Category Archives: parenting

Babies, Babysitting, children, coffee, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, Insomnia, life, parenting

Fun Never Sleeps

13 Comments

It’s every grandparent’s dream!

“Would y’all mind keeping the boys for the weekend while we go out of town?”

YES!

And so it came to be that two male fledglings stayed with PawPaw and JJ last weekend.  

Easton ages in for the Terrible Twos at 2 years 9 months, and Asher times in as a Light Weight at only 3 1/2 months old.

Janet likes babies, but they intimidate me like I was a lost kitten in the dog pound.  I like it when they can say what’s wrong, like Easton, so it was perfect! 

When my daughter and son-in-law dropped them off, they were semi-apologetic.  

“Hey! We’re no rookies! Besides, they’re both as laid back of kids that there are.” 

My son-in-law shook his head.  My daughter raised an eye brow with a smile, “Well, wait till nighttime”.

Psft! We got this!

Nighttime came.  

Easton laid down on a pallet in our room and was out like a light!    

Asher was in a pack-n-play.  He fell asleep right on que after his 8:30 PM bottle. 

Good grief! How much easier can it get? 

However, we should’ve gone to bed then, right then!  Instead, we laid down about 10:00ish.  

Continue reading Fun Never Sleeps →

Advertisement
children, Daughters, Faith, Family, Humor, parenting, school

31 Years, 3 Months, 1 Week, 2 Days

26 Comments

“You’re going to cry when I graduate, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

That was enough to satisfy my youngest daughter, Jessica, back in September. She’s the last of my eight children to graduate high school.

She graduated Friday.

We have a few college graduations left, but by and large, the work is done. The time is finished. The investment complete.

I cried, not why she thought I would, but I cried… Continue reading 31 Years, 3 Months, 1 Week, 2 Days →

children, Faith, Family, grace, grandchildren, Gratitude, Hope, Jesus, Laughter, life, love, parenting

Everybody Wins

21 Comments

It’s our large family tradition. Easter egg hunts for the children AND adults.

The kids go first, eggs with candy, bubbles, little toys, and more candy.

kids 1

Then the adults hunt. We had 13 adults hunt this year because 5 of our adult gang couldn’t make it.  Janet and I sat back and enjoyed watching the 13 go after it.

Fun, fun!

It’s basically the same each year, but with new twists thrown in.  The twist this year was games made up of random teams.

The first-place team in points from the Egg Toss, Egg Spoon Race and Rabbit Race (tow sack races) got a first-place head start hunting eggs, followed by the second-place team, then the lowly third-place team. Continue reading Everybody Wins →

beauty, children, Dancing, Daughters, Family, fathers, Hope, life, love, parenting

Dance On

35 Comments

She smiled, then flashed her big beautiful brown eyes before scooting over beside me and asking what I knew she would ask.

“Daddy, will you dance with me?”

Dancing. It terrifies me. On the other hand, I don’t mind looking like a fool on the dance floor because other than a slow dance, I know that’s how I’ll look.

Now my oldest daughter, Shawnna, who was 14 years old at the time, was asking to dance with me at her basketball fund-raiser in the school cafeteria.

There’s only one answer. “Absolutely!”

There were lots of girls there, only a handful of guys, and even fewer fathers.  If you lined all the other males up and rated them from first to last on the dance floor, I would by far be last, dead last.  I didn’t, no wait, I still don’t know how to two-step.

Shawnna is a very kind, observant daughter and knew I would dance, but also knew I didn’t like dancing because quite frankly, I don’t know how.  As if our roles reversed, she smiled, took my hand and said, “Come with me. I’ll teach you.” Continue reading Dance On →