Godspeed

My aviation-obsessed son David has his very first airplane ride today, courtesy of the Civil Air Patrol.  He's over-the-moon excited;  and I will watch with joy (and perhaps just a touch of trepidation) as my son soars up into those blue skies tomorrow - skies that 9 years ago seemed to reverberate with pain, skies whose deafening silence bore testimony to the tragic events of that day.

Perhaps it is fitting that my son on this very day flies joyfully into the wild blue yonder.  As each day passes, this world belongs more and more to our children and to their future - a future, eventually, without me and all the other adults who watched the towers fall.  I'm thinking that maybe - just maybe - that could be a good thing.

We honor the dead by remembering, of course.  I will always remember.  But we also honor the victims of 9/11 by refusing to perpetuate the sort of ignorance and hate which killed almost 3000 people 9 years ago today.  And by teaching our children to do the same.

Let them fly.

7 Quick Takes: Middle-Aged Marriage Advice

Fine!  Nobody volunteered to take my kids yesterday; so I ended up lying on the couch all day and throwing candy at them myself.  Actually, it wasn't too bad a day that way.  Maybe I should make it a monthly tradition.

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I went out to dinner this evening with a friend, even though I still have the head cold from hell.  That way I avoided the Catch-22 rule of spousal sickness - husbands hate hearing their wives complain, but how else are they supposed to know when we're too sick to feed the over-sugared kids their dinner?  Should I have rolled over and played dead when Larry walked in the door?  

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As a newly-engaged ingenue 20 years ago, I had the temerity to tell a long-married friend that Larry and I would never argue, because we got along together so well.  How she managed to not laugh in my face is beyond me.

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Husbands!  When you walk in the door after a hard day's work, do bring your peri-menopausal, hot-flash-enduring wife a nice glass of ice water.  She'll love you for it.  And then you won't have to hear her whine, "Is it hot in here, or is it just me?"  Because, yes, we 40-something women really do say that.

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Wives!  Your husband does not want to hear about the children's numerous misdeeds the minute he comes home  (especially the teen daughter stuff).  Save it for when he's trying to go to sleep at night instead.  Then you can both lie there in the dark for a couple of hours and wonder aloud why you thought you were cut out for this parenting gig in the first place.  Trust me, it's a bonding experience.

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Husbands!  When your formerly camping-averse wife decides that what the family needs is a deluxe pop-up camper to go tooling around the country in, keep a close eye on your checking account.  You have no idea to what extremes a bug-phobic spouse (formerly known as frugal) will go in order to avoid the bedbug scourge currently enveloping our nation.  $8000 for a used camper that comes with its own toilet and shower?  Sounds like a bargain to me!

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It's true - a veritable plague of flat, wingless, bloodsucking hemipterous insects  is descending upon us - coming soon to a hotel near you!


Check out ConversionDiary.com for more 7 Quick Takes.  Her obsession is scorpions, not bedbugs...

Sick Bay

3 doses of Sudafed within 12 hours?  Not a good idea, especially if those are the 12 hours preceding bedtime.  So now I'm up until 4 AM with a killer cold, too wired to sleep even if I could manage to stop sneezing. 

Any volunteers for taking the kids today?  They're pretty easy so long as you keep feeding them candy.



[photo credit: agoosa.com]

Back To School

We've been easing into school here, slowly but surely, for the past 2 weeks.  David is full speed ahead on Algebra and English 8 and Biology.  Rachel happily does workbook pages, while Susie is assiduously learning to circle 3 of the ducks and 5 of the clowns in her little kindergarten book.  And Brian?  Well, I started him with just history reading the first week, a little grammar and geography added in the second.  So today, I rather trepidatiously brought out his math book, thinking that maybe - this year - he wouldn't find the arithmetic quite so onerous.

Reader, I was wrong.  The poor kid didn't even say anything - he just sat on the couch and wept big silent tears as I attempted to convince him that this year it would be FUN to do math.  EASY, also.  Just a little bit, OKAY?

A pox on all those how-to-homeschool books, I say - wouldn't you know they provide no guidance on how not to break your sweet 10-year-old's heart whilst teaching him basic arithmetic?

Present But Cranky

I haven't felt like writing.  So sue me. 

But I'll return one of these days - I've just got to get through this weekend without screaming at the children to stop saying "Mommy!" sixteen thousand times an hour.  It's beginning to get to me.  Also? I need to avoid gaining a zillion pounds during this weekend's barbecue-fest.

Get thee behind me, Harris Teeter! Must you put your pies on sale right now?

Our 90-something temperatures are returning next week, and the stinkbugs are all having babies which run much faster than their easy-to-catch adult counterparts.  Large dead cicadas keep falling out of the trees, while moths repeatedly invade our domicile in search of my  yarn stash.  Don't even talk to me about the darn ants...just don't.  Oh, and my fellow bug-neurotic sent  me this lovely website.  Click at your own risk.  I think I'm going to make Larry buy me some sort of trailer/camper this weekend - I'm certainly never staying in a hotel again.


[Pop-up camper image credit: http://home.travelin.com/]