The power of your tantrums lose a little something when Mommy reprimands you, and you burst into tears, then look around you like you are really going to show me a thing or two about tantrums, and you run around screaming, then realize that what you want is your mommy. Joke’s on you, Buddy.Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Joke’s On Rollie
Thursday, January 19th, 2006The power of your tantrums lose a little something when Mommy reprimands you, and you burst into tears, then look around you like you are really going to show me a thing or two about tantrums, and you run around screaming, then realize that what you want is your mommy. Joke’s on you, Buddy.Word to Your Mother: The Payoff
Wednesday, January 18th, 2006For anyone who hasn’t heard, parenting is HARD AS FUCK. It is a thankless job that one does solely as a labor of love. You don’t get bonuses, or pats on the back, or high achiever cruises or trips to Hawaii. It is like working in a customer support job where YOU NEVER GET TO LEAVE. You live with little tyrants, and you cherish every second away from them. Time becomes more precious than you ever imagined it could be.
In the beginning, you question your sanity and your fitness as a parent, and you wonder what the fuck you have done to your life. There is no return on your effort whatsoever. The little ones only sleep, cry, piss, and shit. Oh yeah, and eat. Every.Two.Hours. Then, one day you realize that the little one is actually watching you, paying attention to you, and recognizes your voice. Finally, FINALLY, she looks at you and she smiles. 
And all those long, tired days, and sleepless nights become not quite so bad, and they are fuzzy in your memory, instead of stark and bright and isolated, as they really were.
As the kids grow, month by month, it is still HARD AS FUCK. But you start to realize that there will be little payoffs along the road. That just when you think you can’t take it anymore, the manipulative little ones will throw you a bone, and you are refreshed, and made confident in your parenting abilities once again. I had one of those moments this morning.
My very most important goal as a parent has been to teach my children to read, and to teach them to LOVE to read. I truly feel that literacy is the stepping stone for happiness, and success, and even greatness. It is, in my mind, the single most important gift one can give to their children. It was certainly the greatest gift my parents ever gave to me, and it is a gift that can never be taken away once it is learned.
I started reading to Rollie from day one, and sometimes reading to a 3 month old just seems pointless. They don’t really even look at the pictures. Sometimes they do nothing but grab the book and chew on it. I wish i had a dollar for every book that Rollie has destroyed. (Much to my dismay – I LOVED that Big Red Barn book. We don’t destroy books, buddy!) It is, like much of parenting, one of those blind exercises we repeat, over and over, until we are blue in the face, with no sign that it is having any effect, whatsoever. But over time, you realize that they are enjoying that time together, and that they are enjoying it, too. The kid starts picking up books and playing with them. they start pretending to read them. Then one day, you realize that they have learned the names of some of the letters. You start prompting them to tell you the name of a letter when you point to it. Soon, you realize that they know every letter in the alphabet. They start reading the letters in books. When I am reading, Rollie started coming up to me and pointing at the book and saying, “Letters.” I would say, “Yes, lots of letters. Letters make up words, and words make up books. An example of a word is, “Rollie.” Rollie starts with the letter ‘R,'” and so on. All of this, as usual, is said as if in a vacuum; You never know if they are understanding any of it, much less listening to you at all.
This morning, Rollie and Todd were eating breakfast on the couch, while i nursed Matilda. Rollie’s Magnadoodle was lying on the coffee table, and he pointed to the word Magnadoodle, and he looked at Todd, and he smiled, and he said, “Word.” This one payed off big. I am bursting with pride. I am doing a decent job.
[Pats self on back.]
Dorks, Circa 1991
Tuesday, January 17th, 2006My friend, Mike, with whom I went to both high school and college, found this picture at his parents’ house over the holidays. He was kind enough to pass it along, so I thought i would pass it on to my Dogwood Girl readers (all three of you).
The picture was taken on the back porch of my parents’ house, around Easter of 1991, i think. Mike says that he remembers it being Easter because his mother wanted him to cut his hair before going to Easter church services, and he thought, “I’ll show her. I’ll shave it all off.” That’s where I came in. I can’t remember who was taking the picture.
Watch out. Mike looks pretty tough. And look how alternative i am. . . .
Matilda’s Latest Thing
Monday, January 16th, 2006While nursing, Matilda holds on tightly to the neck of my shirt with her fist, as if to say, “Give me the milk, or the shirt gets it!”
Princess Gets Married
Saturday, January 14th, 2006My baby sister, the Princess, got married this past weekend. Fiancee, now husband, is a Florida Gator [gasp], which is like oil and water for this Georgia Bulldog. However, he redeemed himself in his unabashed love for my son, and now that we are family, he and I are slowly getting to know one another better. Oh, yeah, and I drank a lot of champagne before Lisa’s wedding and hugged him before the ceremony. Proven FACT: Hugging Gators is more palatable when inebriated.
Here are the highlight pictures from the weekend (read: the ones in which i don’t have a double chin):
The Bride, Leelee, getting dressed
Dear Cousins, Graham and Adam, in the Wine Cellar
Dear Cousins, Graham and Adam, in the Wine Cellar
Me and Addie in the Wine Cellar
Ned and Scarlett at the wedding
After the wedding, at Rock Bottom Brewery:
Honey, Me, and Leelee
Mark and Lisa
Me, Mark, and Lisa
Mama and Daddy
Matt
Todd
Me and Mark
Congratulations, Lisa and Mark!! I love you!More Little Pleasures
Friday, January 13th, 2006I have recently been making a concerted effort to take time and notice the little things, since this is the last time i will ever have very little ones in my house, and they are growing so fast. I know that in no time, I will be one of those foaming-at-the-mouth-needing-a-grandbaby kind of women, so I must enjoy what i have while I have it.
This week has been unseasonably warm here in the South. We have spent three days this week at Glenwood Park. This is a new park in a development near East Atlanta in Ormewood Park. It’s one of those live-work-play deals. It seems like most of the residents are gay men or childless straight couples, but they did put in a nice toddler park and a small field of bermuda. If you go around 4-5pm, lots of people show up with dogs, and moms and kids from surrounding neighborhoods come over, too. I put Matilda in the baby bjorn, turn on the IPod and let Rollie run to his heart’s content. And my heart is content, too, with the warm sun fading west towards the downtown skyline, turning everything yellow and orange and slightly pink. It is a little pleasure to watch Rollie and the other kids running in and out of dogs chasing frisbees, with Matilda sighing contentedly against my chest, all to the sounds of The English Beat’s “Save It For Later.”
The Little Pleasures
Thursday, January 12th, 2006
I know this is bad, but i can’t help it. I am not a dog germaphobe. I let my dog kiss me on my [closed] mouth. Yesterday, while I was nursing Matilda, Quint took up his usual place on the ottoman by my feet. Rollie was wandering around talking to me, and then came over to lean on Quint. Quint does not like being leaned on, but he knows that I brook no growling, and so he proceeded to lick Rollie’s face. I praise Quint whenever he treats Rollie sweetly, so he proceeded to lick more and more, in an effort to win my heart back. (It was lost the moment Rollie came into the world, and has just slipped farther and farther away with the birth of Matilda. He knows he is third string.) Rollie thinks this licking is funny and begins laughing hysterically and then opens his mouth wider, sticking out his tongue, so that now Quint is licking Rollie’s outstretched tongue. Rollie continues laughing, Quint continues licking, and then I get the giggles, which makes Rollie laugh more and stick the tongue out again and again. This continues for about five joyous minutes.
It’s the little things in life that are so pleasurable. Disgusting, really, but pleasurable.
Happy Birthday, Pop!
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006
My grandfather turned 90 years old last week. He is the last of my grandparents living, but one of three that I had the pleasure of getting to know. I never met my mother’s father, as he passed away before my parents were married, but I have spent hours of time with Pop, who is my dad’s father.
Pop was born in Coffee County, Georga (south Georgia) in 1916. He was born in the midst of World War I, the sixth of seven children of John Lewis Palmer and Ludie Margaret Knowles Palmer. They were Lena Mae, George Lewis (died young), John Lewis, Mary Margaret, and Hugh Knowles. His younger brother, Carl Jenkins, was born a year later. He also had two older half-siblings from his father’s first marriage, Leta “Estelle” and Curtis Lee.
