Cute Kid Stories and Other Frumpy Randomness

I'm loving my new much shorter haircut, as it's so much cooler for summer weather.

The only regret I have is that when my hair was long, I didn't have to wash it everyday. This kept it from drying out in the summer, and was generally presentable after a good brushing if someone happened to drop by while I was cleaning house.

Not so with my new do.

If I don't actually wash and style it every morning, I end up looking like this:



Except with a few cowlicks and things in back and sides that make the entire 'do' look hideous.


As though someone used the weed whacker to hack it off instead of getting my coiffure cut and razored at an expensive salon.

Also, there is the little problem of regular upkeep. I'm going to have to dye again soon, because my grays are coming back in at an alarming speed.

But then, that's probably just from finding Judah doing this and other dangerous stunts umpteen times a day.



He loves doing those stunts best that stun me to silence.

What he doesnt' realize is that my silence isn't one of awe, but comes from the fact that if I were to scream across the room at him, he'd startle and would fall off and get really hurt.

I wonder sometimes how we are ever going to get this kid to adulthood in one piece.

:: :: :: ::

This past week has been super busy, what with our househunting and putting in of offers, and I neglected to mark my hubby's birthday in a special way.

So this is a shoutout to my man on this auspicious occasion...

AUUUUUGH! We're old!

Ahem.

I mean, Happy Birthday!

:: :: :: ::

Judah was sent inside for throwing rocks while 'helping' daddy wash the cars.

He came in crying, and went straight for his bedroom, returning with one of his blankies.

He comes up to me, and looks up at me with those pleading little eyes and trying to elicit pity said, "Mama, I cwy cwocodiow teows."

:: :: :: ::

When little Judah is feeling particularly tender or or in need of security, he looks up at us with those same pleading little eyes and asks, "We do famwee hug?"

By this, he means that he wants us all to huddle up together and say, "Family Hug" and rock back and forth together for a few moments.

Judah will yell across the house or out the door at whomever was not in the general vicinity at that moment, "Jehwico! Come and do famwee hug!"

Naturally everyone obliges. How could we not, with such a cute request?

:: :: :: ::

Recently, I finished reading a really interesting book of memoirs by a woman who had been a farm girl during the depression era on through World War II.

In the book she mentioned several old-school cures for or ways of handling common problems. Things that most folks don't do anymore in this age of modern medicine, but which worked well for them.

The book, in case you were wondering, was called Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish.


It's not the sort of book I would normally recommend, because the author peppered the book liberally with some very colorful language and other things my grandma would have gasped about if ever spoken aloud. However, most of that was written from her kid perspective, trying to make sense of the things they heard spoken about in hushed tones when the adults didn't think they were listening, and was at times highly amusing.

I did enjoy reading about all the old-standby natural remedies that were used in those days when folks did most of their own doctoring, though, and even highlighted many of them for future reference.

For instance, when the kids back then got a scrape that was bleeding, they didn't come running to mama to clean it up with antiseptic and antibiotic ointments and band-aids.


Instead, rough-and-tumble bunch that they were, they headed for the barn and found a spider web which they sort of wadded up and spread over the bleeding area, because it helped the bleeding to stop immediately and they could go on with their play.

Well, the other day after running barefoot over some beauty bark that had escaped it's confines and ended up on our driveway, Judah came limping inside with a painful splinter on the bottom of his foot.

I could see that it went deep, straight into the pad on the bottom of his foot, and was red and painfully swollen around it.

Usually, I would sterilize some tweezers, clean the area with antiseptic and perform a painful surgery long and tedious procedure guaranteed to get the splinter out.

This time, however, armed with the knowledge I'd gleaned from that book, I decided to experiment put this newfound knowledge to use.

So I set him up on the kitchen counter, washed his foot off well and then retrieved an egg from the refrigerator.

That little gooey white membrane thing that surrounds the egg yolk? Well, it turns out that if you put that on the site of a splinter and let it dry, it seeps into the channel where the splinter went in, keeping it open, and by the time the membrane was dry a few minutes later, all I did was to give it a squeeze and the whole splinter popped out easily.

Judah objected heartily to said squeeze, and after I scrubbed all the eggy stuff off his foot, and then wiped it with alcohol as an added precaution, he said in his most pitiful little patient voice, "Mama? Put some wuv on it."

So yes, I did have to kiss his foot. 'Putting love on' his owies is a big part of my job description, after all.

And the moment I set him back on the floor, he was off and running to his next adventure.

:: :: :: ::

Yesterday, we thoroughly cleaned our house.

After painstakingly cleaning up all the matchbox cars and other toys from Judah's bedroom floor in anticipation of a thorough vacuuming of his bedroom, I went to get the vacuum and wheeled it in there only to find that in my absence, Judah had scattered an entire Barrel of Monkeys around the room.

The little culprit came to the door just then and asked, "What you doin' mama?"

"Cleaning up after YOU you little piggy," I replied with a playful tap to the tip of his nose.

He creased his brow. "I not a witto piggy, mama...I a witto Judah!"

:: :: :: ::

Some evenings when we've had a long and full day and the kids seem to need to wind down a little before bed, we will all get books, and go pile onto our big bed and kick back to read for a while.

At such times, it usually doesn't take long before Judah gets drowsy, and his book will slide off his chest.

When I notice this, I'll look over at him, and find he's at that stage where his eyes are about to shut, but he's fighting sleep.

When he sees me move, he'll open his sleep-starved eyes, look up at me and ask, "Sing Jesus to me, mama?"

And so I do.

Then he closes his eyes and falls off to sleep with a smile on his sweet little face.

Those are precious moments I will forever ponder in my heart.