Kids
I think all kids love to color Easter eggs. Maybe it is the chance to get creative in a way that most parents won’t normally allow. I mean…how many parents want to turn their kids loose with colored water very often. That could be an accident waiting to happen. Nevertheless, every year, we get everything ready, and set our kids up to potentially make a huge mess, and hope that it doesn’t happen.
I always liked to color Easter eggs as a kid. Back then, of course, they didn’t have all the cool stuff they have now. We had mostly just the colored water and a clear crayon…and later the little stickers or egg tattoos. Then they started coming up with really cool things like speckled eggs, glitter eggs, neon eggs, and tie dyed eggs. There was something new every year, and of course, every parent made sure their kids had all the new stuff.
Since, my girls are grown now, I have been out of the egg coloring era for quite some time, so who knows what they have now. And it doesn’t really matter anyway, because the whole idea is to watch the excited faces as the little ones get to start coloring their eggs, and then sharing in their creations. And when kids are little, they don’t really care whether or not they have all the very latest stuff anyway.
Of course, all this led up to the next morning when they got to find their Easter baskets, put on their new Easter outfits, and go to church to remember the real reason we celebrate Easter, being thankful for the sacrifice made by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, because, lets face it, we are lost without him. His death put a sinful world back in right standing with God!! We are so very blessed, and there is reason to celebrate…He is risen!!! Happy Easter to all!!
My mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s Disease, and as you know, the cherished memories new, and later on even the old ones, begin to slip. Soon they will be lost forever. One of the best things the family can do for her is to help her to remember things. Old memories, and important data, as well as who these people in her house are. We try to keep her current on those things, in the hope that her quality of life can remain good for just a little bit longer.
Recently, after several bad bouts with pneumonia, several stays in the hospital, and finally a little more than two weeks in a nursing home getting rehab because her muscles were very weak, we have had a little more trouble triggering her memory. Her environment was not her normal, and my father-in-law was not right beside her to help keep that process going, so her cherished memories have slipped more. She was having trouble remembering her dad’s first name…something she normally gets right away. And when asked about her favorite horse, she couldn’t remember Molly’s name.
My daughter, Corrie had taken my father-in-law, her grandpa up to see her grandma, and ended up hearing information she hadn’t heard before. Today at lunch, she mentioned that she didn’t know that her grandmother had owned a horse…much less that she loved to ride, and spent as much time on her horse, Molly as she possibly could. I suppose Corrie wouldn’t have heard much about Molly, because my mother-in-law owned Molly when she was a teenager. Still, I guess we all just thought her grandchildren knew about the years when their grandparents spent much time living and working on ranches in Montana. We were wrong.
When you live on a ranch, it is quite common for the kids to ride horses to visit friends. Who needed a car when you had a horse, and you didn’t have to be 16 years old with a driver’s license to “drive” one either. So, that is what kids who lived on ranches did, and still do today, and my mother-in-law was a very good horse woman. She loved horses, and most especially Molly, her very favorite horse.
Sadly, as her Alzheimer’s Disease progresses, she is losing many of her memories. Mostly the newer ones, it’s true, but we also see that she forgets people she doesn’t see very much, and also forgets about things that she hasn’t seen or done in a long time. We try to remind her about her life by doing regular memory work, and much of the time she remembers Molly’s name at least, although I don’t know if she would know what Molly looked like. It’s that way with people too. She doesn’t remember the new people who come into her life, but figures it out when we remind her who they are, and she remembers the names of people from her past for the most part, but probably wouldn’t recognize them if she saw them. All we can do is keep reminding her on a daily basis, of who she was and hope that it will allow her to have one more day of remembering things like…Molly.
Remember how your kids had a favorite show on TV when they were little. It’s funny how they would watch that show over and over again. After watching, and worse yet listening to the same show for days, and even months on end, you got to a point where you thought you would go insane. Even shows you thought were cute the first…say twenty times you saw them, became completely annoying before very long. And if it happened to be a show you couldn’t stand in the first place…well, it simply grated on your very last nerve every time your precious child sang that song…again!!!
I’m sure my parents felt the same way. As parents, we try not to make our kids so aware of just how much their favorite show makes us crazy, but we can’t help but be grateful when a new show finally takes the place of their old favorite. Thankfully kids outgrow their original favorites fairly quickly, in most cases, but still, sometimes there are shows that seem to really outstay their welcome in your home.
