Despite my excitement when a daddy-daughter dance was announced during church a few Sundays ago, the looks on the faces of my husband and daughter were not so enthusiastic. I looked to my left at my daughter and got a deer-in-the-headlights expression. I looked to my right and got raised eyebrows from my husband.

But, after talking to both of them seperately, it was clear there were just a few misconceptions and silly apprehensions. She thought it was for little, little girls -- not big 9-year-old girls like herself. And my husband, well, he isn't too fond of dancing, per se. Clearly there are more important aspects of this, though. Spending time with her doing something special is really the most important part of it.

So I pushed a bit (after it was clear she really wanted him to take her). It didn't take too much, really -- just pointing out how important that kind of stuff is to a father-daughter bond. Because he is a sensitive guy at heart, I could tell he just needed that nudge.


The two of them went and bought their ticket after church, and I could tell by the way my daughter displayed it in her room, that she is really excited about it.

We had talked about getting some chickens for quite some time. We figured it would be a little toe dip into farming, which we've also daydreamed about a bit.

The ideal would be having a farm with blueberries (just because we love them), goats (for cheese) and chickens (for eggs) and maybe even grapes (for wine, of course).

But to start off the dream, we decided to get some chicks. When Tractor Supply advertised their "Chick Days," which featured a few different breeds at a good price, it seemed like a great time to just jump in. All the feed and other stuff you need also was on sale.

So we made a family trip to the store and came home with 20 chicks. We lost one on day 2 (poor little guy), but we've had 19 for the past week, and they all seem to be doing well.


My husband worked on a chicken farm years ago and his brother's family has chickens, so he at least has some background knowledge. But, for the most part, this is a learn-as-we-go situation. We're reading what we can and all participating as a family.

Our kids are a great age for helping with this, too (12 and 9). They want to make sure the chicks are fed and watered and generally cared for, so they are jumping in and helping without even being asked. (Wow!) They actaully want to do these chores!

We have to keep them inside for a few more weeks, but my husband is building the outdoor coop, so it will be ready for them. Honestly, as much as I'm enjoying them, I can't wait to get them outdoors. It turns out no matter how often you clean out their living area, the chicken coop smell doesn't really go away. No matter how much of a farm girl I think I am at heart, I don't want it to smell like a barnyard in my house.

This morning, our five year old son asked to go outside at 7:00 am.  As my husband and I sipped our coffee, we looked at each other, nodded, and off he went with his new red ball.

He's pretty obsessed with the new red ball and just can't help but bounce it EVERYWHERE.  We could tell where he was in our front yard by the different sounds the ball would make. Ping on the pavement. Thud on the grass. Then, we heard a bang on the house. Bang. Bang. Bang.  I put my coffee down and went to the door. "Please don't throw the ball at the house", I said.

Then, we heard it again.  Bang!

Suddenly, the front door flew open and in he ran. "I lost my first tooth! I lost my first tooth!".  It had been wiggling around in his mouth for over a month and I'd simply forgotten about it.  "The ball bounced off the house and knocked it right out!" he said.  He couldn't have been more excited and, to our dismay, not at all upset that after I told him not to bounce the ball on the house he did it anyway.  We couldn't help but laugh out loud as he told us over and over exactly how it happened. He thought the whole thing was "really cool".

The loss of his first tooth brings with it another "first" in our household: a visit from the Tooth Fairy.  I've thankfully been collecting brand-spanking-new gold dollar coins for this very occasion (I think I have seven in total).  They put a brand new vending machine in at our office complex and it dispenses the gold coins as change.  Since I don't use the vending machines personally, I "buy" the coins from my coworkers.

Tonight, we'll pack up the tooth in the little bag he decorated himself (a Christmas gift from his Aunt Glitter Pie - Art in a Box), place it under his pillow, and the tooth fairy will bring him something special. Let's just say, he's beyond excited!

We'll have to wait and see, though, if the fact that the Tooth Fairy comes INTO his room (and will not simply lurk around downstairs like Santa or the Easter Bunny) will keep him in his own bed all night long. That's a blog post for another day.

After my last post about my husband coming home with "groceries" that weren't exactly the basics I had asked for, a co-worker sent me this cartoon, which I think is quite fitting.

Although if my daughter were with him on this shopping trip, my husband probably would have picked up more "dinnery" stuff, as she tends to keep the boys in line when I'm not around.

My husband did laugh when I pointed out the lack of nutritional value in the choices he and our son made that evening. "It looks like two guys went to the store," he chuckled.

And since I am still on this tangent: I left two "basics" off the list of groceries he picked up that night.
1.) A large container of French onion dip.
2.) A container of sour cream and onion dip.

These two items apparently make a meal out of the five bags of potato chips he bought.

"I'm going to run to Wal-Mart tonight during soccer practice if you want me to get some groceries," my husband told me Tuesday afternoon. Great, I thought, because I had such a busy weekend that I didn't get to the store at all.

