by jphilo | Apr 4, 2016 | Top Ten Tuesday
Our youngest grandchild turned 1 last weekend, and that momentous event got me to thinking about the differences between parenting my own kids and grandparenting their kids. Here are the top ten things that came to mind.
10. Parents make sure their little ones eat healthy food at every meal. Grandparents introduce them to things like pie, cookies, and ice cream.
9. Parents connect every buckle, clip, and button of car seats, high chairs, safety gates, and strollers with astonishing speed and deftness. Grandparents require repeated demonstrations of how to connect everything and still make a mess of the process. Every. Single. Time.
8. Parents get very tired of reading the same board books to their babies and toddlers over and over and over. Grandparents never do.
7. Parents spend hours scraping stickers off of walls, baseboards, furniture, and windows. Grandparents spend hours finding the perfect stickers for their grandkids to plaster on every wall, baseboard, piece of furniture, and window they can reach.
6. Parents steer clear of craft projects that require glitter. Grandparents love to do glitter projects with the grands. Always at the grands’ house, of course.
5. Parents buy educational and useful presents for their kids. Grandparents purchase whatever they couldn’t afford to buy their kids back in the day.
4. Parents see their children’s first four years through a fog of sleep deprivation. Grandparents see their grandchildren’s first four years through a cloud of indescribable, goofy, and subjective love.
3. Parents have constants knot in their stomachs trying to protect their kids and keep them safe from themselves. Grandparents have constant smiles on their faces because they know that even though children can’t be kept completely safe from themselves, they will learn from their mistakes.
2. Busy parents pray for their children on the fly. Grandparents have time to pray for their kids and grandkids every day. So they do.
1. Parents love their children’s cuddles and the feel of a small, soft hand in theirs. Grandparents deeply cherish cuddling with the grands on the couch and walking down the street holding their sweet, trusting hands because they know these moments will pass, never to be experienced again.
Grandparents, what do you have to add to the list? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Oct 27, 2015 | Top Ten Tuesday
We’ve had a baby in the house since Thursday when the Man of Steel and I swallowed our pride and asked our kids for help. The presence of a baby changes a person’s priorities faster than almost anything else, making adults ignore things they once held dear. Here’s what’s being left by the wayside at our house this week.
10. The dog. Not ours. Our daughter and son-in-law’s. Poor thing’s had its nose out of joint since early April when Baby arrived and became the center of attention.
9. Feng shui. Not that I believe in it, but if I did, the baby paraphernalia scattered throughout the house would destroy any semblance of personal harmony with the environment.
8. Housework. Thank you, dear Baby, for liberating Grammy Jo from this one. At least for a week or two.
7. Normal routine. Because the only predictable thing in a baby’s routine is lack of predictability, which has a domino effect on everyone and everything.
6. Regular mealtimes and table manners. After all, Baby’s gonna eat when Baby’s gonna eat. And who cares about elbows on the table when an adorable six-month-old has squash puree dribbling down his sweet, little chin?
5. Elaborate grooming rituals. Forget about neatly coiffed hair, a manicure, or a pedi. Instead, consider a day with time to shower, brush teeth, and slap on deodorant to be a magnificent gift.
4. Latest fashion trends. With a baby on deck fashion trends are reduced to trading pajama pants for yoga pants every morning.
3. Adult conversation. Who has time to talk politics and new movies between feedings, diaper changes, and playing Peek-a-Boo? All of which are far more fascinating than politics and movies anyway.
2. Any task requiring more than 5 minutes and 1 hand. No further explanation necessary.
1. Modesty. Between a chubby baby butt and a nursing mother, everyone lets their guard down a bit. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
What gets ignored when there’s a baby at your house? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Dec 27, 2013 | Daily Life
Bruce Willis might be surprised to learn what this woman wants. If he took a peek at her Christmas list, he’d discover it was pretty short.
Because this woman doesn’t want more stuff.
Not after cleaning out her mother-in-law’s house in 2003 and her own mother’s house in 2008. She’s still trying to find places for some of their old stuff to live and convincing herself to learn how ebay works to get rid of the rest of it.
Really, this woman wants what most mothers want.
For her children to be happy. To find purpose for their lives and joy in completing it. She wants them to be healthy, to have secure jobs, and discover the sweetness and sadness of raising their own families.
This woman wants what most authors want.
To write books that impact readers and help them make sense of their lives. Along with sales enough to pay the expenses so she can write more books to impact readers and help them make sense of their lives.
And this woman wants to encourage others to know Jesus.
