I am driving our van toward my second Christmas concert of the day (third if you count this morning’s rehearsal), when I become aware that I don’t have Youngest Daughter on board. At the moment of realization, I am at the rink picking up Second Oldest from ice-skating junior’s, as I have just left piano …
Home sick this afternoon…so I asked Littlest One if the kids missed me. Her reply. “Yes, they did for a while. Then they forgot about it.” Oh well… ********************* Most oft used expression/excuse by a certain someone in our house (to explain away a wide variety of problems and other such issues/concerns: “I’m hitting puberty …
While driving in the van towards our weekend ‘three-hour’s worth of figure skating club’, Littlest One says to one and all, “Let’s decorate the tree tonight and then hold hands and sing around the tree.” Yes, let’s. The image conjures up just about every stereotype I have regarding Christmas but which seems to ironically fail …
Here it is- confessions of a good enough mother. Because slacker is such a strong word. I admit it. I use nearly-rotten bananas in smoothies and quickly hide the skins in the compost container. Just so the kids don’t see what grossness they are actually drinking. I also own up to the fact that when …
After a busy day at church, complete with a Sunday School Christmas concert practice, accompaniment on piano during the service and a fellowship meal to prepare, eat and then clean up, the last thing I feel like doing is digging out Christmas ornaments to deck the halls. Falalala….falafel. ‘Cause I feel like the former ground-up …
My kids occasionally ask me what it is I want for Christmas. Which completely throws me… because I place very little stock in what I receive at Christmas. Whereas I realize this is the very large part of what makes Christmas magical for them. So lately, and after reading one Mama’s very consumer-driven, grown-up Christmas …
What happens when three children, one Grandmother and two Mamas/Aunties go shopping together in a crowded mini-van during a down-pour? A whole lot of candy gets bought. And very few Christmas gifts. Santa should provide a few of his slacker elves for babysitting service and maybe a reindeer or two for entertainment. Believe you me. …
So. Son thinks his folks are hill-billies (which he equates with being cheap, I might add). And he calls [one of us in particular, and it’s not me…] this over and over. And as a dear friend said to me tonight, I guess we could be called worse names. However, I guess the jokes on …
Is it just me, or are we as a western society forgetting what it feels like to anticipate the anticipation of a holiday, season or milestone such as Christmas? (And this sentiment could be applied to other holidays spread throughout the year). But since Christmas is coming, and it is the biggest holiday of the …
Summer heat, haze of humidity presses down. I am sitting on the porch swing. It is August, and I have escaped to get a break from the children, from the craziness going inside the house. I settle in with a good read, or so I hope. And occasionally, I look up from my book to …
Another typical evening at the Gard household. Everyone going off in different directions. And so it was immediately upon finishing supper that we all left home together, half of us going in one direction and half in the other. As my regular Thursday evening activity was cancelled, I was given the rare and exquisite privilege …
I think I just might need to start getting more creative with my overall life organizational skills as well as with my child-rearing methods, as my status updates are becoming increasingly redundant (a.k.a ‘kids fight, I scream, exhaustion sets in, sanity starts slipping…’) Here is part of what I wrote as my blog update last …