Proud Mama

Hey Sara, that is sooo sweet.

Sierra, when she was nine--decided to donate her hair, 12 inches of it. Ohh, I really hated to see her cut it, but after reading about an organization in need, she thought it was important to donate to 'Locks of Love'.

That is so adorable!! What a smart little guy!!! They do amaze you, and probably will never stop! By the time he is the age of my boys, you'll have tons of precious memories and the most adorable sayings.

I do have to share one about my younger son, Seth. When he was 3, his grandparents, my ex's parents, took him and Daniel on vacation with them. As they were leaving their hotel one morning, a truck was in the parking lot. Seth asked his grandmother, "Mamaw, what's that *beep beep beep* noise?" and she replied, "It's a garbage truck." So then Seth asked her, "Why is it making that noise?" and she answered, "It's backing up. When big trucks back up, they make that sound so you won't walk behind them." "Ooohhhh...ok" he said, and she told me that he was all wide-eyed about the whole ordeal.

That evening when they returned to the hotel, Mamaw was making popcorn or something in the microwave. When it stopped, it beeped a few times. Seth was already giggling when he asked, "Mamaw, what's that *beep beep beep* noise?" and she replied, "It's the microwave." He said, "Oooohhhh. Is it backing up?" and then I'm told that he just doubled over, cracking himself up.

Ok, so mine isn't about him being generous, but both boys did spend their entire childshoods telling me, "MooooOOOmmm...you can't do [whatever they didn't want me to do at the time. Usually it was taking plastic shopping bags home.] because you gotta be good to the Erf [earth]." I'm still grinning about that.

Kids are awesome. Perfect and awesome.

Something else. Make home movies!!! I don't have near as many as I would like. If I could see Daniel dressed up with huge Christmas stockings on his feet, a toy ukelele and a cowboy hat singing, "I'm an old cow haaaaaaand...fwom da Weeee - OOO - Gwaaaand. Tho my wegs ain't boooowed and my cheeks ain't taaaaaanned. Yippie - I - O - Car - Yay" I would probably never stop watching it!

Sara, it only gets better. Really. It doesn't stop until they get to middle school when they realize that moms are covered with cooties.

When I was shopping one day with Seth - I think he must have been something like 2 years old - I was walking around pushing him in a buggy, looking at this and that. A little old lady walked up to me and told me that I was the "best little mother" and that he was going to be a smart child because I didn't do baby talk with him. I never thought about it before, but I never really did do baby talk much. Once in a while, but usually I just talked to them. With them, rather. From what I know, that is one of the best things for kids.

Oh!!!!! Something else that Mr. Vagabond recently told me. He read it in one of the Celestine Prophecy series books. With children, so he says, you should never let them watch TV of any sort, even things like the baby Einstein stuff or even Sesame Street, until they reach the age of *I think* either 3 or 5.

His reasoning is that a certain part of a child's brain is in hyperdrive up to that age and afterward, it slows greatly. He says you are supposed to read to the child instead of letting them watch even educational shows because at that age they are using their creative visualization in a way that they won't in years to come. Supposedly the more they *exercise* that part of their brains while they can, the more intelligent they will be.

Now, I was a terrible mama in that regard because we watched cartoons together and Sesame Street and all that stuff. I didn't do the TV as a babysitter thing, but we did watch a lot on TV. But then again, we were also always reading. Daniel was reading on his own when he was 4 and Seth was reading on his own when he was 3. Daniel taught him!!!

A little off the subject at hand, but does your son eat meat?

I was a vegetarian for years, in fact, until I was about 7 months pregnant with my daughter, who is now almost 11. We have both gone periods of several months without eating meat, but since she eats at school and the selection is already poor, I hate to limit her nutritional any more than it already is. And since we live in the rural south, nobody caters to vegetarians. We may be moving to a city next year (back to Vegas) and I'm sure we'll become vegetarians again.


My daughter has, just this week, been saying how she wants to stop eating meat again. It's just such a challenge to find food.

That is so sweet.
My boy is five.
I always write a little note on my son's napkin- usually a smiley or an "I love You"- and put it in his lunchbox. After awhile, I discovered that he'd been saving them in a pocket in his backpack, and it was full. I took them out and put them in a plastic bag in a cabinet.
The next day, after we got home, he told me his heart was broken because the garbage man took all of my words. It took a minute before I understood he thought he'd thrown out all of the napkins, and I was able to calm him down by showing him where I had saved them. My little peanut.

