What about Bach?

Lauren enters the room where I'm fixing her lunch...

L: Mom, Johann Sebastian Bob is a show.

M: Johann Sebastian Bach? Well, he was a composer. He wrote classical music.

L: No, Johann Sebastian BOB. Not BACH silly...

M: No, it's BACH.

L: *sigh* No Mom, it's BOB. Like BOB THE TOMATO.

Exit Lauren.

Conversations in a Car

There's really no back story to this entry, just a normal day with Lauren. She and I were in the car running errands. The following are three separate (yet somehow all strangely linked - you wait, you'll see the connections) conversations we had during our drive.

L: Mom, Mrs. Claus is Santa's Mommy.

M: No, she is his wife.

L: No. Mommy.

M: No Lauren, she is Santa's wife.

L: No MOM, she is his MOMMY.

I proceed to attempt to straighten out all the confusion by making comparisons.

M: Who is Granny?

L: Daddy's Momma.

M: Right! So is Granny Daddy's wife?

L: YES!

M: No! Granny isn't Daddy's wife. MOMMY is Daddy's wife. Am I Daddy's Mommy?

L: Your Daddy...

M: My Daddy what?

L: Your Daddy loves you...

M: *blink* *blink* Yes...yes...he does...

And that was the end of that conversation. It ended just as confusing as it began.

While she and I were at lunch together, we were taking turns telling each other stories. I was telling stories about a silly little boy named Finnegan and all the mischievious things he got into. Her stories seemed to always have monsters and scary things in them. We'll address that in some later post...

After lunch, she wanted to continue with the storytelling. Well, she wanted me to continue with my storytelling. She wanted me to tell a Christmas story. So I thought I would tell THE Christmas story. I'm describing Mary and Joseph and Gabriel and get to the part about the travel to Bethlehem... at this point, Lauren gets very excited and I'm excited because I know she's starting to recognize the story...

L: Bethlehem! That's like that boy...that boy!!!!

M: (I'm beaming. I'm so proud. It is like that boy. That boy Jesus...)

L: That boy...BUFFALO!!!

M: *completely flabbergasted* BUFFALO?

L: Yeah!!! Little Buffalo!!!!

All I could do was laugh. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed...

Third conversation...approximately 10-15 minutes later...as we were walking into the bank...

L: Mom, is Jesus real?

M: *pausing...thinking...* Well...yes...he lived a long time ago...

L: Where is he now?

M: He's in heaven. He's in heaven with God.

L: *nodding and understanding* OH! Jesus is God's wife I guess...

M: *puzzled* Nooo...(here we go again with the mixed up family relations) Jesus is God's son.

L: No...WIFE.

M: No Lauren, his SON.

She gets slightly distracted and announces that Christmas is Jesus' birthday. I'm excited because I think we're back on track. She tells me that Ms. Carrie taught them that at school.

M: Did you tell Ms. Carrie we have a birthday cake on Christmas morning for Jesus' birthday?!

L: Noooo...

M: Yeah! Remember? We have a birthday cake for Jesus and we eat it Christmas morning!

L: Mom. Why do we have cake? Jesus won't BE there. *exasperated*

Ahhhh yes. THESE are the conversations we have. Conversations that provoke deep thought and lots of confusion. Welcome to my world.

Mom! Do you know how pigs eat?

I'm sitting here enjoying a quiet moment to myself when Lauren comes bursting into the room shouting, "MOM! DO YOU KNOW HOW PIGS EAT?"

Oh this oughta be good...

M: How do pigs eat?

L: Their momma lays sideways...and the babies eat...they chew on these little circles on the momma...

M: (oh DEAR, I had no idea she was talking about how BABY pigs eat or else I never would have asked!) They are drinking milk.

L: *blank stare* Oh, like cows?

M: Uh...yeah. Those "circles" are their boobies.

L: *blink* (as she glances at my boobs) Yeah, well, that's how the pigs eat their breakfast. It doesn't hurt the Momma...at all...

And she gallops out of the room.

I'm sure this one will swish around in her brain for a bit and float back up at the most inopportune time.

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense

I'm working on cards this morning sitting at my desk and Lauren decided to join me. She came in the room with some paper and her box of crafting supplies. She requested I play a particular playlist on my iPod and I thought we were all settled down to craft...

I was wrong...

I pressed play on the iPod and the moment the first song started playing Lauren jumped up...

L: OH! I better go get the umbrella!!

M: *puzzled look* What for?

L: *exasperated sigh* So I can sit on the quilt with the Barney puzzle!

M: *blink blink*

Sometimes things in my world just don't make sense.

Mommy's Little Hercules...errrr...Helper...

Oh little girls are such a joy. Really, they are! However, sometimes my child exhibits some "boy" traits that catch me off guard and sometimes even delight me.

Lauren and I popped into the grocery store this morning to buy one thing. A gallon of milk. We trek to the back of the store to get the milk and Lauren insists on carrying it to the front of the store. I tell her that it's extremely heavy and would probably be pretty tricky. I should mention here that in our family, we try not to say the word "hard" but use "tricky" instead. She says, "I can do it Mom!" I throw caution to the wind and hand the uber heavy gallon of milk over to her. She takes the milk with a loud grunt and tries to get a good grip on it while shifting it around between her wee hands. I suddenly have a Mom Memory of another mom friend telling a tale of "...one time he threw a gallon of milk out of the grocery cart and it busted and spewed milk everywhere..." My MOM ALARM starts sounding, "WARNING! WARNING! POTENTIAL MILK CATASTROPHE! TAKE THE MILK BACK! FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" So I gently take the milk back and we head to the front of the store to pay.

