When our Little Miss was about two and a half, she was crawling out of her crib on a regular basis. As parents, my husband and I thought avoiding head and neck injuries from falling while crawling out of a crib was a good thing. Therefore, we bought her a day bed.
Little Miss was our third daughter and by this time we had learned to ease in change. Therefore, we left her crib set up, but with the side down and put her thousands of stuffed animals in it. We told Little Miss that she could sleep in her big girl day bed while her stuffed animals slept in the crib.
This worked well. At least until we thought enough time had passed that it was safe to take her crib down. Generally by morning most of the animals had been retrieved and were in the day bed with Little Miss. Therefore, we concluded that the crib was no longer needed.
So one fine Saturday morning, my husband got out his rechargeable drill and began disassembling the crib. Little Miss was occupied with eating cereal in the living room and watching cartoons. But she wandered upstairs to see what dad was doing.
Apparently taking the crib down was not on her playlist. She began running around the house with her hands in the air shouting “No fair! No fair! Daddy’s taking my lid off.”
Being adults, my husband and I had lost the essentials of childhood logic and it took us a little while to grasp this concept. In the meantime, Little Miss stood in her Tinkerbell jammies holding her Mickey Mouse flannel blanket staring at my husband with a terrified look on her face.
Ultimately he asked Little Miss if she wanted him to stop taking her crib apart. With a quivering lip she solemnly shook her head no. “Then I won’t, he assured her.” That solved the dilemma and life went on.
Growing up, our three daughters had many pets. This included our share of hamsters and gerbils, dogs and cats and at one time ducks and rabbits. The rabbits and ducks were gifts from the Easter bunny one year. We had a large fenced in back yard and the rabbits and ducks got along well enough with our two basset hounds. Or rather, they got along pretty well with our male basset hound, Buddy boy, but not his mother.
By summer we had two of the three original ducks left and one rabbit. The rabbit was a large lop eared fluffy rabbit we called Abby Rabbit. We let Abby Rabbit roam the back yard during the day time and she would take refuge under our deck. Under the deck was Mamma Hound’s territory and the two squared off. All of our basset hounds got plenty of exercise and none were the lumpy Pillsbury dough boy type of fat bassets. Mamma Hound was particularly small and lean.
After some initial growling followed by a warning ground thump, mamma hound was excised from under the deck by a series of powerful kicks delivered by one Abby Rabbit to a howling Mamma Hound. From that point on Mamma Hound grudgingly agreed to share the space under the deck with Abby Rabbit.
Ducky didn’t fare so well. Ducky had a bird brain and was dumber than the basset hounds, which themselves were dumber than a box of rocks. Let’s face it, hush puppies are loveable but if you’ve ever owned one you know they aren’t known for being the smartest canines.
Ducky wandered the back yard, swam in the kids’ wading pool and ate bugs from the garden. Ducky ate things by pecking at them. Ducky also ate dog food from the bowl. This was fine with Buddy Boy but Mamma Hound was still a bit teed off with the burgeoning pet population, was most likely still holding a grudge against Abby Rabbit, and was not about to share food as well as napping places.
Mamma Hound warned Ducky with a growl that her food bowl was not to be touched. Ducky continued pecking at Mamma’s food bowl so Mamma nipped Ducky. Ducky pecked at Mamma’s nose and Mamma charged. Ducky was used to playing chase this way with Buddy Boy so Ducky turned and waddled away as fast as ducks can go. Mamma, however delivered one powerful chomp to Ducky’s behind leaving a bare spot, leaving Mamma with a mouthful of white duck feathers.
After consulting our neighbor who raised birds, we spent the next few weeks using diaper rash ointment on Ducky’s behind until his feathers grew back. We also moved Mamma’s food dish out of harm’s way.
Ducky’s companion was Lucky Duck who also played chase with Buddy Boy. Buddy Boy was a growing pup who could be a little rowdy. It turned out he was a little too rowdy for Lucky Duck the day he picked Lucky Duck up in his mouth and broke Lucky’s neck.
