Kid Talk 3

The second child often gets overlooked. There's lots going on with two kids, but I tried to document Rachel's antics as well. I did the best I could.

She was going to a babysitter on a semi-regular basis the year she turned three. In March of that year, she got her head caught in a Barbie’s dollhouse. Marlese said she didn’t cry but softly and worriedly called, “Marlese, Marlese.” Marlese had to knock a piece out to get her head free. Rachel said, “I be not ‘posed to.”

Also in March, I was cradling her in my arms and looking into her eyes. I told her it reminded me of when I used to nurse her—when she used to get milk from me. She innocently asked, “When you were a cow?”

At age 2 1/2, Rachel knew her left from her right, and she drew faces very well. She also dressed herself, expressing it this way: “I how know dress.”

In July 1988, I caught Rachel and Nathan arguing about best friends. He claimed he was her best friend, and she insisted he wasn’t. They shared the bath at times, and he washed her face that night. She told him, “You’re a friendly guy.”

Nathan’s granny and grandpop took him with them for a week after visiting here first. When he was saying his farewells, he told his dad: “I’ve gotten used to the way these trees look.” I think he was a little nervous. When the week ended, I went to Cincinnati to meet him and bring him home. He was delighted to see me, but Rachel had missed me terribly. (I think I was gone two nights.) For a few days after, she’d scream pitifully, even getting to the point of sobbing after me: “I love you, Mama!” I asked her once why she cried so much. She said, “I don’t know, Mama. I like you and don’t want to cry.” What a dear!

Very early on, Nathan wanted to ride the bus. He got on the wrong bus once through no fault of his own and rode for an hour instead of 30 minutes. He told me he “cried to death,” but he didn’t really seem to mind. But the bus-riding stopped in November when a substitute bus driver left off all the elementary kids and picked up all the HS kids – while Nathan still rode around. After those kids all went home, he finally noticed Nathan. I was panic-stricken and called the principal every 15 minutes. He finally made it home two hours late!

When Rachel started University Preschool in the fall of 1988 she was very proud of herself because the first week there, she got to hold the flag for the “Pledgiance of Allegiance.” She especially liked flushing the toilets there. (Apparently, ours at home were too loud for her tender ears.)

Rachel said that the best thing about preschool was that she got to be with her Julie Booley, her best friend since birth.

At age 3 ½, Rachel thanked me for giving her part of my chocolate chip cookie from Hardee’s: “Thank you that it’s got chocolate in it, Mama.”

When Rachel graduated from her first year at preschool, she hopped across the stage to receive her award for Good Citizenship. Her classmates voted on her because she’s the one who always tried everything.

At 4 years of age, I caught Rachel tossing her shirts out of her drawer one by one. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, “Looking for my chickenhead!” What she really wanted was her turtleneck.

At age 6, Nathan didn’t get the Ninja Turtle Sewer System he had wanted for Christmas and was worried that he didn’t get it because he had spelled sewer incorrectly as “suyer.”

Nathan became a Cub Scout, and Rachel was very much looking forward to becoming an “Oreo.” She meant Brownie.

Tying up the kid talk for now ….

Kid Talk 2

An earlier entry documented my son’s vocabulary between the ages of two and three. I was still an avid journal keeper when he was between the ages of three and four. My daughter started speaking as well. There’s not much I like better than observing a child’s speech development!

Nathan was nothing if not articulate. Just short of three, Nathan refused to eat a banana before his cookie. The bribe didn’t work, and I ended up giving him the cookie. He let me know he appreciated that: “It was very nice of you to give me that cookie without eating a banana.”

As Christmas approached, we kept a small number of ornaments in the cookie snowhouse. When Nathan wanted to see them, he told me that he was feeling housey, treesy, angely, or candy caney.

Another time, I lay down with him, and he said, “I’m with you. There’s no need to be afraid.”

When he tried to dress himself, he said that he wasn’t very useful with his shirts.

When he started University Preschool, he told us in the first week of school that his teacher was teaching the alphabet out of order. He wondered if that was because we lived in the U.S. where we were free to do anything we wanted.

