Over the river and through the woods...

As with Christmas, I'm not dealing very well this week. Holidays, despite the fact that for the latter half of my childhood we lived 1200 miles south of Michigan, still have an undeniable emotional connection to my grandmother. Grandma didn't just observe a holiday, she made it an event. I can still remember waking up in the guest bedroom with the long drapes and glass corner shelf with wee little ceramic figures, staring out the window overlooking "Grandma's towers" (radio array with blinking red lights you could see from almost every window in her house) and being so excited about Easter that my stomach was in knots. It's important to know that aside from receiving a pink plastic bucket filled with green Easter grass and what seemed to be an endless supply of jellybeans and chocolate, I don't remember anything else. The sugar high must have wiped the Easter dress, church and what would have been dinner with the most impressive salad bar I've ever seen outside a restaurant clean from my memory.

I can remember the salad bar being most often laid out on my grandfather's stereo console in the living room. It was a thing of beauty in the eyes of a child, so much so that to this day I am generally disappointed when I amble up to the leafy offerings of your average family eatery. For an intimate family gathering (four adults, three children) she would of course have lettuce, and then, all cooked and grated, chopped, sliced or otherwise processed by hand - carrot, hard boiled eggs, cucumber, tomato, onion, cheese, croutons, bacon bits, sunflower seeds and about fifty-eight kinds of salad dressing. All fresh and all homemade - not quite the same as ripping open a bag of greens and dumping it into a bowl, is it?

Grandma also had a bona fide dining room and a china cabinet filled with... actual china. These things didn't exist in a home containing three small and highly active children. I can remember staring at the antique cut glass, beautifully painted china and wine glasses, appreciating without quite understanding that these items were special.

Everything about Grandma's house was special. All of her window ledges in the kitchen, downstairs den and office were lined with collected figurines of birds. Looking back, I don't know how she kept them all dust free and neatly aranged. Her kitchen also had a nifty bell on a stand with the oh-so witty "Good bread, good meat, good gosh, let's eat!", she had special glasses just for juice and a toaster on her kitchen table. That made such perfect sense to me that I could not understand why we didn't do it - until Brian laid his arm across our toaster one day and was driven screaming bloody murder to the emergency room.

She and Grandpa laid in a good supply of Jay's potato chips, 7-Up and ice cream before the kids arrived, and she could be counted upon to have fresh cookies, cake and a lemon meringue pie stashed somewhere on special occasions. She taught us "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice scream" with no regard for volume and also introduced us to the concept of drowning innocent ice cream in chocolate. This is the same woman who after Grandpa died thought nothing of tossing a perfectly good steak in the microwave and eating it after the buzzer sounded. I guess she earned that right after all that cooking in the 1950s and 1960s, but the dichotomy amuses me to no end. It may also be why she and "The Colonel" had an ongoing relationship. Grandma's arrival in Texas *always* meant fried chicken.

Her pillowcases had hand-embroidered edges, she would let me try on any of her shoes, she had a collection of beautifully illustrated books about birds, we were allowed to use her tape recorder and binoculars (heady stuff!), she dutifully and thoroughly maintained the photographic history of her family from the 1930s until arthritis kept her from using a camera regularly - and would patiently take the albums down and let us peruse them at will. I don't know how many questions she answered with a smile about our Aunt Jeannie. Aunt Jeannie died when she was just two years old.

Last, but most importantly, she had bits and pieces of Christmas stashed in every drawer and closet in the house. Grandma did not believe there was a such thing as too many Christmas decorations.

Pulling up to Grandma and Grandpa's on a dark night was a magical experience for a small child. But I think I'll save that one for a few more months.

Grade School Drama

Rob let it slip this morning that one of Ashton’s classmates told her a while back that he does not like me. Where does an adult go with that? It’s not like he’s ever been to our house or that I’ve volunteered in the classroom. Our completely non-verbal acquaintance is limited to about three minutes of exposure to my apparently heinous self when I deposit Ashton into her morning line. I wish I could be a big enough person to let it slide, but let’s face it – I’m really not. In fact, I revel in occasional pettiness, and it matters not one whit that the object of today’s pettiness is a six year old boy.