Then our children who were five and under came up with their own plan. We needed to have Ducky lay eggs so we could have more ducks. My husband and I explained, delicately, that we didn’t think that would work because we only had one duck. So if Ducky was going to be the mamma duck and lay eggs, we needed a daddy duck.
Children make their own sense out of the world and have their own reasoning and logic. The lack of a daddy duck didn’t slow down their plan. They simply used creative thinking and decided that the rabbit could be the daddy. It is impossible for adults to argue with logic like this and so my husband and I gave each other “that look” and agreed that the rabbit could be the daddy. Why not? After all we believed in diversity!
However, we were not prepared for the next series of events. As fall approached, Ducky laid an egg. All along we had thought Ducky was a dude. Being city kids, my husband and I forgot that fowl can lay unfertilized eggs. Therefore I looked at the migrating ducks in the sky and wondered if some fly by night rascal duck had violated our pet. Our bird savvy neighbor straightened that concept out.
Our oldest daughter started kindergarten that week and proudly took Ducky’s accomplishment for show and tell. Ducky’s accomplishment was accidentally dropped in the backyard, to the delight of Mamma Hound who loved eggs with anything. Ducky tried to lay another egg but became egg bound (according to our neighbor’s diagnosis) and succumbed to the inevitable.
But as for me, these days when life seems unfair and someone is trying to take my lid off, I try to remember to think out of the box and apply the concept that all things are possible and all problems are solvable. After all, why can’t the rabbit be the daddy and, if ducks can lay eggs, why can’t they be golden eggs?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
The Nice Thing About Sisters
The nice thing about sisters is … I wouldn’t know. I don’t have one. I never had one and my parents stopped making family members after my brother came along. But I have observations about people who do have sisters about what could be the nice thing about having a sister.
Item one: Someone to blame. My husband grew up in a large Irish Catholic family. He has lots of sisters. They have lots of children, mostly girls. So he has lots of nieces and they have sisters. My husband is the oldest of the clan but we were the last to have children. As a result, we heard lots of stories about the T girls, MJ and L.
MJ and L were two peas in a pod who grew up on a farm, playing in the dirt and having a generally good time. MJ and L had a lot of energy which was normally put to mischievous use. As the older one, MJ was most likely to be confronted about the situation. Her standard response was “L done it”. One day Grandma O’Bryan reminded MJ that L wasn’t there. MJ’s response “Oh man, Grandma, you figured it out.” So, a sister can be someone to blame – at least for a while.
Item two: Someone to antagonize. We have three daughters. Growing up they were pretty much the fighting Irish. This is just what happens when you mix Scottish and Irish. You get vim and vinegar. Our oldest daughter was the Ready Freddy of the group. The middle one is a whisp of a girl and our stealth child. The youngest is devil or angle, with her halo sitting firmly on two bumps that could very well be demon horns, particularly where the middle daughter was concerned.
The older two generally got along. The oldest and the youngest generally got along and the middle and little one were oil and water. The youngest took full advantage of this and deliberately antagonized the middle one. Miss S would go in Miss KA’s room and touch things on purpose, simply to stir the pot to the boiling point. It worked every time. Miss KA wound string through her room with pins tapped to it as S traps. Then Miss KA posted a note on Miss S’s room telling Miss S the evil fate that awaited Miss S should she step foot in the forbidden room.
The plan backfired because Miss S could not read. But, she was creative, scribbled an illegible note and taped it to Miss KA’s door. Then she sat in her closet and knocked on the wall, which backed up to Miss KA’s room, making it sound like someone was at Miss KA’s door. Her motto might have been “Anything To Annoy”.
Item Three: Someone to borrow from: When you have children, hand me downs are essential. When you have three girls, the youngest rarely gets anything new, but knows all clothes will eventually be hers. Sometimes this outgrowing process can be speeded up by borrowing. Take the case of the Care Bear pajamas. Our middle daughter had a Care Bear nightie. Being a string bean, she grew up and the nightie went from being ankle length to mid calf length to knee length, but still fit her. It was also her favorite PJs.
