A grandparents job (as I have been told) is to spoil there grandchildren and send them home. Load them up sugar and treats so the are “pinging” off the walls ect. Due to my spouses blended family my children are lucky enough to have three sets of grandparents! All whom spoil them in different ways.
I have also been told that the joy of grandparent-hood is seeing your own kids get there “payback”. This I know is true because I know how rotten I was and I am seeing some of that Karmic return already. I just hope I can do as well as my parents did!
My father (known as Papa by my kids) never had a son. He finally got a “son” when my spouse and I married. My darling little boy was the first grandchild and the first boy on my father’s side in about 35-40 yrs. All girls in this clan. So my dad tells everyone “I know girls, I know how to raise girls”. And I agree…I don’t think I turned out half bad and I know my sisters are pretty well adjusted and settled adults. Therefore, when our second child was a girl dad was just as excited as if we were having another son.
The minute he saw her she smiled and wrapped him tightly around that tiny little pinkie of hers! I even have the photo to prove it! One of the few things our daughter could say pretty clearly and in her first real words was Papa. She loves to go see her Grandma and Papa and asks to go a lot with the statement “Want Papa” (sounds more like “On Papa”) She knows it makes me happy that she loves him so much (I am a true bonafide Daddy’s girl) So as often as we can and she asks a I reward her words by phoning my parents and seeing when we can come for a visit.
Well lately she has put a twist on “want Papa”. She is now saying these words in hopes that she wont have to go to the time out spot (the bottom step in out house). Yesterday she was in trouble and headed for the step of course crying all the way when she looks up and says “Want Papa”. It took me by surprise so I asked her to repeat her words. She says again through sniffles and tears “Want Papa”. So I asked her she was tell me she wants Papa. She nods her head yes and the big tears fall down her cheeks. My next question was “do think Papa will get you out of sitting on the step” her reply was “yup”. BAM Karmic return! Manipulating Mom by saying something she likes to get out of trouble! Now I have to keep my serious your in trouble little one face on and get her to do her time out. Once my back is turned and can smile and chuckle.
Of course, being the good daughter I am I called my mom and told her all about the incident. I want her and my dad to have all the benefits of grandparent-hood. Spoil the kids, send them home sugared up. And I want them to get say “ha ha you did that to me,,,that’s what you get”!!!
Lord help me through the teen years!!!! YIKES!!!!!
It is so hard to believe that 6 years have flown by! This time 6 years ago I was watching the flight tracker to see were Parker’s flight was!
What a joy these last 6 years have been. When my guy came home he was such a quite little thing. His greaving consisted of just not sleeping. He stayed awake pretty much for 3 days, then slept. As the days and weeks slipped by during my maternatiy leave he opened up and bonded. He is still a very cuddly little boy and loves hugs and kisses.
He has now learned to read and he is doing simple math. He is learning about the presadnats and comes home with neat information like “Mommy, did you know Presadant Taft got stuck in the bathtub?”….well I don’t remember learing that,,but his teacher “throws” in neat things about the presadants to help them remember
Here is a vidio I put together for him.
Yesterday we went on a field trip with my son’s class. I had been looking forward to this trip all year. As I have mentioned on of my favorite places is Pine Mountain Ga. This is the home to not only Calaway Gardens but also FDR’s Little White House. Now I am not a huge political person and I wont go arguing whom is better ect. However, I don’t believe there are many American’s that can not see the good that FDR did. So I am proud that he called Warm Springs Ga his home. He did a lot for GA based on the life he saw when he came to Warm Springs.
OK, so my son’s class has been learning about the presidents. He can tell you some unique tid bits of information. He can tell you which presidents were assassinated. Whom the 1st and 16th president were. He can also tell you that President Taft got stuck in the bathtub and they had to by a new one :-) His teacher takes advantage of the fact that Warm Springs is less then an hour from here to help the children learn.
So here were my son’s favorite parts of the trip:
1) Riding the church bus
2) Seeing the bump gate (the gate were President Roosevelt entered the home, it is set up so that he could “bump it” with the car)
3) The car he road in
4) The 63 year old roll of toilette paper in the bathroom (yes,,,I said 63 year old TP,,,bet that is scratchy!)
5) The flags. He wanted to see the flag for the State of Canada :-) Uncle C and Aunt J will see the humor in this!
6) The Iron Lung
7) The warm water from the Springs.
All and all it was great field trip. My next trip will be to the strawberry patch with my daughter. It should be just as fun as last year. She ate more strawberry’s then she put in her bucket!
Well by my year old! So it’s not the AACN, GNA or ANA, but from a 6 year old it is pretty important. So just how did I earn this title? I was forced to preform a very tricky surgical procedure on my son. We had minimal anesthetic, didn’t have the proper equipment or decant dressings. However, with the use of rubbing alcohol to sterilize a strait pin, I was then able to remove 2 (yup 2) pine splinters from dear son’s arm. Followed quickly with some soap and water, a squirt of Bastien and a Sponge Bob band aid and to his surprise it didn’t hurt at all. I was then crown Best Nurse Ever! Now before this was 30 minutes of screaming and crying on his part that he would have to “go to the doctor and get cut open”! Sort of graphic I thought and I am not sure were that came from, but I had to convince him that I knew exactly what to do and remind him that I am a nurse. Now granted every other mom and dad in the world is quite qualified to “pick” a splinter, but that seemed to help. What is funny is the other day we had a discussion about college and he assured me he knew that I had never been to college. I even showed and read my diploma to him. So after the splinters were out I said (jokingly) “gee aren’t you glad mommy went to college to be a nurse”. His reply to the newly named “best nurse ever” was “You may be a nurse but I still don’t think you went to college”. So,,,mom if you read this post, will you please show my son my cap and gown picture,,,maybe he will believe me then!
