Death Is Conquered!

Cultures all around the world celebrate the end of winter and the renewal of life in the spring.

The days are longer, flowers are coming up everywhere. There is more light, more color, more warmth, and more life! All over, people celebrate with parades, with dancing, with color, with egg feasts -- in Thailand they even have water-fights! 

Much of these celebrations are also based on religious beliefs.

In the Jewish faith, they observe the Passover: a story told with a symbolic meal of the protection of the Hebrews from the Angel of Death, and a celebration of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

For the Christian world, this means the observance and celebration of the atonement, death, and resurrection of the Lord, Jesus Christ. 

I feel like there is a reason that we all celebrate this season, no matter what culture or religious belief. I feel that we, the human race, have a shared hope that all sad things -- bondage, pain, sorrow, and even death -- have an end. We hope and believe that life wins out. Winter will end, Spring will come, life is renewed and restored on an regular basis as a law of nature. 

For many of us, this also means a hope in resurrection. We hope that the death of our mortal bodies is not the end of existence. We hope that we will be restored to life, and also restored to our families and those we love. The rising of Christ from the tomb gives us this hope.

Tomorrow GoosePuddin' celebrates Easter!

And also April Fool's Day because Puddin' likes her practical jokes. 😒

We wish all of you a happy Spring and hope you find joy in whatever way you choose to celebrate life!

Check back in a day or so for pictures from our Easter celebrations!

Happy Easter!

Bedtime Wars : Part One

If you haven't tried to put small children to bed before, you haven't lived.

It's also possible you haven't said "Go brush your teeth" so often it doesn't sound like words anymore, or gone up and down the stairs 800 times in search of the "correct" blankie, or tried to convince anyone that you suddenly forgot all the words to Let It Go and can I please sing something else tonight?

The same thing happens every night. The kids all need to brush their teeth, maybe be bathed, put on pajamas, maybe there is prayer or stories or singing, and then they are supposed to close their little eyes and go to sleep. Most parents understand that a routine makes bedtime easier.

Most children act like bedtime is an unpleasant surprise every night.

via Buzzfeed

Puddin's children are actually pretty good about bedtime, especially now that DaVinci has his own room. He puts himself to bed now, and does a lot better when he's not being pestered by his little brothers. Slim and Deedle don't bother with pajamas, so after a couple of books or a chapter of Harry Potter, as long as they stay on their own beds and don't poke each other, they fall asleep fairly quickly. Papaya gets diaper, pajamas, water, blankie, story, song, kiss, and she goes to sleep.

Things were not always so easy.

Before DaVinci was old enough to understand things like common sense, he was a toddler who WOULD NOT STAY IN BED. Slim, at only 1 month old, was sleeping through the night. Here is Puddin's account of one particularly bad night trying to get toddler DaVinci to FREAKING SLEEP ALREADY:

You know, having a bad night because of your kid is WAAAAY different if they're sick. It's not their fault. But last night....oh man, DaVinci had NO EXCUSE.

To start, yesterday sucked. DaVinci was a monster all day.

5:00pm- Cue momma's migraine. :(

6:00- Daddy gets home. Some relief!

9:00- DaVinci's bed time. Gets changed, daddy reads books. Sets up baby gate. Lightning storm starts.

10:00- DaVinci still awake. Normal

11:00- DaVinci starts freaking out about the thunder which is loud now.

11:30- We take DaVinci out of his room to cuddle while we finish watching tv

12:00- decide we'll take him to be with us so we can all get some sleep.

12:30- DaVinci's still not asleep. Storm is over.

12:45- time for DaVinci to go to HIS room because he's not going to sleep in our bed.

1:00- DaVinci pushes baby gate down and comes back in our room

1:02- Daddy takes him back to his room. Breaks baby gate

1:12- DaVinci walks back because baby gate is broken.

1:14- Momma takes him back and fixes baby gate.

1:35- DaVinci pushes baby gate down again. comes in our room.

1:36- I let him stay. He’s GOT to be exhausted. He'll fall asleep, right?

1:48-WRONG. Still squirming around on the bed and/or messing with stuff in my room.

1:49- I take DaVinci back to his room. "I love you. Good night." I lock the door. How else am I supposed to keep him in his room??

1:50- Cue hysterical crying from DaVinci. "Hello? Momma? Hellooo?" :(

1:51- By the way, I still have a migraine.