At 3 ½ years old, he loaded spaghetti on his spoon, saying, “It’s enough to make a person angry!”

Shortly after, Nathan wanted his dad to do something for him. He said, “I encourage you to do it, Dad!”

Just shy of four years old, Nathan made a pronouncement: “Never will I eat crusts again.”

Nathan often tried to experiment. He told me, disappointed, “My invents never work!”

One time, Steve and I were in separate cars, and I honked at him. Instead of saying, “Did you scare him out of his pants?” he said, “Did you honk his pants out?”

Unfortunately, I pushed him on his bike a bit hard and he fell. Crying, he said, “Mom, I wish you wouldn’t ever do that again!”

I asked him where he wanted to go for lunch and never one for brief answers, he said, “My request is that we go to McDonalds.”

Nathan and I were talking about careers. He said he wanted to be a bug doctor, but he’d have to learn how to be nicer to them first.

Rachel stuck her tongue out at Nathan. He said, “That looks like a hog in your mouth, Rachel. It’s embarrassing.” 

When he was five, Nathan had a very high fever. When I told him that we might have to go to the doctor, he said, “Mom, it’ll pass; it always does.” He was plagued with so many ear infections when he was growing up, so, unfortunately, he knew the routine.

When he was still in preschool, he said that if his friend said something he didn’t like, he put his fingers in his ears and said, “Blah, blah, blah.” He claimed, “It really entertains the girls, Mom.” 

More to come as Rachel had learned how to make her presence known  ….

Kid Talk

It’s so hard to know what to write about these days because there are so many topics to cover. I could write about the dismal state of attempts made to reverse Roe and all things sane, the dismal state of “news shows” that spread lies, the dismal attempt to ban books, the dismal art of war, the dismal approach to gun control (or lack thereof), the dismal act of growing older and getting frailer until, like a magician, I perform a disappearing act. (And, considering this outcome, I have to wonder why I get so worked up about all these other circumstances.)

But today I choose to document my son’s vocabulary between the ages of two and three (more to come with the birth of my daughter). And this is something I can talk about with confidence because I used to keep journals.

My son started talking in complete sentences before he was two. Steve used to tell a story his dad told him when he was growing up. It concerned Itsy Bitsy Bamboo Hieroglyphic Pompom Nesia and his brother Joe. Who could say this name at 23 months? Nathan, of course.

He held up two pieces of bread and said, “This is a sea. This is a boat. Do like this.” And he put the boat on the sea. At 24 months, he said, “Baby’s inside Mommy. I can’t see him very well. Baby’s drinking a bottle.” Now, that would be a feat!

I lay down beside him soon after, and he said, “Mommy, you go sleep on your own bed. I have mine.” Of course, that didn’t continue. Although he was a great napper before that time, he started to hate going to sleep at night! And no wonder! The poor kid had night terrors until he was five!

Nathan was very specific when I asked him what he did at Mothers Morning Out: “Play, eat, drink milk, drink juice, wait for our mothers.”

He had his first successful phone conversation at 26 months. In talking to my friend he said, “Hi, Mary Beth. Do you want to come over for a picnic? I just wanted to say hello. Bye-bye!”

At 26 months, he saw a convertible and commented, “That’s a crazy car; it has no lid on it!”

When he was 2 1/2, Nathan was very pleased when I gave him a fork to eat breakfast. He said, “Oh, this is a good-looking fork!”

When my water broke, I prompted Nathan to call his dad and say, “Mommy’s water broke!” On his own, he added, “Can you fix it?” Obviously, there was a gap of about 3 months before I started writing consistently again.

We used to have a teen come over to babysit, so I could study or catch up on chores. One day, I overheard Nathan tell the babysitter, “I don’t know why my parents have to go out of town.” He saw me and said, “Oh! One parents is here!”

At Christmastime, we rearranged his furniture. He took one look at it, plopped his head on the bed and said, “You poiled my whole yife!” It didn’t “poil” his ability to think things through, though. After going to church, he said, “We didn’t cut the Christmas tree off at church.” Not understanding, I said that we decorated it. But he said, “We didn’t trim it, though!”

