Figuring it all out

    Shopping with three small children is always an adventure. More so now that they are talking. My girls are very inquisitive and highly observant. We had quite a bit to accomplish yesterday, and we had a great time. Like most young kids, mine tend to say things that can range from funny to just down right embarrassing. So, here are a few snippets.

• At one store our cashier had a nose ring. Caelan repeatedly asked the girl "What's on your nose?" So many times that it got a little embarrassing. The girl told her a nose ring, but I guess that didn't answer the question for Caelan.
• At every store, my kids asked everyone that was nearby, "What's your name?" and before an answer could be given they continued to say, "My name is Caelan Naomi Brannon." Or "My name is Evelynn Carmine Brannon." Full names are a must, apparently.
• "Mom, this is not chocolate," said Evelynn pointing to the fruit snacks in the basket. Didn't realize chocolate was on our list or to be in place of the fruit snacks.
• "They are so pretty (flower headbands)," said Caelan. "Can we have them?" I answered no. "Awwwww, but I like them..."
• "Don't touch that," I said in while we were in Ross. Evelynn said, "I'm just looking at it... really close."
• Evelynn said, "Uh, oh-- where's my gum?" That's a good question, one that needs an answer. So I asked, "Did you swallow it?" Her answer, "No, my chicken did." Had to think about this one for a minute. Apparently we had forgotten to tell her to take the gum out of her mouth when she eats. The chicken that she was eating was swallowed with the gum.
• The burping contest in Target. Caelan can do this on command. Evelynn nearly falls out of her seat in a fit of giggles before fake burping. It's great fun-- for them.
• The announcement in Target from both the girls, "I have to go potty," said in really loud voices repeatedly until we manage to get to the bathroom-- across the store.

I have to laugh no matter what is said. It's my nature to laugh at the silliness of my kids. Where do they come up with some of this?

“We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children, that makes the heart too big for the body”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Wretched Dog

    If anyone were to ask me what my feelings are about sleep, the sure answer would be "I LOVE IT." I prefer late, late nights and late mornings. This, however, is NOT compatible with three young children. For a year I have balked against waking up before 7am and even that seemed a travesty some mornings. I have spent the majority of the last four years in various stages of pregnancy and many sleepless months of newborns. There have been innumerous time in those years, where the best sleep I could get happened between the hours of 7am and 10am, obviously the 10am sleep was when I had one child.

    I'm not big on a set routine or schedule. I take each day as it comes. I do set goals for my days and weeks, thinking I want to get X done today or by the end of the week. It's worked fairly well. Life is changing a bit from the toddler years of family life to something that I've known for years would require me to be a little more routine and yes, wake up early. There are many new things taking place this year with the girls and also with having three, I have more than enough to do. So where to get the extra hours of 'no kid' time to accomplish my lists? Yep, before 7am. Bleh.

    Now, I get up at 4:30 (the idea still sends shocks through my body which only two cups of coffee can help). Bleary eyed and confused about why 4:30 came so soon, I head to the YMCA. It's getting better. The older gentleman at the desk now greets me by name, and now I know that his name is Ray. He always makes me smile, this man that is Clarence Oddbody reincarnated (think 'It's a Wonderful Life angel). I make it back to the house by 5:45 and start the coffee before Keith is headed out the door. It's at this point, I hope to make use of at least two hours before my darlings wake up and hit the house full-force.

    This sounds great, but for the dog. What on earth is wrong with our dog? He wakes up about the time Keith is ready to leave. He believes in his mind that once he's awake, everyone else should be, too. He knows that the sure fire way of getting the household up and moving is to wake Caelan. His collar, complete with rabi and license tags, jingle ridiculously loud. All he has to do is shake. But he takes the whole 'waking' Caelan up a bit further and jumps on her bed to shake. Wretched dog! Once Caelan is up, it's over. The morning is shot. So, he is not sleeping with her anymore and her door stays closed overnight to keep him out.

    I have even shut him behind the doors of the kitchen and dining room downstairs to keep him from waking the kids. This calm, well-behaved dog became demon-possessed, wailing and carrying on and throwing his body at the doors. No kidding. It's insane. I thought the problem was fixed with shutting Caelan's door, but this dog is a smart one. He goes into McKenna's room, through my bedroom, and shakes to wake this kid up. He never tries to wake Evelynn who has inherited her mother's love of sleep. A train could hit the house and she would never know it. He knows that Caelan and McKenna are his best bets.

    Now, as soon as I hear him shake, he's in big trouble. And he knows it. I catch his eye and he is plainly communicating his intentions. The basement is the next place he will end up if this continues. I don't willingly get up at 4:30am so the dog can get my day started with the kids by 6 or 7am. No way. It goes against every reason I have for getting up that early. Well, except for maybe going to the Y. But if the kids are going to get up that early, something has to give. I'm at war with this dog. He has no reason for them to be awake because once they are awake, he ignores them. I think he has a personal vendetta against me. Wretched, wretched dog.

