Heritage

I'm procrastinating on my housework right now because the to do is simply so overwhelming that I'd rather continue to sit here and write a blog post and listen to L's continuous commentary on her schoolwork as she colors "short a" words red and "long a" words yellow.

Today is St. Patrick's Day. K's teacher is making a big deal out of as she's "mostly Irish" and K went off to school today in kelly green pants, a St. Patrick's Day shirt that Grandma bought her last year, and a shamrock hair clip, also courtesy of Grandma. Thanks, Grandma! As we were talking about it earlier this week, I told K a story of her Irish heritage that my Grandmother told me about her great-grandparents.

A very long time ago, a man lived in Germany with his wife and children.

(Trust me, I'll get to the Irish part in a bit, but the backstory here is important, so bear with me. Anyway...)

The German family decided to come to the New World, so they boarded a ship to America. By the time the ship arrived in America, there were only the father and sons who had survived the voyage. They settled in South Carolina where the father changed his name so that it sounded American and at least one son fought in the Confederate War. But in spite of their dedication to the new country, they still held onto their German heritage.

One day, one of the sons met a beautiful young woman, who I think was named Anna. We'll call her that anyway. And we'll call the boy Frederick. Because that's the first thing that comes to mind.

Frederick fell desperately in love with Anna and the young couple was anxious to marry. There was a problem, however. Frederick was German, but Anna was Irish. It seems that was a major cultural no-no (she was Catholic, after all) and the families were furious with their uncooperative children. It was such a huge issue, that Anna's father moved his entire family from South Carolina to Mississippi to get his daughter away from that German boy.

As you can imagine, this did not sit well with Frederick. He wanted to go after her, but his family was poor and he didn't have any horses or wagons that he could take. He packed a few things in a sack, and he took off on foot after Anna and her family. Frederick walked from South Carolina, across Georgia and Alabama, and into Mississippi until he found Anna. Her family was impressed with the enormous effort that Frederick had given and they allowed the marriage.

Isn't that romantic? What woman wouldn't want a man who would walk hundreds of miles just to be with her?

The story goes on, naturally, but the only part I know is the ending.

The young couple married, had a family, and moved to east Texas, to the small town of Bristol. Frederick lived to be 99 and even then he would often walk to a neighboring town across a large collection of railroad tracks to the store where he would sit and play checkers with the other old men. He had gone almost completely deaf, but he still liked the company. One day he was headed home from the store and he stopped to wait on a train to pass. He crossed one set of tracks, but he didn't realize that another train was approaching on a second track. He was killed by that second train.

I called my mom to find out their real names, but she couldn't remember. So, Uncle James, can you please tell me?

So that's one of our Irish ancestors. I'm sure there are more because of the whole melting pot thing. K also gets it from her dad's side. Heck, her last name *is* Irish. She's got the reddish hair and freckles, even.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Valerie

A Tuesday full of sunshine

Tuesday was a beautiful day. Beautiful. The weather was absolutely perfect - warm, sunny, no wind. Everyone who could find an excuse to get outside was out enjoying the March weather phenomenon.

I called up a friend and we decided that a trip to the uptown children's library was educational enough to count as school for the morning and we met at the light rail station for a little adventure. Angel did well and had absolutely no fear of these big trains moving past just a few feet away.

The kids loved the train. Angel just sprawled out in the middle of the aisle, so I had to reign her in, but not until after I took the picture, of course!

We played outside the library.

And we played inside the library.

The children played on the computers while Angel took a nap. All these kids are exhausting!

By the time we boarded the train for the trip back, my friend's kids had adopted Angel, especially the youngest.

That's one happy dog.

We picked up K from school and came home, but it was just too nice of a day to go inside. We hooked Angel up to the tie-out, then we cleaned the car out before we all went out to the car wash to give the car a quick wash (rain was in the forecast) and a really good vacuum.

