Inaccurate Weather Predictions and Mandatory Snow Day Behavior

Well, we've already seen it a couple of times this year. The weather men, simply stated, can't predict it. I wish we had the technology for snow that matched that for tornadoes. "Yes, Heights and Hillcrest neighborhoods, you are directly in the path of this snow and it will be on your street within the hour..."

Snow days. Such fun. I remember lots of them growing up. It seemed to snow more when I was a kid. Or did they just seem like such a big deal that I remember them so well? For a kid who lived in the far Northeast corner of Texas, I have quite the share of snow pictures myself. Snowmen. Walking the dog in the snow. Sledding down a hill at Texas High School. We had a pretty cool sled, too.

I remember that Dad always had to get out and "check the roads." I don't know why he felt the need to do this. It wasn't as if he had a duty to call the police or the highway transportation department and report on road conditions and the presence of black ice. He just had to get out in it. Maybe for just 10 minutes, but it was some sort of feat he had to accomplish.

Everyone's past must include a winter storm of ____ and then you fill in the date. Ours was 2000. It started Christmas morning and went all through the night. Record-breaking amounts of ice and sleet. Widespread panic and devastation. My grandmother stayed with us for two weeks until they had her electricity on.

Jenny remembers the same storm. It traveled (as they often do) right up Interstate 30. Jenny's dad hums when he's nervous or agitated. It's rather endearing. It was Christmas Day in Arkansas, too, and they had been with his family in Benton when the storm arrived. After hours of driving at a glacial (pun intended) pace, humming all the way, they arrived back in St. Charles. He even went so far as to lay his body down on the driveway for the girls to crawl over so as to not slide down the street into frozen oblivion.

Nowadays, Jenny's only mandatory snow day behavior is remaining in her pajamas for the duration.

Ahhh. Winter weather. It brings out the crazy in every southern American. Flickering lights. Candles and matches in the bathroom. Empty shelves in Kroger where the toilet paper should be. There's nothing quite like it.

At any rate, we did have a dusting a couple of weeks back. Here's a rundown of Benjamin's snow day, complete with mandatory behaviors he feels necessary to the occasion:

1. Introduce Bunny to Snow. Ever-present bunny...Mandatory.

2. Try out colors from Christmas stocking.
Something tells me mommy colored Elmo.
Sitting in a big-person chair, mandatory.


3. Playdoh. Color mixing mandatory.

4. Running the vacuum. Passy mandatory.

5. Checking out the snow. "oooh-ing" and stomping mandatory.

6. Slipping and sliding. Squealing and smiling mandatory.

7. Laughing at two silly dogs in the backyard. Ball in hand, mandatory.

8. Mandatory stick chewing by the dogs. (Remember, Dada broke

his foot. Our yard hasn't had any attention since, oh, say...Halloween.)

9. Tiring of being outside. Now time for Train Table. Sound effects mandatory.

10. On to Hammer and Nails Time. Goggles optional. Hard hat mandatory.

11. Dada's finally home from work and ready to play, too.

Barnyard games. Mooing mandatory.

Being Away...

Jenny and I are in Dallas with another couple visiting yet another couple and their new baby.

Benjamin is spending a couple of nights with his Pippi and Poppa. This morning they visited the park...the weather is nice today so I know he loved being outside.


We received this in a text, along with a message that they "Went Shopping."



Lord help, they've bought him a big wheel. Now I'm afraid to go home.

I'm not sure which part of the equation is more funny...the fact that it's a "National Guard" big wheel or that the kid on the box is wearing a vest and seems to have a mullet.


I'm sure he loves it.

Otitis Media and Daddy Knowing Best

We've had an ear infection since October. OCTOBER. Four Months. We've been on Augmenten, Amoxicillin, and Omnicef since we were picking out pumpkins. So basically his stomach has been upset and he's had an insanely bad case of diaper rash that entire time. All the way through Turkeys and Christmas Tree Lots. Irritable. In pain. Recurring fever of 99.5 - 101.0.

