Help Wanted

I have been asked to present a short class in October about fun and unique ways to do or participate in family history (aka genealogy/family lineage.)  I hope they are serious about fun and unusual ways, because I don't know a thing about serious genealogy.  I do, however, have a love for family stories, family recipes, old family pictures, and capturing today's moments for tomorrow.  That'll be my focus.  I think.  I haven't figured it all out.  That's where you come in: 

Do you have any ideas that you would like to share?  Or opinions?  I'd love to hear them. 

The Entrepreneurial Spirit/How to Raise a Capitalist

Yes.  She came up with the catch phrase "The Best in the West."  She knows a little something about advertising.

Well.  I was right.  The lemonade stand left me exhausted.  For those of you with Facebook friends from Arizona, you know it is still a million degrees here.  At least.  I find any excuse to avoid leaving the house, so Friday afternoon's many, many, many, trips outdoors (I knew it was coming) was slight torture.  By the end I was a sweaty, dehydrated mess.  I was so exhausted that my idea of making dinner was pulling leftovers out of the fridge and serving them on paper plates.  (Lucky Mr. Wicke.)

But this little girl?  Happy.  Gorgeously happy.

She was so cute pulling out the table, setting up the umbrella, getting her supply wagon all ready to go.  She took it really seriously.  No kidding around. 

And, can you believe she made $21.00???  What?  Selling glasses of lemonade and cookies for 25 cents each? 

I'd post more, but I've got to get outside and get a lemonade stand set up.  Forget the kids.  I need some bookshelves for my bedroom!

MOTY, Here I Come!

So...I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I have been posting like a real blogger lately.  Real regular and everything.  I haven't done 11 posts in one month in at least a year and a half.  If I could chart that phenomenon in concert with my baby's age, I think we might see some connection.  That's just a theory.  I can't prove it because I don't know how to use Excel...or whatever program would make a chart like that.  I just learned how to use Picasa.  I am on a need to no basis with technology.

But that's not what I meant to be posting about.  What I started to say is that I have been posting like a real blogger.  I even included pictures.  Any day now I am going to get my own TV show like The Pioneer Woman, I'm pretty sure of it.

But not today.  Nope.  'Cause today I am busy trying to win mother of year.  (Would somebody please nominate me already?)  Here's what I'm busy doing instead of blogging like a real big time blogger.  (Thank you to the 5 people who read my blog, by the way.)  I am making lemonade and chocolate chip cookies this morning because Logan insists on running a lemonade stand the minute she gets off the bus.  She passed out fliers and everything, and I have to have the table "ready to go!"  Her goal is to make enough money to buy the yoga dog calendar from the school fundraiser catalogue.  A mother of the year doesn't mess with dreams like that, so I am going to have those cookies baked, gosh darn it!

Then I have to get the baby down for his nap at 1:00 pm sharp (I am sure this will run smoothly, of course) so he will sleep while Mr. Wicke works from home so that I can go to school and volunteer in Logan's classroom.  I ran into her teacher while making copies at the school for the PTSO Smoothie Fundraiser today (seriously, where is that nomination?) and she mentioned how she needs files organized and a bulletin board done...and well, I happen to be really gifted at bulletin boards.  (Ahem, I think that is a qualification category for MOTY--that's Mother of the Year to lay people.)  But seriously, I can really rock a bulletin board.  I don't know if that's an actual major at college, but if it were...Master's program, here I come!

Anyway, after that, I'm going to rush right home, and make sure everything is ready to go so that I can spend the next hour making a thousand trips between the house and the front yard while being bossed around by the lemonade stand coordinator.  Then I'll spend the hour after that cleaning up, after which I will make dinner and clean that up, too.  And if I don't get nominated by then, well, then I guess I have no other choice but to go back to being a big time blogger (hi mom!) because this mothering gig is wearing me out.

And that is why I am not writing a real post today or including pictures.  Ah nuts!  There went my TV show!

Pants

This morning Griffin's pants were too short.  And when I say pants, I mean  ALL of his pants.  What started with "Hey Griff, I have some bad news..."

"What?"

"Your pants are too short.  You're going to have to change them.  I know.  I know.  But it's your own fault.  You grew last night.  Stop doing that."

...turned into a minor fashion show in his bedroom.

"Nope.  Those are too short, too."

"What about these?"

"Yeah.  Those should work.  I think I just bought those...What?!  They are too short, too?  What size are they?  They are size eight.  They should fit.  Are you pulling them up to your armpits?  No?  Alright.  That's it.  You are in big trouble, mister!  How dare you grow out of all your pants?!"

At this point, his sister joined us.  "Am I in trouble, too?"

"Yes.  As a matter of fact you are both in very big trouble because neither of you will listen to me.  How many times do I have to say it?  STOP GROWING!"  They love this monologue.  They think it is soooo funny, and what good am I if I can't be funny once in a while.

"We can't help it!" they argue.

"Oh, really!  Well then I'll just have to take matters into my own hands, won't I?  Maybe I'll make you walk around with something super heavy on your heads.  That'll do it.  Ooh yeah, and then I'll chain some cannon balls to your ears.  So what if you're a hunchback?  I gotta' do what I gotta' do if you're not going to listen already..."  I could do this bit all day.

Except that I have to go buy my guy some pants... 

You know what they say about a joke.  That there is a germ a truth at the heart of it?  Well, there is that teeny tiny (not so tiny) part of me that really does wish they would stop growing--just for a minute--and let me catch my breath already.  Does it really have to go this quickly?  Most of the time I feel like their childhood is water running through my fingers, when I just want to catch it, hold onto it, and admire it for a minute.

Last spring, when I attended Women's Conference, singer/songwriter Hillary Weeks shared a little phrase during her performance that has tumbled around in my brain since then.  She said that over the breakfast table one morning, the thought occurred to her that we are privileged to know our children as children.

And she's right.  I am privileged to know these little people.  They will be adults before I know it.  They will spend the majority of their lives in big bodies with big problems and big worries.  But for now, I get to witness their joy and, perhaps, their spirits in their purest forms, before the awkwardness of teenage years, before the struggle of adulthood.  I get to witness hope undefiled.  I get to witness faith without cynicism.  I get to witness love without conditions.  I get to witness their childhood.

I only wish it lasted a bit longer.