Lucky seven? I don’t think so.

October 7, 2012October 28, 20126 Comments

Isn’t she cute?
Photo courtesy of Vickie Hansen

When I was growing up, seven was somewhat less than fun. When I was seven, my two-year-old niece passed away. I remember sitting on my mom’s lap when she told us what happened and being nigh inconsolable. A few years later, when my sister was seven, a girl in her class was killed in a car accident. She and her family were on their way to church when they were hit by a drunk driver. Her seatbelt snapped, she was ejected from the vehicle, and their van rolled right over her. I remember thinking when we went to her visitation that she looked like she was seventy, not seven.

Finally, a race Jeff Gordon can win!
Picture by Kay Kauffman

But thankfully, seven has been a perfectly lovely age for my kids thus far. Tomcat competed in his first Pinewood Derbyat the age of seven. He even came in third place – not too shabby, especially since neither of his assistants (Seymour and Aunt M.) had any experience in Pinewood Derby racing. Tadpole got a new little brother at the age of seven and was tickled pink because a new little brother meant she didn’t have to share her bedroom. She was, however, disappointed that she had to give up her bunk beds. Apparently she hadn’t thought of that when she said she wanted a brother.

The maternal instinct is strong in this one.
Photo by Greg Kauffman

I hope the age of seven will be equally uneventful for Cricket and Thumper. But then again, who knows? By that point, I’ll have teenagers running amok and things are never uneventful when there are teenagers on the loose.

Four

October 4, 2012October 28, 20122 Comments

Four. Today is the fourth day of October, the fourth day of the blog challenge, and I must admit that I am finding myself a bit stuck. I seem to have a shortage of four stories; I can’t remember any stories of myself at that age and the one I was going to relate about Tomcat’s first fishing trip can be found here.

But, now that I’ve been interrupted and had my poor fried brain distracted for a bit, I’ve remembered a story. I actually had this one in mind a couple of days ago, only for it to be forgotten because I didn’t write it down (yes, I’m already suffering from CRS at 28).

Anyway…

Troublesome Threes

October 3, 2012October 28, 201210 Comments

My grown-up guy
Photo by Kay Kauffman

When I was growing up, my aunt used to babysit. She watched a little boy who had the same name as my cousin, right down to the middle name, so my cousin became Big D. and the boy my aunt watched became Little D. That kid is now in his early twenties and, last I saw him, taller than me, but he’ll always be Little D. to me.

Anyway, my aunt watched this kid when he was a toddler, and I remember her talking about the terrible twos and the troublesome threes. I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time and since I was a kid myself, I didn’t really care, either. Now, though, I know exactly what she meant and boy, do I care! As I recall, Tomcat’s twos weren’t overly terrible, though Cricket’s twos have thus far fit that bill, but boy, were his threes ever troublesome! I suspect Cricket’s may be the same way, but I’m hoping they won’t.

When Tomcat was three, our lives were in a state of upheaval.

Two-fer Tuesday

October 2, 2012October 28, 20128 Comments

Today is the second, which is the perfect day to write about age two. And, lucky you, I’ve got a couple of stories!

I am two years and five months older than my younger sister. For most of our lives, we’ve fought like cats and dogs, although we do seem to get along better now that we don’t live under the same roof. I’m glad, because we’re all each other has left of our immediate family (by which I do not mean the families we’ve created for ourselves with our husbands, both of whom we love very much).

I digress. I do that a lot. Anyway, rumor has it that once upon a time, like say, before she could walk and/or talk, my sister and I actually got along pretty well. Turns out I was a helpful little stinker. Too helpful, even. See, we had this grate in our hallway floor upstairs for the furnace vent and apparently I liked to help change my sister’s diapers at the tender age of two and a half, whether she needed a diaper change or not. Being a wee lass, I was not exactly up-to-speed on the proper diaper disposal techniques, so I lifted the grate and chucked them down the vent.

Cricket is now a very helpful, sometimes too helpful, toddler of two. He enjoys helping me change Thumper’s diapers, though he and Thumper are closer in age than my sister and I. Thank goodness, though, that Cricket hasn’t yet taken it into his head to change Thumper’s diapers by himself – I have a hard enough time convincing him to keep his own diaper on during naps and at night. For some reason, he thinks he’s old enough to go commando. A couple of times, it’s resulted in a very large, very smelly mess in their bedroom. It even led to a failed attempt at potty training. I swear my kids are plotting to drive me loony. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Wait, I take that back. I would change one thing. I’d be a lotto winner – then I could afford the diapers.

