Cleverness shall be rewarded

I made cookies this morning.

Or rather, I baked the cookies that I mixed up yesterday this morning.  Mainly because it's so much cooler in the morning, but also because Chris is working overtime and I wanted him to be able to take some in his lunch/dinner.

So I was baking cookies and making breakfast at the same time.  You may well imagine that the Boy thought the cookies were PART of breakfast and began begging for cookies almost immediately.  I patiently explained 437 times that the cookies were NOT for breakfast, that he could have a cookie AFTER he ate a decent LUNCH.  And after the 437th explanation he seemed to accept it and move on.  Which was nice.

Fast forward.  The Girl is taking a nice little nap, and my parents are coming down today to pick up the Boy for a little sleepover at their house.  I was talking to him about what we were going to pack in his overnight bag and he declares that he needs a little snack.

(Now, everyone is different, but in our house, in the pantry, there's a shelf near the bottom that the Boy can reach and access Boy-appropriate snacks: fruit and cereal bars, dried fruit, nuts, occasionally crackers etc.)

So he goes to the pantry and pulls out his "snack bag" (it's a simple cloth bag that holds zippies full of snacks) and says he needs to put together some snacks to take to Nana's house (never mind that as soon as he gets to Nana's house he'll get all NEW snacks, but that's beside the point).  So we go through the pantry packing up his snacks to take to Nana's.  He declares that he needs some, "Nuts!  Mama, cashews and almonds and pecans (which he pronounces PAW-cawns)!"  So I pack a little zippy of nuts.  Then, "Dried fruit, Mama!  I need some mango!"  So I pack him a little zippy of mango.  Then he says, "I need a fig bar, Mama."  So he gets a fig and cereal bar (from Trader Joe's, natch) and adds that to the bag.  Then he says, "I will also need a cookie, Mama."

At which point I look at him and think, "He has staged this clever ruse in the hopes that in the midst of all of those healthy snacks, I wouldn't notice that he's asking for a cookie!"  But it's so clever, that of course, I gave him a cookie.

Which he promptly ate.



The bag of snacks remains untouched.  I can't help but think that, in spite of their nutritional deficiencies maybe treats DO make kids smarter...

Then and Now

I was in charge of putting together a slideshow for my family reunion this year.  We had all gathered to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary, so I spent the better part of July sifting through a million gagillion family photos and then scanning them and then feathering them into a slideshow.

But in the process, I found this...

Y'all, that's ME.  In August of 1976.  Which makes me the same age that my Girl is in the following photo.

Excepting the marshmallow that I'm gnawing on, and the AWESOME daisy dress, I think to myself, "That's MY girl."

Back to Normal

Thank you all for your kind comments and thoughts.  It means a lot to have so much kindness in my life.  I know Leike is a cat and it's nothing like losing a person out of your life, I know that not everyone is a pet-person, and so I think it means all the more that you all have been so lovely.

Chris and I are both sick and the babies are running circles around us, but I have some lovely pictures to show all of you from our adventures over the past few weeks...so if you're in to that kind of thing, then y'all come back now...

ya'hear?

Letting Go

We had to let Leike go yesterday.

She's been on a slow decline all summer long.  We made a conscious choice to let her age at home, and when the time came we would try to do what was necessary.

I had been watching her weaken for weeks, and I vaguely hoped that I would just wake up one morning and she would have quietly passed during the night.  But that didn't happen.

She had been acting oddly the night before, but I didn't think much of it.  Every day was different with her all summer.  But when we came back from taking the kids to their doctor appointments, she was listless and unable to make eye-contact.  She couldn't walk far and was struggling to breathe. 

And that's when I felt like an enormous coward.  I should have called the vet weeks ago, but I just couldn't bear to let her go just because she was OLD.  She's still my friend, no matter how old she is!  But watching her struggle to breathe was just horrible, so I called the vet. 

Chris took the day off of work, we took the babies up to Sherry's and took Leike down to the vet.  By this point she couldn't even hold her head up.  They thought she was probably in acute kidney failure and some cardiac distress.  The vet was really lovely.  The left me alone with her to say good-bye.  It was nice to be able to thank her for being such a lovely friend to me for so long.

She laid her head in my hand and slipped quietly away. 

What I really want to remember is the way she would lay across whatever book I was reading as if she was absorbing great literature by osmosis.  And how she slept between my feet every night for 14 years.  How she loved bedtime with the Boy and would cuddle us both while we read and told stories together.  And her kamakaze leg-rubs, she would charge your legs and rub up against them so hard, if you didn't have your feet, she could knock you over.

But right now I'm practicing letting go.




I have a lot of stories and pictures to share with all of you.  Last week was our big family reunion and 50th wedding anniversary party for my parents.  Those stories are coming.  I promise.