Daughters

What Was Her Mother Thinking???

Jim and I were watching Good Morning America this morning, and they had some “boy band” on singing their latest hit. The name of the band doesn’t matter. And of course, there was a throng of screaming girls standing outside the studio, waving signs and looking as if they might swoon if one of those little boys walked up. The news personality or whatever it is they call them nowadays, was interviewing some of those little girls. She asked one of them how old she was, and the reply was “Eight.” Eight years old!!!

What is the mother of that girl thinking? I wondered how that little girl even knew about the band. I wondered why her mother (or her father) would take her to downtown New York to stand outside in the cold waiting to catch a glimpse of a boy band. I was shocked, thinking that when MY girls were eight years old, they wanted to be Brownies, they wanted to play on the girls’ softball team, they wanted to help me in the kitchen. IF they had a favorite singer, it was probably Kermit the Frog, singing that song about the Rainbow.

I know I am not that old, and that I am not that much of a fuddy duddy. When my daughters, who are 33 and 34 years old now, were growing up, I made sure they were dressed appropriately when they left the house. If they wanted to go to their friend Katie’s house down the street to play in the sprinkler, they were not allowed to walk down the street in their bathing suits. I didn’t let them walk to the store by themselves.

I never dropped them off at the mall. If they went to the mall, it was with me. I did not then nor do I now think that the mall is a place to socialize. It is a place to shop. With your mother. And if they went to the movies, I went with them, and sat in the same row as they did. They were not allowed to go on dates with boys until they were sixteen years old, and then they had a curfew of 10:00 p.m. And the boy had to come inside the house when they came to pick them up. And a couple of times in their dating careers, I said “absolutely not” to letting them go out with the young man when I met him. One was thrown physically out of my house for being disrespectful to my daughter in front of me.

Both of my daughters still love me and consider me to be their hero. And, they grew up to be successful, well-adjusted, happy members of society. One was an art teacher at a school for children with learning disabilities and is now assistant manager of a well-known high-end retail store; the other is a biology and special education teacher at a high school.

So, I really did find myself wondering if this little girl’s mother is using any common sense at all. If so, why is she encouraging such an obsession in a child so young? Is she living her own dreams through her child? Is she trying to give her darling daughter everything she thinks she wants?

Sometimes, I think kids ask for things they don’t really want, just to please their peers, and are hoping fervently inside that their parents will say NO. Maybe this child just wanted her mom to say no, so she could tell her friend she asked and her mom wouldn’t let her go. But sometimes, we as parents read the signals all wrong, and or we THINK this is what our child really wants, or we say YES to the most ridiculous requests because it was something we wanted when we were that age and were denied by our parents. I’m here to tell ya, folks, that just because your kid wants it, doesn’t mean they need it. And just because you CAN give them whatever it is that they want, doesn’t always mean you SHOULD. If you give them their little rock stars when they are eight, what are you going to be giving them when they are sixteen?

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What Do They Really Mean When They Say I Am Their Hero?

Karen · 3 Comments

The other day I was looking at my younger daughter Emily’s MySpace page, and saw that in the space where you can name who your heros are, she had written “My Mom”. So, I went to Rebecca’s page, and saw that she, too, had named me as her hero. I have never considered myself to be anything special, or extraordinary, so I got to thinking about what a “hero” really is, and wondered why either one of my daughters would think of me that way.

When you look at the dictionary definition of the word “hero” it is defined like this:

a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength; “RAF pilots were the heroes of the Battle of Britain”
the principal character in a play or movie or novel or poem
someone who fights for a cause
Greek mathematician and inventor who devised a way to determine the area of a triangle and who described various mechanical devices (first century)
a large sandwich made of a long crusty roll split lengthwise and filled with meats and cheese (and tomato and onion and lettuce and condiments); different names are used in different sections of the United States

And in the thesaurus, suggested words for hero are

Brave man
Champion
conqueror
Idol

After looking at all the things that a hero can be thought to be, I wondered which of those things my daughters actually think of me as. So, I investigated the different meanings of each of those words suggested by the thesaurus.