Some shows seem to span the generations, and you find yourself wondering how they could possibly still be on TV. Who are the crazy parents who continue to let their kids watch these ridiculous shows. Remember Sesame Street. Oh my gosh!! I couldn’t even stand to have that show on in my house. I know my girls liked it ok, but they simply had to watch it at someone else’s house. And I know that many of you couldn’t stand to watch the Barney shows. Oddly that one didn’t bother me too much. Maybe it was the fact that I was a grandmother the first time I watched Barney, so some of the things that used to really annoy me didn’t seem so important anymore…except Sesame Street, which I can’t stand to this day.
Thankfully, the years of children’s’ shows only last for a short time, and our lives can get back to watching normal shows…you know that ones that are mostly not animated. I say mostly because there are a few animated shows that are ok to watch as adults…provided they aren’t watched too many times. Nevertheless, for the most part by the time our kids are done with children’s’ shows, we are definitely done with children’s’ shows…at least until our grandchildren come on the scene, at which time we make the sacrifice…again!!
It was 37 years ago today that I married the love of my life. Every year since that time has been better that the last. That’s how it is when you have found that one person…the one who completes you. The years fly by, and with each new anniversary, you wonder where the years went. Suddenly the kids are grown and married, and the grandkids are all but grown. How can that be? All those years behind us…and yet it seems like just yesterday that we said “I do.”
When we got married, there were those who thought it wouldn’t last…there are always those. Still, the reality is that we were young, and the odds were against us. But we beat those odds and we are on our way to growing old together. It reminds me of the poem by Robert Browning, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…” That’s how it is with us. Each new year just gets better than 
the one before.
When I think about Bob, my mind recalls a hard working motivated man, with a strong sense of what is important, but more importantly, I think of a man who is loyal and very dedicated to those he loves. As the years have gone by, and things in our lives have changed, that is the one thing that I know will never change…Bob’s love for me. He is a man who gave his heart completely to me. Sometimes I find myself amazed at how blessed I am.
How could two kids have stumbled into together forever land? We were so young…what did we know of making love last? I guess maybe we are just two people who are too stubborn to quit. I think that anyone who has weathered the years in a marriage knows that there must be a degree of stubbornness to make that work. As kids, people think that if two people love each other…really love each 
other…then the marriage is going to always be easy, but that isn’t so. Marriage is a full time job, and it is the most important job you will ever have. It is also the most rewarding job you will ever have. When you love someone, while the road may not always be an easy one to travel, it will always be a journey you will be very glad you took.
As Bob and I start the future years of our journey together, I know that the love will continue to grow, and while there will be challenges, we will weather them together. So today, I say to Bob, the love of my live…”Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…”
My sister, Cheryl was divorced from her husband Rob before their youngest daughter Jenny was born. While divorce is a tragedy, there was a great degree of good that came to Cheryl’s children afterward. They were very young when the divorce took place, and their dad was not a big part of their life after that time. They did have a father figure, however…their grandpa, our dad. Dad was a mentor to them. His continued loving guidance was a major source of stability in their lives.
Dad always saw to it that they got to go on some vacations, and outings to the mountains, as well as drives…a type of outing we all enjoyed. Dad also provided a moral compass as well as help with educational things. Don’t misunderstand me, because they did have their mom, and Cheryl was and is a good mom, but they needed that father figure…someone who could do all the things a dad does with them.
Every one of Cheryl’s kids has told me that their grandpa was the only dad they ever had. Thinking about that I realize how blessed I was to have my dad, because not everyone has that. It’s hard to understand how they felt, because I was never in that position. For my sister’s kids, they had to look to my dad to show them all the things a dad usually shows you. That was not a bad thing for them either. Each one of them has told me about how their grandpa enriched their lives.
It really wasn’t anything so specific that my dad did for them, but rather it was just the love he showed to them…and it was the same love he showed to all his grandchildren, but maybe it was felt a little bit more deeply to them, because they wanted the love of a dad…and they wanted to belong. That is what my dad gave them. A sense of normalcy in their life.
When my dad passed away, each one of my sister’s kids told me that he was the only dad they ever knew. While I can’t pretend to know every detail of what he meant to them. I do 
know that somehow he impacted their lives is a way that made them feel a connection to their grandpa that was unlike the other grandchildren, even though my dad was very much loved by grandchildren and great grandchildren alike. I believe it was the way he became their mentor, showing them how to live, but living the best life he could as a model for them…as well as for the rest of us. That was the kind of man my dad was.
I met the love of my life at the tender age of 17. I worked at Kmart, as did his sister. We were kids, and that is a fact that stands out more and more in my mind every time I look at these old pictures, but age doesn’t always matter. Ours was a love that would last. We knew it…or at least hoped it would. I suppose you can’t really say you knew it, even though at the time you honestly did know it.
