On Moonlight Bay

My grandpa John and Grandma Dorothy remind me of

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

Supposedly, they danced beautifully together,

and they sang together in perfect harmony.

I would have liked to have seen it with my own eyes.

One song that they always sang on road trips was

On Moonlight Bay.

My parents, although, maybe a little less talented in the vocal department,

passed on the great tradition to my siblings and I.

I now sing this song with my children.

Four generations, and I hope it will never stop.

I wonder if Grandma and Grandpa could have forseen.

I can't help but smile as I listen to my girls singing the song in the other room.

They always respond to this song.

I found a video of the song on You Tube,

to pass along.

This is amazing, as the same man does all the parts.

I thought it did justice to the imagined memory I have in my head

of Grandpa John and Grandma Dorothy.

Sing along everyone.

We always echo every line.

It's more fun that way.

If you really want a blast to the not so distant past

and if you happen to be in love with The Beatles like my Abigail,

go here, and see The Beatles' version of Moonlight Bay.

Bandit

I am not a zoo fan.

I detest seeing animals in cages.

It seems especially wrong to cage a raccoon.

They are bandits.

Shouldn't they be able to escape?

Ways to Hurt Bella's Feelings

Here's is Abigail's latest discipline activity.

I think it goes along quite perfectly with her sourface.

I asked her to write 10 ways that she hurts her sister's feelings.

This was to compliment her essay on what she liked about Bella.

So, I was a little surprised with her finished essay

she entitled Ways to Hurt Bella's Feelings.

Because it seemed so calculated

instead of reflective.

I will hurt Bella's feelings by calling her names,

hitting her, kicking her, pinching her, and biting her.

Other ways I'll hurt her feelings is saying something untrue to her,

taking something away from her, and not caring about her.

Also, I will laugh at her and ignore her.

These are the ways I'll hurt Bella's feelings.

She wrote with such fervor,

it's as if she plans to go and do each of these things.

And, she probably will do at least 6 of the 10.

No matter how good I am as her mother.

And, that, my friends, is the worst part of summer and the only reason I am ready for my children to go back to school every August.

Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me #'s 4-6

From the book Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me

by Cynthia Copeland Lewis

#4

It's more fun to color outside the lines.

(I think that the human hands would be in the outside the line category.)

#5
If you're going to draw on the wall,

do it behind the couch.

(My Abigail would be the one to figure something like this out.

She is not only super smart, but super sneaky.)

#6

If the flowers you draw don't look like anyone elses, that's good.

(I want all my girls to know that they are uniquely beautiful and so are their ideas.

I hope they NEVER try to be like anybody else, even when the color.)

Happy coloring everyone.

Burning Up in K Town

We've been having some record highs here in TN.

So to pass some time in an air conditioned car yesterday,

we drove all the way to Bethesda to photograph this church sign.

But it was gone, so I had to paint it.

C'mon, you know it's funny.

I found this on the way. I thought they must have copied

Tennessee's famous sychronized firefly show,

and sychronized their sermons.

(BTW - we went to the smokies to see the fireflies a few years back and they are awesome.

But, seriously, they are just as good in my big tree out front.

I LOVE FIREFLIES!)

Bethesda lost a little originality brownie points from this Mormon sign stalker.

But then they saved a little face with this one.

Spiritually Minded Women

Some of my friends, doing what we do best: shepherding God's future warriors.

At church a few weeks ago, our Bishop was addressing a room full of women. He asked if we had noticed a moral decline in the world, specifically when it comes to church attendance. He said that he had noticed that many people nowadays just go to church because it's the thing to do, but that they don't go as a way to worship and help them be closer to God throughout the week. Nobody said anything.

I raised my hand and said, "Bishop, I don't disagree with you, because I think that is precisely the way the world is headed, but I think many of us women are fortunate to have a lot of friends who still do care about their God and not just on Sundays."

I went on, "I am personally privileged to have a lot of inspiring women as friends."

I kind of ruined his point, but I wouldn't change my honesty. I have so many wonderful women in my life. They all inspire me to be a better daughter of God. To be a worshipper of my Savior Jesus Christ. To be a mother who loves with all she's got. To be a wife who honors her husband. They inspire me to higher grounds.

They inspire me in real life. They inspire me in my cyber life, and they inspire me with His word. Many of them do all three. Nicole is one of those. I was so grateful for her recent flattering words. Her words were strong evidence for my argument to my Bishop. What could be better in this world then us women who rock the cradle, backing each other up? Not much. Unless that backing was with God. Because nothing can penetrate that. Nothing at all.

Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me #3

Number three tidbit from the book

Really Important Stuff My Kids Taught Me by Cynthia Copeland Lewis.

"Even if you've been fishing for three hours

and haven't gotten anything except poison ivy and a sunburn,

you're still better off than the worm."

Time-Out Time

I just read this article for some great new strategies in disciplining my kids.

