Thursday, November 10, 2005
Baby and Puppy Sitting
Quote: Baby Face. You’ve got the cutest little baby face.......... Anonymous
Well Dear Reader,
We’ve been busy this week. On top of all of our usual routines we have been busy watching our neighbor’s baby and puppy. Usually it is just the puppy while they are at work, but this week we got to watch J.P. (our cute neighbor boy).
Isn’t he so cute?? This is his newborn picture.
J.P. loves to laugh and play with you but boy does he fight to go to sleep. When high school girl watched him with me during her day off of school (she got election day off) it was getting to be that time in the afternoon when I remember that little ones like to nap and J.P. sure was acting like he wanted one. So we gave him his afternoon bottle, burped him and then started to rock him. Well, he was having none of that. He would rub his eyes, put his head on my shoulder, pull it up quickly and look me in the face, laugh, then rub his eyes........ repeat above several times.
Finally I turned him over to hubby. J.P. sees hubby as a plaything - he has a beard to pull, glasses to yank on, a St. Michael medal to pull on and chew on. Yup, hubby is a never ending source of entertainment. Soon it is time to put him in this contraption that is new to me. (Baby toys have really changed since the girls were small) It has a cloth seat that he sits in and that is totally surrounded by all sorts of plastic gizzmos that when touched either light up, make noise, sing or talk; it can be a little freaky. Puppy of course wants to investigate as he does everything so you have to keep him occupied too.
This is puppy investigating my cell phone.
Yesterday was just watching J.P. as his daddy had to take puppy to the vet. I went over in time to change his diaper, play with him a bit, feed him a bottle, change those pants again and rock him to sleep (seems he only takes morning naps). After he was fast asleep in his crib and I was half way through the first section of the local paper his daddy came home. Then it was off to the doctor for hubby and me. Amazing how calm you get rocking a baby!!
Till next time, Dear Reader.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Soldiers and Sailors
Quote for the Day: Soldier Boy, Oh My Little Soldier Boy.................. the Shirelles
Hi Dear Reader
Thought that tonight I would write about something that we are doing.
We have “adopted” soldiers and sailors through a couple of different web sites. Tonight I wanted to share that with you.
I first found out how to adopt by reading our local newspaper and then went to the website Manhattanville College and clicked on the link for My Soldier. This is how we got Josh (we will keep his last name secret) and started our friendship with him by writing a letter. He wrote back to our email and as we learned more about him we sent packages of things that he would request. Some of it was tricky to send since the temperatures in the desert in Iraq can get to over 120 degrees during the day in the summer. He couldn’t tell us exactly where he was but we knew he was in a heavy fighting area from the things that he would say. He is either back in the States or in Europe on another assignment.
Josh getting his promotion.
I found another website Soldiers’ Angels where I could also adopt military personnel. This is where we got Brian, our sailor. Brian spends his time on a ship and can email us almost every day. He has sent us pictures both of himself and of his family. We know he is out on his ‘cruise’ as he calls it and that it is now time to start sending packages. I wish I could go to all the places that he has mentioned he has been to - though not the best way to see the world at this time. Not sure how tricky it will be to send some things to him since he isn’t in the middle of a desert, just on a ship that may have limited room. We are trying to find things to keep him entertained in his down time and snacks that he might not have access to on board.
Brian on board his ship.
We also adopted Matt from Soldier’s Angels. We don’t know too much about him other than he is in Iraq and in either the army or marines - can’t tell from the video that he sent to us. All I know from watching it is; he is way braver than I will ever be as war is a scary place. We keep in touch with him only via written notes and the emails that his wife sends from time to time. It takes forever for our boxes to reach him; we figure that he moves around much more than he stays in a camp. (Sorry, no picture of this one.)
I may not agree with all the reasons for why we are there; but I do feel that it is important to support our men and women who are over there. I understand from the notes and letters that the guys have sent that the majority of the Iraqi people are glad that they are there. I also get a different side from what is reported in the news - more of a positive spin as well as the way things actually happen.
And so Dear Reader if you want to adopt a soldier or sailor you now have the links to do so. Soldiers’ Angels has many other programs to help out the soldiers who are there; those who have been wounded and for those who are returning home. You can participate as an individual, as a family or as a church or civic group. Think about it - it doesn’t take a big time commitment - just a commitment.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Halloween is gone again……..
Quote for the day: Nothing on Earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night. Steve Almond
Halloween is gone again.................
I love Halloween. I have friends who think that it is a celebration of Satanic things and therefore evil; I have friends who think that this is fun; I have friends who just don’t want to deal with it (I think that they are scaredy cats!!) and then there are those of us who spend lots of time thinking up elaborate costumes, how to decorate our yard to look scarey and all of that.
I was reading an article in either a newspaper or online and found out that Europeans as well as Venezuelan President Chavez are having a hard time with our Halloween traditions. Europeans are calling it a “bad American habit” and an “unneccessary bad American custom” and President Chavez states that it is emblematic of U.S. culture; “terrorism”.
Whoa......... hate to educate these folks, but Halloween did not start in America. In fact, Halloween had it’s beginnings in Europe; primarily the Celtics, the Romans, the Catholics, the Irish and the English. A quick visit to the history channel website History Channel gave me quite a bit of information about the how and why our Halloween celebration came to be.
America is a melting pot and the American Halloween is a blend of many different countries and different religious beliefs that the immigrants who came here melted into what is currently known as Halloween.
Now, different parts of the country celebrate it differently too. In the Great Lakes Region where I used to live we had Devil’s Night on October 30th; this was the night to pull harmless pranks on your friends. Oct. 31st was Halloween so we donned our costumes and went out trick-or-treating. On Long Island where I live now, they had no clue as to what I was talking about when I mentioned Devil’s Night; here Halloween and Devil’s Night are combined. You can be a teen and be out with your friends just trick-or-treating and suddenly be bombarded with flour, eggs, and or shaving cream. This seems like real thugish behavior and I am glad that we didn’t move here till the girls were just about done with wanting to dress up and go door to door.
So, how do you celebrate Halloween where you live? Do they know what Devil’s Night is in your neck of the woods or do they blend the two nights together as they do in my current location?
My brain is still working on that terrorism angle - that really has me puzzled.
We passed out our candy and put out our carved pumpkins and sat outside watching all the costumed kids come up to say ‘Trick or Treat’. We had great weather and as soon as it was pitch black outside, at least in our neighborhood, Halloween was done.
Here are the pictures of our pumpkins.
Try and guess which one is my design and which one is hubby’s.
Till next time Dear Reader.