Tag Archives: family

But Grandbabies’ Parties are the Best!

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Grandson Capt. Adorable turned 3 this past weekend, and his mom (my older daughter) wisely decided to celebrate by 1) a family trip to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, where the Captain’s favorite thing was “I touched a sting ray!” and 2) a family — grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins — party with all the essentials of cake, ice cream and munchies. (Of course, it was so cold that day that we forgot the ice cream. Oh well.) I thought she was smart in forgoing the fun but insane kid-frenzy type of party they’d had for the Captain’s second birthday. “After all,” she said, “his family are his most important people.” So props to her for keeping it simple. But that’s totally them — do-it-yourself to save money and because you’ll probably end up with something better anyway. For instance, the Captain requested a Dinosaur Train (he loves that TV show) cake, and since no such decor could be found anywhere, his artist-and-art-teacher daddy printed and cut out the cake decorations on his own. Brilliant! Add the cake and his favorite people to two other of the Captain’s favorite things — blueberries and tractor rides on Grandad’s farm — and it was a perfect third birthday!

The Slide ‘N’ Nap

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This is the smile I cannot get enough of. Well, one of them, anyway. Almost 3-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable has a complete repertoire of smiles but I’m especially delighted with the one that says, “Okay, Kacky, it’s your turn to go down the slide now.” We were playing in his backyard on a recent warm and sunny day and, as usual, he was in charge of the schedule. First we do sand-box construction work, then run around the yard for a couple of laps, then fall on the grass laughing with Roxie the Dog, then try to climb up and over the 7-foot-high fence and then try to surreptitiously fill up water in the red plastic bucket and tote the water to the sandbox to turn the construction zone into waterfront property despite Mommy telling him not to do that. Again. Then we play some basketball (I’m great with the Thomas the Tank ball and 4-foot-high plastic goal) and check to see if the carrots Mommy and Daddy planted in the garden yesterday are growing yet. And then there’s the slide. Actually, he has two in the backyard. One is short and wide and adult-friendly. The other is long and narrow and built only for those who consistently fail the “you must be this tall to ride” test. The Captain’s preferred method of playing on the slides is to A) make Roxie the Dog slide down and B) figure out a way he can ride his dump truck down. Plus, we both love the game that I invented called “Sleep.” See, I sit on the bottom of the short-and-wide slide (because I can’t fit on the bottom of the long-and-narrow slide) and I lie down on my back with my feet on the ground and I start snoring and the Captain climbs to the top of the slide and then slides down, bumps into my head, leans over to gleefully ask “Kacky? You awake, Kacky?”  and then laughs wildly as he jumps off the side of the slide to do it all again. This goes on for several minutes. If I’m lucky.

The Perfect Business Day

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One of my husband's favorite signs -- "'Maybe to maybe'?" he says. "Now, that's the way I'd run my business!" This is from a comic-book store in Florence, Alabama.

Drinking Outside the Box

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When we were in Target the other day and I lost my husband for a few minutes (I was busy contemplating the pretty new blue-and-white dishes because you never can have enough coffee cups), I found him standing in the wine aisle, studying things. Things such as a Box o’ Wine. “How bad could it be, really?” he said, impressed with the pricing that equaled to four normal bottles of wine for the price of one box. So we took it home and tried it. And the answer is, “The more you drink, the better it gets.” There’s no complexity or layers of flavor, and it’s very grape juicey. With benefits. However, as Dear Husband pointed out, it’s okay to say you drank a whole bottle of wine, but you don’t want to say you drank a whole box. So we didn’t. Just.

And Baby Makes … More Things to Shop For

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My older daughter and her husband, parents of our almost-3-year-old grandson, Capt. Adorable, are trying to decide if they want more children or if they want the Captain to be an only child. And just so y’all can see that I’m a mature and reasonable grownup, I’m sharing with you what I tell Older Daughter when she asks my opinion about that topic. Okay, the “when she asks my opinion” part is a big fat lie. Older Daughter never asked my opinion about anything while she was growing up and obviously sees no reason to start now. But that probably was a good thing because invariably back then her opinions were much better than mine. (See: Past boyfriends Mom never ever should have dated.)  However, in this case Mom knows best. “Look,” I tell her. “It’s true that I want all the grandchildren I can get. That’s no secret.  But this is y’all’s decision, and whatever you decide will be the correct choice for your family.” I have cautioned her, though, about having only one child out of fear — fear that she can’t handle more than one or she can’t love more than one or they can’t afford more than one. Fear shouldn’t make the decision — she and her husband should. Almost every parent worries about those things, I say reassuringly. They’re normal concerns that will work themselves out. See, I can give good grandparent advice! But then we go into a posh baby/maternity shop for a baby-shower present and while the Captain heads determinedly for the toy trucks, Older Daughter and I immediately start squealing over these too-adorable baby-girl hats that we want to take home even though we have no little baby-girl head to put them on. Yet.

Eating is Good

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After my dad had his cardiac arrest on Friday, he was considerate enough to be sent to a hospital near Nashville‘s West End. Which means that whenever my mom and brother and I get tired of hospital food, we’ve got some of Nashville’s finest merely steps away. Such as Rotier’s Restaurant, the 65-year-old eatery equally as famous for its meat-and-three plates as its cheeseburgers on french bread. And Michaelangelo’s Pizza, a popular spot with pizza that tastes garden fresh that’s only about 10 years old but looks and feels much older — in a good way.  But the hospital food court has some great options, too — the pulled pork barbecue on cornbread pancakes today was excellent. Sauce a little on the sweet side, but there you go. And, of course, the fact that we’re talking about food instead of … well … funerals makes everything taste all the better.

