Category — Parenting

What could possibly break my blogging hiatus? Did I stop writing other stuff? Am I a blog-addict again? Nah. Not yet. I just wanted to share what Christmas looks like around here. Plus, I know you’ve been missing my famous way-too-many-pics posts more than anything else.

So Merry Christmas FtR friends! (Sorry, no gift receipts.)

Last year at night (Well, kinda, this is really 2 years ago.):

This year at night (via iPhone):

This year during the day (via Nikon):

Last year’s star:

This year’s star:

Last year ornament close-up:

This year ornament close-up:

I know you’re wondering, “Why?” by this point. I have pictures for that too!

Take Christmas & subtract last year’s wonder-stealing “No-No, Please” . . .

. . . add this year’s, “It’s all yours!” . . .

. . . and you get:

See what I mean?

Who wants “No” to be a Christmas Motto, anyway? So, if you drop by this holiday season, don’t expect anything fancy, but bring your glitter and your glue stick. If you’re lucky, I might fill your sippy with some lukewarm hot chocolate and let you have a cookie without sitting in your chair. By the time you get here, we should have some presents wrapped in bright, foil paper with curly ribbons and fur-lined santa bows, too.

And surely I don’t have to tell you the soundtrack for decorating for “A Toddler Style Christmas” was, of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

(P.S. I tried to shoot some “formal” pics of Caelyn with the tree. Take the jump to see how it went.)

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Like I was saying, we went to the Fort Worth Zoo yesterday. (Do you think when Caelyn gets to be 13 or so she’ll be telling her friends that her mom listens to such “weird, lame music”? Is the Lorelai/Rory relationship attainable in that regard?)

Maybe you’ve forgotten that I wrote about our trip to the Dallas Zoo, which was a fun adventure, but, honestly, Fort Worth was way better. The animals all seemed happier and healthier, the habitats were larger, only a few of the cages were fully enclosed with wire, and the entire place had a better feel. Not only was it cleaner, but it’s nestled in the trees and well-landscaped, making visitors (and animals?) feel like they’re in a more natural environment. The grounds were bigger with more eating options and interactive kid stuff. We ran into a zoologist who told us lots of interesting stuff about the reptiles we were watching enjoy their lunch. The zoo-goers were more friendly in general, maybe because it was just Caelyn and me. I really didn’t see very many moms there with just their kids.

We got lots of hellos and door-openings. Several grandparents told Caelyn how cute she is. A young grandfather watched me struggle to get the foil seal off Caelyn’s milk and was on his way over to offer assistance when I finally got it. A mom older than me said, “They never want to go until it’s an emergency,” when Caelyn ran away as I started pushing her stroller into the restroom. (She walked the whole time.) One girl gave me her spot so I could get a picture. A man showed me where two crazy birds were having a fight. Another mom stopped me and said Caelyn and I look EXACTLY alike. Two young couples even joked with me.

The only hang-ups were: 1) no straws or lids for Caelyn and 2) honey bees. The flowers attracted bees, of course, and there were trash cans every 20 yards with 10 to 30 bees swarming each. When we got through the Texas village, I saw an arrow sign that said, “Bats, Bees, Insects.” I turned around, but I can only assume there were a lot of bees back there. And I think they were attracted to dried juice on the stroller or something because a few of them moved in with us.

JSmo says she’s making me go back for therapy, but I think I did a good job. I only freaked out 3 times, when actually being chased. I didn’t choose fear over my kid. I didn’t avoid the trash cans. (I didn’t throw anything away either.) Every time we approached one, I just said, “Look at all the people who aren’t getting stung.” Then I picked up Caelyn, squinted my eyes so I could see where to go but not see the bees, and walked quickly past. I didn’t even run or scream!

(Okay, so I had a hard time going to sleep last night thinking about those bees and all the insane people who work there amongst them every day.)

I also couldn’t figure out how to get back to the lions and tigers without descending the stairs with the stroller, but I’m a little challenged when it comes to maps. (I have good natural instincts about which direction is which, but it’s hard for me to see the top of the map as anything other than what’s in front of me.)

All in all, it was a great time.

Chris couldn’t go with us, and managing the stroller, Caelyn, and the massiveness that is our camera is a lot for me by myself. So I was left with the iPhone for picture taking:

Hey Gorilla!

Caelyn took a seat to watch the orangoutangs.

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Chris and I were talking the other night about our parents as grandparents. I mentioned that I thought mine have done a pretty good job of not “parenting me through parenthood.” My in-laws haven’t caused trouble either, but, to be honest, I expected my parents to have a harder time.

I’m sure my mom has wanted to jump in. She’s told me more than once that it’s time to start carrying a wooden spoon so I can “tear that baby’s hiney up” any time I want. And just last weekend I coaxed a little criticism out of her over lunch at La Madeline, where Caelyn helped herself to individual servings of Land O’ Lakes sans bread. My dad thought this was brilliant: “Would you like a little more butter, Caelyn? Katy, go get her another one!” My mom couldn’t keep the disgusted look off her face. I couldn’t help but comment, “Caelyn, your Grammi Roo’s makin’ that face because there’s no way she’d have let your mommy do what you’re doing.”

