Category Archives: Caroline

Old Alabama Town

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Well, since I didn’t explode the blog yesterday, it’s time to try this slideshow thing again today. Yesterday’s show was a little on the small side, IMHO, so I’m going to go for bigger. But I don’t know if I’ll get it.

We went to the Alabama book festival yesterday and wandered around with the heady smell of intellectualism in our noses for three hours until Sam started trying to break antiques. The festival was housed in Old Alabama Town, a sort of miniature Ye Olde Williamsburg. I’ve avoided the place before, because I feared it would be all Gone With the Wind veneration of the old South.… Read the rest

Eggz

Posted on by February 25, 2020

It started with the colors

But things got silly fast

for Sam, anyway.

Caroline was into the eggs at a much deeper level

She really considered what colors to use

and took great pride in her results;

especially when she realized I’d put her name on one of her eggs.

Sam was pretty thrilled when he saw his first eggs come out.

 

But on the whole, he was more interested in dumping colors together and dying himself mushy blue.

In the end, they both had an eggsellent time.

Right up until Sam melted down for four hours when the project was over.… Read the rest

Learning to Fly

Posted on by February 25, 2020

 

 

 

This is sweet Caroline learning to ride her bike. I’m linking up with Galit Breen of These Little Waves and Alison of Mama Wants This for their monthly Memories Captured photo meme. It’s a topic I’ve covered previously here, but without this awesome triumphant final picture.

… Read the rest

Celebrate CALM Part One

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I attended a mini-conference last week, and because I am me, I’ve been mulling it over ever since. It was one of these parenting seminars destined to be either spectacular or spectacularly dumb. I should assert here that my inner skeptic was expecting the latter.

A little background. I do not approve of parenting via the fluffy-cloud method.  Scott and I once paid some $400 for a parenting course that was ALL 1970s schmaltz.  The class text even used the phrase “hang-up”. Does it get more 1970s than “hang-up”? And yet, I loved that syrupy thing. Every annoying idea that irked me actually had practical applications that were anything but stupid.… Read the rest

Shop-IN

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Caroline has reached an age where I don’t post everything she does online. Sam’s still young enough that pretty much any exploit can be attributed to age when viewed in retrospect. My baby duck, though, is growing up. Which is why it surprised me today when she said, as we walked out of JC Penney together, “You’re going to put this on your blog, right Mom?”

“Well, yes,” I said. But I hastened to add, “I’m not going to say what we bought.”

Mostly, I wanted an entry about this Sunday’s shop-in. I haven’t even attempted to explain this to her in any depth, and she, unlike me, loves to shop, yearns for more opportunities to do so, and doesn’t really care about the excuse.… Read the rest

Train train

Posted on by February 25, 2020

The weekend after I got back from my solo Ohio trip, I had scheduled a surprise for our family. (This was a bad idea; I’m even worse at planning surprises than I am at keeping them.) I wrote the melodramatic message “Make no plans. Board the dog” across the calendar weekend of December 10th and waited for Scott to notice.

I actually did a very good job of waiting, since I bought the tickets towards the end of November, and he didn’t notice until the day before I left for Cincinnati. He was adding a kid therapy to the calendar and asked “What plans aren’t we making next weekend?… Read the rest

Bubbles

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Can you believe the 2 1/2 year old in the top picture is the exact same child as the 8 year old in the bottom picture? They don’t even look alike.

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I’m hooking this entry up once more with the Memories Captured project over on These Little Waves and Mama Wants This with effects and text added using Picnik‘s free online software.

… Read the rest

Notes From The Road: Caroline

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I don’t want to make Caroline into something she isn’t.  But she’s a pretty amazing little girl, and she has this talent that’s hard to describe. I’ve blogged previously about how her Aperger’s Syndrome seems to drive her outward where it drives a lot of kids inward.  It’s more than that, though. Caroline is so loving that she draws others out, as well.

She can make friends with anybody, on or off the autism spectrum, with no concerns for age, race,  gender, or skill level. A trip to the zoo where she doesn’t either meet a new friend or bump into an old one is a tragic day indeed.… Read the rest

And then there were two

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Well folks, it worked. Or anyway, it sorta worked. There were kinks, and things got hinky there when Sam realized we were really taking his bed away, but our two little sugarplums are nestled right now in their big new beds.

Things got off to a rough start, because the shape of our house made it impossible to drag the beds in ahead of time, meaning we had to plan to deliver them as a middle-of-the-day-work-in-progress surprise. Only when we woke up, it was shiver in my bones pouring rain. Queue Ten Thousand Maniacs. Scott checked the radar, identified a brief hole when we could drag everything in from the shed, and as soon as the predicted letup began, we raced inside with a thousand parts.… Read the rest

Dear Santa Clas [sic]

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Dear Santa Clas [sic].

I hope you enjoy the cookies. I hope the reindeer are doing whell [sic]. How are you doing? My name is Caroline Bradshaw Merriman. How is Mrs. Clas [sic] doing? How are the reindeer doing? Our house has a beautiful Chrismis tree Love Caroline

PS How is Rudolph Doing?

 

 

 

 

Dear Caroline and Sam,

Ho ho ho! I do believe this is my longest letter from a child. Keep writing. You are very good at it. Your cookies were lovely. I am taking the chocolate one home to Mrs. Claus. I’m sure she is doing well and will love it.… Read the rest