Since I am certainly NOT a brave man, (and don’t consider myself to be a brave woman, either) I skipped that one just on principle. Next up, a Champion. A champion is a winner, a champ, a victor, a title holder, and a defender. To Champion something is to defend it, such as in side with, stand up for. And a defender is a supporter, a backer, a campaigner, an advocate, or a guardian. So, in the sense or meaning of Champion, yes, I could be that, since I was a single mother for most of the time I was bringing up my children, and I supported them not only financially, but emotionally, physically at times, and spiritually. I supported them in everything they attempted to accomplish, and I must say they accomplished a lot.

On to Conqueror. What does that mean? Defeator, vanquisher, subjugator, and captor. I don’t think that meaning is relavent at all. At least I hope not. Did I inadvertantly vanquish any of their dreams? Did I defeat their attempts at anything? Did I hold them captive to my desires? I guess I will never know the answer.

Last on the list is Idol. The handy thesaurus gives us icon, statue, god, diety as substitutions for that word. An icon can be a star, a model, a symbol. Am I the model of the person they want to be? Am I a symbol of what they want to achieve. Oh, I hope not. I hope they accomplish more than I have; I want more for them than that. I certainly am not a god or a diety. But, again, in the sense of the meaning of idol, as a model or a symbol, I guess that could be closer to what my girls mean when they say I am their hero.

Or maybe they think of me as crusty and cheesey and full of baloney, a hero sandwich!

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Christmases Past

Karen · Leave a Comment

As most good Fab Grandma’s do, I have stories that I tell my children and grandchildren, over and over, at certain times of the year, ad nauseum…It is like a tradition to tell them even if no one wants to hear them again. So, with that in mind, here are a few of my Christmas memories, some good, some bad, but memories just the same.

The first Christmas I can remember was when I was about 5 years old. I had asked Santa for an electric train for my gift. Wouldn’t you know it—he did leave one at our house, but he mistakenly put “To Preston” (my younger brother) on the tag. How depressing is that? You ask for a train, a vehicle with power to let you escape into all the imaginary far away places a little girl could think of to travel, only to receive a stupid baby doll that hollers “Mama” at you, all the while peeing sweetly into her little panties. Now I suppose that in 1957 no respectable little girl would even ask for, much less actually receive, an electric train. No, we were relegated to practising to become little mothers, staying home spooning gruel into one end and wiping poop from the other, of our darling little babies, whilst our HUSBANDS, the MEN, traveled the work in their trucks, trains, and planes. I wish someone would invent the toddler doll that would wake up during the night with an asthmatic wheeze and rattle in their chest, crying “Mama” in agony while it throws up on the bed and squirts diarrhea out it’s little hiney. They could name it “Reality Check Carla” or something like that. Of course, there may not be much of a market for it, maybe young women whose husbands are pushing them to have a baby could get one for their spouse…Or, it could be part of that child care course taught to high school kids instead of using eggs.

Oh, I’m sorry, I was supposed to be telling a story here. Well, that little electric train was really cool. It puffed smoke out of its fake smokestack as it chugged around the track. We thought that was pretty amazing. And as for Betsy Wetsy was concerned, my older brother cut her head off to find out how she worked.

Several years later, when I was 9 and my sister was 18 months old, I asked for a jewelry box. In my little girl brain, I could see the little ballerina dancing around and around to the music from the music box. So, on Christmas Eve, all of us kids went to bed, too excited to sleep. After a while, we could actually hear Santa in the living room. He was playing with our toys, and from the sound of it, he seemed to be talking to Mama and Daddy. Suddenly, I could hear the music box playing—I think Santa must have enjoyed hearing it because he wound it up and let it play about 15 times. So, in the morning when we finally got out of bed and went into the living room, I saw to my horror that the jewelry box Santa brought was a satin covered, velvet lined pink box that was obviously meant for a much older girl. It had no music box, and no ballerina. The music I had been hearing was a wind up Fischer Price clock for my baby sister. I was too stunned to say anything. I tried really hard not to cry. I cannot think of a single other time in my life when I have been more disappointed.