   

The agony and the ecstasy, four year old style

    The wails of agony echoed off the tile clad walls, grating on my nerves. Writhing and sobbing, the world was coming to end fast for my Evelynn. Her pain had rendered her incapable of coherent thought; nothing but her affliction filled her mind and consequently her actions. I begged, pleaded and became irritable. You have not experienced true torture until you have tried to brush a four year old's hair. I don't know who was in greater anguish, me or Evelynn. Nothing could satiate her. Nothing.
    Fine, I was not going to brush her long hair or braid ('twist' as she calls it) her hair any more. This was ridiculous. I couldn't braid it because it needed to be brushed. I couldn't brush it because it had not been braided. And that child has the tenderest scalp I have ever come across, not to mention that she also has the finest hair. She will get at least four tangles before a half hour has past since I brushed it. I decided to cut it off. All of it. I cut five inches off her little head of hair. I was shooting for four inches, but a well timed interruption from Caelan resulted in the extra inch. A younger sister can always cause mischief just in teasing and taking what isn't hers, including the hair brush that Evelynn was holding for me.
    But now the cut has been done. She loves it. No tangles. No promise of tangles in her now short, fine hair. She is very pleased with the outcome. I'm not. She looks too grown up. Where is the precious face of my LITTLE girl? It's now shrowded in a cute, older hair cut. My eyes burn when I look at her. Her long hair was not good for her. The short hair is. Her long hair was not good for me, but neither is the short hair. I feel I've been cheated from this experience. I'm supposed to be happy. Right?

A Favorite Few

In trying to update the look of the blog and create another one (coming soon), I thought I'd share a few of my favorite humorus jabs at being a Mom.

Off the path of talking about my kids...

    As a historian, I love to delve into the lives of people. I'm what you would call a social historian. I want to know about how people were impacted by historical events, the era they influenced, the ideas they had, the emotions. Centuries have past, each generation claiming to throw off tradition and accomplish what no other generation before has dared to dream of.  Goethe said that "Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires" and "The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five." Looking out across history, this is true, no matter the time period or the civilization. If you've heard the saying "history repeats itself," that's really not off.
    Quotes from well-known/famous individuals smattered throughout time bring me great delight. There's a comfort, a settled feeling, that what we experience today is not new; that our struggles are the same, our ideals and goals, in essence, the same, never changing, static. No matter the time period, the words of humanity ring true today and some are, in fact, quite entertaining. The great people of the past were human, they were normal-- most of them not elevated to 'pedestal' status until well after their deaths.
    That being said, here are some of the quotes I have found interesting and enjoyable in recent weeks.

"The person who in shaky times also wavers, increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe." ~ Johann von Goethe, 1749-1832
"The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing." ~ Edmund Burke, 1729-1797
"We have the best government money can buy." ~ Mark Twain, 1835-1910
"There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded." ~ Mark Twain
"To succeed in life you need two things: ignorance and confidence." ~Mark Twain
"No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true." ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864
"Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda." ~ Hannah Arendt, 1906-1975
"Revolutionaries do no make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up." ~Hannah Arendt
"I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do." ~Will Rogers, 1879-1935
"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution." ~Hannah Arendt
"Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words." ~Goethe
"If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick." ~Goethe
"Nothing is more terrible than seeing ignorance in action." ~Goethe
"Lifetimes are made up of a lot of little lifetimes." ~Danny Kaye, 1913-1987
"Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble." ~Phillip Melanchthon, 1497-1560
"Faith is nothing else than trust in the divine mercy promised in Christ." ~Phillip Melanchthon
"Only under conditions or tyranny it is far easier to act than think." ~Hannah Arendt
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election." ~Otto von Bismarck, 1815-1898
"There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America." ~Otto von Bismarck
"When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice." ~Otto von Bismarck
"Speech is civilization itself." ~Thomas Mann, 1875-1955
"I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it." ~Charles M. Schulz, 1922-2000
"Life is a long lesson in humility." ~James M. Barrie, 1860-1937
"The perfect normal person is rare in our civilization." ~Karen Horney, 1885-1952
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." ~Hedy Lamarr, 1913-2000
"Fashions have done more harm than revolutions." ~Victor Hugo, 1802-1885
"Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." ~Otto von Bismarck
"I love to go to Washington - if only to be near my money." ~Bob Hope, 1903-2003

And last, but not least:


 "When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear." ~Mark Twain

Hey, he said it... a long time ago. So that makes it okay, right?