Miserably pitiful.

Here he is last week...101.6 and wouldn't leave my arms. (And yes, mom and mother-in-law, that is the vacuum sitting in the middle of our dining room, along with the stroller and a lego wagon...it's been a bad week).

Our "Last Resort" began the week of Christmas. A six-week dose of amoxicillin to see if, while on an antibiotic, he developed an ear infection.

He woke up last Thursday morning at 5 AM screaming. Didn't go back to sleep. He would only stop screaming if he was in your arms. So Mommy and Daddy each spent an hour in his rocking chair humming along to Celtic Women hoping desperately for a little more sleep. The kid sleeps at least 12 hours. Always. So when he doesn't, we know something's up.

I called the doctor, went in at 9, and...Daddy's Right. Left ear, ding ding ding! We have a winner!

We went to the ENT this morning, and will find out this afternoon when they'll place the tubes. We are going to be in Dallas seeing friends with new babies this weekend, so it'll be next week for sure.

He talks non-stop, so we know this hasn't interfered with language acquisition. This morning he saw our neighbor's white car in their driveway and said, "Bee's Car...?" He knows his Aunt Bee Bee drives a white car...and he speaks well enough to tell us that.

What I am curious about, however, is his propensity to shriek at a frequency of glass-shattering proportions. I'm hoping and praying that he's just not quite hearing how loud he is, and that this will clear some of it up.

The only downside to this all (once again insert Daddy Knows Best) is that in early December, (when his right ear received a bad rating on his tympanogram and the left ear was so full of fluid that it received a negative reading, meaning the ear drum was already being pushed out) I told the doctor that I felt pretty confident saying this would likely be our outcome. Remember me breaking my ankle Thanksgiving weekend? Yeah, deductible's met doc. Throw me a bone. Still, we waited.

Oh well, we'll meet Benjamin's portion for the year before Valentine's Day. I guess it all comes out in the wash.

Missing Wallets and Mother Always Saying the Washer Ate My Socks

I misplace things. Habitually. It's at least once per day that I've misplaced my wallet or checkbook or my keys or my favorite razorback toboggan, though I usually just stuck it on a weird shelf. Like the very top of our china cabinet that has extra moulding which puts said objects just out of the line of vision.

This weekend it's my wallet. And everything in it, of course. I'm at least 75% sure that Benjamin is the culprit. I took him to get a biscuit from McDonald's yesterday morning. Drove thru. Distinctly remember the lady handing me back my red debit card and receipt. I wouldn't have handed her my entire wallet. Even so, I called them thinking that a small lapse in judgement might have caused me to reach out the window with wallet in hand and simply drop it on the ground.

They didn't find it. Must not have happened.

I know that I didn't have it when I left the house the next time. We didn't make any stops between McDonald's and the house the first time. But it's gone. Either someone came in, left the mac, digital cameras, hdtv, some moderately-priced jewelry and took it in the off chance that I wouldn't cancel my cards, or Benjamin hid it.

So I've spent the day canceling everything. Except my Sam's corporate card, which our office manager will have to do on Monday. I'll start from scratch.

I'm angry at myself for allowing this to happen. I can replace the cards. I'll get a new driver's license. Obviously I'll get a new wallet. But it's my own fault for not putting it in the same place every time. Maybe this will by the new leaf I turn over. Maybe now I will purchase one of those feaux-leather, feaux-suede-lined valet trays for a drawer (obviously one out of Ben's reach) and start storing everything properly. Who knows. This may be the first day of the rest of my life...

And while I'm on the subject of things that disappear from plain sight...

Socks. Specifically Benjamin's socks. I went to Children's place recently and - seduced by the discounted merchandise - bought him twenty-one pair of socks (an already-reduced pair wasn't part of the deal, making my even twenty the odd twenty-one).

Seriously. It was November. I think he has four complete pair remaining.

Does the washer, in fact, eat his socks? It's a fair question. If, during agitation, water goes over the top of the tub, it is pumped out from the bottom of the tub. So one could reason to say that small pieces of cotton could also go over the edge and be pumped out from the bottom. What do you think?

Personally, I'm waiting for MythBusters to charge head-on into the phenomenon.

Wildfires and Secrets Grandkids Keep

We burned an eighty-acre hayfield that day. Scorched it, in fact.

In the fall of 1989, my grandmother and Ely finished construction on their new house. Across the highway from the old one. They sold the house and that tract of land, a small tract directly across the highway, and kept about a 7-acre piece adjacent to that. And built their dream home.

Ely's health was starting to go, though the massive cancer diagnosis was still a few weeks to come. But he was in the hospital for some issue, I just don't remember what.

You don't put your trash out at the corner in the country. You burn it. Foodstuffs, paper goods, occasionally an accidentally-placed lysol can which makes a rather loud noise upon explosion. But you burn your trash. Or at least we always did. The trash "man" as it was, was a family who drove an old, make-shift trash truck. You paid them 100.00 annually, and they came clumbering down the highway on Mondays to pick up what you didn't burn. Periodically you loaded the trash barrel on a trailer and dragged it out into a corner of the field where you dumped the ashes and started all over again. Occasionally, repeated heating would render your trash barrel useless, and you'd pay the trash family an extra 10.00 to haul it off.

On this occasion, the trash barrel was running full force, and we were cleaning out the last bits of trash and leftovers from the move into the new house. The wind was blowing farily steadily, and it was a clear, warm Sunday afternoon. My brother (in a two-foot cast from an ankle surgery) and I were going from old house to new house on the four-wheeler, basically doing anything we could to not be involved in cleaning or heavy lifting. We were on our way back to the old house, passing the mimosa tree known for its wayward limbs, and we rounded the corner in the driveway to see a patch of lawn, oh, about the size of a tennis court, completely ablaze. We yelled. John grabbed his cructches off the back of the 4-wheeler, and we took off towards the house. Mimi came running. As did Dad.

The first order of business was to keep the flames away from the garage and one of the outbuildings. Water-soaked towels beating against the ground commenced. Frantic hollering to, "Call Shack, Call Shack!!!" was heard. Shack was every man in the country. Firefighter, hay-baler, rabid dog-shooter. I ran in the house to call Shack, but guess what...no phones. They didn't live in that house anymore!

So I jumped on the four-wheeler and sped off to the new house. I remember finding a phone book and calling his house, and his wife telling me that he wasn't home. I didn't explain who I was or what I, at ten years of age wanted with her husband. I just slammed the phone down, jumped back on the four-wheeler, and headed back to the other house. By the time I returned, Mimi and Dad had successfully snuffed out the flames lapping at the perimeter of the buildings, and completely re-directed the blaze out to pasture. All eighty-acres of pasture.

At some point that afternoon, every migrant farm worker (we had let ours go after selling the land) within five miles arrived and stomped out that blasted fire. Praise be to God, they directed it also past a massive hay barn - full of hay - where probably a quarter of a million dollars worth of tractors were parked, so none of that was damaged.

I remember that afternoon. I remember when the blaze was put out. I remember my fairly-new dexter loafers being rendered henceforth unwearable from soot and ash. I remember dad ruining his florshiems. Always in slacks and forsheims. I remember John frantically stomping fire with one good foot with cructches under both arms.

And most of all, I remember Mimi saying, seriously and distinctly, with a threat of perpetual doom should you ever forget it...to never, never tell Ely. As far as SHE knew, Ely never got (smoke-filled) wind of it. But I think he knew. He had to. Everyone for miles around knew. He wasn't able to drive for period following this most recent hospital stay, and she refused to approach the house from the west for a few weeks until the fields greened-up a bit, but the two of them never spoke of the event.

I see Ely when I'm back at the farm. He died in 1990 but I see him on his tractors. I see the dogs that are no longer living, following closely behind him as he turned irrigation systems on and off. But no matter where I go, the smell of grass and leaves burning brings back that fateful Sunday in east Texas, when a single match brought eighty acres of hayfield to its knees.

The Other Grandmother

I was closer to the other grandmother than to the one who never pulled the biscuits out of the oven in time. This one is still living. This one is mom's mom.

My mother thinks that it is a sort of law of nature for the grandchildren to be closer to the mom's parents than to the dad's parents. Maybe so. But I want to do everything in my power to keep both sides as involved in Benjamin's life as possible.

That said, I was closer to Mimi than I was to Grandmother Bunch. It was inevitable I guess. She lived in the same town, she was younger by a few years, and she never stopped going. Add to that the fact that her second husband Ely (pronounced E-Lee) was a commercial farmer with around a hundred or so acres of land for me to romp around on, and there's your answer. Dogs were a given. At least three at all times. My brother says as a kid, he wanted to be somewhere with guns, three-wheelers, and other kids around...but give me an old dog and I was happy for days. Maybe that's why I don't play golf. The constant presence of an old dog around the country club when I was a kid was far more interesting to me than how, why, or where my brother and father hit a small white ball.

So there you have the scene. A farm, a few dogs, my Grandmother and her husband. About seven miles from town. At the time, there were only three other homes along the mile of their highway and before you arrived at Summerhill Road which led you back to the city.

As the story is told, it was a foggy morning about 7:30. Mimi had a hair appointment at 8. She went out to the garage to find that Ely's Grand Marquis had her blocked in. Side note...they always had at LEAST four cars. At this point, I believe it was a Conversion Van, Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand Marquis, and an El Camino.

So she went back in, got his keys, and headed to town. In his navy blue Marquis.

A mile later, she missed the stop sign at the end of their highway, sailed across Summerhill Road, off into a ditch, and right into a barbed-wire fence. In the fog. And I'm sure in a skirt and pumps. The words she must have uttered as she hiked back to the farm must have been hilarious. Luckily, her youngest son had a mobile home on another tract of land and a Scout. You know, a big International Motors Scout. She woke him up, and he pulled Ely's car out of the ditch.

Have you ever seen what barbed wire does to your skin if you brush past it? Imagine what it did to the navy blue paint of this rather fine, American automobile. With the car out of the ditch and back on the highway, she climbed back into it, returned it to the driveway, got in her vehicle, and headed to town. Not a word was spoken.

Later that morning, the fog lifted, and Ely dressed and headed out to the club to play a round of golf. The driver's side - which bore the brunt of the damage - was opposite him as he walked out of the house. He climbed in, and never noticed. All the way to town, eighteen holes, a beer or two, back in the car, and all the way home. Never a clue.

What happened next was probably the clearest example of divine intervention that my grandmother will ever experience. About twenty yards up their driveway stood a giant Mimosa Tree. A stiff breeze would send limbs scattered across the lawn, the garden, and along the driveway. At the very moment Ely turned onto the drive, a giant limb fell from the tree, landing dead center on the roof of the car. I'm sure more profanities were uttered.

Ely stopped the car, got out, and dragged the limb off the roof, and down over the driver's side of the vehicle, breaking off the power antenna as he did. Stepping back, he observed deep, jagged scratches along the sides, all the way through the paint and to the metal, obviously caused by this freak natural disaster.

A few days later, Mimi followed him to town to the body shop. Upon inspection, the shop owner exclaimed, "ELY, what have you been doing driving through barbed wire fence?"

Shocked, Ely replied, "That's not barbed wire, that's from a tree limb."

Thinking this was a joke, the owner retorted, "Oh, Come on, Ely. I know barbed wire through paint when I see it!"

Then he saw her. Standing directly behind poor, puzzled Ely, with one finger over her lips frantically shaking her head "NO" was my dear Grandmother. Pleading with the shop owner to let it go. As any friend caught in the middle of a husband/wife debacle should, he dropped the issue.