The little one helped me with laundry one day. This was a bit odd because folding and putting away clothes was generally considered a supreme punishment in our house, as were any other household chores. I watched as Miss S dashed away with the folded Care Bare nightie and stuck it in her dresser drawer.
“But that belongs to KA” I reminded Miss S. With the ultimate in child logic her response was “Well, it’s mine now.”
I was reminded of these events when I went upstairs today. Our middle daughter is a grown up young lady who lives in San Francisco but will be visiting us next weekend. I thought this weekend was a good time to make sure her old bedroom is clean and dusted, with fresh sheets and so on. I discovered that our youngest daughter, who is home from college for the summer, is using Miss KA’s bed frame as a drying rack. Over time Miss KA’s room has become an extension of Miss S’s closet. What can I say? I am sure that by next week these clothes will be dry.
The last time Miss KA was home she and Miss S spent a great deal of time in Miss S’s room watching videos. Miss KA donated her desktop Apple computer to Miss S. I guess that just proves that hand me downs are forever. I guess sisters are too.
Item one: Someone to blame. My husband grew up in a large Irish Catholic family. He has lots of sisters. They have lots of children, mostly girls. So he has lots of nieces and they have sisters. My husband is the oldest of the clan but we were the last to have children. As a result, we heard lots of stories about the T girls, MJ and L.
MJ and L were two peas in a pod who grew up on a farm, playing in the dirt and having a generally good time. MJ and L had a lot of energy which was normally put to mischievous use. As the older one, MJ was most likely to be confronted about the situation. Her standard response was “L done it”. One day Grandma O’Bryan reminded MJ that L wasn’t there. MJ’s response “Oh man, Grandma, you figured it out.” So, a sister can be someone to blame – at least for a while.
Item two: Someone to antagonize. We have three daughters. Growing up they were pretty much the fighting Irish. This is just what happens when you mix Scottish and Irish. You get vim and vinegar. Our oldest daughter was the Ready Freddy of the group. The middle one is a whisp of a girl and our stealth child. The youngest is devil or angle, with her halo sitting firmly on two bumps that could very well be demon horns, particularly where the middle daughter was concerned.
The older two generally got along. The oldest and the youngest generally got along and the middle and little one were oil and water. The youngest took full advantage of this and deliberately antagonized the middle one. Miss S would go in Miss KA’s room and touch things on purpose, simply to stir the pot to the boiling point. It worked every time. Miss KA wound string through her room with pins tapped to it as S traps. Then Miss KA posted a note on Miss S’s room telling Miss S the evil fate that awaited Miss S should she step foot in the forbidden room.
The plan backfired because Miss S could not read. But, she was creative, scribbled an illegible note and taped it to Miss KA’s door. Then she sat in her closet and knocked on the wall, which backed up to Miss KA’s room, making it sound like someone was at Miss KA’s door. Her motto might have been “Anything To Annoy”.
Item Three: Someone to borrow from: When you have children, hand me downs are essential. When you have three girls, the youngest rarely gets anything new, but knows all clothes will eventually be hers. Sometimes this outgrowing process can be speeded up by borrowing. Take the case of the Care Bear pajamas. Our middle daughter had a Care Bear nightie. Being a string bean, she grew up and the nightie went from being ankle length to mid calf length to knee length, but still fit her. It was also her favorite PJs.
The little one helped me with laundry one day. This was a bit odd because folding and putting away clothes was generally considered a supreme punishment in our house, as were any other household chores. I watched as Miss S dashed away with the folded Care Bare nightie and stuck it in her dresser drawer.
“But that belongs to KA” I reminded Miss S. With the ultimate in child logic her response was “Well, it’s mine now.”
I was reminded of these events when I went upstairs today. Our middle daughter is a grown up young lady who lives in San Francisco but will be visiting us next weekend. I thought this weekend was a good time to make sure her old bedroom is clean and dusted, with fresh sheets and so on. I discovered that our youngest daughter, who is home from college for the summer, is using Miss KA’s bed frame as a drying rack. Over time Miss KA’s room has become an extension of Miss S’s closet. What can I say? I am sure that by next week these clothes will be dry.
