Just listened to Arcade Fire’s Sprawl II, and now, Stairway To Heaven. Thanks, Aunt Lisa!
Archive for December, 2010
Tiller Chillin’ with Her New MP3 Player
Wednesday, December 29th, 2010We Hope
Saturday, December 25th, 2010We hope you’re as excited about Christmas as we are!
Tiller and Rollie, waiting to go downstairs, Christmas Morning.
May your Christmas be Merry and Bright!
With love,
The Dogwood Girl family
Cousins
Friday, December 24th, 2010We went to my mom and Dad’s last night. They live in a house in Suwanee now, not Roswell, where I grew up. So, I’m not really used to it yet, and it doesn’t really feel like home, like their old house did. Part of their things are theirs from the old house, part of it is new, and part of it is stuff that was in my grandparents’ house. It is weird for me to see it all in one place. I think perhaps I like change less than I would like to admit.
So, mom and dad had the cousins over. Except only a few of us ended up able to make it. My cousin Lynda had to go to a funeral. My sister was home laid out with strep throat and an ear infection. Todd had to work. So, i packed up my two kids and Dash, my nephew, and went to mom and dad’s. My friends Jason and Camille were also invited, but Jason had a sinus infection, so he couldn’t come either. It was still fun, but there were some gaping holes there. There were people missed.
We ate chili. We laughed. We chased kids around. Dogs barked.
Official Fudge Tester, Christmas 2010
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
How Do You Achieve a Peaceful Holiday Season with Kids?
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010Am I the only one that thinks much of the Christmas season sucks ass now that I have kids? Sure, as long as I am stuffing them full of sugar and butter products, and when they are opening gifts, they are having a blast. The rest of the time? They are just whining about things they want, want, want.
Am I doing something wrong? We’ve given to multiple charities, donated toys to needy children, and our kids know about it and why we are doing it.
We don’t go crazy with gifts, and in fact, my kids get way less than most children I know.
I spend time with them, wrapping gifts, singing Christmas carols in the car (a once a year thing, really, as I force them to listen to decent music in the car all other times of the year – it is for their own good in the long run), making cookies, filling the birdfeeders together (birdies need yummy Christmas food too!), etc.
So what am I doing wrong? Is it just normal to feel like a failure as a parent this time of year? It never felt this stressful before kids. Am I asking too much of them, at 7 and 5 years of age, to understand how very and truly lucky they are to be born in this time, in this country, to well-educated and loving parents? (I know that it is not something they can really comprehend. It was, like, rhetorical and stuff.)
If you are able to have a peaceful season with your kids, please share with the class. Because i am feeling like a complete failure.
How to Answer a Telephone, & Other Lost Arts
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010Todd and I both have iPhones. Before that, we both had plain old-fashioned cell phones. When we moved from our house in East Atlanta to our current home, we didn’t even bother plugging in a phone. We have a land line, but we just don’t use it. I have forgotten what it was like to have one.
Well, a few weeks ago, my phone was acting up, and I was working on a project with someone, and we needed to talk, so he asked me for my home phone number. I didn’t even know the number. I vaguely remembered putting it into my phone contacts when we moved in. So, i gave that number to the friend, and then told him to wait about ten minutes while I went to look for a phone.
To plug into a wall.
I had to go find a phone that is ten times the size of my cel phone, and which plugs into a wall jack. And it wasn’t even a cordless phone. It has a cord, tying the talker to within 5-10 feet of the wall jack while on the phone.
Weird. We had our conference call. I sat at the kitchen table while I did, rather than walking around, doing laundry, unloading the dishwasher, walking outside to let the dog out.
I remember the hours on end that my friends, boyfriends, myself spent talking on the phone. I would lie on my bed, or on the floor near the phone jack. I would sit on the desk in my parents’ kitchen, talking on the phone. “Do you like her? Well, she likes you. I think you should ask her to go with you.” Ad nauseum.
I never talked on the phone outside. Or in the car. Or on the bus. Or in the grocery store. Or in the coffee shop.
Oh wait. We didn’t have those either.
Todd and I don’t answer each others’ phones. The kids know not to answer our phones. They have never had the opportunity to yell, “I got it!” or for me to yell, “Answer the phone!” or hear me yell upstairs, the mouthpiece cupped to my breast to muffle the sound of my voice as I raise it over the sound of his stereo (ha!) blaring, “Rollie! Phone!”
So, that was a few weeks ago, and I haven’t used the house phone since. I left it on the wall, though, because it made me laugh. And then I forgot about it.
Until ten minutes ago, when we all heard a ringing. A strange, archaic ringing. The kids ran to the stairs to yell down, “something’s making a noise, Mama!” There might have been a tinge of panic in their little voices.
I said “Where is it coming from?” Because I didn’t recognize it, either.
“From that thing on the wall!” Rollie yelled. “What do i do?”
I laughed as I realized it was the phone on the kitchen wall.
“You answer it!”
Silence.
Rollie: “How?”
Me: “You pick it up and say hello!”
After all of this, of course, he did not make it to the phone in time. Oh well, if they call back, we’ll be ready this time. Armed with the knowledge of outdated phones and their etiquette.
Lunar Eclipse
Monday, December 20th, 2010Cool stuff in the sky this week: A full lunar eclipse tonight, the full moon, and the winter solstice tomorrow.
I’ll go ahead and say it. Nerd Central.
Lots of fun this weekend, so hoping to post about it soon, but have a million things to do today, so who knows if that will happen. All you really need to know is that Todd wore a Santa suit.
Nobody Even Knocked Over the Baby Jesus
Friday, December 17th, 2010Tiller’s Christmas program was this morning at St. Bede’s. I, of course, ran completely late and didn’t get to drink any coffee before, during, or after the program. So, one part of me was all sad that it was Tiller’s last “little girl” Christmas program, and the other half was just holding on to a thread of sanity until I could find a coffee.
First of all, the 4s class came out and did some songs. (Jingle Bells and some other stuff.) Very cute. Unfortunately, by the time they are this age, they don’t really do anything wild, like start talking to their mom during the program, or start wailing when they see all the people stare at them, or accidentally knock the baby Jesus out of the cradle.
And let’s be honest: That is what we show up for.
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- St. Bede’s Christmas Program, December 2010, Tiller, 5 years old
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- Biting her knuckles with either nerves or excitement.
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- Belting out jingle bells.
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- Tiller as some kind of farm animal, which she could not identify.
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- With her friends. Tiller towers over the other kids.
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- Tiller not smiling.
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- Tiller, after I told her she would get cookies after pictures.
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- Tiller’s happy ending.
Ham Lincoln
Thursday, December 16th, 2010Tiller: let’s play the guessing game . You go first.
Me: okay. What are the rules?
Tiller: you can say a person. Or an animal. But not a food.
Me: Okay.
Tiller: but it can be a person with food in their name. Like George . . . I mean, abraHAM Lincoln.
Fairies in the Manger
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010The other night, Todd and Rollie left for Boy Scouts and Tiller and I were still at the dinner table talking. She was telling me how she had her feelings hurt because Vivian and Anna both got to be Mary when they played manger, and she did not get a turn. I was amazed that she really knew about the manger and Mary. Upon further questioning, she also knows what a manger is, who is in the manger (Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus), and that there were animals all around, because there “was no hotel.”
Me: “Didn’t some other people come to the manger?”
Tiller: “Yes. The wise men, and the fairies.”
Me: “The fairies?”
Tiller: “Yes, the fairies come to see the Baby Jesus.”
Me: “Honey, I think you mean the Angels.”
Tiller: “Oh, yes! They have wings like fairies!”