The jewelry box I received that Christmas stayed in my possession until I was almost 50 years old. My older brother had taken a magic marker at some point and written “DUMB GIRL” inside the lid. I saw that every time I opened that box. Maybe that is why I don’t wear much jewelry.

So, fast-forward about 30 years. When my oldest daughter was 14, she could hardly wait for me to open her gift to me that year. For weeks before Christmas I had jiggled and wiggled it, shook it and held it, trying to figure out what was inside. It was not the shape or size of anything I had asked for. On that Christmas morning, Rebecca, Emily and Seth insisted that I open that gift first. Because of that, I think maybe I expected it to be a camera. Imagine my surprise, when the wrapping paper came off, to find a little jewelry box, with a ballerina and a music box! I cried like a baby! Those were uncontrollable sobs and a flood of tears. My children sat there, the looks on their faces telling me that they thought they had done something terribly wrong. How could they even begin to understand what that jewelry box meant to me? How could they know they had given me my childhood? That there was so much more than just a little jewelry box inside that gift? Yeah, a stupid as it sounds, that one moment is THE moment in my life that I cherish most. I still have that little music box, and the little ballerina presides over my most precious jewelry. All the rest of it goes into an empty baby wipes plastic box.

A year or so after I received the ballerina music box, my children surprised me again. This time, it was Emily’s gift. That year, my son and I went together on a Saturday morning to take the test for a GED. I had never finished high school and Seth had quit as soon as he turned 16. So, to get him to go take the test, I volunteered to go with him. We both passed with flying colors, and received our GED certificates in the mail. That year, Emily gave me a high school class ring for Christmas. It has the year I took the GED test, the name of the high school I attended when I was a teenager, my first name, and a tiger on the outside of it. There is an emerald green stone, because my birthstone is an emerald. My initials are engraved on the inside. I didn’t cry like I did when I received the jewelry box, but just knowing how proud my children must have been of me was a wonderful feeling. I keep that ring in my ballerina music box.

And so, here we are at Christmas time again. I hope you have enjoyed my stories, and may you all have a memorable Christmas this year.

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Blah Blah Blah

Karen · Leave a Comment

The View from my Window.

It is hard to believe that we have been here at Unicoi for a month now. When we left Virginia, I was looking forward to having some time to get some things done. I wanted to finish Becky’s quilt and start quilting Rebecca’s, but I have not had time to put even one stitch in either one of them. I wanted to go to Jim’s mothers and have her give me some more lessons on wire-wrap jewelry making. I wanted to be able to take some photos every day. So far, I haven’t accomplished any of that. I’m beginning to think that we need to go back to Virginia so we can rest a bit.

Let’s see, in the last month there was Thanksgiving, Jim’s Dad in the hospital, the trip to Douglasville to get haircuts and visit my Mom and our daughters, buying the new trailer, moving from the old one to the new one, going to Gainesville for eyeglasses, working our volunteer hours, and on and on. I hope the next month will be a little calmer. My plan now is to be able to have some time to sort through all the junk I “found” when we moved, and get rid of some of it. I was truly embarrassed at how much stuff I have accumulated in the six years we lived in that little trailer.

In other news, I heard from my granddaughter Sarah’s mother, my ex-daughter-in-law (EDIL). She gave birth to a new baby girl (with her new husband) in Tacoma, Washington. She says Sarah is tickled to have a baby sister. She is making all A’s in school (I’m not surprised at that) and has made some new friends since they moved up there. They are going to Tennessee for a few days to have the baby dedicated at their church there and to have Sarah baptized. I am glad that my EDIL is happy.

I also heard from my new daughter-in-law, Sarah. We call her Sarah England, because it is so confusing to have Sarah the granddaughter and Sarah the new daughter-in-law. Sarah England and Seth, my son, are coming to the states in January. Well, at least Seth and Michael are coming, and Sarah is in the process of getting her visa. She may have to stay in England a month or six until it comes through, but they are working on it and have a “B” plan, in case they have to be apart for a few months. Seth will be stationed in Maryland at Andrews AFB, just a little hop from Urbanna. Jim and I are looking forward to spending some time with them this coming summer.

