that needed immediate hazmat attention. “I’ll clean up the dog mess in a minute.” The clarification, […]
Friday night, Evan snuck a paperback book into the bathtub. The result was the reverse of a paper mache experiment. Saturday morning I cleaned out the mountain of paper scraps so that Sarah could take a 2-hour bath to get ready for prom. I had time for a 10 minute bath before taking Sarah on […]
Yes, I know everyone is sick of hearing about the prom, but it’s been the topic of almost every conversation in our house for weeks and weeks. The dress couldn’t have sleeves, but it had to have straps. Long dresses were “too dressy” and it didn’t matter what the weather forecast was, shawls were for […]
Yesterday, someone recommended an article in the Bearden Shopper-News to me. It was described as an intelligently thought out explanation based on existing research. So, I read the front page article, “Thinking outside the AJ.” The article was accurately described as intelligent UNTIL the author decided to complain that high school “has BECOME a cultural […]
Today we had family visiting, hunted for eggs, ate a ton of food, drove an hour and a half each way to take the oldest back to college, hiked a mile and a half of the Cumberland Trail and took 5 zillion potty breaks. On the way home from it all, the 3-year-old cheerfully requested, […]
Me: “Tell me about your day.” Noah: “Well, it was a pretty regular day.” Me: “Tell me one thing that you did.” Noah: “I went to chess club.” Me: “Tell me one thing about your day that was DIFFERENT.” Noah: “A mean kid mooned me in the hallway.” Amy: “What’s mooned?” *Me: “Ask your father.” […]
I am too tired to attempt a description of the 3-year-old’s level of chaos and destruction today. Instead, I will mention that I talked to someone shopping for Easter treats today. This person was wandering the candy aisle and worrying about the diabetic classmate of her child. So, in my very best Bill Saluga voice […]
Sarah: “It doesn’t matter what YOUR hair looks like.” Tommy: “Your hair grew a lot last week.” Me: “No, I just straightened it. It looks shorter when it’s curly.” Tommy: “You have curly hair?”
Several times a year and in multiple environments, I have to pull out the tired, old dinosaur statistic that murder rates go up when ice cream sales go up. Eventually, everyone will recognize that statistics are not enough. The “most single parents live in poverty” statistic ignores the fact that people with severe mental or […]