I ‘Heart’ My Dad

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This is the view I’ve been looking at for the past three days. Well, this … and my 75-year-old dad in a coronary-care unit hospital bed. But he’s getting better! Friday morning he was walking on the track at his town’s recreation center when he … I guess … sort of died from cardiac arrest. His heart just stopped. But he’s getting better! He was in the right place at the right time and the right folks were there to do CPR and operate the defibrillator. If he’d been walking on the outdoors trail or working on the tractor on his tree farm? Not so much. A helicopter brought him from his hometown hospital to this big city hospital, where he was sedated and cooled down for 24 hours to reduce brain swelling. Doctors kept saying, “IF he wakes up, then we’ll address the heart issues.” Um, yes, please? But he’s getting better! He woke up and practically instantly started complaining about being in bed and wanting to get out and go walk. That’s my dad. Of course, as Older Daughter said, when he starts asking how many people work at the hospital and when it was built and how many people it serves every year — then we’ll know he’s back to normal. So I’m hanging out here with my mom and my middle brother and all the wonderful wonderful dear friends who’ve come to help and the incredibly caring and skilled medical staff. And two Starbucks within walking distance. So it’s all good. And now, test your knowledge of Southern city skylines and tell me where we are. The “Batman” building on the right is the best clue.

Shopping … Or, Why is there a Fire Hydrant in the Middle of this Store?

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Folks in my area of northwest Alabama-northeast Mississippi-southwest Tennessee will recognize Henco Furniture in Selmer, Tenn. This mecca of furniture and home-decor is known for its slogan, “It’s worth the drive!”, and for its creative layout: The whole store is arranged like a downtown’s Main Street, with Americana storefronts, trees, parks and even a fire hydrant. You really feel as if Andy and Barney are going to be around the next corner. (Note the famous “barber” painted on the barbershop window.) Staff is friendly and helpful, and customers include everybody from bargain-hunters to those with unlimited budgets. There’s even a fun family restaurant and old-fashioned ice-cream parlor, the Whistle Stop Cafe. Oh, and the furniture? It’s there, too. You stroll along and go into one “store” for bedding, another for office furniture, another for kitchen tables and so on. Husband and I were there in our continuing quest to figure out our married-together style so we can fill up the empty spaces in our new house. His style got sort of stuck in 1980s bachelorhood. My style has stagnated, too, after years of marriage to a woodworker who specialized in country-Shaker furniture and then after years of being a financially challenged single mom. So Husband and I have some work to do. At Henco, we walked along and I said, “Oh, I like that” and then we kept walking and a few minutes later he said, “Oh, I like that” and sometimes it worked out that we said it at the same time. But not so often. Sigh. This is going to take a while. More shopping needed!

Christmas Dads

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You know, we almost always think of Christmas as a woman’s holiday, right? I mean, typically it’s the woman who shops and decorates and cooks and manages family logistics. It’s the woman of the house who remembers that Aunt Peggy likes chocolate-covered cherries and that we’ve sent the California cousins a balsam wreath three years in a row already. It’s the mom who gets everybody where they’re supposed to be on time, wearing the right clothes and bearing the appropriate gifts. And, let’s face it, motherhood pretty much has a starring role in the Christmas story. But let’s pause for a minute and celebrate the dads — those guys in the background who may grumble and grouse about all the holiday goings-on but who are alwrays always ALWAYS there when their family really needs them. Those of us who are lucky enough to have one or more of them with us this Christmas need to turn around RIGHT NOW and make sure they know how much we appreciate them. Go ahead. I’ll wait … … … … … There. Aren’t you glad you did that? Merry Christmas!

Purple Potatoes

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Thanks to everybody who’s worried that I’ve already dropped my plan to cook supper for my husband at least one night a week. It’s true that the week of Thanksgiving I did take a break (hey, I’d cook two or three times by then!) since we were fed practically everywhere we went, but I got back in the groove this week and for our weekly-supper-at-home, I fixed … wait for it … stir-fried vegetables. But the big surprise was the PURPLE baked sweet potatoes. Yes. Purple. I got the potatoes and the broccoli, onion and red pepper at the Jack-O-Lantern Farms market in Muscle Shoals (I think fall broccoli has a sweeter taste than its spring version) and added some mushrooms and baby carrots from the grocery. We liked the potatoes — which I’ve seen in specialty grocery stores, too, such as Earth Fare — although they weren’t what we expected. They have the creamy consistency of sweet potatoes combined with the subtle  taste of white potatoes. But how much fun is it to eat purple food? I think purple mashed potatoes would be sort of wonderful. Husband got a kick out of them, anyway. So score another victory for Week No. 3 of Cooking Supper At Home. And before you start congratulating us for unpacking all the boxes that have been evident in the previous CSAH photos, I have to tell you that they’re still there — Husband simply was sitting on the other side of the table for this photo. I know, I know, but surely you don’t expect me to cook supper once a week AND unpack boxes, too???