Puns and All: It’s What I Love About Him

August 12, 2011 by ·

My husband thinks he’s funny.

He’s King of the Puns. Some of them are cheesy, some of them are witty, and all of them make me laugh.

He’s the master of making up new lyrics to songs. I secretly find this amusing, even when he mangles my favourite songs and John Denver’s poetic “You fill up my senses, like a night in a forest” becomes “You fill out my census, with a number 2 pencil.”

He does funny voices, and thank goodness because I’m no good at funny voices.

He’s never afraid to act goofy, and I truly hope my son got this quality because it’s one of the things I love most about my husband.

So far all the evidence suggests that he did.


Looks like I’m in for a lifetime of laughs with my very funny boys.

xo

***

Linked up with Multitasking Mumma for It’s What I Love About Him

Photobucket

Filed Under: Happy things, Love letters · Tagged With: , ,

Camping, Rectified

July 12, 2011 by ·

When dinosaur camp was confused with camping, there was disappointment on a small boy’s face.

That has now been rectified.

It started with backyard camping to see how things would go.

The tent was set up. The camping chairs were brought out. The appropriate sticks were acquired and fashioned for optimum roasting.

No time was wasted in getting those hot dogs over the charcoals. (The deck was only set on fire a little bit.)

The toddler roasted his own (and did a fine job, too).

Of course cooked hot dogs are no good, so you give that one to your mother and then you eat one raw. And then another. Then it’s time for s’mores. And another (raw) hot dog.

Whew. All that camping practice is exhausting.

Even the dog thought so.

And that was mama’s cue to go inside and sleep in her own bed. šŸ˜‰

Result: Camping practice a success! On to the real thing.

Camping must-haves, according to a three-year-old: boots.

(Camping is thirsty work, apparently.)

And then a happy discovery: flush toilets!

Grandpa and Grandma came out for the marshmallows.

A bit of tossing and turning in the night, and the bacon was forgotten at home, but he made the best of the breakfast hour.

Overall result: one happy camper.

 

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: , , , ,

Ginger

July 6, 2011 by ·

Today I’m welcoming a very special guest poster to my blog – my mom. She doesn’t have her own blog, though I keep telling her she should. She’s been writing and sending me things, including this, which made me cry so I’m sharing it with you, many of whom I know will relate.

***

Once in a lifetime everyone should have a pet like Ginger. Weā€™d gone to see the breederā€™s cocker spaniel pups. I needed a dog. I had a house with a yard for the first time since leaving home for university 10 years before. A decade without a dog was enough!

It was outside the city, a large green piece of property. While we were talking, a little parade of rollicking puppies approached. In one of those moments crystallized in time I can still see them, rusty balls of fluff and one black one like the mother, resembling little bear cubs. Very little. She told us to ignore them. They were an accident resulting from a chance encounter between her border collie and an Irish setter.

It was too late. Ginger, as she came to be known, sat on my foot and the rest is history. She was one of the rusty ones and she was the best dog I ever had. She caused all sorts of people to get dogs. Little did they realize how much time and love went into training her in that era before children. She was smart like her border collie ancestors, and loyal. She was a reward in herself for the time invested.

Ginger raised our children, sleeping at the foot of their cribs and beds, protecting them from unknown perils, and herding them to safety when they were awake. She came uncomplaining on the 3-hour ride each way to the cottage every weekend and chased the cows off the hill so the humans could have it for the weekend. She moved to BC with us, sitting beside my husband expectantly and no doubt anxiously while he drove, because I had taken her children and flown to the coast.

On the airplane the man sitting next to my daughter asked where we were going. She told him we were moving to Victoria and her dog was driving there with her Dad. Without missing a beat he said, ā€œIs she a red dog? They are right down there! Your Dad waved! They just went behind that mountain.ā€ I think he had been eavesdropping but Iā€™ll bet to this day Robin believes that we flew right over Ginger and that she saw us. [Editors note: I do not. šŸ˜‰ ]

It will be 39 years ago next spring since we got Ginger but recently a friend asked about her. Too much time has passed and Ginger is no longer with us. The day she left us I cried for hours. I wish it were now because now they allow people to stay with their pets so they are not frightened going into that unknown place. Robin wrote an award-winning story about losing her dog and made her entire class cry. I still have her ashes though and I think perhaps someday they had better be scattered with mine. She was my friend.

