Doodle

  • Smells like three year old spirit

    She picked out her own sleepwear after bathtime last night.

    Who says grunge is dead?

    We’re off to the coast for the weekend.
    I’ll see y’all on Monday.

  • We have spacious skies and amber waves of grain

    Happy 4th of July!

    That’s Caroline when she was just an 11 month old firecracker. I wanted a new picture of her with an American flag, but she isn’t nearly as cooperative or as immobile as she was 3 years ago. Plus, she felt the need to put on her pink fleece pajamas with the cows all over them around noon today and they just don’t really convey patriotism or you know, the month of July.

    Anyway, I hope the hotdogs and apple pie are plentiful wherever y’all are today.

    And happy birthday, Nanny. I hope you have a wonderful 89th birthday!

  • BM stands for Beth Moore, Big Mama and something else

    Yesterday morning, I took advantage of Caroline being enthralled with one of the Muppet movies while I sat at the kitchen island to work on my Bible study. Gulley, some other girls and I are doing “Jesus, The One and Only” this summer and I am loving it. And I have to say, I thought I knew a lot about Jesus, but this has made me look at some things in a different light, which really needs to be a post of its own at some point.

    But for today, I’m just doling out the really profound material.

    So, I’m sitting with my workbook and my Bible, pen in hand. The picture of studious. The portrait of a Godly woman.

    Caroline can sense me having a moment to myself a mile away, so she came over to see what was going on.

    “What are you doing, Mama?”

    “I’m doing my Bible study”

    “Oh, I’m going to do my Bible study, too!”

    She climbed up on the barstool next to mine, grabbed a pen and started scribbling on a notepad. I watched her for a few moments and thought this is what it’s all about, I’m showing her my love for Jesus. I’m creating an example of living a life dedicated to God, and how precious that she wants to model that behavior. And secretly, I even wished the other person who lives in this house (that would be you, P) would notice this moment of mother/daughter/God closeness and take a picture of the sweetness.

    I went back to reading my study when Caroline said, “Mama?”

    “Yes, my precious angel baby darlin’?”

    “I just drew this picture. It’s a picture of what my poop looks like.”

    And with that, I bowed my head and thanked Him for the dose of humility.

  • An update on the newly bereaved…and also, cake

    Last night in our panic to dispose of Nemo’s body, P provided a moment of distraction by taking Caroline out to look at “something” on the front porch, while I frantically ran, fish bowl in hand, towards our master bathroom to flush away the evidence. I was in a state of panic over the need to hide the dead body so, clearly, if my Sicilian ancestry includes any ties to the Mafia, I didn’t get those genes.

    Don Corleone would never sweat over having to dispose of a beta fish.

    It’s not so much that I thought Caroline would lose her mind due to the excessive grief, but it was close to bedtime, she was tired and that tends to turn everything into drama worthy of a very special episode of Diff’rent Strokes. Plus, she looks for any excuse to put off bedtime, so a fish funeral would have been a fine angle to work.

    Anyway, I was sloppy in my work. I left Nemo’s empty fish bowl sitting on the dresser in our bedroom and when Caroline woke up this morning (yes, she ended up in our bed around 5 a.m., but it’s totally worth it because she’ll sleep until 8 a.m. if she’s in bed with me. I figure she’ll sleep in her own bed by high school. In the meantime, I am enjoying mornings that start after the sun is actually up)…okay, where was I?

    Oh, Caroline woke up and immediately noticed the bowl sitting on the dresser. She said, “Mama, Nemo slept in your room last night!…Oh, where’s Nemo?”. And with that observation, she caught me completely offguard at the time of day when I’m the slowest on my feet. So, I eloquently stated, “Nemo died.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Her lip started to quiver and she said, “Why did he die Mama? I took such good care of him.”

    That’s debatable.

    I told her that fish don’t live very long and of course she took good care of him, but he just got sick and died. She then hypothesized that perhaps a coyote had come in to our house and speared Nemo during the night which, had I been thinking clearly, would have been a much better answer to her question. And with that, she moved on to wanting waffles for breakfast. Obviously, she was all broken up about it.

    Now, let me tell y’all about the rain. It rained cats and dogs and, perhaps, even beta fish today. I dropped Caroline off at school this morning right as the rain started and by the time I picked her up 3 hours later, the streets were flooded. In fact, on our way home, one of the main streets to our house was barricaded and I wasn’t sure how we were going to get home. Fortunately, I am a navigating genius and realized I just needed to go over one more block to higher ground. We had planned to go play at Gulley’s to get through the rainy afternoon but, alas, there was no way we could make it over there without a canoe.