"Just grab some basics and stuff for lunches," I told him quickly, as per usual I was in the middle of 50 things at work and didn't have time to spell it out. "Oh, but make sure to get dog food. We definitely need that."

The fridge and cupboards were pretty bare — hardly any milk, eggs and bread, which are the staples in our house. No lunch meat or cheese or granola bars or fruit either — all stuff we use during the week for bagged lunches. (I was getting to the point of having to get really creative when making the kids lunches, like giving them Cheerios as a snack.)

I was really glad he was going to get to the store because I was booked through about 10 that night. But as it turns out, my expectations were a bit high. When I checked the cupboards and fridge when I arrived home, it became clear that my idea of "the basics" is much, much different than his.

No milk, no bread, no eggs. No lunch meat. No fruit.

Here's what he did get:
3 bags of different flavored Cheetos
1 bag of Ruffles potato chips
1 box of Hot and Spicy Cheez Its
A big container of peanut butter
A box of individually wrapped cookie packs
Nutter Butters
Grape-flavored sqeeze-type drinks
8 Chobani Greek yogurts (This was bought for me, because I apparently he thinks I consume mass amounts of yogurt.)

Oh, I almost forgot. Dog food. He did get that. Guess I have to give the guy a little credit ...

Sometimes it's the little things that help you course-correct in your life.  A letter in the mail, a friend's gentle reminder, or in my case - a birdhouse and a piece of jewelry.

My mom called yesterday morning to see if she and my dad could come up to the house and bring my son his Valentine's Day gift.  It was a quick phone call (I'm busy, after all) and within a minute we'd confirmed the time that they'd be arriving.  Later on, and moments after I met my son at the bus stop, my parents arrived with a balloon, a card, and a box of SweetHearts in hand.  After a lot of hugging, my son opened his gift, ate a few candy hearts and punched away at the balloon (not its intended use). Then, to my surprise, my parents pulled out two additional gifts - both of them for me.  Last I knew, we didn't exchange Valentine's Day gifts. Did I miss something? Two gifts, really?

My dad had handmade a little birdhouse for our deck.  Apparently, he and my son made it together on a recent overnight visit as a 'special project'.  My dad had taken care to place a little wire netting above the birdhouse floor to keep the bird's home clean and comfortable.  He thought I'd like it, and I do; very much in fact.

My mom's gift to me was a little jewelry box wrapped in a red ribbon. "I thought you'd like to have this", she said.  I opened it up and lifted a beautiful rhinestone choker from the box.  It was a piece from my grandmother's collection of costume jewelry (nice stuff, actually).  She had impeccable taste, but not much of a budget.  I also have her beautiful 3/4 sleeve faux fur with mink collar, which tells me that she made the most of her limited resources!  It's really too bad that she died when I was just five years old, since both my mother and I agree that we would have gotten along famously.  This gift really meant a lot to me.

These small acts of kindness from my parents made me realize that my parents are still mine and although they act a whole lot more like grandparents these days (giving my child gummy worms and doing WHATEVER he wants, whenever he wants), I'm pretty lucky to have two living parents that I see on a regular basis.  I'd honestly gotten so used to them being Grandma and Papa, that I'd pretty much stepped out of the parent/daughter relationship all together without truly realizing it.

This year my parents will both turn 70, so it feels pretty important to savor these moments and appreciate them in a way that matters.  Because they do matter.

Ever since I slipped into a pattern of getting only 6 hours of sleep a night tops, I wondered how it would manifest itself physically. And I believe I am beginning to see. The dark circles are starting to appear under my eyes, and I have to say -- I'm pretty freaked out about it.

I've typically been an 8-hours-a-day type of person. But in September — when I started getting up at 5:15 a.m. some weekdays to go to the gym and the rest of the weekdays at 6 a.m. because my now middle-schooler son's bus comes at 6:45 a.m. — 6 hours a night became the norm.

I kept saying I was going to start going to bed earlier, but it ends up being impossible. On the sort of rare day when we don't have something going on in the evening, I am usually not home from work till nearly 7 p.m. (newsrooms can hold you hostage in the evening very easily). By the time dinner, dishes, homework, showers, laundry, etc. are wrapped up, I'm not heading upstairs to the bedroom till 10 p.m. or later.

Then sometimes there is paperwork, bills or reading to do. It's pretty rare to be able to settle down before 11. And when that alarm goes off just after 5 a.m., I really regret that.

What to do? I often say there are not enough hours in the day, but I think I need to probably go the route of trying to do less in the day.

I've heard so many things about how getting enough sleep is so important to good health. I'm sure the dark circles are not the only issue my lack of sleep is creating.

So, I'm on a mission to remedy this. It's just deciding which things can be trimmed out of the day when everything seems to be a priority.