The Toothpaste Bandit

While other children sneak into the pantry to steal food, and while they gingerly open the refrigerator to sneak whatever goodies they can find, my grandson sneaks into the bathroom to steal whatever toothbrush he can find.

Today I found an open tube of toothpaste in my bathroom. Nolan had snuck into one of the other bathrooms, located his target (his toothbrush and toothpaste), ran through the house to hide out in my bathroom, where he meticulously unscrewed the toothpaste, and managed to get the toothpaste directly onto the toothbrush.

Except for the fact that his face was smeared with a pasty green substance, and except for the open tube in my bathroom, he might have gotten away with his thievery. 

So, what do you think – future dentist?

Nobody Warned My Grandson About My Mother

My mother called my daughter today at 3:00 in the afternoon. My grandson, Jeremy, picked up the phone.

"Let me talk to your mother."

"She's sleeping."

Mom was aghast. "She's sleeping???? At 3:00 in the afternoon??? Wake her up!" You see, in Mom's world, NOBODY should be sleeping when she isn't.

Look at her. Yes, that is my mother. When I stand next to her, with my white hair, I look like HER mother. But I digress. Back to the story:

Mom heard Jeremy's footsteps heading toward the bedroom. And she heard him ask his mother to wake up. She also heard his footsteps return to the phone.

"She's still sleeping." This made no sense to my mother, who became even more infuriated.

"WELL, WAKE HER UP! I WANT TO TALK TO HER!" 

After several seconds, Jeremy said, "OK, she's up, but now she's washing the dishes."

My mother is not quite 5'2" tall. But she thinks she's a giant. When I place quotes around what appears to be a booming voice, I must confess, she actually squeaks, so it sounds more like, "tell her to come to the phone now!!" rather than, "TELL HER TO COME TO THE PHONE NOW!!"

But Jeremy obeys her anyway. After all, he is her great grandson. Several seconds passed before Jeremy responded, "OK."

Several more seconds passed before Jeremy told my mother that my daughter couldn't come to the phone.

Mom was livid. "YOU TELL YOUR MOTHER I AM VERY VERY ANGRY AT HER." Remember, it sounds more like, "you tell your mother I am very very angry at her."

Jeremy said, "OK" and hung up.

Two hours later, my daughter called my mother to find out why she was very very very very very very angry with her – that was what Jeremy's note said.

And this is what my mother found out. Jeremy was told not to tell ANYBODY he was home alone. So Jeremy felt safe telling people his mother was asleep. He never expected anybody to torment him about it. Normally, one would expect that telling the caller his mother was asleep would be reason enough to say, "OK, I'll call back later."

However, we are talking about my mother here.

Tickling

A blog I just posted in my Help for Single Parents blog just reminded me of an incident that occurred when I was a child.

I was coming down the hall in school after having just gone to church with everybody else in my second grade class. Dale was the first one in the room. I followed him. Nobody was behind me, because Dale and I walked faster than the rest of the class.

There he was, this adorable little blonde, curly-haired seven year old. I couldn't help myself. I ran down the aisle and I tickled him. 

He looked at me in horror – WHY DID YOU DO THAT?

I should have said, "Well, Dale, I obviously suffer from impulse control." But my little seven year old brain was incapable of explaining my outrageous behavior. I retreated to my seat in shock, surprising even myself. What possessed me? 

Nobody said anything when the other kids filtered into the room and took their seats. Dale sat as still as a statue, frozen in his seat, terrorized by this much taller seven year old kid with razor sharp nails that probably sliced through his clothing – a Freddy Krueger movie in the making.

I'm sure I gave the kid nightmares, because I came out of nowhere and just plunged my fingers into his side, tickling and tickling him because he was just so darned cute.

Just goes to show you can turn a nightmare into something fun. I don't think I'll tell the kids in my daycare about Freddy, though – or Dale.

Dreams are Magical

I've always believed that dreams could provide answers and, in fact, they have numerous times. I recount one of those situations in my blog, which I invite you to click on – Help For Single Parents.

So having always been interested in metaphysical subjects, when I came across the School of Metaphysics, I couldn't help but jot down their phone number and call them for an interview. What I discovered was very timely: coming next month are a couple of events I want you to know about. One of them is the National Dream Weekend and the other is the Global Lucid Dreaming Experiment. You can find the information for both of these events by clicking on this article, Have Your Dreams Analyzed FREE During National Dream Weekend.

Sweet Dreams!

The Man In My Sister's Bed

Cindy, my little sister, was around four years old – I was about five and a half – when with voice quivering, she begged me to join her in her bed.

A frantic whisper spread across the room into my ears. "There's a man in my bed! Come here!"

Our twin sized beds were on different walls separated only by the corner with the door. I was the older sister who should help my little sister. But how would I get there without putting my feet on the floor? It was a problem. I couldn't do it. So I offered her some advice.

"Turn around." Yeah, that would get the imaginary man out of her bed. It was the best I could offer.

"I'm scared. Please come here. He has my doll."

She was getting on my nerves. 

"So turn around really quick, grab your doll, and turn around again."

"I'm too scared," she pleaded, crying. "Pleeeeeaaase come here!"

A conscience is a really strange thing to acknowledge when you're not yet six years old. I felt terrible about my little sister's dilemma, but I had to show her how brave I was too; otherwise she might think I was a coward for not helping her.

So I solved the problem this way: "You come here."

"I can't. I'm too afraid."