Nathan loved to drink juice and milk to the exclusion of food. I told him he needed something solid and gave him cheese. He nibbled on it and said, “Boy, that sure is solid!”

I got angry at Nathan, and he said, “I think I lost her temper!” Who could stay mad at a guy like that?!

He expressed surprise when I told him I was once little: “I thought you were always a grown woman!”

Well, speaking as a grown woman now, I have things to do, places to go. More cuteness in future blog entries can be expected.

I just lost a week of my life to yoga

After writing the previous blog entry titled “Namaste,” I spent the week recuperating. I went to yoga on Thursday, but the pain didn’t move in until Sunday night. 

I realized, after reading for a bit, that I couldn’t get out of my recliner without help. I inched myself forward to the edge, my back screaming all the while. My husband had to come to my aid. The same thing in reverse happened at bedtime.

The pain persisted all week. I couldn’t sit down to write because sitting just made my back crunch up in a most annoying way. The only activity I could manage pain-free was walking. So I did. Six miles a day for four days running. That tired me out enough to sit. But, again, sitting brought back the crunch.

On Friday, I walked to the chiropractor. By the time I reached his office, I could move freely. It’s like taking a car in with a noisy engine, only to find that the noise is no longer audible.

I still want to be flexible. I obviously want to be pain-free. So I’m typing this standing up. And I hope to return to Zumba this week. For some reason, the bouncing, twisting, and gyrating don’t bother me or my back. Maybe I’ll try water aerobics and will certainly re-introduce floor exercises. But I promise you that the word, the thought, the act of yoga will never again occur. It just goes to show you: you can't teach an old (downward) dog new tricks.

Sleepwalking at night tops sleepwalking through life

I talk in my sleep, I walk in my sleep, I scream in my sleep, I even laugh and cry in my sleep. What I rarely do is sleep a nice, deep sleep.

All this activity gets its roots in technicolor dreams and nightmares that stick with me. I remember that they started after I saw “The Blob” at age 5 at a drive-in theater with my family. I was little, so I was literally crouching down on the floor of the backseat, screaming, “Turn it off, turn it off!”

At an older age, my mom said she heard a meow coming from my room. And there were no cats to be seen. I believe her because I woke up recently barking.

My memory from my growing-up years is less than stellar, but I do remember several things about walking in my sleep. I vaguely knew what I was doing but couldn’t stop it. I’d wake up at the top of the stairs curled up on the floor. When I was in the 8^th grade, I’d been working diligently on sewing an apron for myself. Wound up but tired, I went to bed early. Soon after, I walked downstairs in my sleep carrying my blanket. My sister and her boyfriend were there, making fun of me while I put the blanket under the faucet and started “sewing.” As far as I know, that was the last time I walked in my sleep for nearly 60 years!

But two years ago, I had a nightmare. In it, several people were going after me. I lurched over to the door and locked it. I woke up soon after and checked my lock to see if it had really happened. It was locked.

And then last year, shortly after a hospitalization that worried me, I did it again. I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to yell for help. I got up, lurched toward the bathroom door, and smacked right into it. I was moving at such a speed that I basically jammed my head into my neck and felt it through my shoulders. I screamed. When Steve came running, he found me on all fours, dazed.

Despite all this nonsense, I find my dreams entertaining. While they are sometimes annoying, they also make life interesting.

I may not wake up feeling refreshed; but, after the night I've had, I do wake up glad to be alive!

Namaste

 

There are two kinds of people: those who love yoga and those who hate it. I fall into the latter group. I’m a walker, a past runner, a Zumba gal. I crave motion and loud tunes. I need to feel the beat of the music, not that of the heart.  

I learned early on that flexibility is overrated, that trying to relax everything only makes my eyes pop open and my body itch. But because my doctor recommended that I stretch more and try to build up my strength, I thought I’d give it another go today. Big mistake. Two hours later and I’m still nauseated from my tummy protesting the fact that it was being folded over.