The last time Miss KA was home she and Miss S spent a great deal of time in Miss S’s room watching videos. Miss KA donated her desktop Apple computer to Miss S. I guess that just proves that hand me downs are forever. I guess sisters are too.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Flashing Neon Sign
Flashing Neon Sign
This is it. I’m throwing in the towel and putting up a flashing neon sign. It will be 20 feet tall, be orange and yellow and say “O’Bryan”. This isn’t because I’m becoming eccentric. This is a necessity. People apparently need a sign that big and that bright to find our house.
You see, our address is number 18 and we have that clearly labeled on our house and on our mail box. But for some reason, delivery people and vendors cannot find our house. Instead, our stuff goes across the street to number 19.
We don’t know why this is. We very rarely receive things for number 19. But our neighbors constantly receive our things. Take the case of my daughter’s pizza. My daughter received a gift certificate for a pizza place as a graduation present. One day, she was hungry for a pizza. She called a couple of hours before she had to work to order a pepperoni pizza and asked to have it delivered.
We are very clear in giving our address. We say number eighteen and for emphasis we say number one eight. Very simple. Very clear. The pizza was promised in half an hour. After nearly an hour, she called and was told it was on its way. She repeated our address. Number eighteen. Number one eight.
After an hour and a half and no sign of the pizza, she made herself a sandwich and called the pizza place back saying the pizza had never arrived and that she had to leave for work. A few days later I learned from my neighbor that the pizza delivery boy brought tried to deliver a pepperoni pizza to them.
On another occasion my neighbor mentioned that a lawn service company had come and sprayed their yard. They didn’t use a lawn service. They hadn’t ordered any lawn care. I asked her what company. Sure enough, it was my company. I called my lawn service company to ask when they were going to treat my lawn. I was told they had just been to my address. “No you haven’t” I advised them. “You went to my neighbor’s house across the street”. The sad part is that I had been using this service for a few years by then.
The same thing happened with my pest control company. When the guy didn’t show up for the appointment, I called to check. He had gone to number 19 instead of number 18. Sad again because I also had been using this pest control company for a number of years.
My neighbors across the street frequently bring our mail to us because it winds up in their mail box. Recently a check intended for us went to their mail box – our address, their box. I have a magnet on my front door. They came over and left the check on my front door in the magnet. Thank heavens we have great neighbors across the street! It was a nice healthy check. When you are self employed as a freelancer, the check is always in the mail. It’s just nice when it’s your mail and you actually receive it!
Curiously, this misdelivery phenomenon is a one way kind of deal. We do not get their mail or pizzas or services. We’d like to. They had new Pella windows installed a few years ago. I am sure those lovely windows would look just as nice over here.
This year they both retired from 20 year plus careers at the same company. They celebrated by purchasing some new televisions and getting satellite TV service. I know we’d enjoy that! Last year they put in granite countertops in their kitchen. They are absolutely gorgeous and would look stunning in my kitchen as well. Right now they are having their deck remodeled with that man made decking material that never wears out. I was noticing our deck has a few warps and splits in it. New decking material would be excellent. But nothing of theirs shows up here. Just vise versa.
What is particularly annoying about this is that I work at home. So I am here when this stuff happens. Our door bell works just fine. There is no reason not to knock on our door. But it’s like the Maytag repair place over here!
It happened again today. My daughter is doing a semester abroad in London this fall through her college. She wants to do an internship and has applied for a British VISA. She received an automated call early this morning from an overnight mail delivery service that she had an overnight letter requiring her signature. We waited all day – eight hours to be exact.
We could have driven to Chicago in that length of time. Of course, we put the time to good use. I cleaned out the garage. We watched a movie I rented yesterday. We caught up on all our email. At 4 PM we discovered that the overnight mail delivery service went to our neighbor’s house with my daughter’s mail.
These absolutely wonderful neighbors aren’t home. They are in Columbus Ohio at a church event. We are taking care of their mail. We called the overnight mail delivery service and made arrangements to go pick up this letter. The pick up site is across town and the pick up window is only open from 7 PM to 7:30 PM. That’s two hours from now. I guess in that amount of time we could always order a pizza and have it delivered.
