Kids
Have you ever noticed that when babies are given a toy to play with…it goes directly to their mouth. I know, everyone will tell you that they are learning about textures and such, and that is probably right, but nevertheless, odd. We all did this, of course, but when I think back on that as an adult, I know I would be very grossed out. Oh, I know that we still do stick stuff in our mouths now and then, but it still seems like a really bad habit. Of course, my grand niece, Aleesia was not really planning to eat her sunglasses, and may have even seen other people do that with them, so she thought it was the thing to do, but there have been people who have chewed on their sunglasses to the point of ruining them.
When babies a really little, they use their mouth as part of playing with their toys, and by the time they are done, the toy is a slobbery mess, and needs a bath of its own…yuck. Even when my girls were little, I remember picking up a toy they had been playing with before they fell asleep, only to find it all wet and gross. I’m not squeamish or anything, but 
I’m not fond of having other people’s saliva all over my hand either…not even my kids. It just felt icky!!
Well, thankfully babies grow up a little, and they quit sticking so much stuff in their mouths. Pretty soon they even get to a point where mostly, it is food that goes into their mouths. Of course, the food isn’t always less messy, but it seems different somehow to see a baby with a food mess on their face than it does a slobbery toy. There isn’t anything more fun than to see a baby on their first birthday, covered with cake, and happy as a clam. After all, these are the messy years, and parents just have to deal with it.
I love looking at old photographs of people and trying to decide who they look like. With some people that can be difficult, because they are a Heinz 57, of sorts…a little bit of both parents, with some aunts, uncles, and grandparents mixed in there. Other people are so obvious that you can tell who they belong to right away. Still others don’t necessarily look like a specific person, until a little later on in life.
Our grand niece, Jala falls into the “Wow!! She looks a lot like her grandma” catagory. I have always thought she reminded me of my sister-in-law, Debbie, but even more so, when I look back at pictures of Debbie when she was closer to Jala’s age. They have the same jaw line and smile…the same nose…the same ears, and even similar eyes. It always surprises me when someone looks so much like another person in the family, although I suppose it shouldn’t because everyone has those traits that are strong in their family. Nevertheless, when it happens it still surprises me.
Jala is my sister-in-law, Debbies first granddaughter, and I know they have more likes and dislikes in common that just their looks, though…like their love of quilts. Debbie likes to 
make them, and Jala collects them and other types of blankets. She must have a hundred of them, and uses every single one. In fact, I had heard that Debbie was planning to teach Jala how to make them herself. Just think of it. Then she could have 200 of them if she wanted, and her grandma wouldn’t have to make all of them. Ok, that was a joke, because I know that Debbie loves making quilts and other things for her grandchildren.
Today is Jala’s 11th birthday. You are growing up way too fast. Before we know it, you will be all grown up and married with kids of your own. Ok…let’s not rush things. Happy birthday Jala!! Have a wonderful day!! We love you!!
My grand nephew, Matthew is all boy, with a big heart. Over the years, I have watched him change in so many ways. As a really little boy, he loved to play games like super hero or karate expert. It was so cute to see him pretending to be able to fight any one of the adults…even though he would never have really had the heart to fight any of us, because he loved us. Little Matthew really only pretended to fight because his parents and family thought it was cute. He was acting.
When you think about it, all kids do a little bit of acting. They might start out accidently doing something that makes their parents laugh, but once they find out what kinds of things bring laughter to the people they love, they will do it over and over again…just because laughter is contageous, and it’s fun to laugh with their parents. Matthew is no exception to that rule. He loves to laugh and to make others laugh too.
Matthew is a very loving boy. While he is all boy, he reserves a place in his heart for the people he loves the most. His parents, grandparents, and sisters. He might pick on his sisters…unmercifully, as boys often do, but he loves them dearly and would fight anyone who tried to hurt any one of them. As I said, he might pick on them, but it’s just as likely he won’t, because he likes to be kind and helpful too.