Not because she’s got all the answers and feels superior. But because she makes plenty of mistakes and her Savior loves her anyway. She wants everyone to experience that same kind of love and security.
But today, most of all, this woman wants to bake a pie that doesn’t boil over.
Even though her mother says the best pies always run over, this woman would like to take one of her crowd pleasing pies to a family gathering. Without fruit glaze dripping over the edges. Without the pan bottom sticky with fruity goo. But this woman won’t get what she wants until she gets over 1) her tendency to overfill the pie pan with fruit filling, and 2) her paranoia that a pie can’t possibly be cooked through until the middle is bubbling merrily, which means the edges are frantically boiling and spewing over the edge of the pan. This woman wants the impossible.
Bruce Willis has his work cut out for him.
by jphilo | Nov 25, 2013 | Reflections on the Past
Have you tuned into to any of the programs commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy? Some of them have been fascinating, like the rebroadcast of the story Walter Cronkite put together ten years ago for NPR.
It really is worth a listen.
Many radio programs encouraged listeners to call in and share their memories of November 22, 1963. Iowa Public Radio’s River to River was one of them. I toyed with the idea of calling in and describing my reaction as a seven-year-old second grader. But the idea was squelched by listening to the memories shared by callers who were years younger on that fateful day. They described how sadness pervaded their day and weekend that followed. One woman who was four at the time remembered crying when John-John saluted his father’s coffin.
Compared to those memories, mine seemed…how to put it?
Immature sounds about right. Because I don’t remember much about the day Kennedy was shot, except for Dad not smiling and being quieter than usual when my sister and I got home from school. My most vivid memory is from Saturday morning, when my parents turned the television on after breakfast.
Our television was never on Saturday mornings.
Because our parents were slave drivers. They didn’t allow the watching of Saturday morning cartoons until the house was clean. And since the sibs and I dinked through the chores, we rarely finished before 11:00 AM, and by then the really good cartoons like Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Jetsons, and Mighty Mouse were over. Only the dregs remained: Bugs Bunny (too weird), The Bullwinkle Show (it’s humor too mature), and Dennis the Menace (too boyish).
But the morning after President Kennedy was shot, our television set was on.
My first thought was hot diggity dog, we’re gonna watch cartoons all morning. But I was wrong. Because as Dad explained, there wouldn’t be any cartoons or any other regular programs on any stations all day long because the President had been shot.
But we still had to do Saturday morning chores.
Futhermore, my parents still sent us to school on Monday morning, too. Where Mrs. Eggleston still expected us to do our best coloring in the bird books science project. She still laughed at my stand up comedy routine during show and tell. She still let us use colored chalk on the zoo mural we were making on the the biggest chalkboard in the room. Our second grade class still argued with the other second grade class about which of our teachers had the strangest name: Mrs. Eggleston or Mrs. Bomgaars. We were still expected to be quiet in the halls. We still sang God Bless America in music class.
Maybe that’s why my memories of the day President Kennedy was shot are so dim.
Maybe I don’t remember much about where I was when the President was shot because adults protected me by keeping my little world as normal as they could. Maybe that’s why I remember more about how I felt on that fateful day and in the days that followed. I felt peeved about the Saturday morning cartoon situation. I felt put upon doing chores that morning. But most of all, though a terrible tragedy gripped our nation, I felt safe.
Exactly how a seven-year-old should feel, even after the President has been shot.
Photo Source
by jphilo | Apr 26, 2013 | Out and About
While we waited to board our flight,
You lowered your pregnant body to the floor,
And play dolls with your daughter,
Your attention fully focused on her.
From the aisle seat across from you, I watched you
Calm your little girl, so giddy with excitement about visiting Grandma.
You had a bag full of snacks, toys, and an iPad, which occupied her
Until the command came to power it down and fasten seat belts.
Then your sweet two-and-a-half year old went ballistic.
She screamed and kicked, threw off her shoes,
Squirmed and kicked her way out of the aisle seat twice,
Until somehow you belted her securely into the window seat.
Not once did you raise your voice.
Not once did you spank her bottom or slap her hand.
Instead you told her what she had to do,
Until finally she finally obeyed and fell asleep, exhausted.
Tears streamed down your face,
As you gazed through the window,
Too ashamed to make eye contact with me
Or the other passengers who’d witnessed the scene.
While your eyes were fixed on blue sky and clouds,
A packet of tissues and a note found its way into the empty seat beside you.
“Every parent on this plane’s been where you are today,” the note said.
“You’re a good mommy. Always remember that.”
photo source