Oh, and Rebecca called to tell me she is going to move in with “Not My Boyfriend, Joe”. He has been her “friend” for several years, and has just bought a new condo. She is going to be his room-mate. She will be paying the same rent she pays now for her tiny walk-up apartment in Ghent, and will have a lot more room. She also said that he will buy the groceries and she will do the cooking for them. She is a pretty good cook, and she has been cooking for him for several years, but at least now he will be paying for the groceries.

Becky, our other daughter, has almost the same arrangement with her room-mate, Scott. He has been her friend since high school. When she bought her condo in Atlanta, he moved in with her as her roomie.

Emily told me that she moved Spencer from the Lutheran kindergarten she had in because the pastor there washed his mouth out with soap. Can you believe that? She said while Spencer was going there, he stayed in trouble all the time. The teachers and the principal of that school said he started fights with other children, pinched them, bit them, tried to take toys away from them, and said bad words. Then, when Emily was there as the “room Mom” for the Halloween party, she observed that Spencer was laying on the floor playing with a truck when another child came up and tried to take it away from him. When Spencer said, “No, I was playing with it first”, the teacher said, “Spencer, stop that!” Emily said it was like the teacher automatically assumed that Spencer was the bad child, even though she was sitting right there and saw the other child come and start the little dispute. Spencer has been at the new school for two weeks and has not been in trouble one time. The teachers there say they don’t see any of the problems Emily told them about at the other school. Hmmm…

I guess that is all the news I have for the moment. What’s up with “all y’all”? Feel free to post comments…

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Get a cup of coffe and a donut, this could take a while…

Karen · Leave a Comment

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This past week has been really busy for us. It started with Thankgiving. I cooked Thanksgiving Dinner for Fabgrandpa’s family. Well, most of it. I made Sunday Best Roaster chickens, dressing, gravy, butter peas, creamed corn and sweet potato casserole using Linda’s recipe. It was all good, and the other family women brought things too. Let’s just say it was “challenging” to pull this thing off.

Then, on Friday, we worked again for a half day. On Sunday, we went for a long drive around the mountains with Gary and Faye. They had never been to Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia, so we drove up there. We were all excited about being able to take the shuttle to the top and being able to see 4 or 5 states from up there, but, no, the place was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday so we did not get to do it. But, the drive was nice and had a nice long afternoon to visit with our friends.

On Monday, we went down to Gainesville to file an unemployment claim. They said we would hear something from them in 14 business days, but to go ahead and file for the week until we heard from them one way or the other.

We worked a half day again in the morning on Tueday, then we decided we needed to go to the grocery store. We did that and spent a ton of $$, but now we have everything we need to eat like pigs for at least three weeks, maybe four. On the way home from the grocery store, Fabgrandpa’s mother called to tell us that his Dad was admitted to the hospital. They were at the doctor’s office and they sent him to the hospital in an ambulance. One of their friends took Nana to the hospital since she does not drive, so we headed down there to see what we could do for her and to wait with her until she was ready to go home. She decided to stay, so we went home.

On Wednesday morning, she called us and told us they had not found out what was wrong with Poppa yet, and would be doing more tests, so there was no need for us to come to the hospital, so we went ahead with our plans to go to Douglasville.

We went to Becky’s shop to get haircuts, which we both desperately needed. After the haircuts, I went to my mother’s and Fabgrandpa and Becky went to the mall to hang out and go to a movie.

I had a very good visit with my Mom. She was nice and sweet and we had a nice conversation. She gave me a ham sandwich and one of Linda’s mince meat cookie bars and didn’t say anything about me being fat or anything. She gave me some home made pound cake with chocolate fudge frosting and some apple butter to take home with me. It was a very nice afternoon. Dick and Donna came by and I got to finally meet her. She is very nice and I am glad he has found someone to love and to make him happy. He deserves that in his life. When I got ready to leave to go and meet Emily and Spencer, Mama hugged me tight. It felt good.

