children

Saturday Afternoon Chat December 2: A hodgepodge of thoughts about my week and the week to come

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Dry skin. That’s what I’ve got right now.

Horrible dry skin from the dry air in our house.

Don’t worry – it just feels dry. I won’t describe how it looks because it doesn’t look bad. It just looks — pale and dry.

We don’t have a humidifier downstairs but I think we are going to have to get one because when I get dry skin it causes my entire body to feel inflamed with itchiness. It’s a horrible feeling and sometimes I have to practically bathe myself in lotion to get relief.

I have a soap I use from Cetaphil that is moisturizing and helps immensely.

I find it fairly cheap on Amazon and at Walmart (no, this is not a sponsored post. I promise.) but I’m sure you can find it in other places as well.

Cetaphil used to make an amazing lotion too, but they changed the ingredients earlier this year and I don’t think it works as well.

My mom keeps telling me to put lotion or coconut oil on right after a shower to help my skin absorb the moisture but I always forget and pay for it later.

What do you, dear readers, use to help your dry skin if you have it? My curious mind wants to know.

An uneventful week where we almost died . . .

This past week was a rather uneventful week.

The only day I had something to do was yesterday when I drove 30 minutes down and back to pick up our groceries. On our way there some driver decided he’d try to pass a truck and a car on a stretch of road right on a corner, where there were double lines, and in a spot on the highway near my parents where there have been a number of fatalities over the years. When I saw him in my lane I couldn’t believe it.

I laid on the horn and luckily, he yanked back into his lane but it was certainly a frightening experience.

I’m not sure what was so important that this person needed to risk everyone’s life but I have a feeling he needed a beer.

I’m kidding.

Sort of.

Tonight The Husband, Little Miss, and I are headed to a Christmas parade in a tiny town half an hour away. He has to attend the event for work and I decided Little Miss needs to get out of the house and see her friends because she’s so bored that she’s started asking The Husband and I to play Hide and Seek or Red Light, Green Light with her.

She’s really gotten desperate for entertainment apparently. We are not really the most fun and we are easily distractable.

A question for my readers . . .

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend recently. I said Little Miss wanted me to play dolls and stuffies with her and she said she was always impressed with how I played with my daughter because most parents she knows don’t do that.

I have a variety of ages reading my blog so my question to all of you is if you play(ed) with your children when they were young or if you did what my mom did which was essentially tell me to go find a way to entertain myself. She wasn’t rude at all. She just had work to do in the house and couldn’t sit and play all afternoon so she’d gently suggest I go draw or play with my dolls on my own if I asked.

I don’t even remember asking, actually. I was used to drawing or playing on my own a lot. I was sort of a lonely kid with only a handful of friends my entire childhood. In fact, I was a lot like Little Miss is now and only had two close friends (sisters) until junior high.

She also has two sisters as her friends.

Her other two friends moved to Texas in the summer but are returning for a visit around Christmas.

As a follow-up to the question of if you played with your children, did your parents play with you? I mean, I know most parents at least throw a ball with their kids or play some board games, but did you really sit down and play with the dolls and their stuffed animals?

I like to do that some with Little Miss because I think it helps to develop her imaginative play and I know how important play is to the development of a child. I can’t, however, do it all day like she wants me to.

Moving on . . .

Right now I am listening to Cozy Cafe Ambience – Relaxing Smooth Jazz Music with Rain & Thunder Sounds at Night on YouTube. I’m trying to drown out the noise of my house. We don’t have a lot of people in our house but it is very noisy.

Little Miss seems to think she has to have the TV on at all times, even while talking to her friends on a chat app while they play online games.

She’s not watching anything bad – it’s often a show on YouTube about reptiles that she likes. I don’t allow her to have YouTube on her phone anymore because she was watching all those Shorts and they were kicking out some very inappropriate stuff at her.

Even though the shows she watches aren’t bad, it’s constant noise.

I find it hard to focus on what I am writing with the constant chatter and interruptions. (How many times should a dog need to go out in an hour? Asking for a “friend.”) Sometimes I’m amazed I get any books or blog posts written but I do so by making myself get up early, before all the chatter starts, and also by going into the kitchen and sitting at the kitchen table where I’m a little bit more removed from the noise.

Oh and sometimes I just tell Little Miss to turn it all off! That helps too.

Today I goofed off this morning when Little Miss and others were sleeping so that’s my own fault for having to deal with the noise and activity.

