For Mother’s Day we went out to eat with my mom, dad, sister and her family. I can’t believe I took absolutely no pictures. Go ahead scold me! I have excuses though. It was a super busy time with more chaos with the combined families and it is so much more difficult to think about photo taking while constantly holding and carrying a baby. You understand. Right?
At the restaurant during our Mother’s Day meal our little Grace needed to go to the bathroom. My mom volunteered to take her since I was nursing the baby. Mom asked Grace how she knew the difference between the girls and the boys bathrooms, “Oh that’s easy,” replied my daughter, “the picture on the girl’s is wearing a dress and the one on the boy’s is nekkid.”
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Little Jason walked in and immediately the search began for his own rolly polly. He picked one up. I eyed it suspiciously and told him that when they are hard and don’t roll up they are dead, just in case. He didn’t say anything, but continued to play with it. A few minutes later Faith sat down to eat breakfast. She asked Little Jason if he had found a rolly polly yet. “Yeah (big sigh) but it’s dead.”
This story from my mom’s childhood made me laugh out loud. Enjoy! When I was ten years old (1947) my family moved to a little town in Honduras to be missionaries. My little brother and sister and I went to a boarding school for missionaries’ children in Guatemala seven months of the year, but we were at home with our parents the other five months. In the first vacation from school we learned enough Spanish to play with the local children. (Children usually learn a foreign language with great ease compared to their parents.) In the second vacation, when I turned eleven years old, I thought I was grown. The children my age at church were children. The girls my age still wore pigtails, but I had a Toni home permanent, which I thought gave me adult status. Furthermore, most of the townspeople were short in stature, and I had almost reached my full height of 5’7”. I didn’t play with the children anymore—I liked to sit and listen to the señoritas talk about señorita things like boyfriends. There was a very good-looking young man (I’ll call him Gabriel), son of a leading family at church, who “liked me.” He was sixteen. The fact that a teenager liked me made me feel really grown up and special. Our grand “courtship” consisted of sending verbal messages to each other by his sister and catching each other’s eye across the church. The custom of the churches, both Catholic and Protestant, in Honduras at that time was for men and boys to sit on one side of the center aisle and women and girls on the other. Sometimes Gabriel would wink, but I didn’t even dare smile for fear my parents would see me. Since both his family and ours were at church every time the doors opened, we saw each other from a distance several times a week. Gabriel’s family lived about a block down the street from us, and his sister and I spent quite a bit of time together, but Gabriel was always at work when I visited their house. A few days before I was to go back to school, his little sister came to tell me the sister who was my age was sick and wanted me to visit her so she could say goodbye. For some reason my mother let me go alone to see her. Ordinarily, young ladies of my age, or at least my size, couldn’t go anywhere without at least a little brother for escort. I was ushered into a bedroom, where my girlfriend was in bed. I was told she was asleep and was given a chair. There I sat, feeling very awkward. Looking back, I think I was set up. After a few minutes, her brother Gabriel appeared and took another chair. I don’t remember any more of the conversation, if there was any more, but he totally shocked me by asking, “Will you marry me when you are fourteen?” When I didn’t say anything, he offered by way of explanation, “If we wait any longer you might be as tall as your mother.” (Mother was 5’8”.) I didn’t answer him. I went away to school, and before the next vacation my parents moved to Panama, so I never saw him again. I have always wondered if he thought marriage would stunt my growth or that height didn’t matter once you were married. Our guest post today is by Charity Hawkins, author of The Homeschool Experiment: a novel. Sample the first three chapters here. I went to the park with a friend of mine the other day and her five-year-old son was dressed as Superman. Cape, red underwear on the outside of his blue leggings, red socks with holes in them, belt made of duct tape. “Does he dress like this every day?” I asked her. “Well, he alternates,” she said, “It’s between this and cowboys. Or knights.” And then I remembered we had run into them at Chick-fil-A a few months back and he had been wearing his fake suit of armor.  Fierce, isn’t he? “Well, I think it’s completely adorable,” I told her and we laughed. She told me how he also insists that his two-year-old brother be Batman, with cape and matching duct tape belt, to be his sidekick. And how, when he had changed his mind about being a cowboy one day after thirty minutes of costuming, deciding he wanted to be an Indian instead, my friend told him to make the costume himself. He did, right down to the bow and arrow out of sticks and string.  He had to put on sister’s tap shoes to do his tappity-tap dance. I LOVE when kids are so completely into their costumes. It is the essence of childhood to me, this earnest playing, the emphatic belief that they can be whomever and whatever they want to be. It’s fabulous. My eight-year-old isn’t into costumes as much as he used to be, but when he does put one on, he favors capes and weapons. My daughter’s whimsical outfits were the inspiration for the four-year-old in my novel, The Homeschool Experiment:
My real-life daughter dressed up in a butterfly dancing outfit the other day. Today, inspired by the current potty training of her younger brother, the outfit of choice was… are you ready? DiaperGirl. She wrapped (unused, of course) disposable diapers around her arms, legs, and head. I know you’re sorry I didn’t take a picture. My toddler’s recent outfits include: rainbow-stripey socks, tap shoes, and a sword and mask. And why not? I mean, we’re at home all day. (Yet another reason why we homeschool—I don’t think they would allow DiaperGirl into Kindergarten.)  He loves these stripey knee socks, and insisted his pants legs be rolled all the way up so they’d show properly. But isn’t that the beauty of childhood? Our children are dreaming bold dreams, crafting their own worlds, exploring and imagining all kinds of wonderful things. Suits and ties will come soon enough; today, why not be Superman? What are your children’s craziest costumes or wardrobe idiosyncrasies?