October Blog Challenge

October 1, 2012October 28, 201217 Comments

About a week ago or so, I ran across an interesting blog challenge. Officially, it’s called the October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge. That’s a bit of a mouthful, so I shortened it up a bit for my post title. Anyway, you can find out more about it here on Jane Ann McLachlan’s blog and sign up for it, should you so desire, here. I thought it sounded like fun, so I signed right up.

On the off chance that you haven’t clicked through to find out what it’s all about, here’s the gist of it: Write 25 posts in 31 days. Sounds easy enough, right? Ah, but there’s a theme: Each post should be a memory or reflection for each of the first 25 years of life. From the original post:

It can be a personal memoir from your life, a reflection on turning a certain age, a recollection of someone else at that age, a poem or a photo, on the ages 1 to 25.

For example…

From this moment on

September 29, 20126 Comments

I’ve spent two days working on a gift for Seymour. Little else has been done around the house, but at least I’ve gotten his gift finished. Cricket and Thumper helped, too much at times. Cricket was so funny – he kept hearing our song (you know, the old, “They’re playing our song!” thing) and looking for my cell phone, thinking that Daddy was calling because the beginning of it is Seymour’s ringtone.

Tonight we’re going out to celebrate, but since we couldn’t find a sitter, we’re not going to celebrate the way we originally planned. Maybe it’s better this way, though. We can come home, put the kids in bed, pop in Fool’s Gold and have a little popcorn, maybe an adult beverage or two, and since there’s no ice outside, I don’t have to worry about falling on my butt like I did when we first saw it. 😉

Since I’ve abandoned everything else, I’ve gotten no writing done, either. Luckily, tomorrow promises to be a very lazy day spent at home. Of course, by lazy, I mean I’ll be doing mountains of laundry and piles of dishes and squeezing in some writing here and there if I’m lucky. Now that I think about it, that doesn’t sound lazy at all, does it? Maybe I ought to stop into Casey’s and buy myself a lottery ticket on my way out of town tonight…

Lost in a moment

September 28, 2012August 22, 20142 Comments

So I’m a little late with my Photo Friday post today. But hey – it’s still Friday, and look, I’ve even got a photo!

Photograph by Minson Photography

This is one of my favorite wedding pictures and in honor of my third wedding anniversary Wednesday, I thought I’d share it. It’s not quite candid, not quite posed. We took pictures both before and after the ceremony because we didn’t want to see each other beforehand and also because that way we wouldn’t keep our guests waiting at the reception hall quite as long. This shot was captured between posed photos, when Seymour and I clearly weren’t paying attention to anyone or anything but each other.

I’ve got the song “Lost in This Moment” by Big and Rich stuck in my head right now and I think it fits this photo perfectly.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, a great big hunk of man is calling my name. ¡Hasta luego, mis amigos! 🙂

Anniversaries

September 27, 20122 Comments

This is a week of anniversaries for me. Anniversaries and craziness. Shall we start at the beginning? Yesterday was my wedding anniversary – three years and two kids and many memories. Yesterday was supposed to be grand. There was going to be lunch with Seymour and an afternoon spent making a gift while babies napped and then supper out while the kids were at church. But then my car broke down in the midst of a busy intersection. As I struggled to turn around and get back to the repair shop, I prayed I’d be able to make it home in time to finish my projects as planned, but it was not to be. So instead there was time spent reconnecting with an old friend while my car was being fixed. Eventually, there was supper out while the kids were at church. It was an unexpected day, but not altogether bad. The evening spent curled up on the couch with Seymour was, in fact, particularly nice.

Oh, darling!

September 22, 2012September 22, 20124 Comments

They say you should murder your darlings, but this one from my latest project may prove difficult to kill, should it eventually become necessary:

If there was anything Muffy Montrose and Cookie Bradley loved more than talking, though, it was shopping. They went every other weekend, always with each other, usually with their daughters in tow, but never with their husbands, who were too busy working or golfing to notice the desperation their wives wore like the latest fragrance.

If he were being honest with himself, Michael felt sorry for these women. They were trapped in marriages that provided them every comfort but the one they truly wanted. Even their daughters had little respect for them. Maria was always going on about how her mother was such a doormat and how she should stand up for herself and how she would never let a man treat her the way her father has treated her mother. But then, he wasn’t being honest with many people lately, least of all himself.

Room-ba!

September 21, 2012August 22, 20145 Comments

We’ve lived in our house for three years now and have done some extensive remodeling in that time. Almost every room in our house has had something done to it. At last, we’ve crossed Tomcat’s room off our list.

Photo by Kay Kauffman

Since we have three boys, we have a set of bunk beds. The littler two aren’t quite old enough for them yet, but they will be one day, so in the meantime, Tomcat gets to choose whether he has top bunk or bottom. While they’re great for accommodating a large number of children in a small number of bedrooms, they’re not so great when it comes to repainting a room. Case in point: