grand girl

Elizabeth loves, loves, loves staying in a hotel, even if it's a cheap $30/night motel in rural south Carolina on our trip home from Florida. She thinks it's the fanciest thing ever and so spends a fair amount of time prancing about. So Monday night, even though she normally hates having her hair brushed, when getting ready for bed she carefully ran her brush through the front part of her hair before positioning her headband just so.

I stroked her hair and started to say how nice it was she used the brush a bit, when she pulled back and said, rather grandly, "do not touch the royal hair of........um, me."

When I later repeated the story to Rich (funny how he missed it in a small hotel room, but he was helping Andrew brush his teeth) she corrected me, "no, I said the royal hair of the princess!"

Indeed! Christmas may have been a bit too much of a princess explosion in these parts.

more to do

So, big news, I joined a book club, after reading some great posts by my friend Elaine. I was in a book club for 10 years, from 1995 to just after the birth of Elizabeth, when the BBC (bogus-boozin'-breakup book club) finally gave up its last gasp. We read some great stuff, a few not so great stuff, and everything in between. I've missed it, in no small part because it marked the exodus of my friends from DC - once people start to move on, it's hard to hold a club together, not to mention those that shifted jobs or priorities or friendships and so moved on earlier. The thing I liked best about being in a book club was that it turned an intrinsically introvert activity into an extrovert activity, which suited me perfectly.

So, now I've joined a virtual book club. Which kind of takes away from the extrovert (ie, boozin') part of the club fun. But, leaves a stack of books on my nightstand to get through.

I remember once years - a decade! - ago being at a work function and paging through the latest book, trying to finish. And the hard charging head of the PR firm with whom we worked just shaking her head and saying, 'I'd never join a book club, everyone I know in one is constantly complaining about finding time to read and the pressure to finish.' And that's where I find myself tonight - didn't finish tonight's book, but getting the post up just barely in time, with another book due next week and a third the week after. I've got some reading to do, along with a million other things, of course. But taking some time out to just enjoy reading is something I don't mind putting on my to-do list.

The From Left to Write Book Club is consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book, which is weird, but ok whatever, I'm trying to figure it out). This month's post was inspired by Take the Cake, by M.F. Chapman. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book, which I will be passing along to someone else (want it? just ask).

picky picky

Often on weekdays we make a quick scrambled egg for the kids, topped with cheese. Elizabeth often views the scrambled egg as a delivery vehicle for melted cheese, but she also mostly likes eggs, too, though she vastly prefers the scrambled eggs made by our babysitter to those made my me or Daddy.

On weekends, we have more elaborate breakfasts, and sometimes we have scrambled eggs with ham, onions, other vegetables, plus cheese.

So on Saturday, Elizabeth requested eggs for breakfast, but quickly added some instructions:

"But don't put any food in the eggs, Daddy!"

Count by 5s!

There's lots of singing in school, and this is a favorite song. You might have to turn volume way way up as the iphone doesn't do sound well. Ignore the stage mother prompts in the background. Who was that?

She freaking loves that head thing I got her for her birthday, but in her mind, it is equal to her other headbands, meaning she thinks she can wear it to school while daddy and I disagree. So it's an after school option. And the sunglasses? Well, she is a star.

I could do an entire post on what she's doing when she falls asleep. I cannot resist pulling out my iphone and snapping pictures. Maybe next week I'll put them all together in one post, but this is her later that night.

stories

Like all families, my family has its share of stories that are told and retold, passed down for years. My favorite ones, of course, involve me.

So, 40 years ago, on December 12, 1970, my grandmother, my aunt, my mother and I were Christmas shopping in Salisbury. As I discuss endlessly, I am from Pocomoke, and you really need to get out of Pocomoke if you want to buy a variety of items. There's a walmart now, but people still head to the mall in Salisbury when they need to go shopping.

After a full day of shopping, my mother, who was 9 months pregnant, turned to my aunt and said, I think you should drop mother and me off at the hospital and take Susan home, please. Because I've been in labor all day and it's probably time I check in.

My aunt, who was childless at the time, was reportedly furious with my mom for shopping all day while in labor, but my mom was by all accounts fine and the plan went off. My dad was working in Australia at the time, and my mom and I were living with my grandparents, so my grandmother stayed with my mom and my aunt drove me back to Pocomoke.

I was 2 years and 4 months old. On the drive home, my aunt reportedly asked me if I wanted my mom to bring home a brother or sister from the hospital.

And my reply, repeated often to great laughter, was: "Well, what I really want is a kitten!"

And instead of a kitten, my brother Michael was born on December 13. So happy 40th birthday to my brother.

But back to the story. Here's the thing. I am in daily contact with a pretty chatty little guy who is 2 years and 1 month old. And it wasn't that long ago that I spent a lot of time with a highly verbal girl when she was 2.33 years old. It's not, exactly, that I doubt my aunt's veracity. Kids do say the darnedest things, and non sequitors are fairly routine. But, let's just say that I've wondered about this story for the past few years. Sadly, the other participants, besides my mom who was fairly occupied at the time, are no longer here to confirm details.

I like precision. Did my aunt ask, do you want a brother or sister? And I replied, no, a kitten? Or did she say something more vague, like what do you want your mother to bring home? And then I more logically replied a kitten? It's just that when you examine this story more closely, more details are required.

The truly happy ending part of the story is that my mother came home from the hospital with my brother, and then my father came home from Australia, and then we moved into the cutest little pink house (I was in heaven living in a pink house!) on Holiday Drive, and THEN we got a kitten. A very cute female Siamese kitten who was named Scooby Doo. And here again, I'm going to call foul. Because, the story has been that my brother and I named the kitten after our favorite show and of course my parents didn't plan to name our cat after the popular cartoon dog but we insisted. But look! I was just over 2.5 at the time, and my brother was a newborn!

Recently, we've started watching old Scooby Doo cartoons, which are shown on the Cartoon Network. Andrew calls it Dooby-doo, and he and Elizabeth loooove the show, even if (or maybe because) it's just ever so slightly scary and the dog talks.

So I've got all these threads here and no plan to tie them all together. I suppose the moral of the story is 40 year old family stories should be repeated, often, at the family table, preferably with aunts and uncles and cousins and generations gathered, rather than examined in detail in writing.

And second, happy 40th birthday Michael!

(And yes, there was another 40th birthday recently in the family, and there are some pictures that were planned to be added to the blog, but blah blah blah kidney infection camera cord....and we'll either get to it or not!).

Ele-fun

I need to get the camera cable and upload photos, so a video from my iphone for now.


Perhaps I need to add this game to the Little Guy's Christmas list!

Smart

Well, that whole NaBloPoMo thing was a total bust, huh? I just never was able to get back into the swing of posting once I felt better. But I did keep up with reading my blogroll, and it is fun to catch up with bloggers on a more regular basis. So with any luck and perseverance (something that is not my strong suit), I'll be a more frequent poster in December, and my blog readers will be so happy to have some content I'll get a ton of comments, right? I am going to backdate posts on Awwwclutter as I still am sorting through my shoes and did manage to wear (and buy!) shoes, so much to write there.

So I'll leave you with a little story I was planning to post right before I got sick.

Elizabeth had a soccer class Wednesdays at 5pm during September and October. Two rain dates meant two makeup days after Daylight Savings Time ended, which meant they played in the dark - literally in the dark - for the two makeups. The night before the first makeup, I thought I had a learning moment when we could discuss the change in seasons, length of daylight, and daylight savings time. Elizabeth, of course, had another idea.

Me: So, have you noticed this week it's getting dark earlier? Tomorrow you will have soccer practice after school and it will be dark for practice!
E: Yes, why is it so much darker?
M (gathering thoughts, realizing am unprepared and can't decide if I want to tackle change of season, the earth's rotation and tilt, or daylight savings, or exactly where to start): Well.....you see....
E (excitedly): I know! God is SMART.
M: um, yes, yes God is smart.
E: He controls all the holidays. So, he says to........um (thinking)....Mrs God, do you want it to be cold for the holiday? And then he does it. And that's how they do it. God and Mrs God are very smart.
M (realizing I have been beat): yes, yes they are.