The Three R's: Reading, Writing and Refining

    Education for us happens whenever and wherever. It's continual; there is always something to be learned. My girls are extremely inquisitive, and soak up any and most information. Any  'formal education' requiring daily lessons or books, has not really happened. Given that Evelynn is four, we've not had an 'official' school year or set goals for learning. Her persistence in wanting to learn to read and write helped to decide that now is a good time to get started. So our school year started this last Tuesday, our first goals aimed at reading, writing, arithmetic, and since I have an affinity for history, a start with the U.S. presidents and world landmarks.

    Evelynn is in absolute heaven over the alphabets and their sounds. She has impressed me with her knowledge of recognizing the letters, knowing their individual sounds, and even corresponding words for most of the letters. She knows that 'Q' has a partner, the letter 'U'. The title of this post, as you read, mentions refining. The refining would be my education, the ways I teach, the methods I use for patience (oh, my). Evelynn has had a good start, but why, of all the twenty-six letters in the alphabet, can she not recognize or remember the sound for 'A'? We have talked about the alphabet for years now. If she knows Q, X, K, W, and Y, what's the deal with 'A'?

    Writing has had an interesting beginning. She has written letters on her magna doodle for many, many months. So in my everything-has-a-place, perfectionist, stay-in-the-lines world, the writing tablet with the lines for learning to write upper case and lower case levels should have been sheer heaven. I happen to have a sincere love for blank, colleg-ruled paper that I can neatly fill up-- within the lines. Not so with Evelynn. It's "No, Mom... that's not how you write that letter." or "How about I write it like this?"-- the tablet turned, so the lines are vertical. What has she done to the beautiful paper?? "Okay, how about you just keep practicing your letters on your magna doodle." Thankfully, I have chosen to teach her cursive first. She loves swooshes and flourishes.

John Adams

    Caelan is not one to be left out of anything, so she takes part in all but the writing portion. My one room school house (dining room table) is learning the first three U.S. presidents and three world landmarks right now. The girls love it. I have flash cards with a portrait of the presidents and then brief, pertinent information on the back. Right now, we're going for portrait recognition. George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. One of the landmarks is Mt. Rushmore, where two of these presidents are carved. George Washington is down, no problem. Caelan says 'John' Washington every once in a while, but I'm impressed my two year old can remember and say 'Washington.' Evelynn can never remember John Adams, other than telling me she doesn't like his hairs. Apparently the fashion of the day for hair style is not to her liking. Caelan knows John Adams every time. We've finally hurdled past Thomas Jefferson, too. They get Thomas every time, it's just his last name. Surprisingly, Evelynn at first called him Thomas 'Mendelssohn.' It was a pleasant surprise to find she thought he was also a composer.

    Arithmetic at this point is just number recognition. Both girls can count to twenty, but recognition does try my patience. Maybe because of my own aversion to numbers? I hope not. Good thing their dad has no problems in that area. Reading, Writing and Refining... one week down, a bazillion more to go. Not a bad start.

Juxtaposition; i.e. Camping with Little Girls

    Camping, the point where man and nature come together once again. Man to bask in the glow of a campfire and the out of doors, and nature to be horrified by all things pink and princess. Codorus State Park in Pennsylvania was descended upon by the Brannon family as a weekend getaway. After camp had been set up, there were things that seemed out of place, not as rustic as to be expected. Of the chairs that ringed the campfire, two were a lovely shade of lavendar and graced with Sleeping Beauty, Belle, and Cinderella, their ball gowns billowing out, not from dancing but from a cool forest breeze and an overactive, smoke producing fire. A princess carriage in the form of a pink tricycle, took the girls to once upon a time and far, far away. Of course, to get to the castle in the distance, the one riding the tricycle wore a crown of protection, in distinct Disney Princess pink.
    The tent with its manly Cabela's label affixed proudly to the deep green rip/stop material belied what was inside. Our sleeping beauties slumbered on a pink, princess air mattress, keeping their little bodies from uncomfortable peas (or rocks) underneath. The girls' 'special blankets,' which when left at home become a travesty, are fluffy, one spinkled with pixie dust from Tinkerbell and the other promising that "Dreams Do Come True" in true princess fashion. The youngest Brannon slept in a cherry blossom bedecked and ruffled crib.
    Walt Disney would have been proud to see our campsite and to hear the girls many comparisons of nature to the princess movies. Pocahontas liked trees and ran 'just around the riverbend.' That lightning bug's name was Ray, like from Princess Tiana. Taking a break in the tent was like Snow White at the Seven Dwarves' house. Perhaps Disney's marketers would be a little more proud any way. Although, the girls should probably not be told that we ate one of Bambi's relatives for dinner while out in the 'wild.'