    So, we baked a cake. And I thought y’all might like the recipe and a step-by-step pictorial.

    Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting

    Open box. Dump cake mix in bowl. Now, normally I prefer Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Golden cake mix, but this was all we had and did I mention the torrential flooding?

    Next, add in water, butter and eggs. Eggshell is optional, but highly probable if you let a 3 year old crack your eggs.

    Note to self, do not turn your back on child with Kitchenaid. Mess. Big Mess. Photo does not do justice to mess. Also, not pictured are the bits of my head that exploded shortly after this happened.

    Clean cake mix, egg, butter residue from the walls. And the floor. And the Kitchenaid. And the child. And the entire side of the refrigerator.

    Pour batter in cake pans and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

    Relax while enjoying a little cake batter and wonder why Mama is so freaked out. It’s just a little cake batter spewed all over the kitchen. It will come off the ceiling in its own good time.

    Have internal debate as to whether or not to make homemade chocolate frosting to compensate for boxed cake mix. Decide to fully commit to Lazy Cake Baking 101.

    Tell husband to step away from the canned frosting. He can have whatever is leftover.

    Realize you’re writing the longest blog post in history. Oh wait, wrong tutorial.

    Find it ironic that you’re frosting a boxed cake mix with canned frosting while looking down at your new issue of this.

    Wonder if anyone is still reading to see the results of this labor of love.

    Pass can of frosting to P. He really had no idea before he married me the full extent of my baking skills. It was just pure luck on his part.

    Prepare a light dinner of chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with cream gravy so that you’ll have plenty of room for cake.

    Wonder how this post started with our fish grief and ended up with chocolate cake. Also, hope that was only an eggshell I just bit into.

    Have a lovely weekend, y’all.

  • Nemo sleeps with the fishes

    Nemo is dead.

    No, not that Nemo. Not the little clownfish from the reef. I’m talking about our Nemo, the betta fish that Santa brought for Caroline this past Christmas.

    I noticed yesterday that he was, literally, looking a little green around the gills. Who knew that was a real thing and not just something people say? He was also swimming upside down and frequently laying on his side. P and I kept exchanging looks across the kitchen because we knew Nemo’s time was limited.

    And honestly, I’m amazed he lasted as long as he did. I thought for sure Caroline was going to love him to death within his first 48 hours in our family, but he made it a whole 6 months, mainly because she often forgot that he existed.

    I’m not sure what went wrong, but as his primary caretaker, I blame myself.

    Not to mention the guilt I feel because, really, I’m glad he’s gone. When Santa brought him down from the North Pole, the intention was that Nemo would reside in Caroline’s room, but due to her constant need to pet him, he was transferred to my kitchen island. Which wouldn’t have been so bad since Santa had the forethought to buy a pretty bowl with pretty pale blue stones in the bottom, but Caroline wanted Nemo to have some sort of fish structure and she picked out a dragon at the pet store.

    So, for the last 6 months I have had a fish bowl with a dragon in it adorning my kitchen island. It’s not really something you see in Southern Living. It’s not even something you see in Redneck Digest.

    I was also completely grossed out every time I had to change his water. It just all seemed so unsanitary. And true confessions, more than once I thought about just setting him free in our plumbing system and calling it a day. But I endured for the love of my child. A child who, by the way, hasn’t noticed yet that Nemo is no longer with us.

    And he is, in fact, no longer with us. As soon as I saw his dead, bloated fish carcass floating next to his dragon, I immediately flushed him down the toilet and in hindsight, I guess I should have let Caroline say her final goodbyes. So now I’m wondering how to handle the situation so that one day Caroline’s not in therapy saying, “It all started when Nemo died and I didn’t get to say goodbye…”

    So what now? Do I wait until she notices he’s gone or do I just tell her what parents everywhere have said for years?

    Honey, Nemo went to live on a fish ranch with lots of other fish. It’s the best thing for him. He’ll be so much happier living where he can swim free in the wide open spaces.

  • A whale of a tale

    Well, it seems that seeing P driving the Volvo loaner was enough to motivate JoEL to get things going. The service guy called about 4:30 to let me know my car is ready, so first thing in the morning, I’ll be saying farewell to my friend, the loaner.