Back home, we again stayed outside while I wiped down the inside of the van and cleaned the garage. K did her homework sitting on her skateboard,

L drew on the driveway,

and Angel just watched it all with great interest.

A photo session with a sassy 9-year-old

Last Thursday, K had to dress up for her school music program and she had to do it right after school because L had dance class and K had to go, too. Seemed like the perfect opportunity since L was in class 45 minutes to get a few nice shots of K looking nice.

K was not exactly impressed with my idea. She wasn't mean or grumpy, just bent on making it difficult. What people who hate to have their pictures taken don't know is that those "don't do that!" photos are far worse than if they'd just sucked it up and smiled the first time.

So here's the photographic evidence of how difficult it is to take a simple picture of a 9-year-old, including actual commentary.

"Let me take your picture."

"No, really. Sit up straight, please."

"I'd like to take a picture of someone wearing shoes, if you don't mind."

"Yes, I'm wearing shoes. Fine, you can take a picture of me after I get a picture of you."

"Will you stop being silly and let me get a picture?"

"Seriously! I just want a picture!"

"Is that really what you want me to send to Grandma?"

"I'm glad you found that funny. Now can you just TRY to look nice?"

"You're a girl. It's okay to look 'pretty' every once in awhile."

"No, I won't wait until you have your softball uniform on. We can do those later. Right now I want a NICE PICTURE!"

"I just want a close-up. Just head and shoulders. No one will even see your skirt!"

"I'm about to make YOU cry!"

"So you found that funny? Come on! Just one nice picture and I'll stop."

"Better. But can I please see some teeth in your smile?"

"Emphasis on the SMILE part, not the TEETH!!"

"FINALLY!! THANK YOU!!"

Our First School Program

K was in her very first school program last week. The 4th and 5th graders put on a little musical and showed off their achievements on the recorder. K and I had a discussion early in the week about what she was going to wear, because as a girl, this is high on the priority list.

The music teacher had asked for "nice school clothes" and I suggested a dress. Well, that didn't go over too well. As much as K has matured and is taking more of an interest in clothes and appearance, she still think dresses are "girly" and she is not "girly", thankyouverymuch. It seems she has no problems with skirts, however, so I offered to finally make the skirt I had promised her...oh...a year and a half ago.

Thankfully, the pattern went up to the current size.

Grandma had promised her a shirt to go with the promised skirt and she had delivered the shirt in January. It was definitely time for me to get a move on. I pulled out the pattern and fabric and my machine and got to work. The whole thing took about 2 hours, which just goes to show how ridiculous my procrastination was.

Since I had everything out, I grabbed a piece of fabric from my stash and made L a skirt, too. I had to cut the pattern down and I made it shorter, and it ended up fitting rather slim on L. Which made her look very skinny and grown-up.

Doesn't she seem so much older?

But this post is about K and her music program. K got dressed and I spent forever drying her hair. It should not be legal for one child to have THAT much hair. Doesn't she look nice in her new shirt and skirt?

We arrived at the program early enough to spend some time checking out the book fair, then it was time to take our seats. I was happy to see so many parents show up that they had to go pull out extra chairs.

The musical was first and K came down and joined a small group in front leading the singing and dancing. I tried to take pictures with my little point and shoot, but they didn't turn out well.

I promise she doesn't go to a school full of zombies.

Then they played through their Recorder Karate series. K had practiced hard all week and just that morning took the tests to earn her last three "belts" so she could play all the songs with everyone at the music program. So K is a black belt recorder player and you mess with her at your own peril.

After the program we took a picture of K with her school best friend.

I'm so proud of K and all her hard work!

Puppy Camp

For the next 3 weeks, the puppies in our puppy raiser group will be "camping".

Not camping. Just "camping".

What's the difference? Well, "camping" is a puppy swap. The Great Puppy Swap of Spring 2010.

Yesterday, we had training at a police station where the puppies went through a few commands, then got to meet a police car with lights and sirens going full blast (Cindy Jae walked right up to the speaker and licked it; she's fearless!), a segueway, and a bicycle.