Pop’s father was from Chatham County, North Carolina, and most of the family still lived there. He co-owned a hardware store in Broxton. Pop’s mother was born in Hancock County, Ga, and the family moved to Broxton when her brother George, took a job there as a railroad telegraph operator. Pop’s mother died when he was almost three years old, and then his father died less than a year later. Both are said to have died as part of the flu epidemic of 1918.
After the death of their father, Pop and his brothers and sisters were all split up and sent to different members of the family: I think Estelle (Lena Mae called her “sister”) and Curtis went to their mother’s family – they later returned to Broxton; Lena Mae and Mary went to live with John Lewis’ brother Hugh Palmer and his wife, Minnie; Walter, Hugh, and Carl went to live with Wiley and Bettie Knowles Byrd (Ludie’s sister), on a farm in Jeff Davis Co., close to the town of Denton (about 9 miles from Broxton, GA). John Lewis went to live with their father’s brother Charles Christian Palmer in Goldston, Chatham Co., NC.
My grandfather’s stories of living with Wiley Byrd still haunt us today, although he didn’t talk much about it. Byrd seemed to be a strict taskmaster, and I believe he probably beat the boys, but that is speculation, as Pop never came out and said it explicitly. Pop and his brothers were put to work on the farm. They were not allowed to eat with the family; they were forced to eat on the back porch. My grandfather’s favorite part of a bird to this day is the neck, because that was what he was given to eat growing up. Pop would tell me as a girl about how he lost his big toe: He was slopping the pigs, and standing in the mud of the pig sty, when he was bitten by a water moccasin. He told Wiley and Bettie, but they didn’t believe him. After a couple of days, it became apparent that he had told the truth, and by that time, the toe had to be removed. As a child, I was also interested in a mangled fingernail that he had on one hand, the result of having caught his finger in a bicycle chain. When Pop was about ten or so, a preacher came round to the house, and told them about a school for boys and girls run by a woman named Martha Berry in Rome, GA. Pop decided that he wanted to go to that school. One of Pop’s favorite stories to tell is that of boarding the train to go to Rome. He had a dime in his pocket, and there was a man selling apples on the train. Pop said they were the reddest, shiniest apples he had ever seen, but he saved his dime and didn’t buy the apple. Pop stayed at Berry until he graduated from high school around 1934. At that time, Berry had a work/study program and one of Pop’s jobs there included working at the dairy. I will have to ask him about other jobs he did. The kids wore work uniforms. Today, the school still runs as Berry College.
I often try to imagine how difficult his life must have been as a boy, with no parents, working on a farm out in the country, and what it was like to be a teen during the Depression years (in 1929, Pop would have been 13). You can still tell that the lessons of hardship he learned during those years are still very much with him today. He saves absolutely everything. EVERYTHING.
After graduation, Pop attended North Georgia College, in Dahlonegha, for two years. He then moved to Savannah, GA, were his mother’s unmarried sister, Mabel Knowles, lived at East Henry St. Mabel had become Pop’s guardian after his Aunt Bettie’s death. Another of his mother’s sisters, Carrie Mae, also lived in Savannah. My grandmother, Evelyn Butler, lived with her family across the street from Aunt Mabel, and that is how Pop met his future wife. He says he used to whistle at her as she walked down the street. They married in 1940, at Calvary Baptist Temple in Savannah. Even today, Pop likes to take out an old black and white photo kept in his wallet of Grandma and Daddy, and tells me how beautiful her long, black hair was.
After their marriage, Pop and Grandma rented an upstairs room from Aunt Mabel. During World War II, Grandma and Pop both worked in the Savannah ship yards building Liberty ships. I asked Pop why he didn’t serve in the military. He said that he and some other men went to Atlanta to enlist, but that the military wouldn’t take him, on account of the heart murmur he was born with. I never asked him what he thought of Pearl Harbor, but right after September 11th, 2001, he did tell me that he hadn’t seen anything like that since Pearl Harbor.