After reading the article, I thought that letting the kids play cards with the dog was a really great idea of disciplining with techniques of both distraction and silliness. Let me know if your dog is as good as ours at playing spoons. It kind of runs in the Gold blood. Olive would love to get together with your dog for a card playing play date.

I typically am a go-to time out mom. I am a believer in time-out. We spanked Abigail, our oldest, for a while and found that it did not work for her at all. It just made her more aggressive. I am not saying that spanking won't work for some children, but for me it wasn't an option because I could not spank without anger. But, the older my children have got, the more frustrated I have become with the ineffectiveness of time-out. I have found myself trying to remember what my mom did with her seven kids when I have situations to resolve at hand.

My mom spanked so well without anger that it was a standing joke at our house growing up. There was usually much laughter accompanying our spankings, which were preferably given with a wooden spoon. It was much softer than her hand would have been. She's such a softie. Another good thing my mom did was make my siblings and I sit under the peach tree in the backyard whenever we fought. We had to stay there until we were willing to give each other a hug. How powerful and simple that technique was. I think she may have even used it on some of the neighbor kids from time to time. And, now that I am a mother, I realize how ingenious the idea was for her sanity too. She didn't have to worry or listen to any bickering once we were outside. She also remained neutral and made us work out our own solutions with this effective disciplining strategy.

I was really excited the other day when I had a good parenting stroke of genius. I think my mom would be pleased. The idea stemmed from her insistence that I write "I love my brother 100 times" at least 100 times in my life.

For the most part my kids behave great, but I have one pretty consistent struggle between my two bullheaded children. Abigail is 11 and wants to always tell 6 year old Bella how to do things. Bella resents it because she thinks she can be her own boss. They go at it pretty good from time to time, mostly just verbally, but sometimes they will push or hit.

Well, the other day, after one of these disagreements, and after Abigail's 11 minute time-out, that didn't work a bit, I gave her an assignment. She was to sit at the kitchen table and write down 10 things she likes about Bella. I was adamant that she would not leave the table until she got it done.

I was so impressed and completely surprised that Abigail cranked it out really quickly. She even threw in an extra compliment for good measure.

1. She cleans when asked.

2 She is kind to others. (not me)

3. She doesn't quit.

4. She likes cool music.

5. She leaves me alone when I ask, which is almost all the time.

6. She loves to play.

7. She is strong willed.

8. She dresses uniquely.

9. She takes charge in doubt.

10. She loves to take care of everything.

11. She is organized.

Later Abigail admitted to me that the way that she came up with the list was to think of all the things that she didn't like about Bella and turn them into a compliment. So, when it said, she dresses uniquely, that started out with she dresses awful. She likes cool music was really that Abigail hates her music, etc, etc.

At Abigail's admission, I could have been defeated, but I realized that even though Abigail thought she had the upper-hand, she didn't. I had just succeeded with a truly inspired exercise in cognitive therapy. I taught Abigail how to change the way she thinks. Isn't that what we all have to do to love our enemies?

A Summer Pace

I love summer because it allows for my Southern California beach pace of life to be lived guilt free. I have NO AMBITION in the summer and I prefer it that way. However I do not subscribe to a belief that ALL people should live this way. To each is own. I apologize profusely to you Stacey if my teasing hurt your feelings. We are definitely different animals, but I want you to know that I believe there is room for both of us in the same animal kingdom. Just as there is room for bees and sloths. You would be the bee, I would be the sloth.

I teased my new friend Stacey for her differences and she recently wrote about it on her blog. I wrote a comment back to my friend Stacey in response to her blog post about being teased for her rigid summer schedule, I thought it was worth a good share.

Here are my feelings about a summer pace. I am sure some of you will be horrified and I hope with all my heart that some of you will back me up on my lazy summer lifestyle.

Hi, my name is Alice and I am the teaser. I feel perfectly comfortable teasing people because I welcome them to dish it back.

It is 4:00 and I am sitting here in my underwear reading your blog. I just got up from a 2 hour nap. M yhouse isn't looking so hot today and the folded laundry has been sitting out on my sewing table since Monday waiting to be put away.

I don't have an affinity for T.V. and my kids usually get bored with it after a couple of movies, and by afternoon we explore ideas on what they would like to do with this lazy summer day.

Once a week, I get really ambitious and take my kids to play group and on Monday's we go to the library. Besides that we try to go with the flow and try to underschedule in the summer to make up for the overscheduling during the school year.

I need to teach my kids better responsibility. I probably need more scheduling in my life and even though I tease for fun but also really think you could stand for some flexibility, I think you are great mom. Everyone needs to be comfortable in their own skin and this is what really matters.

When both of your kids get in school and you are scheduled to the second all school year, you may find yourself on some distant summer day undressed at 4:00 and you may even be totally fine with it.

I love you Stacey and I am so glad you are my friend. And secretly I am jealous of all the things that you and your kids are experiencing this summer. We aren't too driven around here. Our only goal is to eat one box of otter pops per week.