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We celebrated early this year.  Critter and Varmint will be with their father on Thanksgiving Day, so we gave our thanks with each other today at The Old South Mountain Inn.

It was a buffet worthy of any gorging.

And all was going swimmingly, until…

…Varmint started mimicking My Captain, and his constant use of his cell phone.  It wouldn’t have been so funny if she didn’t look so much like him.  It was uncanny, I tell you!

And Critter really wanted to be a part of the scintillating conversation.

…not.

Look, kid, you have a choice.  You can put down the Kindle and engage with the family, or I’ll kiss you right here in front of God and everyone.

No, Really.  I would.  And you KNOW I would.  Don’t push me.

Love.  Sometimes it’s painful in our family.

***SIGH***

Oh well.  At least we were together physically!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Love,
Mama Boe

We had not seen my Captain for the better part of two weeks, and his home-coming was sweet, indeed.  We celebrated with home-made Chicken Pot Pie, and a hearty dose of story-telling at the table, and then we started our bedtime routine, which usually consists of baths, jammies, books or drawing, and then snuggles/cuddletime in bed.

This night, however, Critter pulled out and dusted off the box of Tiddly Winks.  He started playing quietly on the floor by himself, as My Captain watched him from the comfort of his lazy-boy wing-back chair.

At least, he did until he felt compelled to test his own luck with the ‘ol game of his childhood memories.  There is an unwritten challenge in Tiddly Winks, that defies age or logic.  No one likes to be beaten by that damn plastic disc.

And that is how I found them:

Completely absorbed in trying to get the little colored plastic discs into the winning circle.

They’d still be there to this day if it weren’t for the Buzz-Kill that is Mama.

We stayed to watch Varmint at basketball practice tonight.

She was trying really, really, really, really hard to do her best to develop the skills she’ll need to help her team win.

My Captain and I were watching from the gym floor.  I want to be as supportive as I can without being like velcro.  I want to lift her up without being a crutch.  I want to be the wind beneath her wings……

GAH!  Who am I kidding?  I’d just rather watch her play than do a thousand other less-interesting things, like the laundry or the dishes or blah, blah, blah….

So we’re watching a drill the coach has the girls doing, and as they pass the ball to each other in this drill, they are yelling a word that distinctly sounds to my ears as “AFLAC.”  Over and over and over again I hear them yell ‘Aflac!’ before catching the ball.

Believe me, I looked everywhere for that stupid duck.

Finally I leaned over to My Captain and asked why they were yelling “AFLAC!”  He looked at me for a minute, patience and incredulity at war on his face, and said with a one-sided grin, “It’s Outlet, not Aflac.  They’re saying Outlet because they are letting the ball handler know they have broken from the pack.”

Oh.

Ahem.

Ok, that’s just silly, is what that is.  Outlet.  Hmmphf.

I’ll never hear Outlet.  It’ll always be Aflac.

That duck is there somewhere, I tell you.

Hurricane Sandy (and My Captain’s subsequent deployment) , the presidential Election, the terrorist attack in Libya….all of these negative, joy-sucking events have been overshadowing our past few weeks.  It’s been difficult to find the sunshine lately.

But an old tradition pulled us out of the gloom yesterday.

Every year Grandma Jane takes Varmint to the American Girl Doll Tea and Fashion Show in Bethesda.  It’s a tea that raises funds for a charity supporting blindness prevention.  And it’s a room packed with girly-girl estrogen, I assure you.

This year, Grandma let Varmint invite a friend, and Varmint chose a new friend who recently moved to the area.  Varmint was over-the-moon excited to share both her tradition and her Grandma with her new friend!

Now, understand, this kind of outing requires preparation.  There is no “Let’s hop in the car and go to tea!” mentality in an American Girl Doll Tea.  No Siree!  We began a full week in advance buying material at Joan Fabrics to make a skirt for Varmint, with enough material to make one for her doll, of course.  And then we had a mother/daughter shopping/luncheon trip where we bought both girls shoes and sweaters.  THAT was lovely!  I’ve never done something so girly in my entire life.

And then the big day came and there was much hair brushing and outfit fixing and doll prepping.

You have NO idea how much work drinking tea can be.

When Grandma Jane came to pick up the young LADIES, this is what she beheld:

Remind me again what was wrong with the world?  I seem to have forgotten…..

I made a post on Facebook a few days back about my weird and wonderful fetish for Candy Corn.  It was a running joke that helped us all through the hurricane.

I don’t know why Candy Corn has that power.  It just does.

Well here we are days later, Halloween has passed, and the hurricane is gone.

And in the past two days I have received not 1, not 2, not 3, but 10….TEN….count them! TEN – 1 pound bags of Candy Corn from friends.  Some came in school parking lots.  Some came during Halloween parties.  The funniest deliveries were left anonymously on my front door step.

The Candy Corn went from being a humorous coping mechanism during a time of stress to a universal sign of love and friendship.

Sure, I might go all Paula Deen on ya’ll and become Diabetic, but in the face of humanity, what’s a renal system or two?

So to those who gave so selflessly, I THANK YOU.

….and I don’t ever want another piece of candy corn for as long as I live.

Love,

Mama