Brooke’s 8th …

The wrap-up post of Brooke’s birthday, including her birth story, is in the works, but until I get it done and published, I’ll post this picture in honor of her 8th birthday, which we celebrated today.

Pencils

One of the challenges on a typical school day around here is finding a good, sharp pencil. An attached eraser would truly be the icing on the cake … a diamond in the rough. Yesterday I spent a considerable amount of time decluttering a couple of drawers where we keep writing utensils. My goal was to separate the pencils and pens from crayons, markers, coloring pencils, etc. thus cutting down on time wasted trying to find something decent to write with. There’s nothing like finding a good ol’ yellow #2 pencil, newly-sharpened with a smooth, pink eraser on the tip.  One of the attorneys at the law firm I work with has a can on his desk filled with a mixed assortment of pens.  But there is one single, irresistible pencil (eraser up) in the middle of all those pens. Once he showed me that the pencil has actually never been used because it has not been sharpened.  But he admits he can always tell when someone has been in his office looking for something to write with, because that pencil has been picked up and set back in the can with the unsharpened lead end up.

Yes, there are pencils like that attorney’s – lovely, yellow, handy eraser attached at the end.  These are the pencils of my dreams:

Let’s get a better look at those lovely erasers:

(P.S. Sadly, I didn’t actually find these pencils among our stash, they’re just images I found online).

And then there are Worley pencils.  (cue sad music)

After throwing out a good portion of quarter-inch long crayons and dried out markers, I eventually got things weeded out to the point that I was able to start the final leg of my organizing: sharpening the pencils I’d been able to round up.  It was quite a rag-tag collection of specimens, but one thing was consistent with practically every pencil:  teeth marks.  The Worleys have a long and undistinguished history of chewers.  Not just pencils, but pretty much anything that sits still long enough to be chewed.  Some of the kids have been more orally-inclined than others, but they’ve all done their share of chewing. 

Which brings me back to my sad set of pencils.  This is what I have to work with; a random set of pencils that I just grabbed out of the pile to sharpen:

If you look closely, you might notice that, yes, even the lead end of some of the pencils have teeth marks.  By now, pencils like this are so common around here that we only notice when they’re not chewed – you know, the first 5 seconds we take them out of the box.  What really breaks my heart is the erasers - or lack thereof.  This is typical:

<sigh>  Look at that one on the right end; even the metal surrounding the eraser has been chewed!  So, we buy those handy Pearl erasers and just make do.  I wonder if, when our kids are grown, our house will have only pencils that look like this:

But knowing me, I would be nostalgic for the good ol’ days of chewed pencils.  So, for now, perfect pencils exist only in my dreams, and on Bing images, and that one pencil on that attorney’s desk. 

Finshed: "At Home: A Short History of Private Life"

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Very interesting book! Reading this makes me even more interested to visit some old English manors. It also made me appreciate and more fully understand a lot of the details in the 19th century novels I've been reading in the past year or two. I think Bill Bryson would make a fascinating dinner guest.





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Happy Birthday, Courtney!

One of the things I hear often when birthdays roll around is “What were you doing this time [x] years ago, Mom?”  The memories start coming back and certain details always remain clear about each child’s birth. 

Courtney’s G-Rated Birth Story

Due to the busyness of “undecorating” Christmas, today – well, I guess yesterday -- it is now in the wee hours of Sunday, January 8, 2012.  And, ah yes, I well remember what I was doing 14 years ago right about now.  Some friends had invited us over for dessert on January 7, 1998.  Mick, Rachel and I had a great dinner of chili then spent a fun evening visiting.  Courtney was due on January 17, so I was close to delivery, but apparently closer than I realized.  I do remember having some Braxton Hicks contractions while we were at our friends’, but that was very normal for me.  I woke up in the middle of the night feeling ill … very ill. I figured I must have picked up some sort of bug.  As the night wore on and it started getting light, I became aware that I was having fairly strong contractions.  Mick got up at his regular early hour (probably between 5:30 and 6:00 am), did his usual 5-minute morning routine and started heading out the door.  Right before he got to the door, I became aware that he was leaving for work.  I remember weakly saying “You’re not going to work, are you?”  He stopped and looked at me and I said “I think I’m in labor.” I was actually surprised to hear myself say that, because I don’t remember being consciously aware of being in labor. I had a doctor visit already scheduled for later that morning, so we took the suitcase with us and dropped Rachel off at the Orrs’. I still remember Kelly standing in the doorway and waving wildly at me with a big grin on her face while we were pulling out.  I tried to muster up a smile, but I was still very queasy, weak and exhausted from being up all night.  It was an unusually warm January day and there was a light drizzle – perfect for me to have the window down and get some fresh air.  I remember the drizzle felt heavenly on my face. I think that was the only thing that kept me coherent on the 40-minute drive to the doctor.

