The Kindest and Best of Men — and Godfathers

Eternal rest, grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

To The Moon and Back

Last weekend, we drove up to the Jerz to visit with Aunt Mary Beth and Uncle Walter, and celebrate Fiona's first birthday. Tonight, we are filled with gratitude that we all had a happy visit with him. We love you, Uncle Walter, and we are all praying for you.

Mum's The Word

In addition to falling behind on my blogging, I've fallen behind on my workouts reading cooking email phone calls cleaning general self-improvement gardening. Nothinga few really, really huge and strategically placed chrysanthEmums (bonus point to anyone who gets that reference) can't hide solve. I was off on Tuesday morning, so E and I trekked up to the nursery in the wagon. On the way home, poor owl kept saying, "I am soaking wet! I am under the mums! Baby Go-Go is all wet too! She is under the mums! Where is she? I can't see her! I can't finnnnnnd her! All done mums!"

September Has Come … And Gone

Looking back at the first year of this blog, I had 395 entries for the year (which started in April), including 77 in September. Um. I guess I've been a little more busy in the intervening years. Sorry, Mom.

I will just give you these — a teaser of more to come. And a giant, giant thank you to my dear friend Sarah. Who is, in every sense, Superwoman.

Ashes to Beauty…Kind Of

So, remember my plan to help them (and me) remember to behave by introducing a "pain point" — i.e., attaching a monetary consequence for being jerky? Every time we were in violation (Cody with being mean to Cora, Cora with whining/backtalk, and me with yelling) we had to put cold, hard cash in our homemade poor box.

Cody's piggy bank is looking pretty grim. Cordelia has hidden hers.

So tonight, we did a big count. I threw in an extra $20 to cover the multitude of times I know I yelled and failed to charge myself. They wanted to send it to Food for the Poor this month. And we raised $54! That's how bad we were!

Cody's reaction: Yay! This is amazing! We are turning our acts of unkindness into a big act of kindness! We are going to give children food and clean water and things that will help them! Any time I get an allowance for chores, I'm just going to put it right in the poor box! I am so happy to give them my money!

Cordelia's reaction: I am not! The poor people don't need MY money. I need it! I will just give them a couple of my dollars. Or quarters. Probably quarters. Are dimes smaller than quarters?

At which point I reminded her that such an attitude isn't exactly what our Lord had in mind. And that instead of punishing them/ourselves, this was a good way to remember that our actions have consequences, and that there are always opportunities to find goodness and hope in the middle of difficulty. Or whining. Or aggression. Or hollering.

She didn't buy it. My little miser actually said, "Why don't you just let me be with my money? Instead of stealing my money, why won't you just let me sit with it?"

I. Have. No. Words.

She's like Scrooge. Or Gollum.

Criminal Minds

Back in 2012, I bought Cody his first surfboard. Go ahead and drink in the pictures from that first glorious day, with him rocking the board, in the family room, in his pirate underpants. It's gold, Jerry. Gold!

Well, on Sunday morning, Cody's board was stolen. Right off the beach while we were jumping waves. I'll spare you the indignation and cut right to the awesome parenting:

I took the loss as an opportunity to impress upon Cody that there are two kinds of problems in the world: Problems you can solve, and problems you can't solve. Getting your hand bitten off by a shark is not a solvable problem. You're going to be known as "Lefty" for the rest of your life. Having your surfboard stolen is solvable. Because we can get another surfboard. And the only problems worth really getting upset about are the ones you can't solve.

I imparted this little koan during lunch, after he'd had some time to calm down. Because in the morning he was still pretty teed up. So much so that we had the following exchange, while wading in the ocean just after giving up the search for his beloved turquoise Liquid Shredder:

CJP: I'm so mad I want to say the f-word. 

JVL [looks around]: I understand, Buddy. And we're all alone out here in the waves. And mom's not around. So if you need to say the f-word, you can do it. It's okay. 

CJP [setting his eyes hard to the horizon]: No. I'm not supposed to say the f-word. So I won't. But I really want to say it.

The search for the new board has already begun. I think we're targeting a quad fish this time around . . .

Back to School!

Real quick, because I know Mom is waiting…it's back to school!

First, a trip down memory lane: Here's Cody's first day of school ever.

And, remember this? And this?

Here's the first day of his second year of preschool. Here's last year … kindergarten for Cody and first day of preschool for poor little Birdie.

And here's today!