Tonight, after a long first week of kindergarten, the girls decided to have a slumber party, which is to say, they decided to sleep on their floor, everything else was still the same. And since Annabelle has already brought home three worksheets from her school that is supposed to be for gifted and talented kids, I decided that I will have to supplement the things that are gifted about Annabelle at home. Since Annabelle was really into the Romans and Egyptians earlier this summer, I decided to read this history book to her that was mentioned in the Well Trained Mind and also recommended by my sister in law. In it is a story about two Egyptian gods, brothers, where one killed the other. We read it along with some Berenstein Bears and a Dora book before bed. The slumber party ended with Tallulah's customary wiggling until she abruptly stops and is asleep. But Annabelle's little well trained mind couldn't let the myth go, and was scared and she is now in our bed, fast asleep.
Before she went to sleep, she was telling me that the story scared her. And it prompted this discussion:
Me: "well, Annabelle, you know that is not true."
A: "Why?"
Me: "well, you heard them talk about gods, and you know there is only one God and that is our God. You see, he came down, from heaven and made himself known to Abraham, and because Abraham was a good man, he promised him that his people, his descendants, would be as numerous as the stars. And do you know who some of those people are?
A: "no"
Me: "you and me, we are. And then some of his people, called the Jews, ended up in Egypt, and the Pharaoh was mean to them and made the Jews slaves, and that made God angry, so punished the Egyptians, and gave the Jews, Moses, who led them out of Egypt, to Israel."
A: "wait, I thought he took them to the promised land."
Me: "He did, and that was Israel, that is where the Jews lived, where Jesus, who was from the house of David, who was a Jew himself, was born. And Moses gave them the laws, rules to live by. And eventually there were a lot of laws--tons and tons--like one law is that you can't eat meat with diary. So no steaks with a glass of milk. And the dishes you eat milk and cheese on have to be totally different from the dishes you eat meat on. Can you believe that? Anyway, there were so many laws, that God noticed that the people were too preoccupied by all these rules and weren't doing the important things, like being nice to each other. So God sent them Jesus, and he told them that the only things that mattered, the only things that were important, was to love God with your whole heart, and your whole soul and your whole mind and to love your neighbor...
A: "as yourself. So he took all their laws and smushed them into two."
Me: "yes."
A: "just like a hamburger."
Me: "yes, exactly like a hamburger."
During this discussion, H was watching a Kung fu movie on the ipad. That's what he was doing while I was first putting the girls to bed, but was interrupted when some strangers knocked on our door. Two kids in their 20s, see how I can say kids? That's what you do when you are pushing 40, you call people in their early 20s kids. They were on a pub crawl/bike ride when they got a flat tire. He invited them into the garage and tried to air it up, but when that didn't work, he loaded up their bikes in our van and drove them home. Home was an rv park off of shepherd and tidwell, which is not a nice part of town. It was dark and he didn't want them to walk all that way, through that part of town.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
What 16 years with the company will get you.....
A trip with the family to Fort Davis, where we tent camped in the State Park, went to the Fort and the McDonald observatory. Now, we were tempted, or at least I was, to leave the kids with my parents and go by ourselves, since it was us who started the company, but since we are responsible corporate officers, we answer to our shareholders, and also, because they are fun and make life awesome.
Some thoughts on our trip:
1. Screw you Nikon, for telling me my memory card was not formatted, when it totally was, and then refusing to format it, whereby making me take iPhone pictures which cannot possibly capture the beauty of the davis mountains.
2. Grandma, seriously? The road trip present was nice, but.....The gum? The tic tacs? It makes for an interesting drive when the 2 year old eats all the tic tacs before you get to Junction and then starts in on the gum, which she is not supposed to have until she is 5. You would think that Annabelle would back us on this, since she didn't get gum until 30 seconds after she woke up on her 5th birthday, but she has found this rule to be completely arbitrary saying "why? She knows not to swallow it. Let her have it." And we did, and they formed the gum into mini play dough-like animals that played with each other and when they got tired of that and put it on their noses and then eventually it made its way to the floor of the van and Tallulah's puppy purse, and since she is anal, like her dad, she was not happy about this.
4. My kids can rock a 9 hour car trip with no devices and no dvds, and if it sounds like I am bragging, it's because I am.
5. Annabelle is a born naturalist and wanted to go to every talk the rangers were offering at the state park, and was thrilled to death when 5 javelina walked through our campsite. Our neighbor campers were thrilled that she was thrilled, but were thrilled standing on top of their picnic tables. She also delighted in the barrel cactus and yucca, which she thought sounded like caca, And the skunks, and was disappointed that we didn't see the montezuma quail. So was I.