Of course, we can’t forget that, like all boys, hanging out with the guys is a top priority, and that is something Matthew really enjoys. Coming from a family where he is the only boy, having guy friends to hang out with is vital for sanity!! Thankfully, Matthew has three male cousins who love to hang out and do the guy things with him. There is nothing a guy likes more than to spend the night with his cousins and just be boys…awww, what a life. Today is Matthew’s 8th birthday, and I can’t believe he is 8 years old already. Happy birthday Matthew!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
They say you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. That is a true statement in many ways, but none is more evident than when your family member wants to debate you on everything…or at least everything political. When I began trying to hook up with as many of my family members and extended family members as I could, I thought maybe I had stumbled into just such a situation. We had a rocky start, because we do have differing opinions on some things, but after I figured out that Matt does like to debate, but isn’t afraid to learn something new. I decided that maybe I was going to be glad that he was my cousin…or cousin once removed, since he is my cousin, Tina and her husband Glen’s son.
Matt isn’t one of those people who picks a political party, but rather looks at each situation, and decides how he feels about it. That makes for a well informed person, and someone who might tend to disagree on many points with his friends and family who are more set on a specific party line. Matt and I have…crossed paths, and split hairs on several occasions, but in the end, it occurred to me that while he didn’t change my opinion on my beliefs, he made me think about the other side of some of the issues. Some things just aren’t cut and dried, and even when you just can’t change your view because of a debate, I don’t feel like the debate was a wasted effort on the part of either debater.
One of the things I have learned from Matt…yes, I have learned from him, even though he is years younger than I am…is that if you are going to talk about an issue, you had better have your facts straight. Don’t just form your opinion on the things people tell you about something…but, rather read, study, and ask questions about it before you decide how you feel about it…and consequently, to discuss it. I don’t think Matt set out to teach me or anyone else anything, he just wasn’t a person who could accept someone’s view on face value. He had to know more about it before he could accept it.
The thing I discovered about Matt is that he isn’t afraid to say that he really doesn’t know enough about a situation to effectively discuss it. I like that. So many people just spout off about issues they know nothing about, and really, all they want to do is irritate and try to pick a fight. Other people get mad if you don’t agree with their views. We are never all going to agree on every issue.
Today is Matt’s birthday. Matt and I are definitely in two different places politically, and I’m sure there will be quite a few debates in the future, but Matt…I have finally found something you cannot debate…today is your birthday…no doubt about it. Hahahaha!! So, happy birthday Matt!! Have a great day!! Debater or not, we love you.
Having your child on someone else’s birthday can be a very cool thing, as I have seen with my own daughter, but having your first child on your own birthday would be even more cool, if you ask me. That is exactly what happened with my grandmother and my Aunt Laura. It was like a birthday present of sorts. I know how cool that shared birthday was for my daughter, Corrie and her grandmother, Bob’s grandmother. They loved it and shared every birthday party for as long as Grandma was still alive. Corrie always felt like she was Grandma’s Girl.
In looking at my grandmother’s photo album, I could easily see that same relationship with Grandma Spencer and Aunt Laura. They liked each other…which is different that loving each other. Many people love their family members, but really don’t like some of them much. Grandma and Aunt Laura went places together, and did things together, and it didn’t seem to be just because they were mother and daughter. I have to think it was partly because of that shared birthday.
As I look at the pictures in the album, many of which my Aunt Laura is in, it occurrs to me that, now I would know her, as a child, anywhere. She was a pretty little girl with long beautiful hair…something my sisters and I also had as kids, and two of us still do. She played the violin as a child, but I’m told she didn’t like it much, and yet she loves classical music, which so often includes the violin. I guess there is a big difference between playing 
an instrument and listening to an orchestra. On that point, I would have to agree with her. I used to love to listen to the music wen my girls were in orchestra and band, but for me to make those instruments play anything like music…well, can you say “sick duck” or even imagine what one sounds like…that would be me trying to play Corrie’s violin or Amy’s clarinet. I guess that Aunt Laura got pretty good, as did her sister, Aunt Ruth.
My Aunt Laura would have been 101 years old tomorrow, on her mother’s 126th birthday. I know she, my dad, and my Aunt Ruth, along with many other cherished family members are waiting in Heaven for the day of our arrival, and I look forward to seeing them once again. Thinking of your both Grandma and Aunt Laura on your birthdays tomorrow. We love you very much.
Those firsts in the world of aunts and uncles are among the coolest of times in a person’s life…often the closest thing to having your own kids. Quite often the first time you become an aunt or uncle, you are still pretty young, unless you are the oldest child. For my two younger sisters-in-law and my brother-in-law, they were 14, 12, and 7 years old. Becoming aunts and uncle was a very exciting time for them. My sisters and I became aunts 4 years earlier when my sister Cheryl had her daughter, Chantel. For Bob’s family, with the exception of Debbie, Corrie was the child who made them aunts and uncle, and they were quite excited about 
it. I could relate, for sure!
