Almost 9 years later…

I like having 8 + years of marriage under my belt. It simplifies things in our family life, sometimes. Thetallone can certainly still surprise me, though, like last week when he brought me home some tulips, for no reason. It was nice. Very nice. Not a usual occurrence for us, either. He knows me & I know him. He has been my best friend for longer than we have been together as a couple. He encourages me with my life, with not being “just” a mom, with everything! I do my best to support him & raise his children in the way that we agree upon. I’m totally lousy with housework, though, but he hasn’t tried to upgrade me yet. I love his sense of humor. Geez. Now this is starting to sound like a love letter! What I really wanted to talk about it how simple it is to get things done in our lives when he & I work as a team. But, I realized that I really don’t tell him how much I appreciate him often enough.  That is why this entry started to become a love letter to thetallone. My example of how we get things done is this, I am lousy with housework (as I mentioned. Though, I am trying to improve), and so I so I told the thetallone that he could move the laundry basket near the washer & dryer & that I would take that as a “gentle reminder” to get the things done that he needed me to get done. So, a couple of days ago, thetallone moved the vacuum cleaner into the middle of the living room to remind me that the living room was in some serious need of T.L.C. That kind of reminder is not loud, it’s simple & it works! Took us a few years to figure out a non-nagging way to let each other know what we need. Every year we keep working @ our love, @ our communication, and we become a better working, closer family.

some people’s parents!

I really wonder about how people parent sometimes. I was @ a Mickey D’s playplace the other evening with thetallone, theblondeone (my 5 yr old daughter), theminione (my 1 yr old daughter) and my Brother’s family. Our 3 oldest girls (minus theminione) were trying to play on the play equipment and there were about 8 other kids there, 3 of whom were a few years older and only one of whom was younger than the youngest playing from our family.  These other children were just sitting in the enclosed/tunnel slide, blocking it so that no other kids could go down! A couple of them were also sitting on top of the very end, kicking their feet. Where were their parents??! There was no adult who was there making sure the children were playing well together. No adult who was monitoring these children. We finally got so frustrated with these other children not playing well w/ our girls, that my SIL got up and sternly, but politely, asked those other children to move out of the way to let our girls through. Now, my SIL’s oldest was able to get through the boys sitting in the slide (she’s not above a bit of roughness), but theblondeone is NOT a rough player, except for occasionally, with our 3 year old Siberian Husky (Kaleb the dog). So theblondeone was stuck! Poor thing! Luckily my SIL has that “Black Momma Kat” kinda bearing (especially when the dear children need the help of a Momma Kat!), so the kids did let theblondeone through. We then proceed to leave & go to the park near our house before, as my SIL told her eldest “So, Momma doesn’t have to be in jail because of being violent!” Continue reading “some people’s parents!”

Here’s an interesting twist…

As of today I have acquiesced to a request from my wife. I like to write, she likes to write a lot. So, long story short, I have given her authorship abilities on my blog. Whilst I will attempt to write more on here (let’s see nothing since Nov?) she will also be astounding each and every one of you with her wily wit and charm. I am really looking forward to this collaboration with her. It’s nice because it is something we can do together and apart. I just wonder what happens if I start blogging responses to her blogs…?

Anyway, everybody welcome… thechickone (aka Elise). And if you want to email her here, the address is thechickone at danielvincent dot com (no, I will not give you a link, I get enough spam as it is).