I think what really bothers me, though, is that he said it to Ashton. She is simply not the type of child who understands pith, pettiness or general nastiness. Yes, I understand how heroically ironic that is given her parentage. The universe has to balance itself out somehow. She has not yet even worked up to hurt feelings when confronted with a nasty little playmate because her brain is still busily trying to ascertain the “why” of such behavior. I love this innocence and openness and pray that she maintains the strength of character needed to hold on to her belief in goodness while dodging the barbs of childhood and adolescence.

Meanwhile, I am trapped. I would dearly love to say something to the mother of our questionably mannered antagonist about saying something unkind to my child, but really, is there any possible way I could walk away from that conversation without looking like I care that it was about me?

I didn’t think so.

It was predictably a... zoo.

I’d really like to bring something truly witty and hysterical to the table today, but sadly I am sidelined with what is starting to feel like an upper respiratory infection, or maybe a touch o’ the plague. Couple that with forms, filings and audits (oh my!) and I’ll bet much of the rattlesnake population of Texas is less testy than I am right now.

The zoo was full of animals on Friday. Unfortunately, many of them were of the two legged twelve year old boy variety. I’ll be the first to admit that I could use some personal growth in the parenting department – my patience (it should not take an hour to brush your teeth), empathy levels (I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible for your sister to hurt Mr. Stuffy’s feelings) and complete dependence on caffeine (Momma cannot see to cook waffles until she’s had her twenty ounces of carbonated bliss) all need a little tweaking. That said, I was feeling a little smug by the time we left.

Let’s talk about strollers. I am not referring to strollers containing children with disabilities that make it difficult or impossible to walk. I am referring to the umbrella stroller into which had been squeezed what appeared to be a healthy first grader and a jogging stroller containing a girl with hair on her legs and visible bra straps. Those things just below their ankles are called feet. Give them a try sometime.

Next, if your child uses Speed Stick, it’s a clue that perhaps the Tiny Tot Nature Spot isn’t the most appropriate area for him to be wrestling with his buddies. You get exactly one eye roll and an imperceptible sigh before he gets within five feet of my delicate little princess – after that I might do something really drastic like flounce off muttering under my breath about ill behaved children and clueless parents. If I’m really angry, it might be loud enough for you to hear.

Speaking of Tiny Tot Nature Spots, your three year son’s does not need to be on display. Give the poor guy a little dignity and change his swim diaper somewhere besides the middle of the venue.

On a much more positive note, the girls noticed not a bit of this and had the time of their lives. They handled the crowds beautifully, saw everything on their little mental lists (you wouldn’t believe the financial commitment we had to make to see an alligator and a cheetah), Daddy spoiled them when my back was turned and they came away with actual zoo souvenirs and ice cream and I spoiled them by letting them get wet and filthy in the Tiny Tot “riverbend”.

Whe all was said and done, there was of course much complaining about gritty shoes and cold walks to the car as passersby giggled at our sodden and muddy jaguar and giraffe – the stuff childhood memories are made of.

To the zoo and beyond

It's 8:30, I've had my coffee, the clothes are in the dryer, and the zoo awaits. There really is no reason to be sitting here other than the shameful admission that if they're sleeping, they're not fighting.

The silence is bliss. Well, except for the snoring.

I should be online acquiring and paying for our family membership to the zoo. However, I'm a tad hung up on the "family plus one" membership and cannot seem to let it go. We have no "plus one", and even if we did, the Element will only seat two children. There is also the little known fact that I once lost a stranger's child at the Houston Zoo. To be fair, the other family did look like a lot more fun than watching me and a friend try to make sure ten children did not bolt in ten directions, and they did return him, so no harm no foul, right?

The "family plus one" membership comes with free admission to Zoo Boo, and I do love a good deal. Even if it means paying for a child whom we don't know, cannot transport and might possibly lose.

Tot ziens dutchmafia.net

The three year saga of our family blog has come to a bittersweet end. Bitter because it was fun - and funny. Sweet because not many of us are treated to the sight of one of our very own posts during a presentation of what not to do and discuss about your company in the public domain. Let's raise our glasses to Brian - he brought us into this blogging world and he took us out with panache and and not a small amount of drama.

So I find myself solo and ready to join the legions of mommy bloggers. Stories about my children that only I and the grandparents will appreciate? Check. Complaints about home improvement gone horribly, deliciously awry? Check. Antics of the four legged members of our household? Check. Detailed descriptions of the pained look of long suffering permanently etched upon the visage of the man of the house? Check.

And yes, they have colored on the cat.