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the little details
When the name “Mommy” is called in this house, the voice often originates from the bathroom. So it was yesterday. So it was. And the voice calmly calling for assistance was five-year-old Bergen. “Yes, son?” I entered the bathroom. “You politely requested my attention to your utmost needs, dear boy?” (I think that’s what I said.) He was standing in front of the toilet. Pants appropriately around his boy ankles. All appeared normal from this angle. Oh. But not entirely normal. His boxer shorts were not lowered. They were, in fact, still neatly at his waist. “Mom,” Bergen looked at me seriously. This was obviously not amusing to him. “I…
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How To Win Friends & Influence People: Jr. Edition
We visited our favorite museum last week. Hands on! in Hendersonville. Thanks to my sweet dad our family can visit that wonderland any day we choose this year with our handy-dandy museum membership. (That sounded trite. It wasn’t. I seriously am so thankful for that gift and so thankful for the museum and I wish someone was paying me to say this stuff, but they so aren’t.) As I was saying . . . We played at the museum. I took a lot of photos using a new technique Page showed me the last time he and his family were visiting. Fox discovered paints and felt it was perfectly acceptable…
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perspective.
Cuddling with Bergen before bed is sweet. And fleeting. I know. In a recent cuddle-fest, I kissed his ear and whispered, “I love you son.” “I love you too, Momma,” my pint-sized reading machine replied. “Berg – do you know how much I love you?” “No, Momma. I don’t know how much.” And he probably doesn’t. He really can’t. Because he’s five years old. So by his very length of life, he lacks what it takes to understand. He lacks what only age and time and experience can bring you. He lacks perspective. He won’t really understand how much I love him until he’s older. Until he has seen more…
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hawke: a running/ jumping/ reading miracle
My boy. My Hawkeye. He no longer has a mohawk. Which makes me sad. But when I last trimmed the hawk, the Hawke would not sit still under the hair trimmers and I managed to mangle the hawk past all recognition as a legitimate hairstyle. He’s just a mess of a little man. But I love him. So much. He can read. Seriously read. Looking at a cook book sitting on our counter, he says, “Mom – is this Southern Fixin’s?” (Which might sound like a corny name for a cookbook. But man, the recipes are amazing. It’s my go-to cookbook for all things delicious.) Sitting on the counter (I…
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Truth Better Than Fiction: An Example
File this under Random Weird Absolutely Unsolicited Confessions. Bergen: “Mom. One day this summer when we were at the pool we all took turns eating London’s skin.” Me: “Which part of her skin?” Bergen: “Her toes.” Me: “Why?” Bergen: “Because London said it was like gum.” Me: “Did it taste like gum?” Bergen: “No. It didn’t taste like anything.”
Keep Reading . . .
Lake Jocassee with the Boys
motivation. can you locate it?
Stitch Fix: We Tried It!
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I’m Just Like Bergen
Sometime in the less-than-distant past, this event occurred at our home. It was bed time. Some friends were over. Bergen wanted Nate to fly him to bed like a superhero. (Because Nate can do that, you know.) But Nate was busy. So Bergen began to wait. Impatiently. He cried out Nate’s name. Loudly. Repetitively. Nate told Bergen he would be right there in just a minute. But Bergen didn’t care. He just kept crying out in a sobbing voice, “Naaaay-Aaaate”. Over and over. Increasing in volume each time. Nate was not ignoring Bergen. He had every intention of entering the living room, scooping Bergen up Superman-style, and making a grand…
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I Just Love This Story
There are a lot of things I love about where we live. You know. Pisgah’s beautiful forest. My sort-of-because-my-cousin-Sherry-once-explained-it-to-me relative Carl Sandburg’s house. Hendersonville. (What can I say? Its streets likes my feets!) Downtown Greenville. The vast and varied assortment of fellow homeschoolers. Incredible local theatre in every direction. Target is so much closer here than it was from our former home. All of those things are cool. But that’s not why I really love where I live. I love where I live because our family gets to regularly interact with an ever-changing group of God-fearing, God-loving college students known at our home as simply “summer staffers”. I’ve written about…
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in the name of love
Things I Have Done In The Name Of Love . . . Walked through Goodwill as it was closing (and the employees were announcing approaching closing time over and over) while searching for the new orca whale owned and then lost by one young Bergen Hawkeye Norton. (Yes, that orca whale. He’s had a hard life. And – I looked up the phrase “orca whale”. Saying both is pretty superfluous. They both mean the same thing. Orca means whale. But Berg calls it his orca whale. And I like Berg. So I just plan to call it what he calls it. Because I can.) Searched the kid’s clothing aisle where…
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It’s Not Unusual
I like this house best when it is laughing. And I cannot seem to escape the fact that I live with seven funny people. And I think you might laugh at this little tale as well. One sunny afternoon in our very recent past we set out to battle the heat with two plastic pools. Two plastic pools. (Six kids.) But the kids were satisfied. Two pools suited them just fine. They declared the larger one a pool and the second, much smaller, pool was labeled a hot tub. (Their logic was sound. Less water + sunnier location = hotter pool = hot tub.) I watched them jump from hot…
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The Hawke
This is Hawkeye. He needed a haircut. And I had this idea. His name is Hawke, after all, right? The idea actually took several weeks of convincing. Finally, this weekend, somewhat out of the blue, an announcement is made by Hawkeye. “I’m ready for a mohawk now Mommy.” Okay. Okay son. Drop everything. Run to our resident stylist. And one Mythbusters episode later, the hawk emerges. The mohawk, that is. It looks stinkin’ adorable. (Except the wearer is not as fond of the results as the mommy is. Which is a real shame. Since now Hawkeye will not let me spike the mohawk up. And that makes me a little…
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why I love this photo
Because my friend Jane took it with her flashy new Nikon. Because Hawkeye is wearing one of my favorite t-shirts. (You can’t really appreciate it since its view is obstructed, but I know it’s there. It features the band The Who. I picked it up at Target for $2.00. But I like it because Hawkeye calls it his “behind blue eyes” shirt.) Because it is so Real Life At Our House. I mean, seriously. Just look at Hawke’s knees.
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believes.
My day is filled (and I mean filled) with requests to “look at this”. Bergen loves to call my attention to important matters. Such as “Mom, I found Sparks (a much-loved, frequently-misplaced-because-he-is-rather-small stuffed puppy that was once Riley’s).” “Hey, Mom – check this out. One scab on my knee is gone and just pink but the other is still big and puffy.” “Look at this truck – can you believe how high it jumps? Look at it again. It does it every time.” (All twenty-seven times. Yes. It certainly does, son.) “Mommy – watch Flapjack’s eyes in this cartoon. London, can you rewind that? Mommy has to see his eyes.…
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Hello.
Tetherball. Meet Bergen. Bergen. Meet tetherball. I think you guys will enjoy a long and enduring friendship.