During the class, my discomfort extended to my knees, my legs, my shoulders, even my toes. Every time the teacher introduced something new, she’d check around the class and see if anyone needed help. She soon learned to make a bee-line for me, and I became her pet project. When I was having trouble planting my knees, she brought over another mat, quadrupled to provide me with more padding. When I gave up and sat, showing my disinclination to do what she asked, she showed me another way to accomplish that particular stretch by standing up and leaning against the wall. And every time she readjusted my knees or my hands or my shoulders, she’d softly say, “Amazing.”

The only thing amazing about it is that I got out of there alive.

Happy Valentine's Day!

After another horrific mass shooting, I could talk about guns or politics. But talking seemingly goes nowhere, and I'm tired of feeling as if I have no say in the politics of guns.

So, instead, I'll talk about love. (Talk about feeling powerless!)

When I first met my husband, I had come off of two long relationships, one lasting 3 1/2 years and he other lasting more than 4. I had spent the summer on my own. I was 27 and decided I needed to find a different way forward. 

So enter Steve.

I had been living in Columbus and driving to Springfield to study court reporting at Clark Tent. It was an hour drive over and another hour back. Since the commute was ridiculous, and I really had nothing holding me in Columbus, I decided I needed to look for a place to live in Springfield.

I answered an ad in the paper. (Can you remember when we actually did this? Circled ads for apartments, for jobs?) I met the potential landlord in Springfield, and he took me around to three of the ugliest dumps I had ever seen. Finally, he gave me a way out: he said that his friends owned a house, and he thought they were looking for a tenant. He took me over to introduce me.

Basil answered the door. Good-looking, and the foyer behind him looked interesting with lovely wood paneling. His brother came along behind him. But then Steve appeared, and one of those thought bubbles popped up in my head: "I'm taking this apartment no matter what."

Fortunately, the apartment fit the bill, and I didn't have to live in squalor.

I had very little furniture as I sold it all in a garage sale--including a stove that I "sold" without payment, only to pick up a nonexistent check the following week. (I learned my lesson: in the future, cash only garage sales!) So, anyway, it only took a couple of trips with my loaded station wagon to move in. 

Steve stove his thumb when he helped me unload it. That didn't deter him. The place was pretty dirty. That didn't deter me. I simply asked the guys to help me clean. Not only did they do that, but they gave me the first week free. 

Money talks, and from that moment on, Steve and I were inseparable. I remember the breathlessness, the excitement, the laughter, the endless talking of those times.

Three years later, my landlord and I got married. And 42 years later, he's still my Valentine.

A girl just wants to have fun

I've always loved making people laugh. The urge likely occurred before then, but I was four when I performed this special dance my dad called the Turkey Dance. It made him crow with pleasure. (Thinking about it this morning brings to mind my grandson. He loves to elicit laughs, and he too exhibits some crazy dance moves.)  

When I was nine, I lost one of my front, permanent teeth on a piece of playground equipment. (It drives me nuts when I hear people reminiscing about "the good old days when metal playground equipment was good enough for us, and no one ever got hurt.") The accident wasn't funny. But I was fitted with a fake tooth on a plate, and the comedy began. I captured my grade school audience every time I licked a Sugar Daddy (for those of you with Candy Knowledge Impairment, it's caramel on a stick). With an extravagant motion, I would lick my candy and pull it out of my mouth, bringing with it the plate with a single tooth. Sure, I grossed out my classmates. But don't think they didn't relish it. 

When I was in high school, I no longer resorted to those childish ways. Instead, I was known for my joke-telling ability. Everyone knew you could count on Bonnie for a good, dirty joke. (Is that what's referred to as an oxymoron?)

Fortunately, I grew out of that phase once I matured a bit more.

Fast forward to having kids. I loved making my kids laugh. I blew raspberries on bellies, played with them endlessly, and read them hundreds of silly books (or possibly the same book hundreds of times). 

That's when I first realized I wanted to write children's books, mostly with the intention of making kids laugh but also with the intention of writing books that adults would love just as much as their tiny-shaped audience.  