Then we walked over to the fire station and got to check out the engines and gear. Afterwards, we walked around the little downtown area and came back for the Great Puppy Swap.

Cindy Jae was handed over to a nice family whose senior daughter will be taking over her training for 3 weeks. She will have lots of fun "camping".

Don't worry, we won't be lonely for the next 3 weeks. We got a "camper" of our own.

Meet Cindy Jae's sister, Angel.

She's the only yellow lab out of a litter of 6 and she's having quite a time with our family.

She went with us to the library yesterday.

Then we went to some friends' house for dinner. I don't think there are any kids in her raiser's house, but last night she got to hang out with 5 little girls and they LOVED on her, taking her off to play outside and all over the house. I finally rescued her as it got late and she gladly curled up at my feet and fell promptly asleep.

This morning, Angel is a kid in a candy store as she's checking out all of Cindy Jae's toys. There are new bones to chew and a big ring to toss and chase (she does both her own tossing and her own chasing).

That ring used to hold a big set of puppy teething keys, but Cindy Jae chewed those right off. There are new smells to smell and nooks and crannies to explore. On the whole, she is much better behaved than Cindy Jae with a more subdued personality, but we'll see how long that lasts once she gets used to this "camping" thing.

Mind blowing math

This morning, L and were sitting at the table as she ate and went through my mail. Because that 6-year-old has no sense of privacy. She found a paper with coupons and wanted to know what all the numbers on them added up to.

She would do well at couponing.

I found a paper and showed her how to add 20 + 20 + 10 in a column, adding the last column of 0s, then the first column with the small numbers she knew. This new discovery was so fun, she wanted to continue. I wrote out a similar problem and she did it perfectly. She started writing out her own problems, but the numbers in her first column got too big, so I showed her a number line to add 6 + 6 + 6.

And she understood the concept right away.

She wrote out a bigger problem and did it all by herself.

Then another.

To challenge her (as the whole 3 number, 2-column addition and number line had been just soooooo easy) I showed her that the last column didn't have to be just 0s. I put small numbers in there, and it barely fazed her. She whipped right through several like 21 + 16 + 62, laughing when she figured out the answer was 99.

All of this took approximately 7 minutes. And it only took that long because I had to drag Mr. at Home away from his desk to witness the math miracle.

In her kindergarten curriculum, they're working on 3 + 3.

At the dining room table, she's about to take over the family budget.

Bell Training

One issue we had early on with Cindy Jae was potty-training.

Frankly, it reminded me of potty-training my youngest. I was frustrated and she didn't care.

We tried lots of things and eventually one of the other trainers mentioned bell training. Sounded simple, just attach some jingle bells to the doorknob and ring them every time you take the puppy out. At some point, she'll make the connection and start ringing the bells on her own whenever she needs to go out and take care of business. I wasn't sure how to keep her from *eating* the bells since she tried out her teeth on everything she could reach, but I figured it was worth a try.

So I bought some jingle bells, sewed them on a ribbon, and hung them on the gate. Within just a time or two, she got it. Wow! What a smart puppy! She'd trot over to the bells and sit waiting expectantly for me to come and take her out.

What she was *supposed* to learn was, "If I ring these bells, I go outside and go potty."

What she *actually* learned was, "If I ring these bells, I go outside!!!"

After a day or two of constant ringing, I took the bells away. I was not taking that dog outside 10 times an hour and I couldn't bring her around to my way of thinking.

As Cindy Jae has grown, we've moved her downstairs where there's more room and she has access to the front door. I hung the bells back up and she's mostly got the real reason she's supposed to ring the bells. Now that's she's more mature, she doesn't get bored so easily and go looking for trouble.

Well, not as much.

She still tries to eat the sofa pillows and will grab whatever she can reach, but she knows that it's wrong and when caught, will put herself in her crate. Goofy dog.