Some folks remember getting there mouth washed out with soap because they said a bad word. Well I am not a believer in washing out the mouth with soap,,,maybe Listerine but I have been trying to work on teaching the kids not to say bad words or mean things. Last week I noticed Parker kept referring to “well so and so is just crazy” or “well thats just crazy” and I guess it just rubbed me the wrong way. It just didn’t sound nice. So though crazy in not a bad word, it was the way he was using the word. It also just so happened that I am out of mouth wash So I remembered a class I went to on Love and Logic and came up with a plan to get this “craziness” under controll. I made Parker pay me 25 cents each time he used the word. 50 cents latter and he was trying to think of new words to use. Last night he almost slipped a few times, but quickly corrected himself and chose a new word.
So as I shared this with my spouse this morning he started laughing hysterically. Apparently hubby uses the word “crazy” a lot and Parker got on to him all weekend. So I suggested that maybe Daddy should pay Parker 25 cents every time he uses the word. Lets see what happens next,,,Parker may be a rich boy by Saturday
Monday I received an e-mail from my mom. However, since I worked a double I didn’t read it until Tuesday morning around 1:30 AM.
It read
“Not to alarm anyone, because we are unscathed, but that big oak tree in the back yard gave up and moved into the kitchen last night about midnight.”
I did a double take when I read it,,aether because I was shocked or just to tired to think. But it was true a tree in there back yard crashed into the kitchen while they slept.
Now my poor parents are faced with the repairs and dealing with insurance and contractors to get the work done. Thankfully though the tree didn’t hurt aether one of them. As my mom said about 2 feet to the right and it would have gone through the bedroom!
I was able to go up to my parents house yesterday and see the damage first hand. It was strange walking in to the kitchen and instead of seeing the yellow wall and window, there was hole covered with a blue tarp. It was truly amazing how much damage the tree did, yet also how much it didn’t do. It didn’t crush all of there fence, it didn’t hurt there dogs, it didn’t totally demolish the kitchen or the entire front half of the house.
So looking at the silver lining, now even though they have go through the re-pairs, they have an excuse to make some up grades. I am sure that I will have more posts about this and photos as the repairs occur.
Hubby has now been back to work for a full week. Things are doing well. He was given his first set of challenges immediately and so far he has proving his worth. He is happy to be back to doing something more then cleaning house. Though he misses the kids and they miss him. Wednesday my little guy asked on the way home “how many more days until daddy is home with us all the time?” It was hard not to say “I hope not for many years” but instead I just simply said “well it could be awhile,,,but he will be home with you on Saturday”. This luckily satisfied him and he was off on a “beg” about going to play with his friends.
So we are getting back into the swing of things around here. I have a few hours every morning when I am totally by myself. I have forgotten how quite the house can be at times. At this moment all I can here is the quite hum of the dishwasher and the water in the the fish tank. It is nice,,though I do miss my husband being here with me,,it is nice to be falling back into a normal routine.
One of the jobs we have to get back into is planning for the day we both work. Making sure the kids back packs are ready with there clothes for the day. Even when my spouse was working before he would come home from work and make dinner for the family on the night I worked. Most nights though, this was easy because I think I might be the crock pot queen. Even before we had children I would cook in the crock pot several times per week. Mostly this was due to our different schedules. We have always worked somewhat opposite of each other. When I was not working weekends he was working nights. So it just made since to use the crock pot. In 16 yrs of marriage I have “cooked” out two crock pots.
Yesterday, though I tried something new and it proves as my mom said “there is no need for people not to cook”. Tyson has put out a pre-packaged meal that is perfect for the crock pot. It is in the meat department (it is not frozen food). The meal consisted of pot roast, carrots, red potato’s, celery and onions. It even came with its own seasoning packet and directions. The cost,,,around $10. They also have one for vegetable beef stew. Granted with the post roast, I would have preferred more potato’s and carrots,,,but I relay wanted to try this out. For our meal I added corn bread and corn on the cob. It turned out great and it was so easy,,no chopping or preparing. I just had to wash it off and put it in the pot (I didn’t use the crock post last night as I was home all day). So this defiantly could be a solution to one of our meal nights. That is of course if in this day of re-calls we find out there is something bad with this product!
EEEKKKK!!!! We just got school pictures. Oh, and I just wanted to cry. Look at my little boy!!! He was just a baby the other day! In fact this time 6 yrs ago I was praying for his travel call everyday. Many mornings I had my head on the table crying because he was on the other side of the world!
Now look at him! And oh the changes! He is reading now and learning how to add. He jumps in the care every afternoon full of excitement about what he has learned today at school. He lists off his best friends and tells me why. He talks non stop and is so full of wonder and awe of the world around him.
So here he is my kindergärtner. Only a few weeks left and he will be a FIRST GRADER!!!!
but I have been trying to work on teaching the kids not to say bad words or mean things. Last week I noticed Parker kept referring to “well so and so is just crazy” or “well thats just crazy” and I guess it just rubbed me the wrong way. It just didn’t sound nice. So though crazy in not a bad word, it was the way he was using the word. It also just so happened that I am out of mouth wash 