The early years flew by in a whirlwind of activity as our family began and grew. We were busy, and I suppose that many marriages struggle at this stage, but we hardly noticed the passing years. We couldn’t imagine being anywhere else or with anyone else. In fact, the thought never crossed our minds. We were just going forward with our lives, being happy, enjoying our kids, and…well, living.
Before long, our girls were in school and our lives were changing again. Back to school 
night, parent/teacher conferences, field trips, and class parties became the new normal for us. Again we hardly noticed the passing years. We were just to busy with our lives and being happy to notice that time was passing. During the time when a lot of marriages were strained and breaking up, ours remained strong. I don’t try to say that we had any secret formula to keep a marriage strong, because we didn’t. We were older now, but still young, and still we didn’t really know how to make a marriage work. We just moved forward with our lives.
Before we knew it, our girls were graduating from high school, and both were soon married and starting their own lives. Our lives were changing again. Soon we were the grandparents of three grandsons and one granddaughter, the whirlwind of our lives continued to spin. We were so busy enjoying the babies, and enjoying our adult daughters and their husbands, that we didn’t notice the 
passing years. Before we knew it our grandchildren were in school.
Now, our grandchildren are teenagers, and as I take a moment to look back on the years, I realize that those two kids who met all those years ago had something special, although they didn’t know it then. Somehow their marriage was going to be one that would beat the odds. A marriage of two kids, that lasted a lifetime…unusual to be sure, but not impossible, and sometimes not even unique, as some of my friends can attest…but still, somewhat rare. It is the result of being blessed to find…on the first try…the love of my life.
My husband, Bob has a habit of sweeping the snow into a pile in the street in front of where we park our cars. It is a really nice thing to do, because it means I don’t have to wade through the snow to get into the house. It also creates a large pile of snow beside the curb in front of our cars…especially when it snows a lot.
My grandkids have been known to get silly around snow drifts…natural or man made. Throwing each other in the snow, or throwing themselves in, are common occurrences. But then these things are not unusual for kids and snow. And of course, the kids aren’t the only ones involved in the snow day fun. Their dads love to be the ones to throw those kids in the snow…and the funny thing is that the kids are begging their dads to throw them in the snow drift.
The other day as Bob and I were going out to our car, he pointed to the pile of snow and said that some kids had walked right through the middle of it. He seemed irritated about it, but it struck me as something totally different. Why is it that kids will leave a completely clear sidewalk to go traipsing through the snow? It doesn’t matter that they don’t have snow boots on, they do it anyway. There is just something about that pile of snow sitting there that calls out to them, just like rain water running down the gutter…they can’t resist.
As we got in our car, and started to drive away, I could picture several little kids walking along, and then they see the pile of snow. With one accord, the kids head for the pile of snow. Maybe they just want to be king of the hill. Or maybe they wanted to see if they would sink. I could see me as a little kid doing the exact same thing. I didn’t care, back then, if my clothes were soaked from 
playing in the snow. Clothes will dry, after all, and what kid worries about catching a cold, or dripping on their mother’s carpet. Those are matters to be worried about after they happen. Mom loves you anyway, and she will only be mad for a while, and catching a cold meant that you got to stay home from school…a prospect that almost made being sick worth it…provided you didn’t feel too ill to enjoy the stolen day off, and that it didn’t drag into the weekend.
Yep, there is just something about a pile of snow, natural or man made that calls out to you. “Come and play. That’s why I’m here, you know.” What kid can resist?
In big families, the younger children have the potential to become aunts and uncles at an early age. This can happen in families where there are a number of years between the children too. Sometimes, in fact, children can be born as aunts and uncles, which I suppose could be even more strange to think about. My younger sisters were were already old hands at being aunts at the time my girls were born, as my older sister had 3 children by that time. My youngest sister, Allyn became an aunt when she was the ripe old age of 8 years, in 1971, and so had been an aunt for 4 years by the time Corrie was born in 1975.
My in-laws basically had 3 separate families, since there were 7 years between Bob and his sister Jennifer, and another 5 between his youngest sister, Brenda and his brother, Ron. Ron was a whopping 7 years old when he first became and uncle. And my daughter, 
Amy’s youngest brother-in-law was 3 when he became uncle to her daughter, Shai. These kids grew up almost more like cousins or brothers and sisters than uncles to their nieces.They pretty much don’t remember a time where they weren’t uncles.
