“Clara, Sweetheart… have you been reading your thesaurus again today?” “Yes! I LOVE my thesaurus. How did you know?” “Well, for starters, normal people don’t greet their dad when they walk in the door by announcing that they made ‘Deviled Ovums’.”
“Clara, Sweetheart… have you been reading your thesaurus again today?” “Yes! I LOVE my thesaurus. How did you know?” “Well, for starters, normal people don’t greet their dad when they walk in the door by announcing that they made ‘Deviled Ovums’.”
Clara lifted the book she was reading to show her sister a picture. “Look, Lydia. Here’s the owls. Aren’t they cute?” “No,” Lydia said flatly. “They look cold and miserable.” “Oh, do they? Huh… I guess they kindof do look miserable. But also, well, that’s just how owls look.” “Well,” Lydia said, with a dismissive flip of her wrist. “They should have been humans instead. Then they wouldn’t have to deal with that sort of thing. Sleeping in trees and eating mice.” “Yeah,” I joined in. “Silly owls, eating mice. Let them eat cake, right?” “Yes!” the little princess cheered. “They should be like us, and eat cake!”
“I can’t wait to go to Gran and Papa’s house for Easter tomorrow,” Lydia swooned dramatically and fell backward into my arms. “Oof, watch my toes,” I told her, standing her back up and spinning her in a circle. “What are you looking forward to most about Gran and Papa’s?” She curtseyed and then pirouetted while using my shoulder for support. “I am very excited about the rabbits!” My parents have rabbits that live in their yard. While I was growing up, there were no rabbits at all in the yard, just some neighbors that raised pet rabbits. Fast-forward several decades and there is now an entire rabbit civilization developing on my parent’s lawn. The little-girl-that-never-stops-moving closed her eyes and fell into me again,…
“Dad,” Clara interrupted my evening reading from her perch in the nearby bed. “Why is Sir Topham Hatt drunk?” I closed my Thomas the Train little golden book and looked up, “Um. What? The conductor? What makes you think he is drunk?” She pointed at me accusingly, and said, “You! The way you are reading it. You are making him sound like he is drunk.” “Well, I mean… he’s British, right? He has an accent.” “Yes,” Lydia joined in, “Maybe he’s from Britain, but he doesn’t have to be drunk.” “He’s not drunk,” I assured them. “That’s just… Isn’t this how he sounds on the show?” “No,” Lydia said sharply and Clara’s head bobbed up and down in agreement. “What does he sound like…
I turned around to find Gideon following a short distance behind me on the trail, his arms filled with sticks of various sizes and shapes. He smiled at me and attempted to wave, and this made several of the sticks fall out of his hands and he awkwardly leaned over to pick them up which only led to him dropping the rest of them and nearly falling over onto his head. I walked back and helped him collect his treasures into a more manageable bundle. I felt bad for the little boy. I can’t imagine what it must be like to grow up in Alaska and yet not have a yard full of sticks to play with. He was growing up so much differently…
I shuffled through the books I was holding and turned to Clara. “Hey, I’m about to go to the cash register, but I have one thing for everyone except for you. Are you sure there is nothing you want?” She considered this and glanced around at the store. “Oh, I don’t know… I’m sure there is something…” She looked over at the children’s book section and then at the used DVDs. She brushed a strand of hair out of her face and turned towards the journals and bookmarks. “I guess I’ll just take $20 dollars in cash.” I stared at her blankly for a few more moments. She continued to stand in one place and turn in circles. “Yeah. Probably just the money…” I shook…
I was feeling kind of sorry for my boy as he got dressed this morning and prepared to get into the car with his sisters and mother so they could all attend a home-school convention in town today. I knew he had no idea what he was getting into. He had no concept of how long he was going to have to sit, patiently waiting through boring lectures, or how many miles he would walk holding onto the loop of his mother’s purse as they wandered through aisles of booths filled with curriculum books and plastic coated flash cards. Kind women with their hair done up in buns would spend the day leaning down to adjust his collar and smile about how cute he…