Tag Archives: Scott

Take me out to the…what was that line again (Bag Lady Got Nothin’ On Me)

Posted on by February 25, 2020

In the absence of a ball game, we took Scott out to the rain delay to celebrate his birthday. Not quite the same. But then, we’ve never been your standard family, so we enjoyed it a lot until everything was cancelled outright. Oh well. We get in free come Saturday. Happy Birthday, hon.

 

The snacks were good, anyway. Of course, it was ballpark food, so that probably goes without saying. I’m dieting. I ate exactly one bite of a hot dog. #martyrproblems. Oh, and then I went and got the car, all dolled up for our inability to remember umbrellas.… Read the rest

Bump

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Scrape-squeak-squeak. Scrape-squeak-squeak. Dunk-gadunk squeeeee.

“ I think we have rats in the attic.”  I stood in the hall looking up.

Scott came from his office and listened with me. “Attic fan.”

“But it sounds like The Devil in The Exorcist. You remember that scene where Ellen Burstyn tries to convince the housekeeper there’s a rodent infestation, only it turns out to be Satan?”

“Jessie, the only thing I remember about The Exorcist is that you said it was suspense and dragged me off to see the director’s cut in 2000.”

“It is suspense! And it sounds like it’s living in our attic.”… Read the rest

Noise pollution

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“Turn it down.” Scott’s face loomed as my door swung open.

“I had that closed.”

“We can hear you in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, Mom, it’s too loud.” Caroline poked her head under her father’s elbow.

“You’re only complaining because it’s heavy metal. If I had the Beatles up, you’d be in here dancing.”

“You’ve got Beatles? I want the Beatles!” Sam joined the fray with enthusiasm unreasonable for someone who should have been zoned out in front of the TV.

I clicked around until my desk stopped shaking with the gunshots of “For Those About to Rock, We Salute You.”… Read the rest

To be a Daddy

Posted on by February 25, 2020

 

These two pictures hang above my desk. They say an awfully lot without my needing to interpret them for you, but let me talk awhile anyway. My husband is not just a father to our children. He’s their Daddy. Sam, who is a Mama’s boy, has lately started demanding his Daddy-hugs at bedtime again and saying, in a worried little voice, “I like Daddy best.” He doesn’t yet understand the ebb and flow of a parent-child relationship, and he worries that he’s hurting me. He always seems surprised by my delight. I tell him, “That’s wonderful. I love you, and sis, and Daddy best.”… Read the rest

Mother’s Day From Authors

Posted on by February 25, 2020

And now, allow me to bring you the best and most unexpected guest post ever. I took the kids grocery shopping, and we picked out Sam’s birthday cake for next weekend, and when I got back, Scott had written me a mother’s day card with various quotations of dubious origin. These are things the authors only told him, let me assure you.

But I will share them with you, because I love you like my mother. Or something.

“Fork clang. Shoes on. Love. the trash went out…”  — Joyce

“Love. Pointless. Dying. Alone. Perhaps only partly cloudy.”– Hemingway

“Love, a yes, that, as it spring forth anew each day with the force of a river fed from high in the mountains, from a spring up there…” — Dickens

“Love, the thing that is beautiful just like a rose” — Shakespeare

“A life without love is like a squirrel pie without the squirrel” — William Shakespeare Bocephus.… 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

Happy Anniversary (Introducing Scott)

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Scott and I celebrate our tenth anniversary this year. Today, actually. October 13th. And we’d like to do a dozen things that parents of young kids just don’t have time for. So we will not be going on a cruise. Or taking a thoughtful hike for miles and days down the Appalachian trail. Or even trying out skydiving together. (I’m not sure Scott would have acquiesced to that one anyhow.)  Thanks to my friend Linda and her husband Robert, we did catch Garrison Keillor in Tuscaloosa last month, and that was something anyway. Other than that, we will be staying in this year.… Read the rest

Hyundai

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Well, Sam didn’t poop at all yesterday, in spite of some forty five minutes spent sitting obligingly on the pot. I couldn’t bring myself to molest him with that damned enema a fourth night in a row, and so he had to have two tonight before producing a nasty hard mass. I suppose it’s time to bypass the pediatrician  and go find a shit-ologist to see what is up with my baby’s ass.

However, there is one bright spot. In the midst of tonight’s ordeal, Caroline had to fend for herself for quite awhile. At one point, I was sitting on the bathroom floor discussing poop with Sam, and Caroline wandered around the corner holding an old book.… Read the rest

Rainbow Flag

Posted on by February 25, 2020

For a number of reasons that will be dealt with later, I’ve been under an unusual amount of stress lately. The raw effect of this for my family is that I’m more short tempered than normal, and much less tolerant of my kids’ perfectly normal (if perfectly obnoxious) behavior. My students can’t see me in person, so they don’t experience my deep sighs when they ask questions with answers I consider obvious. Unlike my kids and husband, they never receive responses like, “I don’t fucking know. Jesus Christ, do I look like the Dali Lama?” To keep these moments to a minimum, I’ve been letting the Jester Queen have a bit more free rein.… Read the rest

Hanson

Posted on by July 3, 2011

I was going to take this weekend off from blogging. I have two courses going on, final grades to turn in for a third, and three more starting up on Monday. (Yes, on the 4th of July. It’s one of the drawbacks of working for a for-profit online institution. There are no scheduled holidays.) So I’ll have five classes by the time all is said and done.  I’ve taught one of the three startups recently, I last taught another six months ago, and the third I’ve never taught at all. So I’ve got tons of prepping and grading to do this weekend.… Read the rest