My father-in-law’s sister Marian had 8 children, and her youngest son is younger than his nephew, her daughter Kathy’s son. I’m sure that would be odd to think about, if it weren’t just the way it was. I suppose when you are born an uncle or aunt, it never occurs to you that you might be a bit different from your friends, who like my daughters became aunts when they were both married adults.
I’m quite certain that most people just think, “Well, that is the way it is.” And they would be right. You can’t control when you become an aunt or uncle. That is simply not your choice to make. And to most people it is an exciting and joyful time in their lives. But, that 
is not always the case. Bob’s Aunt Linda was quite a bit younger than my mother-in-law. Fifteen years, in fact. And my mother-in-law would marry my father-in-law just 2 1/2 years after Linda was born. When my sister-in-law, Marlyce came along 13 months after their marriage, Linda was just 3 1/2 years old. She was just getting to an age where she knew what she wanted and what she did not want. When they came to Linda and told her that she was an aunt, Linda immediately started crying. They were shocked by such a reaction, and when they asked her what was wrong, she said, through her tears, “I don’t want to be one of those ant guys!!!” Poor little thing thought she was going to turn into a bug!
Some babies…and even older kids, absolutely hate to take a bath. I suppose this applies to boys more than girls. Boys don’t seem to have time to take out of their busy day to do something so silly as take a bath. I mean, what is a little dirt anyway. Of course, it might be more fun when there are 2 or 3 in the tub. At least then a guy has friends to play with…making it more like swimming. Still, most of the little boys I have been around would much rather play in a mud puddle than take a bath.
My girls both loved their bath time. They would splash and giggle…as long as you didn’t get soap in their eyes. Washing their hair wasn’t their favorite thing, mostly because of the whole water and soap in their eyes thing, but the rest of the bath was great…especially if there were bath toys to play with. As for me, I loved their bath time. Watching them giggle and play was so cute. Those little baby days go by so fast that a mother has to hang onto the memories, because before you know it, that is all that remains of those baby days.
My girls favorite thing to do as they got a little older was to take bubble baths. It was always so funny to watch them making beards or fancy hairstyles out of the bubbles, or just blowing them off of their hands. It was a great way for little ones to have fun. And it took me back to my own childhood days. When taking a bath meant a good half hour or more of playing in the water. Making boat sounds with my face partly underwater, and 
seeing the water churn like a propeller, or seeing how long I could hold my breath were always fun things to do in the bath tub. My mind wandered as I bathed my girls, wishing that these baby years could last forever.
Then coming back to reality, I would lift my clean little daughters out of the water and wrap the snugly in a towel, before putting on their pajamas, the day’s dirt gone, and tucking them in their bed, because one of the nicest things about bath time is that it relaxed the baby and got her ready for bed. After their baths, my girls would just snuggle down and go right to sleep…awwwww, peace!!
When Amy was a little girl, she had a unique way of talking. Her pediatrician said she breathed her words. Basically that meant that drink of water became ink of ata. Most of us would just call it baby talk, and so it was. She has completely grown out of those cute little baby days, but I will never forget all the cute little things she used to say.
There was her Texan days. Instead of saying good night, Amy would say goo naaat. We used to get such a kick out of her funny little way of saying things. We called her our little Texan, which was funny in that she had never been to Texas, much less been there long enough to pick up any accent. And no one we knew had a Southern accent either. Just our Little Texan. There were quite a few of her words that came out with a Texas accent, in fact. In fact, just about any word that had an i turned into an a with Amy.
Her little accent carried over into other phrases too, like the time she told my sister, Alena that she had dot in her eye. Alena said, “You have a dot in your eye?” Amy said, “No!!! Dot!!!” Alena said, “Dot!!” And Amy said, “No!! Dot!!” Well they went on at an impasse for a while, as Alena tried desperately to figure out what Amy’s problem was. Finally in one of those forehead slapping moments, Alena said, “Ohhhhhh!! Dirt!! You have dirt in your eye!!” To which and exasperated Amy said, “Yeah, dot!!!” We have laughed and laughed about that one for years.
Lots of kids have funny little ways of talking baby talk, and in my opinion, they grow out of it all too soon. So many people try to move their kids out of those years into adult speech, because they are worried about the funny little way of talking being permanent. Those years just fly by, and once they are gone, you wish you had recorded the way they spoke, or at least, written down some of it, so you could remember it. Whether your little one breathed her words, or couldn’t quite get the r’s or s’s or maybe t’s, or maybe you were like us…you had a little Texan on your hands. It doesn’t matter, it’s just sooooo cute!
