a.rose

A few mornings ago Heather wanted me to read the nursery rhyme, "Hey Diddle Diddle."  You know, the cat and the fiddle? The cow, jumping over the moon?  And as I read it, I thought, where in the world did this silly thing come from? I mean, who sat down with a pen and paper and thought to themselves, I am now going to write something that will be read and beloved by children for centuries to come. It will be about a dish that runs away with a spoon, among other things." And then they did, and it happened, and is their mother so proud of them? I thought, how hard can it be to string nonsense words together, anyway?  So I tried to write my own version of "Hey Diddle Diddle."  It started out like this: Three little girls all filled with twirls and spins and kicks and leaps had no place to go and nowhere to sleep. Come home with me I said to those three Come with me my dears I'll kiss your hurts and quiet your fears, sing you songs and dry your tea...

Alright, listen.  Well, first of all, let's do this right.  Happy Birthday Michelle!  I hope it was a magical day full of cake and laughs. Ok, now back to me.  As some of you know, it is my birthday in a few weeks.  I've been thinking a lot about this whole thirty thing. Also, I've been listening to Taylor Swift, in particular her song, "22".  AND for some reason, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" has been in that rotation, as well.  All this leads me to asking for a favor from you. Yes, from you.  If you're sitting there right now, looking over your shoulder, and thinking that surely I mean someone else, you're wrong. I mean you. And it isn't much, what I'm asking. Not really.  Just put on T-Swift, "22", or really any other song that makes you feel like dancing, and dance.  And record it on video.  And email it to me.  Or, upload it to google drive and share it.  Or, put it on a disc and mail it. I don't car...

This morning as I poured the girls their cereal, they all clamored, "Oats, mommy. I want oats on mine." What they meant was they wanted me to pour a handful of dried oatmeal on their Cheerios, because that is the way Devin eats his cereal every morning and they sometimes like to have it that way, too. Sometimes I laugh when I imagine in a few years when they are having breakfast at a friend's house, and they are offered cereal, and they look around wondering where the dried oats are to put on top? Wait, other people don't do that?  Or, do you?  (Do you?) That led me to thinking about other things that Devin does, that my girls have copied, that I wonder if other little children, or adults like to do.  I'll share some of the things that I came up with, on the off chance that you, like my girls, want to be more like Devin. He makes his own yogurt, and then we stir in jam, preferably the homemade strawberry, because that stuff is the best.  Obviously the g...

 Hallie got ahold of the camera again, and I just find it hilarious to see what she chooses to take pictures of.  If you wanted to know what Hallie's life looks like, please, let her show you:  Folded Laundry waiting to be put away.  Strawberry Shortcake coloring book, and a bubble wand.  The Backyard.  Down to the basement.  Roads and Cars, a sippy cup, and an ice cream scoop.  Heather.  The Kitchen.  Stairs.  Baby Doll's Stroller Daddy's Shoes.  Mommy, eating a milkshake Daddy made for her. Counter, empty pudding container. One of Mommy's plants. Hanna in the toy room. More from the toy room. More from the toy room. You have a nice weekend, you hear?

A few weeks ago Devin took all his girls out to dinner at Applebees.  This was fun for many reasons. 1. The girls thought the name was hilarious.  Every time we told them where we were going, which was every two seconds when they asked, they would laugh and laugh when I answered, "Applebees." 2. Yummy food someone else made, no dishes to clean up, and leftovers. 3. We had a gift card, so it was free. 4. Since we were going out to eat on a big date with our best man, I wanted us girls to look nice.  Right?  So all the girls got little side braids, which is normal for Hallie and Hanna, but it was Heather's first time. (Bonus, the side braid helps keep hair out of their face. Bonus, that keeps food out of their hair.) She really can't be my baby anymore if I'm braiding her hair, can she? It was a pretty good date.

This is what family home evening looks like at our house. We were memorizing the song "There Is A Green Hill Far Away", and the girls took turns illustrating each line of the song on the white board. You should hear Hanna sing it, it's her new favorite song and while we need to work on the reverence part of it, she really sings it quite well.

Last night as I lay in bed, something awful started happening.  I could feel it in the top right quadrant of my right knee.  It was some kind of involuntary twitch. Have you ever felt that?  It's like being pregnant, when those tiny baby limbs are pushing and poking you from the inside and nothing you do will stop it from happening.  You have no control. But this was worse.  Much, much worse.  I lay in bed next to Devin, who had fallen asleep as always 3 seconds after we laid down.  From the outside, my face was a sea of calm and tranquility.  But on the inside I was a roiling, raging riot of anarchy and chaos. "Abort!  Abort!  This is command central and I repeat, abort unauthorized movement in kneecap!"  Nothing. "Cease and desist all unsanctioned motion in quadrant A, sector B of kneecap R!  Cease and desist now!"  Nothing. "The kneecap is not responding, ma'am.  Permission to take extreme action?" Eve...

Well, another round of Three Minute Fiction has passed us by.  I do enjoy submitting entries for it, and then reading all of the other entries, those that are shared, that is.  Yet again, the actual winner of the contest was not my favorite, you can read it here if you'd like.  (Just scroll down a little, the top is an interview with the judge, or someone else probably important or something.) The ones I did like from this round: here , here , and here .  Warning: the first one is a tad... creepy.  The first and third one in that list were both finalists. The theme for this round was "a character finds something he or she has no intention of returning".  And so, here is my submission. Drop of Honey We sit at our old table, by the same window overlooking the same stunted trees still struggling to grow in the shadow of tall buildings.  She looks out.  Her fingers tap absentmindedly on the table.  Neither of us needs the menu. ...

Just in case you felt like you needed closure on this whole novel topic, I present you with, my book. I finally managed to read it all the way through, which pretty much proves my theory that I like books better in actual print than reading them on a screen.  Sorry, no kindle for me today thanks.  It was not, by any means, the best book I've ever read - I mean, it wouldn't even dare flirt with the best book.  But it was also not the worst, worst book I've ever read, probably not even in the lowest ten.  There were definitely times when I had to sort of laugh, and think, "Oh man, I completely forgot about this part that I wrote at 1 am."  You know, as a sort of word bulking agent, just trying to get my word count up there. Probably in edition 2 that I have to have finished before my father is eighty (per his request) those parts will be cut out... What I hadn't really thought all the way through was that when I signed up on the website to get my five fr...

Tonight, while the chocolate chip cookies cooled on the counter, and Hallie and Hanna played with their baby dolls together in sweet harmony, Heather and I went outside to enjoy the evening.  It was so much fun, just me and my not-so-baby-anymore-baby, and I thought I want to write a blog post about this.  Walking barefoot with her in the grass, her finger grasped tightly around mine because backyards are tricky, uneven walking surfaces.  Enjoying the last bit of the sun's warmth of the day, the light softened and gentle.  If you ask me, that's the best way for the sun to be. Introducing her for the first time to the perfect delights of swinging, my legs cramping and my stomach starting to swirl but she never wanted to stop.  And so we didn't.  (For a long, long time.) I thought I would write about all these things, this nice evening we had, and then I realized that if I did, you would think that was what my entire evening was like.  I mean, i...