Buffalo Wild Wings

The other night two of my daughters met at Buffalo Wild Wings with their boyfriend and/or husband. I dropped the hint to them that I was really jealous they were there and I was home NOT eating BBQ wings. The hint was supposed to be translated as thus: Mom would love some BBQ wings – Please get them for her.

So I texted each of them to tell them how my mouth was salivating just thinking about the wings, and they wrote back, LOL.

LOL? That's it? Not, OK, Mom, we'll pick some up for you?

The next day, I decided I HAD to have some BBQ wings (for me it's an addiction, like chocolate is to some people), so I dragged myself to the store (offering to buy diapers for my grandson), and roamed the aisles in search of my chicken wings.

Gone! Completely out. These types of things happen to me all the time. It's like some subliminal message gets sent out into the universe – Theresa wants wings – hurry, send sixty people to the stores – all of them – to buy them out.

At one point, I was willing to just suck down a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's, but fortunately I found my wings and I am now happy.

So, for future reference, if any of you who know me are EVER in a place that sells BBQ wings, pick some up for me. P-L-E-A-S-E!

The Inside Voice & Old Maid

My grandkids crack me up and I love it when I witness events I can blog about or when I hear from family members something my grandkids (or even my kids) have said or done. I wish more of them would let me know when somebody does something cute or funny (HINT HINT).

Because I'm around Audrey so often, Audrey is the subject of many of my blogs. Kaden, either when I'm with him or when I hear about something he has said or done, makes my blogs as well. Just plug either one of their names into the search area of this blog and you can read more about either one of them.

 This first story is about Kaden, who was probably just trying to help his mom:

We often wonder if our kids listen to us, or for that matter if they even hear us. So we tend to repeat phrases and sometimes find ourselves asking, "Are you listening?" or "Did you hear what I just said?"

My son, Greg (Kaden's daddy), always left me wondering if he was listening to me. He had this amazing ability to be involved in several things at the same time and he could focus on all of them at once. He watched television, did his homework, and listened to conversations going on around him without missing any details. When tested on each component, he could explain what just happened on TV, which homework problem he was working on, and what we were discussing at the dining room table.

Unlike Greg, though, most kids have what I consider to be selective listening. They pretend to ignore their parents, which infuriates us even more, and we send them to their rooms or to the punishment corner or to the bad chair because they didn't pay attention to us.

But let me tell you, they HEAR us and they LISTEN to us. How do I know? Because when you least expect it, they will REPEAT us.

The other day when my daughter-in-law, Michelle (Greg's wife), was yelling at her youngest son, Zac (who is 2-years-old), Kaden (who will be five in February), called out,  "Hey, Mom, let's use our INSIDE voices."

You don't have to wonder where he heard that one.

And now a little story about Audrey:

Old Maid is definitely a game for more than two players. Everybody knows that, but when you're a kid, you just want to play and it doesn't matter how many people are playing the game with you.

So the other day, my five year-old granddaughter, Audrey, and her mommy, Brittney (my daughter), were playing Old Maid. They were the only two playing the game.

At one point Audrey pulled me aside and said, "Grandma, don't tell Mommy, but I have the witch."

If you'd like to read more kid stories about lots of other children, click on Kiddy Kwips.

The photo at the top is of Kaden playing the Wii with his dad. The photo on the bottom is of Audrey.

Imagine All the People Living In Peace

For years I wanted to start a different kind of peace movement. I even sent out emails asking people to participate in what I called "Pause for Peace". Around the globe I wanted everybody, twice a day, if possible, to focus on peace, to pray for peace, or to just pause for peace. If all the energies of everybody interested in starting a peace movement were focused on that one word, I thought we stood a chance of bringing peace into the world.

And now, many years later, I found a "tweet" through twitter that brought me to THIS SITE. Yoko Ono is continuing her and her husband's crusade to spread peace throughout the world. She, together with other spiritual leaders throughout the world are promoting a "One-ness" day, a day set aside to recognize and celebrate our commonalities and our differences. She asks us to sign a petition so that we can all celebrate a Oneness Day, a day of peace.

Imagine that. Imagine Peace.

Borrowing from imaginepeace.com: "Celebrities such as Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson, Joe Vitale, Deepak Chopra, Timothy Freke and Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, signed it.  Won’t you?"

I did.

By the way, the photo was taken from the video that is located under the words, "WAR IS OVER" and, at one place toward the end of the video, you can hear one of my favorite Christmas songs by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Happy Christmas (War is Over).