She ran into the shop owner a few weeks later, and the two of them had a good laugh over the whole thing. As far as I know, he never knew. If he did, he never let on. Sort of like the time we burned the entire 80-acre hay field...

Burned Biscuits...

Grandmother was bi-polar. She was bi-polar when they didn't know what it meant to be bi-polar. She raised six children in the land of cotton on a pastor's salary. Six children. And four of those were twins...eighteen months apart. That's right. Four babies under two years of age in the same house. Which meant two were potty training and two were nursing. It would make anyone crazy.

Those four were followed by two single births, rounding off the procreation of Carl and Alice at an even half-dozen.

Grandmother "WHOO"-ed every time she entered or exited a room. It wasn't a wooosh, nor was it owl-like. It was sort of like Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry McGuire when his contract is extended at the end of the movie. It was quick...like a millisecond. Almost as fast as her thought process or the time in which it took her to come up with another business venture. "WHOO!"

She would arrive at our home for a weekend visit and sort of slam into the front door, almost knocking it off its frame (and she was a tiny little thing) and entering the house with a "WHOO, y'all ready to eat?"

It was always 4:15 PM. She was here, and she was ready to go to Bryce's Cafeteria.

Grandmother was a fantastic cook, though she never seemed to remember to pull the biscuits out of the oven in time. It must have had something to do with years and years of preparing meals for eight, and the obvious tendency to throw the biscuits in the oven and then forget about them completely.

So every meal began with us sitting around the table, with PaPa B. saying the blessing, which was immediately interrupted by a "WHOO!" and Grandmother rapidly exiting the room. She would return within seconds, oven-mitted hand wrapped around the edge of a tin pan, whose contents always had a brownish-black quality to their uppermost layer.

She never cursed. She never chided herself. She just always returned back with the biscuits...in a flurry of snow-white hair and tissue tucked into elastic watch bands...back into her seat, and added ever-so softly, "Just the way I like them."

In Reference To...

The new title. And the unlocking of our blog. I know, it's a crazy scary world. We put in our facebook statuses that we're heading to our parents' or our in-laws' for the weekend and my mother fears someone will break in our house knowing of our absence and clean us out of all our worldly possessions. Or steal our latest copy of Veranda from the mailbox.

I agree, it's a fear-evoking possibility, but so is the fact that our day-to-day lives are so routine that any mass-murderer could have our schedule memorized in about a week. So no one is safe.

The new title, simply stated, just serves to open each of my posts. I hardly ever blog about the future. Most of what we narrarate in this cyber-diary is past-tense. When I write about Ben, it's not to predict how cute he will be tomorrow, but about something insanely adorable that he has done today.

I also want to start telling stories. I have a story for every situation it seems, and yesterday, as I was reading a feel-good forward as I like to call them, about a mother who burned a pan of biscuits at dinner, and a father - so full of love and adoration for his wife - who ate them anyway, something came to me. (Other than the slight urge to vomit...please, don't send me feel-good forwards)

Grandmother burned biscuits. And rolls. And cornbread. Habitually. I don't think I ever ate a piece of warm bread that wasn't absolutely scorched. Which brings me to my first story which, sadly, you will have to wait for until my next post.

Four Christmases...Take Four

Finally, we made it to Jonesboro for Christmas afternoon with Grammy and Granddad.

Unpacking the stocking with Mommy (the grandkids have stockings about 10x the size of anything I ever dreamed of having...what's up with that????) This was a puppet book about a Polar Bear.



Elmo's Birthday DVD...WOO HOO! And he also got the book, Potty Time Elmo, which I'm sure we'll be using in the next 12 months.


Grammy was trying to help him open a big lollipop, but I believe Granddad said "No, he'll get it on the furniture!" Thanks, Dad, now he can get it on MY furniture!!! He was able to bite the head off his Russell Stover Santa with relative ease and little stressing out from Granddad.