Mom straightened up in her chair, “You got that right! But I’m not the one who will have to deal with the consequences.”

True, but I figure 2 tablespoons of butter now and then can’t do any more harm than the daily ding-dongs that showed up in my lunch.

Anyway, the butter incident is actually what sparked the parents as grandparents talk. Truthfully, while I did expect restraint to be difficult for my mom, I still anticipated it because I knew that my dad would be hard-pressed to let her offer more than casual advice: “Ruth, you’ve got to let them make their own mistakes and learn from them.” And my mom would be hard-pressed to not do whatever my dad said.

(This was not my dad’s stance while I was growing up. His policy states that prevention, protection, and intervention are always the right option until a child reaches 21. At that point, if said child is benefitting from your money via higher education, you retain the right to lay down the law on the things that destroy a person’s life, the greatest of which would be smoking.)

So, even though I haven’t done a lot of things they way they would, they’ve done a good job of not letting it get to them. I’m afraid, though, that the time will come when I’ll cross a line and my mom, fearing the spiritual demise of her grandbaby, will have to say something.

I love my parents. I’m glad for their example, and I welcome their counsel and prayers. But (I’ve mentioned before) that we are very different people; we have different parenting styles too. And, while we mainly have the same values, we disagree on a few big issues. So, naturally, I plan on approaching some things differently than they did. If there really is a “line,” I figure it’ll be crossed when we get to those issues. And I figure two of the biggest stink-raisers will be sex (which I’ve written about here) and rock n’ roll (which I’ve written about here and here).

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Caelyn and I went to Altus a few weeks ago without Chris. That means I stayed up all night. And that means I looked through lots of old HS photos and yearbooks. . . .

I’m a pretty nostalgic person. Just last night I got nostalgic about the Little League field lights, and I’ve never played! But, for some reason, I can’t muster up an ounce of nostalgia for the town I lived in for 10 years. It’s hard to say why. Maybe because my parents live in the house I lived in from 12 to 18, not 8 to 12 (and something sweet and warm in a person gets lost after 12), or because they replaced the carpet with tile. Maybe because I didn’t love high school or because my friends have moved away. Maybe because the church I grew up in is full of different people in a different building or because the country just isn’t the same without the teenage angst.

Or maybe I’ve just turned into a big city snob.

Whatever, you’d expect me to start feeling fuzzy as soon as I cross the Red. But I don’t, not even when nostalgia-inducing events occur. This visit, my old next-door neighbor came over. Then Mom made us stop to say hello to my old band director. It was nice, but being in the band hall only made me think about how I won’t encourage Caelyn to be in band. C.C. was in town too, which was good, but it didn’t feel nostalgic. We didn’t sit around talking about the old days. We talked about the now ones.

But it was still fun to look at those pics and yearbooks. To be honest, though, I don’t remember everyone who signed them. One guy addressed me as “baby.” He was moving that summer and gave me his new number. I had to think long and hard about who he was. (To my credit, I don’t think he had a reason to call me “baby.”)

Anyway, mixed in with those yearbooks I found my Official English Paper Files for middle school, junior high, and high school. And! My Creative Writing Files for junior high and high school. I bet you didn’t know I wrote a murder mystery in the 7th grade or a courtroom drama in the 8th. There’s a romance for Freshman year, along with a re-visioned ending to Little Women (where Jo marries Laurie) and a piece about God turning outhouses into castles. I can’t not mention the state-wide anti-tabacco essay winner that landed me a “Smile In Style, Don’t Use Tobacco!” t-shirt. And let’s not forget the short-story that earned me a grand-prize trip to Electricity Camp! Of course, there were papers on Hamlet, Death of a Salesman, As I Lay Dying, and Heart of Darkness too.

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We don’t have a potty chair around here, but we do have a potty attachment seat. I know what you’re thinking (wishing?). But, no, It’s not high-tech, Japanese, state-of-the-art, or digital (but it does have Elmo on it). And, no, nobody called me at work to inform me that Caelyn just said “poo-poo” and send me racing home to make sure my little girl won’t have to take rubber sheets to a major university that requires their students to be potty trained.

But!

Just yesterday, Caelyn did say “Bapa-Bapa,” pulled her step stool up to the pot, slapped on Elmo, ripped off her diaper, climbed up, and let ‘er rip all on her own accord. Since then she’s only let two no. 1’s go anywhere but in the potty, and she’s racked up quite a few “sparkles” on her impromptu reward board:

And!

She did frame her face with her little seat and shoot the biggest smile up to her daddy, which made him crack up and say, “Oh, Caelyn. That’s a joke Dave Coulier would make!” (I think he was just trying to disguise his Full House knowledge by attributing the potty hat joke to Joey instead of its rightful owner, Michelle, don’t you?)

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