We are having a slightly warmer day with rain forecasted for later on.

Then we will be dropping back into the 30s tomorrow. I know I was wishing for the cooler weather so I could cozy up under a blanket with a good book but on days like this when it isn’t exactly cold enough to light the fire but we don’t really want to turn the heat up too much and use up our heating oil, I find I don’t enjoy cuddling under a blanket as much as I hoped I would.

We do tend to romanticize the whole idea of a warm blanket, a cup of tea, and a good book, don’t we? We never factor in our cold nose or fingers, the cat that wants to warm up with us so she lays on our chest (right under our chin), or the way the tea gets really cold in the chilly air so we have to keep getting up to warm it up.

Or at least I don’t always think of all those negatives.

But, I think I’ll still continue to romanticize my life a little. Finding those little moments of magic are important, even if they aren’t as perfect as we had imagined. Plus, I have the option to turn the heat up, I have a roof over my head and a nice house, my family around me to make me laugh and smile (even if I sometimes have to tell them to be quiet so I can think.), I have food in my cupboards and fridge, and I have the luxury of being able to choose when I want to read or right – most of the time.

I’m very lucky and even though I grumble a bit from time to time (usually in jest, not a real grumble) I recognize that and I am grateful for it all.

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”

— G.K. Chesterton

How was your week?

Did you do anything holiday-related yet?

Read anything good or have a fun experience?

Let me know in the comments.

The Story Behind the Photo: Days of Freedom

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

When the kids were really young they did crazy things in the backyard of our house in town. Apparently, it was more fun to be crazy in a town where everyone could see them. When we moved to a smaller town, they weren’t as crazy anymore. In our old town, they filled tiny pools with water and jumped in in their underwear. My daughter ran around in her diaper almost all the time, even on the very busy street in front of the house, which sort of drove my husband nuts because he felt it made us look like we weren’t taking care of our children.

Looking back, I totally see his point but he and I both also recognized that children should be allowed to be children. I look back at those messy, crazy, full-speed days and I miss them like I thought I would.

I miss the freedom of them. I miss the unstoppable energy, the unbridled joy, the unrestrained exploring, and the intense curiosity.

Recently, on our third re-read of the Little House books, I had to roll my eyes once again at Ma (Caroline Ingalls) reminding Laura and Mary that children are to be seen and not heard.

I have always hated that saying. I want my children to be seen, to be heard, to be held, to laugh and have fun and make messes and learn from it all.

Faithfully Thinking: He will lift it soon

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 17 Comments

My daughter was drawing with sidewalk chalk outside the house. She drew a heart. I doodled some hearts and an angel near her heart.

She’s 5.

Sometimes 5 going on adult.

The song “Trust and Obey” had been going through my head much of the day, though I didn’t know why.

I wrote the word Trust in orange chalk on a step.

“What are you writing?”

“Just a word.”

“What’s it say?”

“Trust.”

“Oh”

She steps down off the step and looks at it. She can’t read yet.

“That should say Jesus after it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Trust Jesus and believe in God and He will lift it.”

Watching her.

“He will lift what?”

“He will lift the corona. He will lift it soon. Just believe in God. Write that.”

“Well, that’s a lot to write, but I’ll write, ‘Trust Jesus. He will lift it soon.'”

“Okay.”

And she skipped away.

What’s weird is she rarely says stuff like this.

Sometimes when I say “let’s pray,” she rolls her eyes. She wasn’t brought up in Sunday School like my son was and sometimes I feel like I’m letting her down that way but then she comes out with something like this and I think “oh…apparently she’s listening to the sermons and me more than I think.”

And we weren’t talking about corona before she said this either, but I could tell it had been on her mind and she had reached a point where she just knew — it’s going to be okay.

 

How adults wake up versus how almost 5-year olds wake up

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

Adults waking up: “Ack. Man. Why are the lights on?”

Almost 5-year old: eyes open immediately, she looks at her parent and says, “When I’m older I’m going to be an animal rescuer. I’m going to rescue pandas and crocodiles.”

Adult: “Wha- Okay? I need coffee before I can even talk…”

Almost 5-year old: “I’m going to rescue crocodiles from flash floods. Crocodiles can get stuck in floodwaters and then their eggs can’t survive in a flood so I’d have to rescue their eggs.”

Adult: “Where’s the coffee pot?”