This is it. I’m throwing in the towel and putting up a flashing neon sign. It will be 20 feet tall, be orange and yellow and say “O’Bryan”. This isn’t because I’m becoming eccentric. This is a necessity. People apparently need a sign that big and that bright to find our house.
You see, our address is number 18 and we have that clearly labeled on our house and on our mail box. But for some reason, delivery people and vendors cannot find our house. Instead, our stuff goes across the street to number 19.
We don’t know why this is. We very rarely receive things for number 19. But our neighbors constantly receive our things. Take the case of my daughter’s pizza. My daughter received a gift certificate for a pizza place as a graduation present. One day, she was hungry for a pizza. She called a couple of hours before she had to work to order a pepperoni pizza and asked to have it delivered.
We are very clear in giving our address. We say number eighteen and for emphasis we say number one eight. Very simple. Very clear. The pizza was promised in half an hour. After nearly an hour, she called and was told it was on its way. She repeated our address. Number eighteen. Number one eight.
After an hour and a half and no sign of the pizza, she made herself a sandwich and called the pizza place back saying the pizza had never arrived and that she had to leave for work. A few days later I learned from my neighbor that the pizza delivery boy brought tried to deliver a pepperoni pizza to them.
On another occasion my neighbor mentioned that a lawn service company had come and sprayed their yard. They didn’t use a lawn service. They hadn’t ordered any lawn care. I asked her what company. Sure enough, it was my company. I called my lawn service company to ask when they were going to treat my lawn. I was told they had just been to my address. “No you haven’t” I advised them. “You went to my neighbor’s house across the street”. The sad part is that I had been using this service for a few years by then.
The same thing happened with my pest control company. When the guy didn’t show up for the appointment, I called to check. He had gone to number 19 instead of number 18. Sad again because I also had been using this pest control company for a number of years.
My neighbors across the street frequently bring our mail to us because it winds up in their mail box. Recently a check intended for us went to their mail box – our address, their box. I have a magnet on my front door. They came over and left the check on my front door in the magnet. Thank heavens we have great neighbors across the street! It was a nice healthy check. When you are self employed as a freelancer, the check is always in the mail. It’s just nice when it’s your mail and you actually receive it!
Curiously, this misdelivery phenomenon is a one way kind of deal. We do not get their mail or pizzas or services. We’d like to. They had new Pella windows installed a few years ago. I am sure those lovely windows would look just as nice over here.
This year they both retired from 20 year plus careers at the same company. They celebrated by purchasing some new televisions and getting satellite TV service. I know we’d enjoy that! Last year they put in granite countertops in their kitchen. They are absolutely gorgeous and would look stunning in my kitchen as well. Right now they are having their deck remodeled with that man made decking material that never wears out. I was noticing our deck has a few warps and splits in it. New decking material would be excellent. But nothing of theirs shows up here. Just vise versa.
What is particularly annoying about this is that I work at home. So I am here when this stuff happens. Our door bell works just fine. There is no reason not to knock on our door. But it’s like the Maytag repair place over here!
It happened again today. My daughter is doing a semester abroad in London this fall through her college. She wants to do an internship and has applied for a British VISA. She received an automated call early this morning from an overnight mail delivery service that she had an overnight letter requiring her signature. We waited all day – eight hours to be exact.
We could have driven to Chicago in that length of time. Of course, we put the time to good use. I cleaned out the garage. We watched a movie I rented yesterday. We caught up on all our email. At 4 PM we discovered that the overnight mail delivery service went to our neighbor’s house with my daughter’s mail.
These absolutely wonderful neighbors aren’t home. They are in Columbus Ohio at a church event. We are taking care of their mail. We called the overnight mail delivery service and made arrangements to go pick up this letter. The pick up site is across town and the pick up window is only open from 7 PM to 7:30 PM. That’s two hours from now. I guess in that amount of time we could always order a pizza and have it delivered.
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