Gulf Coast Family

Christmas season is here again – it seems like it comes around faster and faster every year! It doesn’t really help that in our house, Christmas decorations don’t get put away until February at the earliest. If you put decorations up in mid-November, and don’t take them down until mid-February, that leaves only 9 months in between. And those 9 months still have their fair share of Christmas music playing, since it is my husband’s favorite genre.

It’s always a humbling experience to be chastised by one of your own children, whether deserved or not, isn’t it? I think about the times when my 14-year-old looks at the speedometer when I’m driving and informs me that I am breaking the law. Or when my 7-year-old complains that she had to miss a few minutes of recess because I didn’t sign her homework (no mention that she didn’t bother to show me the homework, but that’s a separate issue).

“Note to self: parties are really important!”

It’s hard to believe that summer is already over and school is back in full swing. My girls of course are thrilled to be back in school, and my boys are something less than thrilled.

“she was a little disenchanted last year since it turned out that there was a lot more work to do in first grade than there had been in kindergarten”

I’ve been a sister to two of them for 28 years now, I’ve been married to one of them for 18 years, and I’ve been a mother to one for 14 years and another for 10 years. But even after all this time, I still wonder if I will ever be able to understand the first thing about boys.

“all of the girls on the bus and even a few of the boys ran straight to hug their moms and/or dads. But not Daniel”

Preschool logic is always a lot of fun to listen to and often very hard to refute. I’ll never forget the time my oldest son, David, came up to me when he was 4 years old and said, “Mommy, when you eat applesauce, it helps you to be healthy. And when you’re healthy, it helps you not do die. So can I have some applesauce?” I let him have some, obviously. After all, how would a mother manage to persuade a child that even if he can’t have any applesauce, she still doesn’t want him to die?

Taking my youngest daughter, Haylee, out in public is always an exciting experience – and sometimes an embarrassing one as well.

If I had to pick a favorite month, it would almost certainly be the month of May. There are a lot of reasons why May is at least among my favorite months of the year.

When my 14-year-old, David, needs to be distracted for a while from whatever mischief he is getting himself into, one of the tricks in my arsenal is to have him stop and do some yoga poses. He’s learned several from playing Wii Fit, he is pretty good at them, and they get him preoccupied doing something other than harassing his younger brothers and sisters (which is always a good thing!).

I have many fond memories of my grandfather who passed away this past month at the not-old-enough age of 87. I always loved to hear him sing – he had a loud, clear voice that could fill a room of any size. It is also fun to remember how he could always find something to tease my Grandma about (even after 66 years of marriage, she would fall for his jokes every time). And he always had a cheerful disposition, no matter what the circumstances – he did like to act grumpy before he had his coffee in the morning, but anyone could see right through that act.

“Mean Mommy!” Yes, as the parent of a strong-willed three-year-old, I hear those words a lot.

I hear them when I tell Haylee that she needs to get buckled into her car seat or she won’t be going to the store with me. I hear them when I tell her she can’t wear a pink and blue striped shirt with her green and purple polka-dotted pants. And I hear them when I tell her she can’t have Coke at 9:00 at night.

“My poor baby was devastated that I wouldn’t buy her a Hello Kitty doll”