Look who else was hiding in my stocking...UNIQUA!!! And TYRONE!!! AND AUSTIN!!! (Apparently Santa couldn't find Pablo or Tasha...)

This is one of those Fisher Price dooes that you go through, but it's the barnyard, which he loves. We chased plastic eggs all over my parents house for three days.

Grammy found this sock monkey toboggan with matching sock monkey gloves, which he looks adorable in, but had no use for at that moment...

Opening presents from Uncle John and Abby Lynn.

Abby loves to help out...Benjamin loves to let her.

The holiday was full of family, food, laughing, grandkids chasing each other around the house, dragging the dogs to and from the kennel, gasing up the car for the -nth time, Granddad snoring on the sofa, Grammy doing endless loads of dishes from all of us grazing all day long, Pippi consuming 1/3 of the world's crisco in her baking, Poppa yelling Yabba Dabba Doo, and lots of fun and relaxation.

I can't wait for next Christmas to see where we are, what we are doing, how Ben and Abby have grown, whether or not there will be another on the way, and the end result of all that 2010 will bring. I think it's going to be our best year yet.

Four Christmases...Take Three

Christmas Eve was the night Santa decided to swing by Pippi and Poppa's house. There he delivered a rocket scooter, an inflatable ball pit, broom and dustpan (WHICH HE LOVES...SO WEIRD...) Elmo Live, all sorts of candy, a grocery cart and play groceries, and more balls.



He saw this scooter in Sam's a while back and rode it all over the store!



He sort of looks as if he has undergone dental work...he wasn't sure about the pit concept at first, but now he won't stay out of it. Every morning we have to clean out remnants of eggo and nutri grain bar from having his breakfast inside of it.

Checking out Elmo Live. The thing talks and talks and talks, asks you to stand him up if he falls over, goes to sleep if you leave him alone long enough...he's a riot.

Another big haul for our little guy. Thanks Santa, Pippi, Poppa, and Aunt Bee!

Four Christmases...Take Two

We do our extended family Christmas Eve on Jenny's mom's side on the 23rd. Santa always seems to know just where to find us!

Here's Santa holding up Benjamin's present...

He was not too sure what to think at this point...

Ok, now he knows exactly what to think...COMPLETE MELTDOWN!

Cousin Dalyn had the same exact thoughts!

Once Santa had left the building, he was content to enjoy his Train.

And Dalyn was happy with her Elmo-in-the-Box...

The evening's talent included carols by Uncle Bob and Cousin Nick...

And the show was stolen by Jenny, her sister, her parents, and yours truly, who impersonated Jenny's grandmother in the "Twelve Days of Christmas: Ghost of Grandmother's Past Edition."

Thankfully, pictures from that have yet to surface. Needless to say, we brought the house down.

In all, Benjamin received his train from Santa, a Little People Airplane from his cousins Isaac and Nikko, a Dump Truck with blocks from his cousin Dalyn, and a Dirt Devil Vaccum (that actually has some suction to it) from Auntie Carolyn and Uncle Bob. Thanks, Carolyn, for a great evening and even better food.

Four Christmases...Take One

Santa visited Benjamin four times this Christmas, beginning with the morning of December 23 at our house. Jenny and Benjamin went ahead to stay with her parents on the 23rd since I had to work the 23 and 24.

Not awake, nor quite sure what has happened to his house...

The golf club and ball were an instant hit, as were the t-ball set, bathtub basketball set, and any other miscelaneous round objects.

His cousin, Abby Lynn has this, so he knew exactly what to do with it...

Connects with the ball on the first attemp!

Little People were big this Christmas...he got the city garage and the barnyard that morning.

At our house Santa delivered: An abacus, Music Set, Little People City Garage, Little People Barnyard, Driver and Ball, T-Ball Set, Bathtub Basketball Set, Blocks, Magna Doodle, Sock Monkey, Barrell of Monkeys...

It was a little hard for Daddy to have to get dressed and head to work following the excitement, but such is life!