At any rate, when I write, I nearly always think that what I say has value, what I say is good, what I say is terribly hilarious. I can't help myself; the bottom line is that I crack myself up. Maybe that feeling won't get me any awards or even get me published, but making myself laugh is a  pretty good trick to maintaining my well being.

But now I'm going to include two videos that have nothing to do with dancing or making lemonade out of lemons or writing. They emphasize silliness and even bravery; they're about overcoming shyness and conquering the fear of singing in public, knowing I'm a terrible singer. They're about making people laugh.

Remember this joke? Someone went to a doc to find out what was wrong with him. The doc said, "You're crazy!" The man said, "Hey! I want a second opinion!" The doc said, "You're ugly, too!"

Hahahahahaha

The video quality of Lola is much better than the video of Marge Simpson, taken two years earlier. If you have to choose one to watch, choose Lola. The setting is a talent show at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Huntsville, Alabama. (If there's ever a forgiving audience, it's among friends.)

Gutting and rebuilding

 

In the summer of 2021, becoming tired of apartment living and wanting to establish ourselves in a neighborhood, we started looking at houses: big, small, too close to the neighbors, too expensive, ugly, less ugly. We kept a careful eye on the market and looked at neighborhoods near and far, establishing one single ground rule: no living on a road that had a yellow line running down the middle.

And we finally settled on ugly.

After finding out about this house from its next-door neighbor via a Facebook neighborhood page, we found the owners there. The house wasn’t on the market yet; but they let us walk through as they sorted, held onto, or tossed the detritus that was the end result of their parents’ life together.

The house had a door in every room, effectively cutting the inhabitants off from each other, if so desired. It had cheap ‘70s paneling and atrocious wallpaper elsewhere. Crying out for replacement, the original appliances stood sentinel as did the window in the kitchen looking out into the garage. Shockingly, the original carpeting lay there like a tired, old, wet dog and didn’t smell much better.

My husband and I looked at each other with the same thought: this house had potential.

We bought it at a price that was way more than it was worth, but that was the sellers’ market speaking. The house was a single story, just the size we had hoped for, in an established neighborhood with lots of trees and big yards, and within walking distance and short driving distance to everything we could possibly want.

Initially, destruction was the name of the game, and the four of us pitched in. Rachel’s boyfriend even got in on the action. Ripping up the carpet that smelled so bad that my granddaughter ran screaming like a banshee was paramount. Ripping out the paneling came next.

We realized the importance of getting an architect involved—enter Nathan. Our son offered great ideas on getting rid of walls and adding new ones. (We would’ve been at sea and our house would’ve become just another boring ranch without his professional help.)

My husband, software engineer by trade/handyman by interest, helped the rest of us in the steady destruction, but he also rebuilt. Steve’s biggest initial improvement was to change all the vents to floor rather than baseboard vents. That was a huge job that even required the repositioning of one of the large wall vents.

Since I was a 98-pound weakling, I contributed in any way I could. While I couldn’t remove paneling, appliances, or cabinets, I could remove wallpaper; wash and paint doors, walls, and ceilings; and, last but not least, line up contractors.

We eventually settled on a contractor who became responsible for the electrical, the dry wall, the carpentry (both rough and finished), and the final bathroom remodel. We found our own contractors who addressed issues underneath the house, all flooring, plumbing, kitchen cabinet and granite installation, and kitchen cabinet purchase (a designer offered her layout expertise as part of the deal). We recently brought another contractor onboard to build a screened-in porch from which we can witness the morning sunrise. And, Steve, always an energetic perfectionist, has been steadily working on the house or yard just about daily since the purchase.

Obviously, there were a lot of steps that I'm not listing, even some contractors I've neglected to  mention . (I'd be happy to talk to you about them if asked.) Suffice it to say that gutting and rebuilding was the most challenging project we’ve ever encountered—well, except for raising kids. And I don't want to downplay the angst we experience in trying to establish new friendships. That's not so easy at our age and with the pandemic still on the horizon.

We bought the house in July, moved in in December, and celebrated our one-year anniversary just recently. We love our house and our neighborhood. We are really enjoying getting to know our neighbors. And, of course, we are excited about living near our kids and grandkids.