All the way up to the front of the store, Lauren is telling me how strong she is and that carrying the milk for me would be no problem.

We pay. We proceed to bag up the milk (self-checkout of course!) and start to leave the store. Lauren again insists she can carry the milk. I double bag it and say, "OK, give it a try..."

She struggles. She grunts. She's determined. The self-checkout attendant smiles and stifles her laughter as Lauren goes struggling towards the door.

Lauren tries sliding the loops of the plastic grocery bag up over her wrist. We've all tried this. It results in immediate sensation loss to your hand. She figures this out quickly and tries holding the loops with both hands but the milk is clunking into her thighs and knees. She stops and tries heaving the bag up onto her shoulder, like a purse. Again, immediate sensation loss to not just her hand this time, but her entire arm.

While I'm watching all this and trying to coax her across the parking lot, I keep saying, "Hey, do you need some help? Why don't you let Mom carry it the rest of the way...?" To which she keeps saying, in a winded voice, "No...Mom...*grunt*...I'm strong...*grunt*...I can do it...*grunt*"

And sure enough, she did. She IS strong.

Thanks to the nice camera on my new phone I was able to capture this Herculean moment.



She's saying through labored breathing, "Mom...I think I see the car..." as if it's miles away, when in reality it was only two more cars down from where she was standing.

Taking a little breathing break. But almost there!

Final HEAVE! HO! into the car.

Happy Halloween

Last year we visited a local pumpkin patch to purchase the perfect pumpkin for carving. We promptly brought the pumpkin home and used our handy dandy pumpkin carving kit, complete with carving patterns to make an amazingly awesome pumpkin. This was around October 10th or so. By October 31st our pumpkin had become...a Petri dish.



Petri dish noun

1. a shallow glass dish with a loose-fitting lid, used to culture bacteria.



So it wasn't a glass dish, but a pumpkin, and certainly had a loose-fitting pumpkin lid and DEFINITELY cultured some bacteria. The pumpkin was more frightening than we'd anticipated and was disposed of before nightfall.



This year, we took a different approach. The pumpkin wasn't even purchased until October 30th and carved this morning, October 31st. Lauren and I selected the perfect pumpkin for carving and Chad and Lauren searched the internet for suitable patterns to use. In the end, after much deliberation, a pattern was selected, "The Spooky Goblin."



While searching for patterns online, Chad read some helpful hints about pumpkin carving. Tips on how to preserve your pumpkin...you know, tips for preventing the Petri Dish effect or at least slowing that process down, that involved washing the pumpkin and spraying it with Lysol.



Chad did the initial cutting and scraping of the inside of the pumpkin and put Lauren to work cleaning out all the seeds and "guts." She was a very willing and helpful participant! We were entertained the whole time because she kept saying, "This is DIS-GUSTING. This is REALLY DIS-GUSTING..." but loved every bit of the process.

Lauren supervised the tracing of the pattern onto the pumpkin. This supervision included Lauren scolding Chad for breaking pencil after pencil because he was pushing too hard.

The completed "Spooky Goblin." He looks more like a Goofy Goblin to me, but awesome nonetheless!

Happy Halloween to all!

The Fierce and Fantastic Finnegan

In July of this year, I found myself at the Greenville Humane Society with a friend of mine. I was not in the market for a NEW dog. I have two already and they are PLENTY. However, I walked in and this face (see above) was looking at me from a pen in the lobby. I scooped him up and immediately said, "Where do I sign?" He was mine.

I have never in my life had a dog that has brought me so much joy. He's full of energy and ALWAYS in a good mood. He's clumsy. He's naughty. He's fiercely protective of me, but scared of all things at the same time. He climbs on all furniture including the end table between the couches to look out the window and barks at falling leaves. He falls off furniture, he gets stuck behind couch cushions, he trips up the stairs, he rolls down the stairs, he falls off the bed, he falls off the couch, he crashes his head into the walls, chair legs, and doors. All of these things he does with complete abandon. He's passionate and energetic about EVERYTHING he does.

His name is Finnegan.

Finn loves paper. Finn loves baby dolls and stuffed animals. Finn especially loves socks and SHOES. Most shoes are the same size as him and he manages to pick them up in his mouth and carry them off and lick and chew on them. He has a secret hiding spot under our bed that's a large L.L. Bean duffle bag. I discovered this hiding spot one day when I was pulling the bag out to pack it for a trip. The bag had a stray sock, two dog bones and other miscellaneous items that had gone missing.

Finn's expression is always excited and happy. You'll find a "gift" (aka POOP) he left in the guest bathroom and say, "FINNEGAN! DID YOU POOP IN HERE???" He gallops up to you wagging his tail enthusiastically as if he's saying, "What? Yeah?! I did! Cool huh??!" He rarely gets scolded because he's so darn cute.

Just the other night, I was outside with the water hose doing some work and Finn was chasing streams of water. He was racing as hard as he could everytime he'd see the water spray. I think he could have played that game for hours. He's blissfully stupid. It's refreshing!

Finnegan is so protective of me. At bedtime he curls up under the covers with me and sleeps, but the second he hears the creak of the floorboards in the hallway he's at full attention growling in his most fierce puppy voice and barking at the intruder...even though the same thing happens every night and it's just my husband coming to bed. It's like a new experience every time, "INVADER! THREAT! WARNING!" and then followed by lots of tail wagging, "Oh hey Dad! It's you! How are ya?"

He brings me joy. He makes me laugh. He's my boy. He's my Finnegan.