4. Annabelle is now an official junior ranger with the national park system, because she and H got so into the Fort.
5. For as sweet as Tallulah is, as kind as she is, as caring as she is, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, take that child on a nature hike. I cannot stress this enough. If you ever though you saw a child throw a wall eyed fit, you were wrong. If you ever thought, wow that kid at the mall, or park or where ever, is being bratty, spoiled, whatever.... they weren't. Or perhaps you have seen somone else's child and thought, "what crappy parents , they need to give that child a beating." They really didn't. They needed to give Tallulah one instead. I am pretty sure the echoes of her screaming I DON'T WANT TO GO ON A NATURE WALK I WANT TO GO HOME AND NOT TENT HOME I WANT MY GRANDMA are still reverberating throughout the Davis mountains and possibly into Marfa and the surrounding area. The only thing that kept me from having a CPS family plan put in place was her ever patient and somewhat smug and sometimes asshole-ish father, who kept saying " she's two, what did you expect?"
6. See number 5 and apply it to our trip to the fort, where I carried her throughout the entire tour and add in the phrases " I SO HHHHOOOOOTTTTT!!!!!!!! I WANT MY MIIIILLLLKKKK. I WANT MY BING BING. NOOOOWWWW!" (bing bing is her special blanket, who stayed in the car. She is a girl and goes everywhere with us. She does not like other blankets. And if you are nice, she kisses you. She doesn't like being dirty. If Annabelle is sad, she gets to hold bing bing. Cute, right? Doesn't really make up for the tantrums, though).
7. Fort Davis, is like a paradise. It is so remote, that I felt free. It is a green desert, with cotton wood and oaks trees on top of volcanic rocks with an underground river. And there are mountain lions. It was 60 degrees at night and 88 in the day with no humidity. I could live there, but I would need an amazon prime account and a garden, because the grocery store (called thrift away)is limited--bacon was 7 dollars and chips were two for 7. Thrift away. I get it. Like throw your thrift away. But they did have mrs. Meyers clean day products there, go figure. There is also so much to do there, it is amazing. You could easily stay in the area for a week.
8. As a Texan, if you are one, or a non Texan living in our great state, or just the random person from sri lanka who reads my blog, you should make it your duty to go to the McDonald observatory. I saw Saturn. I saw its rings. We saw a red giant, we saw parts of galaxies far, far away. I learned about the earth's wobble and how there used to be a different North Star. And we saw 2 shooting stars, which our instructor insisted we call meteors because we were at the observatory. The company decided that we would not do that. That they were shooting stars, because it sounded better.
We were unanimous on that, at least the 3/4's of us that were still awake. One of us being a little worn out, was asleep in her father's loving arms.
The light from those stars that we were seeing was in some cases millions of years old, they told us how many light years, but I am an English major and do not compute astrophysics, especially when I feel their explanation is incorrect, based on my rudimentary understanding of such things that I gleaned from Stan the Man hutto in high school--but I know that my small company's 16 years is an insignificant grain of sand in comparison.
But it is our grain of sand, and i can hold onto it, with my small hand and see the world inside. And it is a glorious green desert on top of a mountain, with children standing arms outstretched, spinning like they are in the sound of music, and us, the CEO and chairman of the board, smiling, laughing and joining in.
Some thoughts on our trip:
1. Screw you Nikon, for telling me my memory card was not formatted, when it totally was, and then refusing to format it, whereby making me take iPhone pictures which cannot possibly capture the beauty of the davis mountains.
2. Grandma, seriously? The road trip present was nice, but.....The gum? The tic tacs? It makes for an interesting drive when the 2 year old eats all the tic tacs before you get to Junction and then starts in on the gum, which she is not supposed to have until she is 5. You would think that Annabelle would back us on this, since she didn't get gum until 30 seconds after she woke up on her 5th birthday, but she has found this rule to be completely arbitrary saying "why? She knows not to swallow it. Let her have it." And we did, and they formed the gum into mini play dough-like animals that played with each other and when they got tired of that and put it on their noses and then eventually it made its way to the floor of the van and Tallulah's puppy purse, and since she is anal, like her dad, she was not happy about this.
4. My kids can rock a 9 hour car trip with no devices and no dvds, and if it sounds like I am bragging, it's because I am.
5. Annabelle is a born naturalist and wanted to go to every talk the rangers were offering at the state park, and was thrilled to death when 5 javelina walked through our campsite. Our neighbor campers were thrilled that she was thrilled, but were thrilled standing on top of their picnic tables. She also delighted in the barrel cactus and yucca, which she thought sounded like caca, And the skunks, and was disappointed that we didn't see the montezuma quail. So was I.
