a little "pregnant lady"

Today, during a lovely Saturday afternoon walk, a neighbor darted out of his house and chased me down, bearing a large tomato in each hand. "Oh thanks!" I said appreciatively. "We're getting down to the end here," he said ... by way of explanation for he wasn't offering me eight or ten of the red spheres like he had on other days ... earlier in the summer. "Say ... what's your name?" he asked.

This man lives on the street that my street connects to and I have walked past this man's house dozens ... probably hundreds ... of times and we {and his wife} have exchanged many a pleasantry. I've admired their gardens and they've admired my kids ... but we had never exchanged names.

So ... I said, "Dana. And how about you?" "Dave," he replied, "and Wendy," he added ... pointing towards his house. "Good to know," he continued, "We've always just called you the pregnant lady." "That's funny," I said ... with a laugh and a wave.

As I was continuing on homeward ... now holding a large tomato in each palm ... I laughed again when I realized we had been calling them "the tomato people" ... or "the tomato guy" and "the tomato lady".

So ... is there anyone that you've made up a name for???

a little doctoring

On Saturday afternoon, after Foofie abandoned her doll playing and headed outside ... I discovered this ... Foofie's poor dolly had needed some doctoring. It appears that dolly got a "smooosh" on her chin ... just like Foofie's "smooosh" :) Some snipped pieces of kleenex and blue tape were the bandage. See the bed dolly is laying on? The bed was a puffy book supported by a candle on one end ... and then a toy cup with a roll of blue tape stacked on top to hold up the foot of the bed. I don't know what else befell dear dolly ... but apparently it wasn't good. Dolly also needed a tube in her mouth attached to a silvery vial. The tube was made out of bendable, gummy eraser and the vial was some foil-wrapped nail polish. Poor little dolly ... And another little Foofie story from just yesterday ...

"There's only two big boys in our family ... because one of our boys is a baby. But there are THREE big girls. You are big and Halo is big ... and I am big."

"Oh yeah? How big are you???" I teased.

"Oh ... like 42 ... or 41 ... or 43 inches .... probably."

a little Hermie {by Halo}

On Monday afternoon, my Mama found a HUGE, HUGE ... I’m talking HUGE, people ... caterpillar! She named it Hermie. It was really neato. It had a light green body with spiky orange, yellow, and blue knobs on it. We only had it for ONE day until it started making its cocoon! This morning, it was already fully encased in the cocoon. How cool! I hope it will be a butterfly ... but Daddy is guessing a moth.

P.S. This is a jumbo-sized peanut butter jar ... 40 ounces I think ~ Dana {Mama}

a little smooosh

It was the first day of officially being a kindergartner for Foofie ... and her second experience of racing off to get stitched back together :( She had a biking accident this evening. Apparently her brilliant older siblings constructed a little makeshift jump with some scraps of wood that were lying around ... and you know Foofie ... she just had to give it a whirl.

The doctor called her injury a "smooosh". He said it with seriousness as though it's a technical term, but I'm guessing it's not. A "smooosh", he said, is more hole-like ... versus a wound that is like a split, or a line. Poor little Foofie ...{PHOTO TAKEN THE FOLLOWING NIGHT}

a little speaking

Last night, I went to the annual kick-off meeting for the home-school co-op that we belong to. "Co-op" sometimes confuses people ... it's just a group of families ... we don't trade seeds or granola or anything. When we first started homeschooling and my kids would get asked where they go to school ... they would say, "we go to a co-op". This reply often raised some questions ... if not eyebrows. Rather quickly, the answer changed to ... "we're home-schooled".

Anyway, I went to this meeting ... and for the fifth straight year ... listened to all of the teachers give their little talks and then each of the board members shared a bit too. Every year, when I hear the speech teacher speaking, I think something like ... she's neat ... I like her ... I bet my kids will enjoy her class. She teaches seventh through tenth grade ... so I hadn't had any reason to make her acquaintance thus far. Last night, however, the speech teacher and I just happened to find ourselves at the snack table at the same time {getting cookies, of course} ... and I said, "I think you're so neat and I'm looking forward to having one of my kids in your class." She thanked me and then I added, very spontaneously, "You know ... when I was in school, I never had the chance to be in a public speaking or speech class ... maybe you could offer a little elective class for the moms sometime." Where did this idea come from??? It seemed totally out of the blue ... I had never even thunk this thought before ...

Then, tonight, my mother called me and we chatted about this and that and some nonsense too, I suppose. We were about to hang up when she said,

"Oh ... I've been meaning to tell you about this guy that I met at Savers a few weeks ago ..."

"Yeah?" I encouraged.

"Well ... there was this guy with a cart full of yellow tee-shirts ... new shirts. So I asked him what he was going to do with all of those shirts. And he said he was sending them to Africa. So I told him that my daughter {that would be me} had been to school in Kenya for a semester. And I found out that he is the pastor of a church. And he said it would be great if you would come speak to his young people."

"Hahahahahahahaha." This was me ... LAUGHING.

"Are you kidding??? Did you tell him I was there like fifteen years ago???"

"There's plenty of things you could talk about." Mom encouraged. "He gave me his business card so you can call him."

"Hahahahahahahaha. That's really funny. Really funny," I said. "Actually ... you know what makes it even funnier?" I continued ... and then, I proceeded to tell her the story, from just the night before, of my asking the speech teacher to offer a speech class for the mothers.

"See? God's lining it all up," Mom declared ... half-kidding ... half-not.