"Run really fast (the distance from the bottom of her bed to the bottom of my bed was approximately four feet) or jump off the end of your bed onto the end of mine."

"I can't move. I'm too scared. I can hear him breathing." Cry cry sob sob.

The problem was more than I could handle. I really really really wanted to help her. I just couldn't explain to her that the reason I couldn't join her in her bed was because the second my feet hit the floor, the man under my bed would grab me by the ankles and pull me into oblivion. 

I don't remember how we fell asleep that night. We went through numerous years of sibling rivalry, probably as a result of me abandoning her in her time of need, but – thankfully – we're friends now.

A Day of Blogs

This past weekend I was sick (still am - COPD), but instead of resting, something my body refuses to do EVER, I sat at my computer (so, yes, I guess in a way I was resting), and I wrote ALL DAY LONG!

I finished an article, Miracle on the Rock, for Associated Content, and I created a new blog at – oh, no – I can't remember the name of my new blog. Well, actually, I can remember the name, because it's my name, but I can't remember where I put it.

Ah, thank you, mind, I remember – it's located on wordpress. Yes. I forgot to put that little piece of information into my online folder which I have aptly called Where Things Are. My Where Things Are folder includes miscellaneous writings and things I've placed around my actual home.

You see, I have a habit of putting things in places where NOBODY will find them. Sadly, NOBODY includes me. I'll say things like, Hmm, where should I put this? Oh, yes, here. I'll put it here. Nobody will find it here. And that's true. Nobody, including me, will ever find it.

Usually it's because I'm interrupted. Somebody needs me (it's so lovely to be needed) and I drop whatever I'm doing to attend to his or her needs, and when I go back to retrieve the item I dropped, it is gone. Somebody may have kicked it under the bed or thrown it into a toy bin. So when I find my lost treasure, I immediately put it somewhere safe.

When I look for something I can't find, I automatically assume it's been stolen, because I can't find it anywhere. Even when I'm the only one home – poltergeists? But I was getting tired of looking for things so I created my Where Things Are folder.

I forget passwords too. Like the one for my myspace account. I've been phished so many times on it, and I've had so many passwords for it, that I always have to think about what the password is TODAY!

I'm done. If you happen across this blog and are interested in reading Miracle on the Rock, go to Associated Content, run a search on the title – put it in quotes – and read about how God answered my prayer.

What is going on in the blog world?

So far today I have posted two different blogs that posted before I wanted them to. Some button I pushed, and I don't know which offending key I accidentally pushed, caused me to publish NOTHING!

What I wanted to say in this blog is how incredibly difficult it is to write a blog, an article, or anything, when my schedule, or what I think is my schedule, changes from second to second.

Case in point: this morning, as I sat at my computer, trying to write with what little time I had, I received a phone call from my son-in-law asking me if he could bring his son over NOW. Goodbye writing time.

I just want a little time for me! It that so much to ask? And if you know you have a meeting that requires my "me" time, can't you at least ask the day before so I can prepare for it? When I know I don't have time to write, I don't write. But when I think I have time to write and you take it away from me at the last possible second, I feel as if my time has been stolen from me.

Well, whatever, there's always retirement. Hopefully I won't be too feeble or too old to enjoy it. In the meantime, at least I get to spend time with a couple of my grandchildren. And if it was a choice between writing and spending time with my grandchildren (any of them) or my children or even my most treasured friends, I would set aside the writing. It's just how I am – "our" time is even more precious than "me" time "all" of the time.

Yesterday's trip

Here is a photo of my trip yesterday.

It occurred in only a minute and it happened so far inland that people will not believe it was actually a monsoon. After all, I am nowhere near the Indian Ocean or southwest India or southern Asia. 

I was standing under the canopy of a restaurant pushing one of my granddaughters into the truck so I could climb over her to sit in between her and one of my grandsons in the back seat. In that one minute, the bottoms of my jeans were soaked with rain. Remember, I was under a canopy. But the rain was blowing horizontally and at such a horrific rate of speed, it took only seconds before I was completely soaked.

On the way home my son-in-law found it difficult to keep the truck on the road. I have to hand it to him, though, I think I too would find it difficult to study and drive at the same time DURING A WIND STORM. My daughter was sleeping in the passenger seat after we noticed an upright truck with an upside down trailer sitting in the ditch. I gripped my imaginary steering wheel and pretended we were in nirvana.

Prior to our arrival, though, on the way TO meet my other daughter and my daughter-in-law, my youngest daughter drove so that her husband could study without driving. Their son, who was sitting next to me in the back seat, was crying for his mommy. He wanted her to hold him. Grandma doesn't exist when Mommy is around. Mommy comes first. But when my daughter turned around to comfort her son, a thousand cars stopped in front of her and we had to come to a halting screech. That was when my granddaughter leaned over to me to say that (even though at first it scared her) it was "a tiny bit fun."

I'm sure memories of Disneyland rides were still fresh in her mind from a couple of weeks ago.

When I arrived home, the daughter we met at the restaurant told me that three tornadoes were sighted while we were standing outside the restaurant and that people at the local mall had to vacate the stores and stand in the middle of the mall while they waited for the weather to pass.

We didn't know about the warnings, so we drove home through tornado/hurricane and monsoon-type conditions. See actual photo above. It was exhilarating!

P.S. I tend to exaggerate.

Grease Babies: Cute Video

As a daycare provider and a lover of the movie, Grease, I had to pass this along:

http://members.shaw.ca/anabw/grease.htm