Also linking this up with Mama Kat. I’d planned to post this and then one of the prompts was “a post your mom would write if she wrote posts”. Just happened to have just the thing!

Filed Under: Guest posts · Tagged With: , ,

For Want of a Quarter

June 29, 2011 by ·

She stood outside the gates to the fairground, her calm demeanor masking the excitement inside. Clutched tightly in her hand was a single quarter –Ā  the precious fee for a ride, a game or whatever treat seemed most worth the investment of her only coin.

When she got to the front of the line, she discovered it cost a quarter to get inside. She handed it over and, with it, her dream of an experience different from that of her everyday life as a young girl who worked on her family’s farm in the early 1900s.

***

I can assume she wandered the grounds taking in the sights and sounds, probably gazing wistfully at those who had the fare for something beyond the price of admission, but I don’t know. I don’t even know how the above scene played out – I’m just taking writer’s license – but I remember the day my grandmother told me this story.

It was a short conversation – simply recalling a memory. “I was so excited,” she said, “but it cost a quarter to get in and that was all I had so I didn’t get to do anything else.” She didn’t say any more – no complaints about the unfairness of it, no expression of disappointment. But to me, the mere fact of her sharing this story suggested all that and more.

I can’t remember what I said to her – some expression of comfort or sympathy, I’m sure – but I remember how I felt. Later that day I cried and cried over the thought of my Grandma as a young girl missing out on something she wanted so desperately. I have so many wonderful memories of her, and I remember her as a strong, independent woman, but for some reason this one is always a part of my thoughts of her, and it always, always brings me to tears.

I didn’t grow up in an abundance of wealth, but my sadness was not because I related to her story. I went to private school – an average kid from an average family – and many of my classmates were like me, whose parents saved or sacrificed to send them there. My parents managed this and other things like sports and travel opportunities during very tough times, and to this day I still don’t know how they did it.

There were others who had more, of course, and I was aware of that. But never once have I felt like I missed out on anything. I have nothing that stands out to me as something I wish I could have done, if only we could have afforded it. So when I listened to my Grandma’s story it was with the heart of someone who had never felt that sadness.

That event, which had happened nearly 90 years before, affected her. It stuck with her. Perhaps in some way it changed who she was. It influenced her values and her sense of how a certain experience can make – or not make – a memory.

It has changed who I am as well, I think. It’s made me more aware of how precious childhood experiences are. It’s not about the money, it’s about the memories. And I know this because of the story of my Grandma missing one of hers for want of a quarter.

My Grandma and her horse, Chubby

***

This post is in response to an Indie Ink Writer’s Challenge prompt from Katri: “A story from the point of view of someone who’s never been sad.” This could probably be a really great fiction piece, but this is the story that came to mind, and the one I wanted to tell.

I challenged Flaming Nyx with “You have the power to change ONE personā€™s life for the better. Who do you choose and how would you do it?” Her response is here.

And speaking of Indie Ink, I’m so excited that one of my posts is featured there today. Please come and visit!

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: ,

In Order to be Complete

June 28, 2011 by ·

Birthday party. Families. Kids. Laughter. Crafts and cooperation.

I look at the three-year-olds and think how great they are. Fun. Much more independent.

I can talk with him now, not just to him.

I can see his imagination work, like images projected on an invisible screen.

He can help now, and he loves to. “We’re workers!” Said often, with joy and confidence.

Three is tough, but it’s also easier.

I look across the backyard at the two little ones.

One, just learning to walk and still so far from independent, to whom any vehicle of any kind is a “va-va.”

The other still a baby. A world filled with nursing, purees and the importance and inconvenience of naps.

They are both beautiful. I scoop each one up, amazed at his lightness. I breathe in the baby smell and remember what it’s like when they’re that squishy. I hold them and remember what it’s like to hold a child on my hip and know that I am his world.

I could do this again.

I want to do this again. So badly.

The second one is easier, people say.

Chances are your second wouldn’t be the same, they assure me.

Maybe.

I could hope so, but I don’t, knowing it could be the same. Or harder.

But I know more now.

And the wanting is a physical sensation that’s not going away.

It might be hard.

But I’m willing to do it again.

In order to be complete.

 
Family Silhouette

Filed Under: Motherhood · Tagged With: ,
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