Hello friends, hope you’re doing very well on this beautiful Sunday morning. Today’s a really special day in our house. Hudson turns five years old, so a very happy birthday wish to our sweet little Hudson boy. It hardly seems possible our baby’s turning five. Also today, our church celebrates its tenth anniversary. Not quite a teenager, but double digits just the same. So we look forward to a great celebration today on two counts.

And because it’s simultaneously the church’s tenth anniversary and Hudson’s birthday, thought today was the right day to share this funny kid/church story. Well, kind of a church story, kind of a kid story.  (You’ll get it.) Little kids are so funny, they say whatever they hear, and timing is everything. The following is true, happened to a family I happen to know quite well. (Giggle.) And it’s NOT my family.

Out of the Mouths of Babes by allie taylor

It was a long and tiring day. She’d gotten up early, mixed the bread dough, folded the laundry, shopped for groceries. And it was only noon. She made several trips back and forth carrying the bags to the doorstep. Then she unbuckled him, carried him to the door, set him down. Still grasping his chubby little hand and with a couple free fingers, she inserted the key, twisted the knob. Nothing. She jiggled it. Now the key was jammed in the lock. Again. She sighed. And that’s when the words slipped out. She wished they hadn’t. But there you have it, it was too late now. She joggled the key more, pushed hard with her hip and the door gave way.

The rest of the day went fine. By day’s end, all were alive and had something to eat. A successful day.

They went to church the following Sunday. The little toddler was excited to have guests over for lunch afterwards, and today the pastor and his wife were coming. They all held hands, bowed their heads to say grace before digging in. Steak tips, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans and yeast rolls on the menu today.

Homemade apple pie for dessert. A feast. His mother took a large bite of steak as the pastor  sampled a yeast roll when an announcement came from the highchair.

“Damn door.”

The silence was deafening. She stared at her plate, chewed the steak, swallowed hard, cleared her throat.

“Has anyone heard the forecast for the week?”

The rest of the lunch was quiet but uneventful. Finally the pastor and his wife went home. The door clicked shut behind them and his daddy said, “Where in the world did he hear that?”

“I have no idea,” she murmured.

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What will I do when I’m 100 years old?

Great question, and so glad you asked. First of all, even though longevity runs in my family, it’s never even occurred to me that I might survive to be 100, be a centenarian. What with stress, preservatives, chemicals in the water, pesticides and pollution, I’m reminded at every turn that my days are numbered.

But the reason I’m even thinking along these lines is that one day last week was the 100th day of school for Charlie. That doesn’t mean a whole lot to me and might not to you either. But apparently for today’s students, the 100th day of school is cause for great celebration. So great that some schools have students bring in collections of 100 items to celebrate. Like a hundred M & M’s or a hundred paper clips or a hundred marbles. They do word problems based on the number 100. They even have parties with brownies and ice-cream and cupcakes. No fair. They didn’t do that a century ago when I was in school. (This is gospel, I kid you not. I actually went to a one room school house in the country, learned to read from a McGuffey Reader. Yeah I’m ancient.)

Charlie (3rd grade) was pondering these soul searching questions about what his life will be like when he is 100 years old:

“When I am 100 Years Old”

by Charlie, age 8

Wow. He doesn’t aim high or anything. My first thought: study hard in school kid. So you can get a good job, buy that castle, achieve those lofty retirement goals.

(So what will I do when I’m 100 years old? Have no idea. That, what I’ll look like or where I’ll live. But now I have some good ideas…)

So what’ll you do when you’re 100?

Related post: Every Time A Bell Rings

The post When I Am 100 appeared first on Through Her Looking Glass.

(True story, unfortunately.) It was a zippity-doo-da New England spring day….the kind you only dream about in the dead of winter. Birds sang, the sun shone, the azure sky was dotted with lazy cotton ball clouds. It was 2004, the first spring in our new home, and we reveled in each emerging perennial.

The red tulips were in their glory, and I eagerly anticipated a spring bouquet.

Spring Massacre by allie taylor

That afternoon we departed for the boys’ little league game, stopping on the way home to pick up pizza. Pulling into the driveway, I immediately noticed a transformation in the tulips. Their heads now drooped, the stems flopped over. With a sense of foreboding, I exited the car and closely inspected a bloom. It was covered with a chalky white film from stem to flower. Very dead. Horrified, I dashed from flower to flower in the front and back yards. They were all wilted. All dead.

“They’ve been chemically altered, killed,” my husband Jon announced ominously.