1:55- I take my blanket, unlock his door, and go lay down on his tiny, 100-lbs-max toddler bed so he'll fall asleep.

2:00- Ok, I think he's asleep. slooooowly get out of his bed. Gah! He's awake! I tell him I'll just sit by the door for a while.

2:06- carefully open his door, sneak out, lock the door, close it. walk down the hall. DANG IT, he's awake!

2:07- Cue hysterical crying AGAIN because of, course, we abandoned him.

2:15- DaVinci shows up in my room. YES, he learned how to unlock his door. JOY. Maybe I'll just leave him alone and he'll fall asleep somewhere...

2:30- I wake up to crinkling. DaVinci found a bag of gumballs and was trying to open it! Gah! Alright, no more wandering. Plus, I remember he knows how to open the front door. Wouldn’t THAT be fun?!

2:31- Take him BACK to his room. Hmmm, how to keep him in his room without making him think we abandoned him…

2:34- Crazy Momma pushes love seat from living room to in front of DaVinci's door. YES! Success!

2:35- Good night.

2:50- Guess who climbed OVER the couch and is back in my room?!

2:51- BACK to his room (this is about the EIGHTH time, we’re putting him to bed AND I still have a migraine!) This is getting ridiculous. What to do, what to do….

2:52- Insane, sleep-deprived, migraine momma takes baby gate and suspends it in the door frame above the couch. Brilliant!

2:53- Cue DaVinci crying again when he realizes he can’t get out. I laugh.

3:00- Momma falls asleep. DaVinci does too at some point only to wake up again at 7am.

How was YOUR night? :)

Bedtime Barricade!

This feels like a very long post!

It's cool, though. I have more stories -- next time will be stories about Goosey and Puddin' not going to bed!

Sweet dreams everyone!

-Goosey

Daffodils

Spring is here!

Or nearly enough, anyway. The weather here is warming up, the days are noticeably longer, Daylight Savings Time has kicked my butt yet again, and GREEN is happening!

GREEN. Bits of grass and the other little plants that make up lawns when they aren't manicured; plants with little ragged leaves and the teeniest little blue flowers you ever saw. 

And flowers! Not at my house yet, I think my planter is too shady still, so I only have the green parts of some daffodils and hyacinths, but I'm looking forward to the blooms!

At Puddin's house, however, her flowers are out and glowing! Look how beautiful!

Daffodils will always remind me of my Nan, because her favorite poem is I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth. Nan loves poetry, and loves to recite it at family reunions. I remember one particularly patriotic performance where I don't recall the poem at all, but I do remember she had dressed up as Lady Liberty for the recital! 

Warning: Feels Ahead

I wanted to write about Nan this week, not only because the daffodils are blooming, but also because I want more people to know her. I feel like if more people know her, the more she'll be here. She is still living, but she's not as here as she used to be. Recently she has moved from her home into an assisted living facility because her dementia has progressed to the point where she doesn't even usually know where she is anymore, so she can't take care of herself. 

This also means that her home will be emptied and sold. Puddin' and I, along with many more of Nan's children and grandchildren, have requested certain particular items to keep from the house, but in a few weeks, there will be no more Grandma's House for us. It's an inevitability I've always been conscious of, on some level, but now that it's happening, I find it surreal and upsetting. Another piece of my childhood that I can now only visit in my mind. 

There's probably a lot more I could say.

But I won't, not now. I apologize for the more solemn tone this week, but sometimes life is just solemn. I promise something much more silly next week, so never fear. :)

To wrap up this week's post, here's a video I took a couple of years ago of Nan reciting her favorite poem:

Thanks for reading! Happy Spring!

-Goosey

Eating is Hard

Last February our brother got married, and within a year, Boy-o and Sunny were blessed with a gorgeous baby girl. 

Ladybug is just the cutest little thing, and she's just started on solid foods. Well, by solid I mean "more solid than milk" because baby food is just really thick mush-juice of various flavors. I asked Sunny how it was going, and here's some of what she told me:

It used to be that you waited until 6 months to start babies on solids: now its 4-6 months, but Ladybug was spitting up a lot and was really hungry so we started her on solids at just over 3 months. It fixed the problem! 

When we first started she liked to put her hands up in her mouth as we fed her, which of course makes a mess, but, I let her do it because at some point I want her to feed herself. 

