Lunch with Connor - Gardening

Lunch at Target again.  This time, Connor talks about working in the garden at his school.  

A Mother's Day Letter to My Mom

Dear Mom,

A month or so ago, I grumbled about the impending Mother's Day holiday. Thinking of gift ideas for you is not always an easy task, considering the fact that you like to shop and, if there was something that you really wanted, you'd go out and buy it.  Some years I have great ideas and some years I need a little bit of help. This year, I think our gift turned out well (thanks to the kids' help) and we can't wait to see you use it.

Made with a giant heart cookie cutter, beads, and glass.

I thought about writing a post filled with all of the funny things that I remember from growing up with you as my mom.  I toyed with the idea of making a list of some of the things that I've put you through over the years, just to give readers an idea of how unconditional your support of me has been.  But as I started to write this, I was reminded how lucky I am this Mother's Day.

This Mother's Day, you are still alive.  You continue to breathe and blink and dream and love.  This Mother's Day, I can share stories about you with my own children without choking back the tears that come with loss.  This Mother's Day, I can pick up the phone and call you and tell you just how much you mean to me.  This Mother's Day, your 40th Mother's Day, my children and I get to make you a gift and talk to you about it and see you use it.  For this, I am so lucky and so very, very grateful.

I love you, Mom!  Happy Mother's Day!

Kelley 

Lunch with Connor - Popcorn

This is a continuation from the Grease edition of Lunch with Connor.  In this episode, we discuss how to handle the large amount of popcorn that someone had left under our lunch table.

Bird Watching

As I was in the kitchen doing dishes, Connor yells at me from the living room, "Mom! There's a kiwi bird in our front yard!"  Since I was very impressed that he even knew of this kind of bird, I was reluctant to break the news to him that kiwis are not found in Minnesota.

 I went over to the window to look along with him and he asked me to get my phone to take a picture of it (something he's been asking to do a lot more than usual lately).  Instead, I grabbed the actual camera and got a couple of shots for him.

"Kiwi Bird"

Take off, eh!

I had gone back to doing the dishes and Connor returned to the front window to continue watching the feathered creatures that were feasting on post-rainstorm worm salad.  I had stopped paying attention to the boy at the glass for a few moments and when I looked back in on him, he was kneeling on the couch with a paper pressed to the picture window.

Watching a robin and showing the bird a picture he had drawn.

When Connor was done at the window, I asked to see the picture that he was showing.  He obliged, his description of the drawing filled with deep preschooler regret.

"This is me telling Daddy 'I want a bird' and Daddy saying 'No'".

After reading about his imagined objection, Craig asked Connor what kind of bird he would want.  "A chicken!" Connor replied.  My patient husband explained to my son, who still plugs his nose whenever he uses the restroom, that chickens were pretty smelly.  Connor then went through a list of other possible pets which included a snake, a turtle, and a frog.  "All animals, when kept in cages, will start to smell after a while," Craig explained.  Realizing his own intolerance for odors was going to outweigh his passing desire for a pet, Connor decides, "Maybe I'll just take a picture of a frog."

Adventures in Babysitting

When I was a teenager, I was one of the only girls in my subdivision that babysat.  My neighborhood was filled with a lot of young families, so I was kept fairly busy taking care of kids. At $2 an hour (don't laugh--it was a decent wage back then), I should have had a sizable savings built up with all of the babysitting jobs I had back then.  I've thought back on this through the years and I can not for the life of me figure out where that money went, other than when I bought my hamster and all of her hamster accoutrements.

Today, while browsing the web, I had a light bulb moment.  A small, possibly-toxic, overpriced plastic, choking hazard of a light bulb moment, undoubtedly purchased at a store like Claire's.  I saw the picture below and I was immediately transported to the days when some friends and I would be dropped off at the mall by our parents, long before any of us had drivers' licenses, let alone our own cars.  The mall had untold fortunes of nonsense that, had we actually allowed ourselves to be seen with our parents in these stores, we would have been talked out of buying.  It's crap like this (and cedar chips for Ginger) that I spent my money on.   

Whoever owned this necklace obviously didn't have a hamster to support.

Taste the Rainbow

Just reading about these made me drool...and a little drunk.

Double Rainbow Cake Jelly Shots

Lunch with Connor - Grease

I've been trying to capture some of the conversations that Connor and I have been having at lunch time.  The things that he talks about are often random, but always extremely thoughtful.

In this episode of Lunch with Connor, he discusses the various food groups associated with his lunch.