I met Emily and Spencer at a place called Monkey Joe’s. It is an indoor playground-party place. It is full of things to jump on, slide on, run around on, crawl through, etc… for kids. Spencer was running at top speed, like a short cute little bullet. He is very fast and seemed to never run out of energy. I felt a little bad for Emily, because every few minutes she had to run like a mad woman to catch Spencer jut before he snatched an ice cream or candy bar from the counter and ran away with it. I brought him two little turtles (toys) and a glow in the dark t-shirt from Unicoi State Park. He took an instant attachment to the turtles. He named them Ned and Ted.

From there, we went to Fabgrandpa’s favorite barbecue restaurant, Hudson’s Hickory House, for dinner. There was me and Fabgrandpa, Becky, Emily, Tommy, and Spencer. It was nice to sit down as a family together and eat dinner. (It was also nice to have my favorite bbq ribs! Yum!)

We left Douglasville about 6:30 pm and drove to Gainesville. We stopped at the hospital to pick Nana up and take her home. She announced that she was going to stay another night, and Poppa said if she did then he was going to sign himself out of the hospital. He said it very loudly and with a lot of expletive deleteds. She got
her feelings hurt, but I do understand that he did not want any company. He was still in pain, and they had filled him up with laxatives in preparation for a barium enema on Thursday, so he was not in the mood for company from anyone. We took her home and stayed with her a while, and finally got home around 11pm.

Thursday, we worked a half day again, then went to Nana’s house and stayed with her until Mike got there to spend the night with her. He is taking her to a doctor appointment today, then down to the hopsital in Gainesville to visit Poppa for a few minutes, before he brings home. He is supposed to call us if he decided not to spend the night again so one of us can go over there.

So, that has been our week, very hectic and busy, some fun, some not,
but life is like that. I hope all of you are doing well, and having
some fun along the way. I am waiting to hear from you all.

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The Dock

Karen · Leave a Comment

The main reason we came to Virginia to work this season is that my daughter the artist lives in Norfolk. She moved up here about eight years ago to go to graduate school and never left. She is pretty much a Virginian now, and probably won’t leave there. She has visited us where ever we have been, but we decided to make it easy on her to come to see us. The place where we are living and working is only about 85 miles from her home. Here she is on a recent day trip to Kilmarnock in an antique store, hamming it up with a fake cake.

Like I said a few posts ago, she was an art teacher at a private school for children with learning disabilities for several years, but has decided to pursue her dream and work on marketing her own artwork. She entered her first juried art show and won Best of Show! We were very proud of that.

The second reason (well, it came in pretty close to being the first reason but I couldn’t very well say to my daughter that eating crabs was more important than being close to her!!) we came to Virginia is the abundance of blue crabs, free for the taking, out of the river. All you have to do is put some chicken necks in your crab trap and go back the next morning and there they are. Steam them with some Old Bay seasoning, and you have the best dinner (or lunch or breakfast) you could ever want. And if for some reason you forgot to put the chicken necks in your trap, someone is always bringing you some already steamed. How could anyone NOT want to be near a place where they could have steamed crabs anytime they wanted them?

Finally, here is the real reason we came here:
FabGrandpa loves to fish. Here he is “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay”, fishing his heart out. This campground is on Robinson’s Creek, which goes into the Rapphannock River, which goes into the Chesapeake Bay. There are six or seven docks to fish from on the creek, canoes for rent for getting even closer to the fish, and a large freshwater lake on the property. He goes fishing on his lunch hour almost every day. Fishing is what keeps him happy. Oh, and I love fishing too!

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My Daughter the Artist

Karen · Leave a Comment

My daughter, Becca, was an art teacher at a private school for children with learning disabilities until this past spring, but has now decided to pursue her dreams and spend more time working on her own artwork.

She is the artist who produced the painting you see here. While I will let you form your own opinion of her work, I think she is pretty good. (yeah, I know, I am her mother)

She has this painting up for auction on ebay to benefit NOMHRF. 75% of the proceeds from the auction will go to the charity. If you like the painting or even if you like jazz and blues music, please bid on this auction, or send the link to your friends and acquaintances.

To see more of Becca’s work, click here to go to her blog.

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