Just when I thought three tubs of tank engine track was as bad as it was going to get, along comes the next menace: Hot Wheels.
It’s not that we’ve never had Hot Wheels – the …
Picky eaters and allergy-safe cooking — the two aren’t necessarily unrelated.
From policy to politics, this rant’s for you.
The day’s events in a family way — unless something else amuses me.
From preschool to kindergarten — so far
Inexpensive homemade gifts, creative parties and low-cost projects, for Christmas and beyond. Many are easy enough for children to help.
I thought I’d be about three years past buying baby wipes at this point, but not so.
At home, they still go everywhere with us. They work far better than hand santizer for cleaning up on the road. They’re indispensable for precautionary scrubbing at places ranging from restaurants to airplanes – anywhere that peanut might have been before us.
Now that Dad’s deployed, they’re going abroad, too. They’re indispensable for quick clean-ups, be it of the person or of the weapon. That’s why we sent Dad two packages this week.
The rest of the package:
Dots: Another theater-sized box of candy that the guys were convinced Dad wanted.
Tuna: We’re still going with StarKist creations. This week we sent twi, 6.4 ounce packages of plain and 4.5 ounce packages of sweet and spicy, herb and garlic and hickory smoked. I’m still not wild about paying almost $2 per pack, so I think next week I’m going to send regular cans of tuna plus a can opener.
Dried fruit: A one-pound assortment of apples, pears and apricots.
Peanut butter crackers: Nine individual packages from a giant box we’d bought a while back. They’re good for filling in nooks and crannies in a shipping box.
Paydays: Two bars to fulfill the weekly Recommended Dad Allowance.
Copyright 2010 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.
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If you can’t be at the birthday, the birthday will come to you.
That was Boots’ reasoning behind this week’s care package, though I did talk him out of sending Dad a piece of his birthday …
Dad claims he can’t get to sleep without background noise, though snoring must qualify or else he would have been in a worse-than-normal state of chronic deprivation during basic training.
It’s led to many marital disputes …
Just when I thought three tubs of tank engine track was as bad as it was going to get, along comes the next menace: Hot Wheels.
It’s not that we’ve never had Hot Wheels – the …
Shopping for a bathing suit is bad enough, but it becomes virtually impossible when a kid wearing pale-yellow paints and has an arrow eye-linered onto a freshly shaved scalp pops around the corner.
“Hey, guys, look! …
Coloring books: New and unsullied, accompanied by a fresh pack of crayons. Check.
MP3 players: Charged, with new songs loaded. Check.
Snacks: Enough to cover the midnight munchies plus breakfast the next day because the chances are …
I ran across a story this morning about a school district in South Dakota that goes out of its way – to the tune of paying an extra $40 for a case of cookies …
Children’s shows have felled many a strong person. With me, the waltz scene in “Beauty and the Beast” used to do it. I knew that, and used it to my advantage, popping the tape into …
We really should have sent a tooth brush with this one. Or, at the least, labeled it with a warning. Caution: Most of the contents will do severe dental damage.
I picked out the Oreo Cakesters, …
Big Guy’s shorts have been in a wad since late last week, when I came home with a t-shirt featuring a baseball and bats arranged into an American flag. “No fair! I need a Fourth …
Kimberly Sands had a new Tweety Bird swim suit and a good times ahead of her when she woke up that June morning. She was ready to go swimming and eat ice cream at a …
I can’t complain about the 3D, because I saw it at a drive-in.
I won’t critique the CGI, other than to say it’s amazing how much emotion filmmakers can pack into characters that exist only in …
In the past month, Big Guy has proclaimed fish sticks “delicious” and watermelon “yummy.” He’s swooned over apple cobbler and eaten a rainbow-colored salad packed with greens, tomatoes, zucchini and carrots. He wasn’t wild about …
I’d been lucky in my lifetime to have never run into a truly bad doctor. Sure, there was the guy when I was in high school who told me my nose was definitely broken but …
Due largely to the fact that Best Friend was watching and he didn’t want to lose face, Boots agreed to get in the pool the first day of swim class. He wouldn’t consent to go …
It was more than 20 years ago when I met U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, but I recall two things vividly about that day.
The first was how ill at ease he appeared at what was …
Are you the photographer we hired, a woman asked at Big Guy’s school as I checked in during the final week.
No, I just carry enough gear to power a small television station, I said. His …
It didn’t really hit Big Guy for almost a full day after I broke the news about his latest allergy test results. He figured it out while we were standing in the food court at …
Given that Big Guy was fearlessly toddling to the top of tall structures by the time he was 14-months-old, I’ve long known that the day would come when he would surpass me athletically.
I didn’t expect …
It never occurred to me that my Father’s Day post was whiny, let alone grating, until a commenter labeled it as such after a friend posted a link to it on Facebook.
In fact, I was …
“When fathers are not present, their children and families cope with an absence government cannot fill.” – President Barack Obama, Father’s Day proclamation.
If there’s one thing the Army does that scrapes fingernails down my mental …
We pulled out hair out for an idea for Father’s Day before we finally wound up in the crafts shop on post. I wish we’d wound up there a week earlier, because it was too …
These kids just don’t know how easy they have it.
Back in the day when I was walking four miles to the bus stop, up hill both ways, I needed a radio, a tape recorder, cassettes, …
With an energy level that makes coffee nervous and a comedic style that coaxes even the most reticent into the water, Miss S is the best swim instructor on the planet.
This morning, she also was …
I’ll confess: I bribed Boots this morning, and it worked.