Almost 5-year old: “Last night I had a dream that I was hugging a panda. I hugged it, like this, and it hugged me back. It was sooooo cute. Have you ever hugged a panda? I think it would be so cool to hug a panda.”

Adult: “But … you just woke up. How are you already speaking so much, so fast … ”

Almost 5-year old: “I’m going to get breakfast! I am going to have French Toast sticks for breakfast! And maple syrup and then I’m going to play with my playdough and my unicorn and my lions and . . . ” voice fading down the stairs.

Adult: ……….

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Next to the girl and her dog

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

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I posted this photo of my daughter and our dog on Facebook recently and my dad commented the following under it:

Next to the girl collecting Easter eggs with her dog stands a pair of sawhorses that belonged to her great great grandfather. Just to the left of them is a gnarly maple with different bark than the other maples. Behind her is a beautiful tall always liked ash. It is yellowed pale and almost dead now from the ash tree bores that have destroyed most all of Pennsylvania’s ash. To the right just out of focus is a large stone over the grave of one of her mother’s cats.

There is also a small dogwood tree planted by her grandfather nearby. Beyond that are some rotted boards of the dog house he built when nine years of age or so he claims.  A shag-bark hickory stood near there and fifty yards above that spot stood a balsa tree, the largest tree in the lot. Seventy-five feet behind the girl is a hand dug well that is now covered with heavy steel plates. This well gravity fed the house and chicken coops. Another well hidden just over the stone wall property line has a large stone covering it.

Just beyond the fence once stood one chicken coop. Water would be hand carried to that one as it was not downhill enough for gravity feed. Hid in the brush 100 feet to the left of the sawhorse is the foundation remains of the spring-cooled milk house. Also, the corn crib was near there. The granary still remains in that spot. A week later as this is being written the buds are opening to vivid green leaves, the forsythia flowers are bright yellow and life goes on.

Why I have gray hair – reason no. 30

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

I heard it before I saw it and knew at that moment I’d made a mistake letting my 4-year old jump from the couch to the metal barstool we’d never actually used at a bar since we didn’t have one. I saw her hanging over the bottom rungs of the chair, now on its’ side, like a limp rag doll, and yelled for my son to help because I figured that in his youth he could move faster. He wasn’t there, though, and by the time I got to her she had lifted herself up and was standing with her hair in her face and her mouth open while she tried to scream, but no sound would come out.

A bright red river of blood was streaming a path from her nose to her mouth and I wasn’t sure if she had ripped her nose or her lip open.

Always cool under pressure, I started to scream “Help me! Help me!” over and over, yelling for my son to call his dad at work. He, having been upstairs for what he’d hoped to be a relaxing visit to the bathroom, was a frazzled mess and stumbled to find one of our phones.

“Grace. Face bleeding.” He shouted into the phone and hung up.

Somehow I had mentally slapped myself out of my hysteria and asked for a box of tissues, snatched one and held it against my daughter’s nose, noting I had smeared blood above her eyebrow as I’d pulled her close for a hug and examination.

I knew that in order for her to calm down that I had to calm down and suddenly I went into robot mode. Wipe face. Hold nose, ask what hurt and what she had hit. She said her nose and her ear so I examined both appendages and saw blood caked along the edge of the nose and the tip of it swelled some, but otherwise it seemed fine. The ear didn’t have the gash I worried I would see. 

My husband burst through the door a few minutes later and we checked her out together while she cried. A popsicle and a cartoon helped her calm down.

A half an hour later she was in the kitchen twirling in circles next to the counter, an inch from smashing her face in again.

“Excuse me. We’ve already had one bloody nose. Are you trying to get another one?” I asked.

And that’s when I felt it – another gray hair pop up on top of my head.

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The flowers are sad

/ Lisa R. Howeler / Leave a comment

 

I love how my 2-year olds’ brain works.

Sunday at my parents, we were walking to the house from the pool and she saw the flowers along the wall and said “oh those flowers are sad.”

They were purple flowers drooping down, closing up as the sun set.

 

I said “oh do they look sad? They’re really just closing up for the night.”

She looked at some green flowers that aren’t blooming fully yet and said “those flowers are angry.”

And she was right. They did look angry with their spiked petals and centers, dark green towering above the rock wall. With the shadows cast from the trees the petals almost looked like teeth ready to bite down on us.

It wasn’t something I’d ever really thought about – flowers looking happy or sad or angry.

When you look through the eyes of a child you see so much more than you did before.

And children see, feel and understand much more than we realize.