Killed? Why murder tulips? And who would commit such a heinous crime?

He stepped into the breezeway, tripping on a can of insect repellent as he went.

An empty can of OFF! He sternly faced both boys, four and six, said slowly and deliberately,

“Does anyone know (pause) what happened (longer pause) to your mother’s tulips?” There was a protracted, guilty silence.

“Well boys, Mom and I are hungry and we’re going to enjoy pizza in the dining room.”

“You,” he said to one,” may sit at the kitchen counter. And you,” he eyed the other, “may sit on the living room sofa.

“When someone decides to tells us what happened, you may join us at the dinner table.”

It was a dismal dinner as we contemplated the deceased tulips. Ten slow minutes ticked by, then the sound of tentative little footsteps approached. He peered sheepishly around the corner.

“M-E,” he spelled out.

“M-E what?” I said.

“Me did it.”

“Me did what?”

“Me sprayed the tulips with OFF!”

“Why?” I slowly whispered, my blood at a low boil.

“Because it was really fun to spray the can.”

Spring still comes with reflection on “what might have been.” Rather “what should have been.” The poison seeped deeply into the bulbs. Though the foliage still appears, they never bloomed again. We won’t soon forget the day the tulips died.

And him? He lived to see another sunrise. But he was poorer. We charged him by the stem, the sum total of all the birthday money he’d just gleefully stashed in his piggy bank. (The itemized bill included the can of OFF!)

The post Spring Massacre appeared first on Through Her Looking Glass.

Picky little eaters. The story of my life. Most of you with little kids can commiserate. With our passel of boys, we’ve had all kinds of eaters in the house, but mostly picky ones.

Psalm 23 on PB & J by allie taylor

A friend was recently telling me tales from her dining room growing up. Her little sister stuffed all her unwanted food under the table, into her socks. (Yes, still on her feet! Ewww!!!) After dinner she’d sneak in the backyard, throw the food behind the bushes. Their mother was always wondering why her socks were so filthy. (And I don’t like to think about her feet!) It worked really well in summer, but the winter months were a challenge. So she’d flush it. It was the floating long stem green beans in the toilet that got her caught.

We’ve tried different methods at our house, probably you have too. Kids go through stages, and it’s hard to be patient. Seems like they’ll never move on, but they do. We’ve had veggie only kids. And veggie hater kids. One that refused to ever drink H2O. And our littlest, a carbs only nazi. Yeah, he absolutely refuses to eat anything but carbs ’til noon. That Hudson, he drives a hard bargain.

We’ve played all kinds of food games through the years:

“Chugga chugga chugga chugga. Open wide, here comes the choo choo train!”

Sometimes they’ll do everything but eat their food. Play with it, smear it, chuck it off the highchair tray. We really do try to work on manners at our house. You know, don’t play with your food, eat it. Don’t wear your food, eat it. Peas go in your mouth, not your nose. Use a fork. That kind of thing.

I well remember one particular morning when Jonathan was two. I’d given him an early bath before breakfast, then we were headed out the door to a neighbor’s house. She and I swapped off every other week, a mom’s morning out of sorts. I watched her kids one week and she watched Jonathan the next. I was excited this particular morning because it was my morning out, and I had plans. Lots of plans. A morning of freedom that didn’t involve diapers, carseats or pacifiers. I was gonna hit Tuesday Morning, T.J. Maxx, maybe Marshalls if I could squeeze it in.

Anyway, Jonathan sat in his highchair, refusing to eat cereal from his bowl. I turn my back for but a moment to wipe the counter. When I turn back around, he’s wearing that cereal bowl, a hard hat of sorts. That, and a big smile. What a scene: cereal, milk dripping down hair, overalls, highchair, puddling on the floor. I never made it to Marshalls that day.

Several years ago Charlie was in a tricky picky eater stage. One day at lunchtime, I’d exhausted the available eating options. Every suggestion I made was unacceptable for one reason or another. We discussed little children in third world countries who sadly don’t have any food at all to eat. How he should be thankful for so many yummy choices.

As a last resort, I finally offered him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Every little kid’s dream. (You’d think.) Crocodile tears erupted as I spread peanut butter on one side, jelly on the other, sliced it into four neat little triangles. Placing the sandwich in front of him, I promised him chips if he ate at least half.

Exasperated, I gave myself a timeout with a Southern Living magazine in the living room. Moments later, I heard these muttered words float out from the kitchen:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I will fear no evil…”

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