I was so proud of both girls who did the work and memorization completely on their own. It was a struggle in years past with lots of reminding and help on my part. Last year they really got a good routine down. This year I was so happy to see them take the initiative and responsibility upon themselves. My little Grace really struggled with her first year of Sparks. We even had to take her out of the program for a while because she refused to cooperate. She didn’t finish her book, but we are happy to have seen so much growth in her. While she still wasn’t the model little Sparks kid, I’m sure, we were able to get back into the program and have her finish the year. For the record, neither of the other girls finished their Sparks book the first year either. It seems to get much easier once the learn to read well. Hopefully we’ll be able to get caught up next year!
Then we remembered that Saturday kids eat free at Texas Land & Cattle Steak House. We love this restaurant! Unlike most kids eat free programs, Texas Land & Cattle allows two free kid’s meals for every one adult entree purchase. For a family like ours you just can’t beat it! Even though it wasn’t Mexican food it was still very special for the kids to be able to order their own meal (They almost always have to share.) and their own drink (They usually drink water.) Oh but wait; see the plate at the bottom of the picture? I did order nachos. Does that count?
The kids all dressed in their Mexican dresses and guayabera on Sunday. I meant to take a picture. Really I did! (I was not compensated in any way for this post.) This event at our church was also put on by my daughter’s AWANA Truth and Training club. I have looked forward to it each year. While some families include all the girls in the family, I take pleasure in sending all the rest home and spending some time with my oldest girl!
Each year they have had a professional photographer taking our pictures though we haven’t received ours yet. I really look forward to those photos because I always look much better than I do in real life. Ha! Ha! Maybe I should invest in PhotoShop? I asked my daughter what her favorite part of the tea was. I expected her to say the food or the dessert which are both fabulous every year. Her answer? “Just spending time with you Mom.” Aw! I pressed her to give me an answer that was specific to the event. She said her favorite thing was the missionary speaker.
“Hmm. His weight has really dipped in the last two weeks,” she said. He had been sick I reminded her. We talked about it for a couple of minutes. The more I thought about it…he had been spitting up a lot more than usual. Actually, he was spitting up two or three times a feeding. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had as many dirty or wet diapers either. He had been happy so I didn’t think too much about it. Oh my goodness, I realized it all started when I began eating my daily cabbage soup! Recently, I shared my Mexican Cabbage soup recipe with you. It’s been fun to hear from so many who tried it and liked it! I had really been enjoying my soup and was proud of myself for all the calories saved too. The only problem was that I put poor Bobby on a diet as well! Poor thing. I quit eating my soup, and he quit spitting up! I guess it’s back to the treadmill for me!
My sister Miriam was having problems with her brand new Kindle Fire. She had downloaded a game that amid downloading she realized she didn’t want, but then couldn’t figure out how to remove it. Since Sara, our eldest (She’s gonna love that word.) sister, also has a Kindle Fire, Miriam called her to ask for help. No one answered. She called our niece Andrea–no answer. Finally, Sara’s oldest daughter Ashley who is college age answered the phone. My sister Miriam went into great detail describing her problem with the Kindle Fire. Finally, Ashley said that she was very sorry but she could not help. She told Miriam she’d have to talk to her mom. She was sure her mom could help. “I tried calling your mom, but couldn’t get a hold of her,” Miriam said. “Oh yes, she’s not home right now.” “Well, do you know what time she will be back?” “No, I’m not sure.” “Well, where is she?” my sister finally asked thinking it was unusual that they weren’t home that late in the evening. “Oh Grandpa called and said Grandma was having a stroke, so they called an ambulance, and they are all at the hospital.” I’m linked with Works for Me Wednesday.
He still does not pay much attention to Bobby. Some times I really wonder if he just pretends there is no baby in the house. Bobby is five months old. I would have thought he would have warmed up more by now, but other women with boys have told me that this behavior is not uncommon. Nevertheless my husband asked him if he likes the baby. “No, I want a different one,” he responded! |
 
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