During Day One of swimming class, he did great until the instructor wanted them to bob in the water.
“No,” he insisted quietly but firmly, with the …
If you ask the guys, they’ll happily complain loudly about it. They’re the last kids at Fort Irwin, maybe even the world, who don’t have Nintendo DSes, and it’s all because their mom is mean, …
Baseball is my native language, but I’m fluent in basketball, football and figure skating.
I can hold a conversation in NASCAR fake my way through several other sports, including hockey and golf. It’s the equivalent of …
Welcome to the summer vacation edition of care packages, where both guys are in tow during shopping trips and they bicker all the way through the commissary about what Dad’s going to like best.
“I’m getting …
There are teams, and then there are teams.
I grew up a Cincinnati fan, so the Big Red Machine era, of course, is one of my favorites in sports. But the 1990 Reds, who swept the …
It used to happen every time I went to the salon: The stylist would manhandle my unruly mop into a sleek, fashionable ‘do. She’d lament that I never fix it that way myself, assuring me …
I watched “The Tooth Fairy” this weekend, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. After all, seeing Dwayne Johnson in fairy wings actually is far more believable his previous gig as a pro wrestler.
I’m also …
It’s funny how sometimes two wildly separate segments of your life can create a deja vu-type pattern.
When I was a kid there was miner’s vacation, that period in late July and early August when Appalachia …
This package fell in a week when we had six baseball games, a preschool “congraduation,” a first-grade party, a baseball party and four karate classes. My brain was fried, so I turned the shopping over …
I was there for the preparation but had to leave before the feast began, so I was curious to hear Big Guy’s reaction to the lunch that was part of his end-of-school party.
“Oh. My. God,” …
Boots woke Monday morning with one of his best smiles, leaping out of bed and downstairs for breakfast. “HOORAY!!” he cheered. “It’s soccer camp day!”
Even though he hadn’t been particularly enthused during the indoor season …
This week’s edition featured “long-sought objects finally found”: Shower shoes and a flashlight.
The shower shoes have been impossible to find since Dad left for basic training almost a year and a half ago. It turns …
It landed in my Twitter feed this morning as I was trying to get the guys dressed and out the door. We needed to hit the commissary to buy goodies for Dad’s weekly care package, …
With no outward warning signs, he buried his face in his arms and started crying. These were no delicate sobs, but chest-wracking heaves.
“What’s wrong?” his teacher asked.
“It’s the end of school, and I’ll never see …
Mom’s Two Commandments of Summer: Thou shalt stay out of my hair in the mornings so I can work, and thou shalt read and like it.
It’s a given that the first is not going to …
This egg-free version only vaguely resembles the original Martha Stewart recipe, which is described as biter-biscuit hard. That’s a good thing, because I’ve spent too much on dental work of late to crack a crown …
A couple of salient points in the hoo-ha coming today from those who lost the health care fight:
Not all Americans hate the new law. More people think it will help than think it will hurt. …
Calm down, folks. Uncle Sam isn’t going to bang in your door and confiscate your salt shaker. Though it’s really not a bad idea.
According to a very poorly phrased Rasmussen poll, 55 percent of the …
It was more than 20 years ago when I met U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, but I recall two things vividly about that day.
The first was how ill at ease he appeared at what was …
It’s ironic that Google rolled out Safety Mode parental controls for YouTube in the same week that it made gmail unsafe for some folks in its careless rollout of Buzz.
Some of the early things I’d …
I was there for the preparation but had to leave before the feast began, so I was curious to hear Big Guy’s reaction to the lunch that was part of his end-of-school party.
“Oh. My. God,” …
Sometimes life is all about timing. There’s a chance the soldier took his protective goggles off briefly during training in The Box – 1,000 barren square miles at Fort Irwin where soldiers prepare for desert warfare. Then ...
So there I was last month, stressing until 2 in the morning over Dad’s “welcome home” cake, worried that it would be ugly or dry or have the wrong color stars. Silly, silly girl. If I’d ...
I’m kind of frustrated this morning because I don’t have girls. I don’t even know any girls young enough to appreciate this. But if I did, I’d be all over the tutu tutorial – say that ...
Poor Boots. He wakes up every morning chirping with the birds and with a cheery greeting. “It’s a beautiful day!” Somewhere along the line, though, the grind of the world beats the beauty out of it ...
On one level, it’s simple: When you’re about to fall, just let go and fall. Trying to stop the tumble or, even worse, flailing your arms and legs as you land will make it worse. Somewhere ...
There’s often a reason why Big Guy does the seemingly quirky things he does. A reason that makes sense only in his 5-year-old brain, but a reason nonetheless.
I usually don’t question, because if it’s genuinely ...
This one landed in my Twitter stream just as Boots was diving into a bowl of … Cocoa Puffs: “New peanut flour warning for General Mills cereals.” Luckily, he’s not the child who’s allergic and Big ...
From the country that wants to censor the Internet worldwide in the name of protecting its children comes another bizarre project, also in the name of “protecting children” The British have launched a database, at a ...
Do I ever feel like a dolt after my post last night lamenting the difficulties of finding dye-free snow-cone syrups. I went to a Middle Eastern market today to pick up some hummus ingredients and ran ...
Parties in the park seem to be the rage around here of late – a rage that will be over by the time Big Guy’s birthday rolls around in 103-degree July – and today’s was ...
Six hundred and eight three killed in Afghanistan. Four thousand, two hundred and ninety six killed in Iraq. Many stories of incredible lives, often amazing sacrifices. This is one such story. Army Maj. Steven Hutchison survived two ...
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