After a quick check, the doctor happily announced that it was the “baby’s birthday” and let’s “head over the hospital to have this baby!”  We were admitted to the hospital around noon, settled into a room, parents were called, medications administered, uh-oh: medications began wearing off, medications re-administered-- and very heavily, I might add. It was then that I learned that too much of a good thing is not a good thing.  Two things happened almost simultaneously:  1) I was completely numb from about the chest down; and 2) Courtney’s heart rate dropped suddenly.  Thankfully, I was ready to push, but unfortunately I couldn’t push because of reason #1. There was some scurrying around the room by the staff at that point, during which my calm-cool-and-collected OB came right up beside me and calmly explained that she would need to perform a forceps delivery and that the baby would be checked out by a NICU team as soon as she was delivered.  It all happened very quickly and it was very unnervering, but one funny thing happened during all this.  My OB was very petite, and when she sat on my bed to talk to me, the nurses had already started raising the bed to prepare for delivery.  The bed raised up to the point that her feet weren’t touching the floor and she had to holler at them to drop the bed down a little!  LOL!!

Courtney’s delivery went very smoothly and efficiently and she was whisked over to the NICU team, who checked her out for a few minutes and declared her to be just fine!  Apparently, the sudden drop in heart rate was due to her gripping the cord, because she was was born with a tight grip on it! 

So, from as long as she can remember, Rachel has been a big sister.  She and Courtney bonded very early on and have been close ever since. I distinctly remember the day we brought Courtney home from the hospital.  Rachel was holding her and looking at her when she suddenly looked at us and said “More."  Neither of us said anything for a minute, then I said “More what?”  And she said “More babies.”  LOL!  Who knew?

We do have some darling pictures of Rachel and Courtney together from their earliest days, but most of them are still in photo albums and boxes, patiently waiting to be scanned in and shared on this blog.  Until then, I’ll post some more recent pictures.

Animal lover.

Like most young girls, Courtney is drawn to animals, and we have a number of pictures of her with a wide range of animals.

Fun with cousins.

Thankfully, there are plenty of cousins to go around on the Griffin side of the family…

Babies.

Like her siblings (and her mom), Courtney is a baby lover:

… but she often has interesting and unusual ideas on how to play with babies …

(doll stroller)

(doll highchair)

 

We love her very much!  Happy Birthday, Courtney!

Cousins’ Christmas Tea Party

It’s a universal fact that girls like pretty things. Our family has been blessed with lots of girls, hence, we have acquired lots of pretty things. Because we enjoy using those pretty things, eating and being together, we have recently begun the tradition of a tea party in our family. In order to include the Ramseys in this event, we schedule it during their Christmas visit to Indiana. This year, the tea party was held on December 27th. Scheduling the tea party so close to Christmas has its benefits. One is that we enjoyed a beautiful snowfall the morning of the party. 

Another is that we can take advantage of the fact that we have lots and lots of tasty and special food that we’ve been making and eating for the holidays, so we can usually borrow some of it for the tea party.

So, we all converged on Mom and Dad’s around noon on the 27th, with all the young ladies looking lovely in their tea-party attire. The male cousins and uncles hid out in the basement for awhile, then headed out for pizza while we were eating. 

At a tea party a couple of years ago, Mom got out some family heirlooms and talked about what the items were and the ladies who had owned them. We also read out loud -- I think the Proverbs 31 verses and maybe a poem or two. We were better organized that year.  :-)  We didn’t have any presentations or readings this year, but we did have cute place settings:  vintage handkerchiefs which contained goodies wrapped inside. Great idea, Kelly!  We also managed to get group pictures, which is always a feat for our family!

 

 

  

  

 

Heather noticed that one of the girls had placed her dolls’ shoes inside her own shoes to keep from losing them! Too cute!  (and very resourceful!)