    Au revoir sweet friend. I will miss you and your cool stereo that scrolls the name of the song and artist that are currently on the radio. Not to mention your thoughtfulness in automatically muting the radio every time I got on my cell phone. I feel like we really connected over the last 8 days. God speed.

    And in other non-automotive news.

    On Saturday afternoon, someone must have slipped something into my Diet Coke because all of a sudden I could hear my voice saying, “Caroline, how about we go to Sea World on Monday? Wouldn’t that be fun? Just you and Mama at Sea World?”

    What? Who is this person with the boundless enthusiasm for taking a 3 year old to an aquatic themed amusement park all by herself?

    Alas, on Sunday, when I woke with a clearer head, it was too late to back out because the child? Oh, you better believe she was going to Sea World on Monday. Going to Sea World to see SHAMU! AND THE FLYING MONKEY PEOPLE! AND THE SQUIDS AND THE OCTOPI! (except she didn’t really say Octopi, she’s only 3 1/2 people. Give her a break on the plurals)

    Part of my Sea World compulsion is due to the fact that we have season passes. We bought season passes last summer and then upgraded them in the fall, to include this summer, for just $35.00. And heaven knows I can’t pass up a bargain. The problem is I have been under serious, self-imposed pressure to GET TO SEA WORLD immediately so that we can get our $70.00 worth.

    Oh yes, we’re going to go so many times this summer that we will be completely sticking it to the man and his killer whale. And seeing as how it’s already mid-June, we needed to get going on my master plan to outwit and outlast Sea World, nevermind that they stay open through December…it’s now or never.

    So, Monday morning. We woke up and ate a breakfast of homemade waffles to sustain us in our journey to the other side of town. I packed every bottle of sunscreen we own, multiple towels, a case of bottled water (because at the park they charge $52.00 per bottle), a few snacks, and our bathing suits. I would realize later it was a strategic error to not just wear our swimsuits, but at 9:00 a.m. I was innocent and naive and not aware this was a tactical mistake.

    However, at 10:45 a.m. as we were changing into our swimsuits in the restroom at The Lost Lagoon and Caroline kept opening the door and exposing me to the free world, I realized I should have suited up at home and saved myself and the eyes of some poor, unwitting souls the sight of my white behind.

    As soon as we got to Sea World, Caroline informed me she didn’t want to see Shamu or the dolphins or anything. And really, who goes to Sea World to see Shamu? That’s so last year. Instead, she wanted to go to Shamu’s Happy Harbor and ride the Shamu Coaster, the Penguin Pete ferris wheel and play some arcade games.

    And look!

    She won a Nicole Richie doll!

    Oh, I kid because of the big head and the small body. This is actually a monkey that was immediately christened, appropriately enough, Silly. We won Silly about 10 minutes into our day at Sea World and got to haul him around for the rest of the day, along with the kitchen sink we packed. It was a treat.

    The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent at The Lost Lagoon, which is the water park section. We had so much fun in the wave pool and I loved hearing Caroline laugh hysterically everytime a wave knocked her over. She is fearless. Then, we stopped for lunch at Castaway Cafe and she declared that she would, indeed, like to see Shamu. I looked at my schedule and realized the only way to make that happen was to trek to the other side of the park in about 10 minutes, so I loaded Caroline, Silly, and our bag ‘o stuff into the stroller and took off at breakneck speed. In a swimsuit. With a coverup (thank heaven for small mercies). And flip-flops.

    We got there just in time, and Caroline insisted she wanted to sit right up front so that Shamu could splash us. We sat down so low that we had a perfect view of the trainers and the various Shamus swimming underwater. Caroline kept asking, “When is he gonna splash Mama? When is he gonna splash?”

    Here she is, waiting for the splash.

    And finally, he splashed.

    You know, the trivia they showed on the big screen prior to the show, mentioned that Shamu’s water is 52 degrees. In theory, after a 35 mile sweaty hike while pushing a stroller, 52 degrees doesn’t sound too cold. But oh, when he finally splashed, we didn’t just get splashed, we were soaked in 52 degree, freezing cold, saltwater. Caroline started crying and wanted to leave, so we headed out. We made one stop for cotton candy and then got in the loaner car and drove home.

    Later that night, I asked her what her favorite part of the day was. She said, “Oh! I LOVED getting splashed by Shamu”. She obviously subscribes to her mama’s theory of that which doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger. I mean, after all, I’m already talking about our next trip to Sea World.