Stages

New developments are arising here at the neepeople domicile.  News flash!  Ana has pimples.  These are the only sign thus far that puberty may be just around the corner.  Fortunately, they haven’t caused much of a stir.  Ana has learned the importance of washing her face with a mild soap and applying a little benzoyl peroxide cream.  I can’t believe my little girl is growing up!  It seems like yesterday she was a chubby faced cherub with bright, big eyes and golden curls.  Now, she cares about nail polish and earrings, has decided tastes in music and is capable of very grown up conversation.

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Two Views on Marriage...

Ana and David have each expressed a view of marriage and family life this week.  David came home from school on Wednesday and told a story of one of his classmates whom we’ll call Tanya.  Tanya appears to be  the very forward thinking type of third grader, or at the very least someone who wants to know exactly where she stands.

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That Speech

Recently, while putting David to bed, he lamented to me the difficulty of being the youngest child in the house. Most of his complaints were along the line of, “everyone gets to tell you what to do and you don’t get to have any fun.” I tried to commiserate with him. Being an oldest child, I really haven’t any idea what it’s like to be a youngest child. I can imagine it’s probably quite difficult. Mostly, I listened to David and nodded my head sympathetically.

Further into our conversation, I tried to remind David of all his wonderful qualities, “you’re creative, you have a big heart…” David interrupted me, rolled his eyes and said, “I know all that Mom. You gave me that speech last week.” Oops.

We both laughed pretty loud after David reminded me of my tendency to rerun speeches. Oh well… sometimes in parenting, we hit home runs, sometimes we strike out and sometimes we’re the 7th inning stretch entertainment.

Blessings on your day, wherever you are!

Momentous Occasions

In every family there are certain events that become bookmarks, placeholders in our lives.  When we relate the stories of our lives, events happen before and after these bookmarks.  Last night, Ana and I removed her “starter” earrings.  It went exactly as I thought it would, with her proclaiming, loudly, that I was “pinching her ear.”  The first earring took longer than the second to get out with many stops and starts in between.

When I had finally managed to remove both earrings, Ana was thrilled.  “That’s so cool!  I have holes in my ears.  Wow!”  She’s borrowing a pair of my hoop earrings until we can get her a pair of her own. After she put the first “new” earring in, she exclaimed,  “Wow… it just pokes right through!”  In the midst of all the excitement Ana managed to drop one of her starter earrings down the bathroom sink.  These were the earrings she was going to “keep forever.”  At least she has one left.  I don’t have either of mine.

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Pages

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

So opens, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It’s an interesting thought.  I’ve only just begun the book, so I’m not sure how this opening sentence might play out in the rest of the story, but I have thought about that idea quite a bit. Happy families are all alike. Do I know of any families I can say are truly, “happy.”  Maybe, but I think in modern times we have this idea of functional vs. Dysfunctional. I’m not sure that’s the best classification since there are now talk show hosts making their livings by saving “dysfunctional” families in neat 60 minute segments. This is probably why I don’t like talk shows.

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