Thanks for sharing your stories. I love them.

The other day my six year old snuck off into a corner with paper and pencil. Twenty minutes later he gave me his first ever handwritten note. It involved roses and violets and how much he loved me. When I was giving him a big hug he whispered in my ear: "Mommy, I could write a book about how much I love you." Twenty minutes later my four year old gave me a note with scribbles on it, saying that it said "I love you, Mommy." More hugs followed.

I've put the notes in my treasure box. I'm so lucky to have these little guys!

Ok, Mr. Vagabond has a message for all of you. He says to stop it and stop it now! My biological clock is ticking like mad lately and these stories do not, I repeat, do NOT help!

Carole, I was going to suggest a week with my ten-year-old, but it would depend on which week. She has mad moon-mood-swings these days. Some days, though, she's terribly charming, and that probably wouldn't help Mr. Vagabond's case any.
She did her first spellwork this winter, at Yule. It was sort of by accident-- she walked in on something I was preparing to do, and wanted to help, so I let her. It was...um...extremely effective. Now to teach her to use her powers for good, instead of eeeeeevil...

Sara, I do need a fix, and it's worse now than ever. I'll be there in a jiffy! My brother and his wife had the big ultrasound today, and they were to learn whether little punkin-to-be is a he or a she. He called me at work this afternoon to tell me that she is a SHE! A sweet little baby girl!!!! They also learned that she is absolute baby-girl perfection and she is completely healthy, well-formed and just plain precious!

We're Irish and so is my sister-in-law's family (Sorry to Scarletpeaches if you read this - I know that claiming to be Irish while living in the states offends ya.) so now we're thinking of Irish girl names. She'll already have a perfect Irish last name. I can't remember the last time I was this excited! So far we've come up with these names:

Shannon
Erinn
Maeve
Molly
Moira
Susannah

What say ye, and can you think of more? I'm partial to Shannon, even if it's not terribly unique. Shannon is just the prettiest name, IMO. Mom is partial to Maeve. We're also partial to Susannah, as that was my paternal great grandmother's name, going back through dad's dad. Susannah and Daniel, dad's paternal grandparents, were the first of our family to come from Ireland to the U.S. We also have a Polly, which I like, but we also have a Thelma, a Gertrude, and a Kizzy, which we're kinda leaning away from.

Sorry for the O'Connor genealogy lesson!!

(And yes - you can look at my first name and see my maiden name, combine that with 1970s television and know what kind of childhood picking on I got!)

Carole said:

(And yes - you can look at my first name and see my maiden name, combine that with 1970s television and know what kind of childhood picking on I got!)

Click to expand...

LOL! I adore Maeve, and tried and tried to get Mr. Mac to agree to Sorcha. But even though his family is Irish-Irish (the Mac is mine, a mishmosh of Scots-Irish-Welsh-American), they all have terribly mundane names, so Helen it was. Pffft. He could have at least gone for Aileen.

I highly recommend Patrick Woulfe's Irish Names for Children, by the way.

Sorcha suits her far better. I would have gone for Gillian, too (which isn't terribly Irish, but I love it). But I named the other three, and it seemed like he should at least name one of them.

Oh, groovy on both of you!! I'm about to hit that website.

I LOVE Siobhan! That's so pretty. Sorcha is one I haven't heard, but I like it too. They definitely want something unique without being weird or made-up.

Oh, and Molly Claire...How sweet. My sister and I were talking this evening about how Molly just makes you think of the perfect little cherub-faced girl.

My clock is ticking SO loud. I turn the big 4-0 next month. That's not too terribly old to have another baby, is it? Marc would faint. he keeps telling me to wait on the grandkids. Of course, that makes me want to kick him in the jimmy.

It looks to me like you guys are the Gerber Baby factory!!! How freakin cute!!! Love the mohawk.

Awww

Just last week I was babysitting my little cousin (he's about 5 now), and he wanted to take a walk through the park. He was eating gummy bears out of a little sandwich bag, and when he was done, he threw the bag on the ground. I walked over, picked it up, and stuck it in my pocket. He asked me why I was picking up garbage, and I told him that littering hurts the Earth, and that it wasn't very nice to do because the Earth is our home. The rest of the walk home, he picked up every piece of trash he saw and each time he patted the ground and asked, "Feel better?" then smiled and ran to pick up the next piece.