The Little Figs

Can you spell lame? I can... M-A-T-T-A-N-D-A-I-M-E-E. (Oh, I'm so relieved... Aubree just walked into the room while I am writing this and said, "You guys aren't lame. Just sometimes you do wacky, nervy stuff." I guess that says it all when my 11 year old feels that way.) I will totally admit it. We are lame parents, in more ways than one. Let's just say that our family's toothfairy is very forgetful. Many, many times my children have excitedly put a newly lost tooth under their pillow. Many, many times they have woken up in the morning with nothing under their pillow except their tooth. At first they would come upstairs, so bummed, and we would say, "Oh, let's look again." Then magically the two quarters would be there under the pillow. (Yes, our toothfairy is cheap, too.) After the monotony of this situation wore on, the kids started coming upstairs and saying things like, "The toothfairy forgot again." We would reply, "Tha

If any of you were driving down the street this morning, you may have seen me. I was the messy-haired woman in pajamas, slippers on my feet, standing in the road. Yes, that was me, waving the blue viola case wildly to try to get the bus driver to stop the bus. You see, I am a mother, and my daughter needed that viola for orchestra this morning. I guess being a mother makes us do things like run down the street in PJ's, wear slippers in the snow, and stop the bus while several cars sit behind it, waiting. LUCKILY, the nice bus driver put out the "stop" sign and motioned for me to go ahead and cross the street while he waited. Although my slippers are a little big and don't stay on my feet super well, I tried to take large strides to clear the road so those three cars sitting behind the bus could get to work. I especially liked it when they slowed down to watch me walk, with my floppy slippers, up the driveway. It was super lucky that I had my "floody"

We love ice cream. We also love eating ice cream at Leatherby's. We also love using coupons to eat ice cream at Leatherby's. My mother-in-law, knowing I will try to use a coupon ANYWHERE, handed me several Leatherby's coupons one day and said, "I figured you could probably use these." I was thrilled, of course. The next time Matt and I took the kids to Leatherby's, I pulled out the coupons and showed Matt our good fortune. He said they looked just like the coupons that he would get when he worked at Leatherby's 20 years ago. In fact, when he flipped over one of the coupons, it said, "Matt, call Paul." Hmmm... a phone message from his mom about his best friend in high school. It finally dawned on Matt that these WERE the same coupons from 20 years ago. "Well, they don't have an expiration date," I pointed out, as I strolled up to the cashier to pay. When I handed over the coupons, the cashier had a puzzled look on his face.

The other night Caleb (5) was playing with one of Marcus' (7) toys. Marcus was hollering at him to hand it over. We told Caleb that he couldn't play with it unless he had asked first. He sweetly said, "Marcus, can I play with your toy?" Marcus yelled, "NO!" Caleb replied, "Well, I'll take that as a Yes." What a funny kid! Of course we made him give it back to Marcus and he was not happy about it. Last week it was Marcus' turn for Family Home Evening. He prepared the lesson all by himself, which I believe was a little bit impromptu. When he was reminded that he had the lesson, he jumped off his chair and ran into Caleb's room. He came out holding something behind his back and began his lesson with: "We all want to make good choices. We should obey and do what we're supposed to so we can live with..." (Then he swings the arm that was behind his back around and shows us Caleb's Christus statue.) "This

Today I took Caleb in for his 5-year-old check up and kindergarten shots. The doctor asked Caleb what he wanted to do when he grew up. Caleb said, "Play video games." Nice! Then our pediatrician said, "Wow, your baby is starting kindergarten. It seems like just yesterday he was in here as a newborn." Out of nowhere, I just started bawling. I didn't even try to hide it. Yep, I sat there and wiped tears as they rolled down my cheeks and our nice doctor talked about how he feels the same way with his children starting to leave home. Then I started crying harder as I thought about them growing into teenagers and then adults. Sheesh, parenting adult children scares the heck out of me. Then you have very little influence and the best you can do is pray for them. Plus, then they start to realize how weird you really are. And then you start to age and get even more quirky... I digress... I told the doc how people tell you over and over again, "Enjoy them w