This time tomorrow I’ll be sitting on the beach sleeping picking my Mom up from the airport.  But AFTER that, I’ll be on the beach.  We’re almost completely packed.

The banana bread has been baked:

Fish cookies have been baked (Cali’s beach tradition.  She decorates them there):

Watermelon has been cut up:

Got my tan:

We’re gettin’ there!

In 48 hours we’ll be here…we’re counting the seconds. 

Before we ever had Cali, Matt and I had made up our minds that she would have a top-notch education and we’d make the sacrifices to make that happen.  Now.  She’s only in Preschool; however, she goes to the “good” Preschool.  But one of the drawbacks of a “good” place is the…umm…ahem….dare I say….PRETENTIOUS, SNOBBY, DOO-DOO-DON’T STINK, COUNTRY CLUBBIN’ SOCCER MOMS who literally….literally, step on the backs of everyone else to get where they’re going. 

For instance.  Well, here’s a little background.  We’ve been having “issues” with Cali for the past month or so.  Alot  of telling us NO…alot of not listening.  But up until this point she hasn’t been a problem at school.  Until today.  Apparently she told the teacher “NO” all day and spent the majority of the day in time-out.  Which is where she belonged.  So upon collecting her and her things at dismissal time, she flat nutted up, threw a shoe and came completely unglued. 

So here I am…trying to juggle her bag, sippy, take-home papers..all while dragging a 40+ pound kicking and screaming 2 year old out of the building.  She was yanking everything out of her bag throwing it all over the place…I was trying to pick it all up and couldn’t get the door open and she was scratching my neck and biting me.  (Note:  Ordinarily I’m not a whiner…but today just set me off.)  And in the midst of all of this chaos there were probably 12 - 15 mothers standing right there and not one of them…not a solitary one of them offered to help open the door or get my things off the floor.  In fact, two of them actually kicked her sippy out of the way to get out of the door.  Finally an older GENTLMAN was kind enough to open the door and help me out. 

Now.  If I saw another human being struggling like that…I’d immediately step in and do whatever I could to help her out.   That’s just my nature.  But I had to stop and think today…am I too soft?  Am I too nice?  Are these the role models that my daughter has to look up to?!  Both Matt and I would give the shirt off our backs to someone in need..but then we send her to a school that almost honors the elite and their holier-than-thou behavior.  Is this what it’s going to be like when she’s actually in grade school?

All of this makes me want to chew my fingernails and drink alot of Hawaiin Punch.

All of this makes me smile.  And I want them.  All of them:

I wanted to make Cali some new toys before we head to the beach…here’s what I came up with.  I wish I could’ve done TONS more of the food.  Something to do when we get home!  For some reason the child would rather play with stuff like this than store-bought toys.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to live in a house, plant an oak tree and watch it grow.  Maybe because it represented permanence.  Both my husband and I are kids of a Preacher Man…so we did alot of moving around.  Prior to my adoption, I was constantly in and out of different foster homes.  So I think somewhere in my psyche the Oak meant staying in one place.

Being the curious person that I am…I started reading up on the Mighty Oak.  And it became evident to me that it was quite apropo for me to be drawn to this tree.  Their very meaning is strength and endurance.  They’re the only tree that defy gravity by growing their branches horizontally and they have widest geographical range of all the trees and can withstand a variety of temperatures.  It takes between 70 and 80 years before they even produce their first acorn!

The relationship between man and tree has always been significant.  Not only because of folklore, but because we depend on each other for life.  Trees need the carbon dioxide that we exhale…and we need the oxygen that the trees provide.  Without each other, we’d shrivel up and die. 

 I’m first generation Irish…my birth father came over here on a boat when he was a baby.  So I was extremely intrigued by the significance of the Oak in Celtic folklore.  The Celtic name for Oak is “dauer”, the origin of the word “door”.  For generations, people have gone to sit beneath the Oak to gain strength and spiritual renewal.  It is believed that through the Oak, success is assured, we become confident and strong in body and mind.  We can fight if we have to and also protect those whom we love.  With the medicine of the Oak, we do so with integrity.  Without the blessings of the Oak, we’ll be taken hostage by lethargy, fear and exhuastion.  Weakness, laziness and despondance meet with general failure.  If we are totally cut off from the Oak, darkness and depression ensue…and lies and betrayal follow.

Whether it’s Celtic folklore or good old fashioned science-based beliefs…the Oak can teach us a myriad of lessons if we hush our mouths and pay attention.