Her newest thing is to grab the spoon and help me get it to her mouth. I tried to let her do it by herself but she's not that talented yet, the spoon hits her chest instead of her mouth!

I LOVE feeding her solids! It is so much fun because she is having such a positive experience. I laugh and laugh almost every feeding. I love her using her spoon, and lots of times she talks through the entire feeding. (She reminds us of What About Bob, haha. "Are these peas hand-ground?") Her favorite are the frozen peas and butternut squash!

Now we all know it's difficult to learn to eat in the first place, but even as adults we sometimes have our issues, such as food going down the wrong pipe. EVERYBODY has had this problem at least once, but NOBODY has this problem the way Goosey has this problem.

Here's what happens to Goosey:

1. First, food goes down the wrong pipe. (Read this HuffPost article about what happens here).
2. I cough a lot.
3. I cough some more, which is good, because it's clearing the stuff from my lungs, but it also forces stuff up into my nose which makes me...
4. SNEEZE. So I've been coughing, and now I'm sneezing, and...
5. my face gets all red, and...
6. my eyes start watering as...
7. I finally catch my breath.
8. Lastly, I need to excuse myself and clean up the chewed-food-spittle-snot-tears mess all over my face and hands and...
9. hope everybody I was with forgets what they just saw.

AND NOW here's Puddin' proving she's the Master Baby Food Taste Tester!!

The Descending Thunderhand of Death

When I was a child, I was spanked.*

Puddin' and I aren't the only siblings in our family. There are actually 5 of us: Goosey, Boy-o, Puddin', Dolly, and Twinkie. Boy-o is only two years younger than me, so we are very close. We did everything together. We played together. We went to church together. We got chicken pox together.

We got in trouble together. And when we got in a certain amount of trouble (such as not going to bed for the 4th time that night -- a story for another post!), we'd get spanked.

Dad is kind of a big man, he's kind of a tall man; he's kind of a big, tall man! (Family joke). He's 6'1" with strong hands the size of Moby Dick (the book, not the whale). When Boy-o and I were small children and got spanked, it was a BIG DEAL. When a spanking was threatened, we shaped up FAST in fear of the Descending Thunderhand of Death. 

Then Puddin' came along. She also got in trouble. It came naturally to her. One time she reduced a babysitter to tears by cleverly hiding between the pillows in the parent's bed. She lay there, giggling softly to herself, thrilled that the desperate teenager couldn't find her and was certain she was going to go to jail for losing one of the children. 

Puddin' also got spanked. Same Dad, same spankings, same Descending Thunderhand of Death.

Did she cry? Did she sob and apologize and decide she was going to be good next time so she could avoid the spanking? Hahaha no.

She laughed. She got spanked the same spanking we got, and she LAUGHED. Like she was being tickled. And sometimes she'd run away then turn around and say, "That didn't hurt!" Boy-o and I wondered what sort of demon child had joined our family.

Not to say that all her punishments were so delightful for her. I remember one particular instance when she was about 10 years old when she had done something rotten and was sent up to her room. (I asked Mom what Puddin' had done that time, and she said, "Who knows!  She got in trouble for tons of stuff. Thank heavens for mother amnesia!")

Anyway, Puddin' slept on the top bunk, and she responded to her banishment by laying on her back and kicking the wall with her heels. We were downstairs, listening to her little tantrum.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. CRUNCH. 

👀

Silence.

Puddin' had kicked a hole in the wall. I think I remember running up to see what that noise was, to catch her arranging her pillows against the wall in an attempt to hide it, hehe.

Have you guys heard about the Mother's Curse? Well, the curse works, and Puddin' was blessed with her four little mini-puddin's. This is a mild example, I'll tell more stories in future posts, but this just happened the other day. Apparently Deedle kept playing with legos instead of getting ready for school, so he got yelled at and shoved out the door to go catch the bus, and he obeyed -- technically.

Enjoy!

If you're a parent, do you suffer from the curse? Tell us your stories!

-Goosey

*Now, I'd like to clarify a couple of points about this:

1. I was a child in the 80's, and, back then, spanking was still a generally acceptable parenting behavior.
2. I was only spanked on the bottom (when my hands weren't in the way), and only by my daddy's hand -- except when daddy wasn't home and mom had to use the wooden spoon, because if she tried to spank us with her hand, she'd break a blood vessel. No actual damage ever done.