Jennifer would become our first babysitter, and would also have the most difficult time of it when she found out that Amy could be very hard to feed, since Amy and bottles…well, let’s just say they would never be friends. Brenda got to babysit when they were about 3 and 4, so she didn’t have to deal with Amy’s bottle boycott, and probably had a lot more fun with it, because she could play with them more. Ron…on the other hand, never really babysat the girls much; he was simply their playmate, which might have been the best deal of all. One thing I know for sure, Ron was always happy when he got to hold the babies by himself. I guess it made him feel grown up. Growing up around your aunts and uncles to a large degree was such a blessing for the girls. There was 
always someone to do things with, and later on, the tables turned, and they became the babysitters, so it paid off to a degree that their aunts and uncle took care of them.
Becoming aunts and uncle, changed the lives of my sisters-in-law and brother-in-law forever, as it does for all of us. Helping out with the raising of those precious little ones that you have been blessed with, is an amazing opportunity, and a big responsibility. Those kids look up to you, and it is important to give them a good role model. I am glad that the aunts and uncles my girls had…on both sides of the family were great role models, and I love each and every one of them very much.
It’s funny sometimes how a child can take on the personality of their aunt, or even great aunt. Such is the case with my grand niece, Raelynn, who is so like my sister, Allyn in that both of them figured out a way to avoid most spankings…without even trying!! When my niece, Dustie told me that a stern look can make Raelynn cry, I thought back to when Allyn was a little girl. When I asked why Allyn hardly ever got spankings, Mom said that it was because just a stern look made her cry. I guess Allyn and Raelynn have both decided to do their best to be good so no one looks at the in a stern way. Hmmm, maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad idea…wish I had thought of that. One thing, Raelynn…I don’t think you will be able to avoid today’s spankings, because as we all know, birthday spankings are sort of a tradition. Sorry about that…Not!!
Raelynn takes after her cousin, Michelle too, in that she loves art. There are a few artists in our
family…I am not one of them, unless you call photography art. I am getting pretty good at that…since the camera does all the work. An artist, however…a true artist, I’m not. We will see where things go for Raelynn. She has been encouraged to explore her artistic side and even has an art desk to produce her art on, and true to form for artists, can often be found sitting at her art desk, humming a tune with paint on her face.
Raelynn is also very much a girly girl, and loves to dress up. I so seldom see her in anything but a dress, that it occurs to me that I don’t even remember the last time. That characteristic, she just might get from me. I love dresses, and almost always wear them to work and church, but Raelynn wears them all the time. I guess she is quite a bit more girly girl than I am. Even when she is wearing pants, most often in the winter, she manages to have the look of a girly girl…even when her brother and sisters are goofing off…Raelynn manages to look all girl and no goof.
Some of Raelynn’s favorite people are her uncles. They and her cousin’s husbands are the 
people she likes to go and dance with or just sit and talk to. She is very social and likes to butterfly around to everyone to talk and socialize, and of course, dancing is a big part of that. At her cousin’s wedding, Raelynn grabbed her Uncle Dave several times and they twirled around the dance floor. Of course, her all time favorite dance was the one her daddy, my nephew Rob took her to earlier this year. There is just nothing more special to a girly girl that a father/daughter dance. In reality, many of Raelynn’s characteristics come from a lot of us. I guess she is just one of the family. Today is Raelynn’s 10th birthday. Happy birthday Raelynn!! We love you!! Have a great day!!
You’ve seen them…hollyhocks. They are a flower that some might even consider to be a weed, and they sure grow like one. They seem to grow well in yards or alleys…with little water or with plenty of water. The fact that their flowers are abundant the length of their stalk, and that the buds are as abundant as the flowers, is I suppose what attracted us to them. Of course, we were taught never to pick the flowers in someone’s garden, so the fact that these flowers were often in alleys made them more readily available. Whatever it was, my sisters and friends and I used to pick these flowers and then because of their very short stem, found that they didn’t make very good bouquets.
It seemed such a waste to pick these pretty flowers, just to throw them away, so we tried to find something to do with them…finally inventing the Hollyhock Doll. It wasn’t one of the summertime things we did for very many years, nor was it one of the coolest summertime things we did as children, but while I was walking along the trail near my house, and saw some Hollyhocks behind a house along the trail, the memory of our summertime school holidays and the making of Hollyhock dolls came to mind again.