….Matt and I were cool.  But now…we’ve joined the ranks of our parents.  The strict disciplanarians.  The enforcers.  It was bound to happen at some point.  The child was slowly taking over the world one day at a time…like Napoleon.  So yesterday we met at Headquarters and said, “A list.  We need to make a list.  Of things that are 100% unacceptable.  No negotiating.  And we need to figure out what we’re gonna do if she does something bad….set the boundaries so she knows….then stick to it.  You ready?  I’m ready.  Let’s do this thang.”

1)  No peeing on floor or furniture (this has become an activity done out of spite…NOT a potty training issue.)  Disciplinary Action:  Still thinking on that one.

2)  Put your clothes on and KEEP them on.  Disciplinary Action:  Time out?

3)  If you interrupt a grown-up while they’re are talking (this is a wretched habit of hers)…you will be placed in your room until the conversation is over.

4)  If you come up and yank stuff out of our hands…books, needles, newspapers…anything…git to your room.  (Until I get the time-out chair….)

5)  If you color or paint on the walls or furniture…no more crayons or paint for the rest of the day.  (We let her color all over bedroom wall…we totally buckled there.  It became an exercise in futility.  All you anal retentive parents out there need to calm down and quit flipping out.  Hippy and artistic parents totally “get” this concept.  Right?  RIGHT?)

6)  If you heave your food across the room…food is taken away and you’ll be hungry.  Like a wolf.

7)  If we give you a cookie (Isn’t that a book?)…you have to eat the WHOLE thing before we’ll give you another one.  (She only eats the cream out of the middle and throws the cookie part wherever.)

8)  Don’t spit at us like a camel or tell us “NO”….if you do…to your room…(until the time-out chair is obtained).

That’s about as far as we got.  We had to stop to take of this little matter.  We don’t have a rule for putting lotion in your hair at 6 a.m………..perhaps we need one.

DISCLAIMER:  The time-out chair will be enforced upon our return from vacation.  I’m going to get a new and “special” chair…one that lets her know we mean business.  No lawn chair or recliner.  One of those straight back wooden ones.  The NO-NO Chair.  Oh, I’m naming it.  I’m totally going there.  I don’t want that crazy Super Nanny Joe (we secretly love her) showing up at our front door saying, “You’re bofe idiot parents!  You need to be firm, eh?”

Cali was wound up tighter than Dick’s hat-band yesterday, so I just let her go buck wild for most of the afternoon.  She painted her entire body, colored all over the bathroom walls (bath crayons..I’m not THAT crazy), and “made”..mostly ate..cookies.  See?

There once was a child, and he strolled about a good
deal, and thought of a number of things.  He had a
sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion.
These two used to wonder all day long.  They wondered
at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the
height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the
depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.

Charles Dickens
 

I’ve got one of these…these children of wonder.  You could give her a stick and a piece of notebook paper and she’d be totally enthralled.  She’s taught me that if you stop and pay attention…REALLY pay attention…there’s wonder and enchantment all around us.  The way a sunbeam comes through a cloud and down to the ground.  Planting a tiny seed and having large amounts of food coming out of them a couple of months after.  The sedating sound of waves crashing onto sand.  Spiderwebs.  Seeing the moon when it’s morning time.  The sound of a hoot owl.  It’s all there…smack up in our face. 

Thanks, Cali…for teaching me that being childish is sometimes what you need to gain the right perspective.

Here’s the very first bringin’ in of the crops!  Field peas.  I’m hoping by the time we’re back from vacation there’ll be lots more.  Course, we lost all the squash, melon and zucchini due to the Chlorine Bandit’s wiley ways:

She poured water from the pool onto half the garden in her little water bucket and killed most everything dead.  I’m still counting to ten.

On a complete and total side note, I was in the grocery store last night and noticed that the staples..flour, sugar, eggs..had been ransacked!  Nothing there.  I’ve always been a cart peeper, but since the price of food has skyrocketed, I’ve been peepin’ extra close.  I’m seeing lots of pasta and canned stuff.  No fresh vegetables and very little fruit, if any at all.  People are buying the old fashion oats in lieu of those handy dandy little one-serving packets.  Soda isn’t selling as well but bottled water has nearly tripled.  But the thing I’ve seen the most of…..I mean, like in EVERY cart.  Powdered milk. 

I actually came across this retro pitcher about a year ago.  It’s one of the Carnation issued ones…specifically made for powdered milk.  The lid is the measuring cup. 

I should probably start using it for baking and such.  If the price of milk goes any higher I’m gonna be forced to drink the stuff!  I wonder what would happen if I put it in my gas tank?