4. Annabelle is now an official junior ranger with the national park system, because she and H got so into the Fort.
5. For as sweet as Tallulah is, as kind as she is, as caring as she is, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, take that child on a nature hike. I cannot stress this enough. If you ever though you saw a child throw a wall eyed fit, you were wrong. If you ever thought, wow that kid at the mall, or park or where ever, is being bratty, spoiled, whatever.... they weren't. Or perhaps you have seen somone else's child and thought, "what crappy parents , they need to give that child a beating." They really didn't. They needed to give Tallulah one instead. I am pretty sure the echoes of her screaming I DON'T WANT TO GO ON A NATURE WALK I WANT TO GO HOME AND NOT TENT HOME I WANT MY GRANDMA are still reverberating throughout the Davis mountains and possibly into Marfa and the surrounding area. The only thing that kept me from having a CPS family plan put in place was her ever patient and somewhat smug and sometimes asshole-ish father, who kept saying " she's two, what did you expect?"
6. See number 5 and apply it to our trip to the fort, where I carried her throughout the entire tour and add in the phrases " I SO HHHHOOOOOTTTTT!!!!!!!! I WANT MY MIIIILLLLKKKK. I WANT MY BING BING. NOOOOWWWW!" (bing bing is her special blanket, who stayed in the car. She is a girl and goes everywhere with us. She does not like other blankets. And if you are nice, she kisses you. She doesn't like being dirty. If Annabelle is sad, she gets to hold bing bing. Cute, right? Doesn't really make up for the tantrums, though).
7. Fort Davis, is like a paradise. It is so remote, that I felt free. It is a green desert, with cotton wood and oaks trees on top of volcanic rocks with an underground river. And there are mountain lions. It was 60 degrees at night and 88 in the day with no humidity. I could live there, but I would need an amazon prime account and a garden, because the grocery store (called thrift away)is limited--bacon was 7 dollars and chips were two for 7. Thrift away. I get it. Like throw your thrift away. But they did have mrs. Meyers clean day products there, go figure. There is also so much to do there, it is amazing. You could easily stay in the area for a week.
8. As a Texan, if you are one, or a non Texan living in our great state, or just the random person from sri lanka who reads my blog, you should make it your duty to go to the McDonald observatory. I saw Saturn. I saw its rings. We saw a red giant, we saw parts of galaxies far, far away. I learned about the earth's wobble and how there used to be a different North Star. And we saw 2 shooting stars, which our instructor insisted we call meteors because we were at the observatory. The company decided that we would not do that. That they were shooting stars, because it sounded better.
We were unanimous on that, at least the 3/4's of us that were still awake. One of us being a little worn out, was asleep in her father's loving arms.
The light from those stars that we were seeing was in some cases millions of years old, they told us how many light years, but I am an English major and do not compute astrophysics, especially when I feel their explanation is incorrect, based on my rudimentary understanding of such things that I gleaned from Stan the Man hutto in high school--but I know that my small company's 16 years is an insignificant grain of sand in comparison.
But it is our grain of sand, and i can hold onto it, with my small hand and see the world inside. And it is a glorious green desert on top of a mountain, with children standing arms outstretched, spinning like they are in the sound of music, and us, the CEO and chairman of the board, smiling, laughing and joining in.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Something I feel slightly bad about
Tallulah to dog: come on, ring around the Rosie, pocket full of... Oh, you not play? Okay, we play what you want... What you want to play?
What the dog wants to play these days is lie down on my white slip-covered sofa. But since I put the-thing-she-fears-most on it--the broom-- to keep it from being my brown and hairy slip-covered sofa, she goes to H's leather chair and slowly hops up, or to the rug by the coffee table where she slowly plops down.
The dog is no spring chicken. And I feel bad for hating so much. Hating her for reasons outlined in any number of the posts on this blog, and because she killed 4 of my spring chickens. (Children do not know about this thanks to a hasty trip to an actual chicken ranch in San Leon for replacements by their loving father)
She is snoring softly now, and as is her habit, will get up later for her late night treat of a found sippy cup, which she will enjoy, cup lid and all.
What the dog wants to play these days is lie down on my white slip-covered sofa. But since I put the-thing-she-fears-most on it--the broom-- to keep it from being my brown and hairy slip-covered sofa, she goes to H's leather chair and slowly hops up, or to the rug by the coffee table where she slowly plops down.
The dog is no spring chicken. And I feel bad for hating so much. Hating her for reasons outlined in any number of the posts on this blog, and because she killed 4 of my spring chickens. (Children do not know about this thanks to a hasty trip to an actual chicken ranch in San Leon for replacements by their loving father)
She is snoring softly now, and as is her habit, will get up later for her late night treat of a found sippy cup, which she will enjoy, cup lid and all.
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