Daddy was born about this time in 1942. They lived on E. Henry Street in Savannah. Pop told me about a number of jobs he worked, including a cook (at Morrison’s, I think), running a gas station, and shoveling coal on the railroad line that ran from Savannah to Jacksonville, FL. I cannot imagine how hot that must have been. At one point, Pop and his brother Carl had instruments and played on a radio show. They called themselves “Fat and Bud.” Pop was Bud – He doesn’t remember where the nickname came from.
When Daddy was in high school, Pop took a job with Warner Robins AFB in Warner Robins, GA. He was a civilian employee who managed packaging of supplies for the troops. Pop traveled to a lot of places, including Germany and France, Vietnam, and Siam (Thailand). There may be more, but those are the ones I remember. He seemed to enjoy taking pictures and has interesting albums from both his Berry and North Georgia College days, and his travels overseas while working for the government. He retired in the 70s.
Pop and Daddy dug out the basement for his house, and basically built the thing themselves. He had help with the electricity and the plumbing, but that is about it. He still lives in that house and now Mom and Dad live there with him. He and Grandma owned property in Savannah until just recently, and they also bought property on Lake Sinclair and cleared it and put up a house when I was a little girl. They cleared the property themselves, brought in an old house and put it up on the foundation, and my dad and Pop built all of the seawalls, the dock, and two boathouses. I am tired just thinking about it. He taked great pride in his yard at both the Warner Robins house and the Lakehouse. He must have put in a hundred azaleas at both properties, and now dad keeps all of it up, which is quite a job. One of my favorite memories as a girl was roaming around the yard helping him do gardening, and him showing me the plants and teaching me their names. I am pretty sure my love for gardening started there.
He’s a member of Central Baptist in Warner Robins, and has been a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason since his days in Savannah at the Acacia Lodge. I always try to get him to tell me about it, or teach me the secret handshake, but he never has. Dad is a mason now, too, and sometimes they do some crazy secret knock and talk gibberish that evidently makes sense to the two of them.
Much of the time we have spent together consisted of him shaking his head in disbelief at the way we do things these days, of the technology at our fingertips, and the ease with which we accomplish daily tasks. I often think of all the things that my grandfather has seen and seen change in his 90 years: My grandfather probably knew people who fought in the Civil War. He was there for the advent of the car, the radio, the t.v. and the computer. Two World wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, and two Gulf wars. The flu epidemic, the Depression, Pearl Harbor, the Civil Rights era, the assassinations of Kennedy and King, the moon landing, the Challenger explosion, and the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Pop is quick to laugh, and loves to tell jokes and stories. One of them is that would tell my grandmother that when he got to be an old man, he was going to write a book about his life. She would reply, “You’re an old man now!” Pop has now lived long enough to see the birth of his two granddaughters, and to meet two of his great-grandchildren. We are so thankful that we have gotten to know him, and look forward to more years to spend together as a family.
I love you, Pop! Happy 90th!
p.s. Okay, not the greatest picture of the family, but the most recent one i have of four generations. That’s Pop, sitting in the chair, my Dad, me, and Rollie. I think this was on Rollie’s 2nd birthday.
Go Creekers!
Tuesday, January 10th, 2006My best friends as a kid and a teenager were mostly neighbors from the old neighborhood, Saddle Creek. Our swim team was called The Creekers. I now refer to the old neighborhood as “the creek,” in much the same way Dawson, Pacey, and Joey referred to their own waterway on Dawson’s Creek.
I don’t get to see those guys so much anymore (yes, they were mostly guys); We all have families, jobs, and lives of our own, and are spread all over the state. But this past week, I had the pleasure of seeing a couple of them, their wives, and their kids. Here’s the evidence.
Rollie eyes Elle as she tries to swipe a truck.
Matilda in her Bulldog outfit.
Jason and Elle read a book.
Owen’s little Noah.
Jason’s Elle
Sad Morning
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006How many other Georgia Faithful wiped away a tear as they took the Bulldog mug out of the cabinet this morning?
Or maybe that was sleep they were wiping out of their eyes. . . .