The Puddles

Feb. 25 – Ben’s had his pinewood derby night.  It was short and massively unorganized.  No one knew what was going on.  It truly drove me nuts, but Ben had a good time.  He didn’t win but he liked hanging out.  I left as soon as Ben was done (Mom had chores to do).  He got a patch and got to bring the car home.  

March 20, 2011 – My Ainsley rode a bike without training wheels.  She convinced Papa Grace to take off the training wheels of the kids bike that they have at their house.  She was determined to ride her bike by herself.

The funny part of this story was that she got the whole team lined up . . .

“Grandma. You put your hand here and push.  Grandpa. You stand at the end and catch me when I fall.  Ok. Are we ready?”  I felt like we needed to put our hands together and yell, “Go team!”

But she did it.  She was so proud.  Of course, it took another week for Daddy to find time to take the training wheels off of her bike at home but he did!  And now she is just like everyone else!  Or so she says ;)!

“Ben, are you still hungry?”
“Yes. Starving!”
“Honestly Ben. Where do you put it all?”
“In my mouth.”

That had Chris and I laughing until the tears came rolling down our cheeks.

It is a gorgeous evening.  The weather is calm and comfortable.  The bugs aren’t too bad yet.  The kids swam for awhile this afternoon.  After the kids got out and got into their jammies, they came outside and worked together to pick plums.  They picked about 2 dozen.  Most sat on the ground too long and bugs had worked themselves inside already.  We don’t need more protein so I’ll probably toss those out, but I’ll clean the rest of them up and we’ll enjoy them for dessert.

In the process of picking our plums, we discovered a bird’s nest in one of the trees in the backyard.  We saw some of the babies sticking their heads out, but the mommy bird soon tucked them back in once she realized that we were there.  Ainsley struggled to see the birds but between Chris and I we got Ainsley to see the bird.  She was really upset about struggling to see it.

Dinner is still cooking.  The kids are spending a little more time outside relaxing on the playset.  Soon these days will be gone.  I’m glad they got to at least enjoy today.

Her flowers look great!  She says that she finally has a tall flower!  Yeah!

So this is my tomato plant.  It has suddenly developed brown spots on the leaves. My husband hates that I even have these plants (he wants the killing to end), but he never reads my blog so I’m safe!

My mother-in-law was a huge help to narrow the issues down.  I have bought bigger pots to repot the plants, but have yet to do it.  Too much to do.  I hope that will help.

I just really need to make sure that they don’t die.  I will never hear the end of it.

Bad mom.  There was a really long period of time where I did a bad job of posting pictures.  I have no excuse.

This is Ainsley’s day to dress up in old clothes and be an old person.  Of course, she is wearing one of her sister’s skirt that I gathered, but it makes her look ancient!  The powder in her hair helped.  And of course, one of my reading glasses.  It was a pair I grabbed out of desperation when I really needed glasses while on vacation.  Chris says they are awful and told Ainsley to keep them forever.  She’s had fun with them. This is our last 100th day parade.  She is the last one in kindergarten.  I think I am more sad about the last day of kindergarten forever than I was about the first day of kindergarten.  It just means that my babies are growing up.

In general we have the best neighbors.  Lovely, wonderful, quiet people.

One of my neighbors who lives a few houses away has decided to start parking on our lawn.  We are accommodating people, but this has been going on for over a month.  So after consulting Chris, he was ok with me going and talking to them nicely about not parking there.  The grass has always struggled there and now it looks really bad.  So parking on it doesn’t help.  And by the way . . . they don’t park in their own yard because they just put new grass in and don’t park on anyone else’s yard but ours.

I thought (my first mistake) that the worst that could happen was some uncomfortable feelings while we talked about it.  Boy could I have been more wrong?

As soon as I asked, the 70 year old mother started in on me.  When I started apologizing for even asking, she yelled for her daughter to move her car and then shut the door.  I realized this wasn’t a good situation so I started walking home regretting my decision.  So the first daughter comes walking out and starts in on me.  Yelling at me for being inconsiderate and rude.  Called me a liar and a horrible neighbor after living there for only nine months and had never had the decency to go over and introduce myself to them.  I turned around (second mistake) and told her that I had lived there for three years and had never seen her before and how dare she call me a liar.  I asked her why she was doing this to me.  She said she had a right to park any where she wanted to and that she was parking on public property.  By this time, the second daughter comes out of the house and is walking up to me yelling at me.  She continues the accusations.  Then another daughter comes walking out screaming.  So four grown woman are standing in the street with three of them screaming at the other  while one stands in shock.  I can’t believe this is happening.  I’ve never had a neighbor do this.  Let alone an entire house full of adults doing it.

The end result was two of the daughters asking for a do-over and introducing themselves to me so that we could start properly.  I was rattled.  I went home, called Chris and cried.  What kind of people do this to others?  I am always shocked and amazed by humanity.

After spending and hour with kindergarteners that afternoon, I realized that I needed to make amends with my neighbors.  I can’t make them change their ways, but I can change mine.  Since (according to them) this all stemmed from us being poor and rude neighbors, I should go over and try to be better.

So after school, the kids and I took some of our prized Thin Mints, wrapped them with a ribbon, and headed over.  The neighbors just happen to be in their driveway, but as soon as they saw us coming they headed inside.  We at least caught the father before he got inside.  I greeted him and told him that after this morning I wanted to start over and do better.  I introduced myself and the children.  He, of course, didn’t offer his name but wanted to start in on me about how I was rude to him over the years (the problem is that they have been keeping a checklist of my faults).  Like not coming over and introducing myself. Geez. I told him that I wasn’t here to rehash the morning.  I wanted to start over and that I didn’t realize how I was being a bad neighbor and wanted to do better.   So after offering him the cookies, and redirecting our conversation away from my rudeness, I asked if we could speak to his wife.  The wife was another repeat of the husband (rehashing the morning and my rudeness and then my attempting to redirect the conversation with apologies and a willingness to do better). I offered her the cookies and she refused them.  When I told her that this was a gift to help start this relationship over, she finally took the cookies.

It ended well, but here is what I learned today.

1. All adults can revert to childish behavior easily.

2.  Grass is not worth getting in a war with your neighbor over.

3.  I can’t change anyone but myself.

My neighbors obviously don’t feel that they have done anything wrong (I heard at least a dozen times “we lived here for 34 years” and “my parents are exemplary neighbors”).  So if I want this to work, I am the one who is going to have to put forth the effort.  I don’t need them to be my best friend but a little peace in my world would be good.

So I found my camera.  I’ve been taking pictures with it off and on for five months without ever downloading the pictures.  So I finally did it today.

The posts are random in nature and I apologize for that.  But this is my online record keeping of my family activities, so I am a little late but at least they made it in!

This picture is Ainsley and I hanging out while we wait for the church’s float to come by at the Conroe Christmas Parade!  She wasn’t feeling well enough to ride on the float, but she and I went to at least support her siblings while they walked in the parade.