New Flooring for My Home

For all my British (and possibly State-side) friends:

My daughter and son-in-law will be moving out in approximately two months. I looked around at the flooring in my home and thought even a good carpet cleaner wouldn't help. And if I have to sell this place, I might have to take care of the carpets and kitchen flooring before I leave.

So I started looking into flooring. If you regularly read my blog, you know I hate shopping, so I do most of mine online. I honestly never expected to find an online flooring outlet, but surprisingly, I did – I found some beautiful flooring at UK Flooring Direct with discounts that save consumers sometimes as much as 84%! It's like shopping at a flooring factory in your own home.

Growing up, my parents had vinyl flooring throughout our home, from the kitchen and bathroom into the bedrooms. The durability of those floor coverings lasted for years. So I checked vinyl flooring first. It's inexpensive but it looks great. Once I started looking, I couldn't help but notice all the different types of vinyl, some of which look like stone. If I choose vinyl for the bedrooms, I'll go with the stone type.

What's nice about UK Flooring Direct is that they offer pertinent information about a variety of floor coverings, including carpets (Berber is my favorite), solid wood flooring, Pergo Laminate Flooring and so much more. So instead of standing in a showroom to ask the sales clerk what you need to know, all you have to do is click the links on the bottom of the page for information about each type of floor covering. And notice that when you run your mouse over the photos of the different floor coverings, a larger image appears.

(For my American friends: I'm not sure if they deliver to the States – it doesn't say they don't – I'm still checking out the site, but if you don't know how to convert British money to American money, check out  Coin Mill – it will tell you what the American equivalent is to the pound. Just enter the amount in the yellow box and you can see the conversion amount.)

Photo borrowed from UK Flooring Direct

Feeding Monk

The year was 1982. I had just brought home from the hospital my newborn baby, Greg. My oldest daughter, Keeley, who was 13 at the time, was at school during the day, and I had the privilege of being a stay-at-home mom.

My 15-month old daughter, Lindsey, adapted well to her new sibling. Intrigued by her new little brother, Lindsey frequently stood next to Greg's cradle peering down at him while sucking her thumb and playing with her hair, probably wondering if he was a permanent addition to our family.

Lindsey's favorite toy at that time was a little white furry monkey named Monk. Monk had a plastic face, hands, feet, and belly. Monk could poke his thumb into his belly, his ears, or his mouth, and Lindsey carried him around with her everywhere. Every time I held Greg, she grabbed her little monkey and held him as I did her brother.

She wrapped Monk in blankets, hugged him, kissed him, wiped his face, stuck his thumb into his belly, his ears, and his mouth, and treated him as if he were her baby.

One day, during Greg's first week home, as I was sitting on the couch getting ready to nurse Greg, Lindsey noticed me sitting on the couch and ran to grab Monk. Sitting on the floor next to my feet, she pulled up her shirt and very gently stuffed Monk under her shirt and carefully placed his mouth on her nipple.

Instantaneously I burst into explosive laughter, causing Greg to lose his grip.

Nursing an infant when you can't sit still because you're jiggling from laughter is nearly impossible. Greg was getting frustrated that his food supply was being compromised, and I was laughing so hard, I couldn't keep his mouth in place. But I also had to hide the fact that I was laughing, because Lindsey, even at the age of 15 months, became incensed if she thought anybody was laughing at her.

This event repeated itself every day, morning, noon, and night. Lindsey, Greg, Monk, and I became nursing buddies. And while I never stopped laughing at Lindsey's imitation of me as she fed her little monkey, I never let her see me laughing either. Eventually I learned how to enjoy our nursing time together without starving Greg.

(The photo on the left shows Monk with my youngest daughter, Brittney. Photo on the right shows Lindsey at the age when she was nursing Monk. Behind her on the right, though you cannot see his face, is her brother Greg at two months old.)

The Sackless Boob

My five year-old granddaughter, Audrey, was sitting at the table with me coloring while I was writing blogs on my laptop when she accidentally broke off the tip of her crayon.

I knew she didn't know about the sharpener at the back of the box, so I asked her if I could see her crayon box.

"It's my crayon box," she informed me.

"I know. I just want to see it."

"Well, it's mine."

"Can I just see it?"

We bantered back and forth until finally I said, "Never mind, Audrey." I then got up to put on some water for the spaghetti I was making.

Sensing that she had upset me (she didn't, but she's empathetic and I knew that my leaving the table would cause her to think she had), she arose from the table and walked over to where her mother was sitting.

"Sorry, Mom (yeah, she apologized to her mother; not to me), "I'm just a sackless boob."

Now here's my question – I have never heard this phrase spoken before – did she make it up or did she hear it on The Simpsons (her dad's favorite show)?