Of course, it wasn’t just a memory of making Hollyhock dolls, but the chance to look back in time a little bit to a time that was so much more simple, that really drew me to the pretty flowers. As we grow up, and responsibilities force their way into our lives, the simple days of childhood get pushed to the background of our memories. Gone are the days of laying around in the backyard, sun tanning, and the afternoons spent at the local swimming pool. Now we get up every morning and go to work, take care of the responsibilities life has handed us, whether they be our children or caring for elderly parents. Our time is no longer our own to do with as we please. That freedom we had as kids is such a fleeting time in our lives, and yet none of us could wait to be grown up. Now we just wish we could go back and be kids again…for a little bit anyway, because no one really wants to relive 
their childhood, but rather just go back for an occasional visit.
Thinking back, the next day as I once again noticed Hollyhocks at the edge of the parking lot at work, I couldn’t resist the urge to pick the necessary parts of the flowers for the purpose of making just one more Hollyhock doll. I picked a flower and a bud, and brought them home. It took seconds to put them together, but the memory of the summertime fun we had, has lingered for days. It never was the Hollyhock Dolls that defined summer for me as a kid, but they were a reminder of the summertime fun we had as kids. I guess that’s why the flowers have always held a place of honor in my memory files.
Forms of discipline have changed over the years…from spankings to time out, and we all have our own ideas about what works and what doesn’t. I was looking at some pictures of my father-in-law’s 75th birthday party, when I came across one of his sister and brothers. Esther was the oldest of the three younger children, my father-in-law’s half siblings, and while I’m not sure that she ever felt like she was the boss, she apparently decided that she was going to take her brothers by the ear and straighten them out…probably for picking on her, if I know them.
That picture reminded me of the times, probably more of them than I wanted to think about, whne I was hauled home in such a fashion. During the time that I was growing up, bringing a child home by the ear for the purpose of a spanking, or for washing their mouth out with soap for some serious verbal infraction of the behavioral code we were to live by, was quite common. Of course, the soap was safe to use in the mouth then too. With the chemicals it has now, I wouldn’t chance that today…and I really hated it a lot back then too.
The biggest problem with being dragged home by the ear is the humiliation of it all. First, you are being dragged down the street by your ear. And, if that isn’t bad enough, everyone knows that when you get home, you are going to get a spanking. Talk about humiliating!! You would think a kid would do whatever it took so they would never have to go through that humiliation again. Not necessarily so. We knew better than to cuss as kids…I mean that was like having a death wish, but there were other things, like calling your sister names, and such…not cool and definitely not allowed. That would get you the soap thing!!
I know that everyone feels differently about the forms of discipline that were used in bygone days, but I feel like the way I was disciplined, made me the person I am today. I have no misconceptions about how difficult I was as a child. I was a stubborn child, and it would be my guess that I got more than my fair share of the discipline of the day.
Most kids, at some point in the summer vacation, get bored, or hot, or motivated, or something, and they begin to look for new things to do. As little kids, the choice that most often seems to come up is ways to make some money. Enter the Lemonade Stand. You don’t see as many of these as you might have during the years when I was growing up, but every so often, I still see them. My sisters and I were no exception to that rule. Of course, the big motivation to make money was usually so we could walk over to the Ben Franklin Store that Casper had at that time, to buy candy. I think very few kids have ideas that were much different than ours…I mean kids were going to sock that money away for college, right.
It’s funny how motivated kids can be when it come to esrning money to spend on things for themselves, but when it comes to school work, or something like that…forget it. You will have to force them to do that. I guess we all have things that motivate us, and when you are a kid…well you are motivated by kid things. Planning for the future was just not what you had in mind, not that it would help if we did put lemonade money in the bank. I mean, at 5 cents a glass, we might have made a dollar or so, and boy, did you work hard for that dollar. I guess it was a good thing that we still had penny candy and penny gumball machines.
I remember how much fun we had, selling lemonade to anyone who drove by on those hot summer days. We could sell to just about anyone who drove by, because things were different back then. We didn’t even need a parent hanging there with you, to keep you safe. These days you wouldn’t dare leave your kids there alone to sell lemonade. They would be gone when you came back. We lived in a different time. A safer time. We had the run of the block back then, and selling lemonade on the corner was just one of the many fun things we did, things we really enjoyed… like running a lemonade stand.