Life is never particularly easy, but it can be good nonetheless.

What follows, for the most part, are pictures comparing the before and after of the same rooms. The solid wall of paneling has turned into the wall with two open doorways.

Transplanting is possible with the right frame of mind

Not many people have a chance for a do-over.

But my husband and I did when we decided to move close to our kids and grandchildren. Was it scary? Yes! We were moving from everything that made us feel safe: our friends, our lovely home, our city of nearly 40 years. And while I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, it’s worked for us—one of the reasons being the willingness to take chances. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and plunge in.  

We weren’t too happy about our initial living arrangements: an apartment in a complex on the third floor with no elevator. During the year we were there, I thought I’d get used to climbing those three floors. I didn’t. And I never, ever got used to the people below us who complained to management about our noise. We are, let us say, at an age at which you hear no peeps out of us after 9 p.m., so I found it particularly off-putting when leaving the apartment to encounter the “lady”—she was no lady!—downstairs who accompanied me to the parking lot, all the while cussing at me.

My husband initially thought of the move as temporary: just until covid ended. But in his frequent monthly travels back to the house to check on it, he came to the conclusion that making the move permanent made the most sense. He had retired, and our kids—fortunately, both of them lived in the same city!—and the little ones needed us.

So we sold our house and started looking for another.

Luckily for us, our home went for $30,000 more than the asking price; in fact, we had seven offers in four days. Unluckily for us, we moved from a place with a low cost-of-living to a higher cost-of-living. And it was at a time when it was definitely a sellers’ market.

At first, I thought I wanted to live in downtown Greenville. It’s lovely, so walkable, and very vibrant. The trouble was that many of the houses in our price range were small, ugly, and without any redeeming features. So we looked within a few miles of downtown. We encountered pretty much the same thing. They were a little more affordable but equally ugly. And they were sorely missing two things I wanted: ranch-style living and a walkable neighborhood.

So we looked even farther afield. Our realtor suggested a particular area in a nearby city, a quiet neighborhood that has big lots, an enormous number of large trees, a variety of different styles of houses, and is located within walking distance of lots of cool restaurants and shops. But I was the one who actually found the house. I got on the neighborhood’s Facebook page and posted a request for knowledge of any sales. My future neighbor kindly posted that the house next to her was being prepped for sale. The rest is history.

The house was truly a dump, but that story’s for another day.  

I'm back!

How does one catch up with a blog after being absent for about ten years? What kept me from writing? Practically everything! But it makes no sense. I love writing, whether it’s silly children’s books—which I first wrote nearly 40 years ago as a homework assignment in a writing class—or  serious political commentaries—which I refuse to do anymore. (Politics cause me way too much angst.)

At any rate, here I am back at the keyboard. What happened ten years ago to make my writing dry up (albeit temporarily)? To make a really, really long story short:

·       Serial rejection blew out my pilot light. (But everyone knows you just have to persist!)

·       I got a part-time job as a university adjunct instructor. (If anything dries up the urge to write, it’s a job, gosh darn it.) It lasted for nine years.

·       Skip to the birth of my first grandchild who was located long-distance. (Because of that sweet thing, I was traveling out of town every 4-6 weeks.)

·       My first grandchild gave up her only-child status.

·       Covid hit, and shortly after, my husband retired. (At this point, we moved to help take care of the little ones.)

I could write pages about things that happened during my absence, but I won’t. It’s like trying to catch up with a journal that you’ve neglected for years on end. Impossible! And some things just have to be left out for the sake of – well, boring you.

When I was a senior in high school, I remember three friends and I cruising through town, a common thing to do when time was all we had. But what was unusual about this car ride was that we made up rhymes for the couple of hours we were together. Seriously. Who does that?! But that was fun for me then and continues to be fun for me now—not the cruising part, but the imaginative spark that wants to be turned into a blaze.

So what is prompting me to take up the pen again, so to speak? It’s a realization that life is too short not to do what I’m good at and not to do what I love.