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Policy of Truth
Life can be terrific and terrible simultaneously. That has certainly had proof of concept in our goings on in 2011. I stumbled on this song and started working it out just because. I have never adored Depeche Mode… they’ve always been the more danceable cousin of things I actually held dear to my heart and danced my legs down to the knees with.
But when I started to sing this song it actually felt like a pertinent end cap to 2011. So for all my truths that I let fly like metal shavings in a magnet factory, and every consequence that came home to roost, I dedicate Policy of Truth to each and every one of my faux pas, with love.
I am really holding out hope that 2012′s summative song is something like “Big Rock Candy Mountain”, or “The Hills are Alive (With the Sound of Music)”.
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We DID Celebrate Christmas!
Life has been a challenge lately. We have a variety of relationship issues (relationships outside of our own with friends and family, not our marriage, that is) and dealing with all of that stuff plus losing Calvin was a major blow to our holiday season, and just to life in general. So after Calvin passed, we took a big break from reporting on our life to collect ourselves, reconsider things and regroup before moving on. The relationship stuff – bleh – it’s still a mess, and I still tear up daily when I think about that kitty who I love and miss so dearly, but I recently found a nice little bright star hidden away. Earlier this week I came upstairs and uploaded a bunch of the pictures of snow to our computer (as an aside, it is rare when we actually use a desktop now, thank you ipad). I thought there were only going to be pictures of us frolicing in the white stuff on the card, and imagine my surprise when I found a collection of very happy Littlejohns opening up gifts and laughing together on Christmas morning. While it is nice that other people come here to see what we LJ’s are up to from time to time, the purpose of our blog is to scrapbook our life events, to create a timeline that will help our kids as they get older to remember their childhoods. So it makes sense, that though almost a month later, we post these for posterity. Merry belated Christmas! Enjoy!
Baked goodness waiting for Santa. As a 'science experiment' we offered both milk and egg nog to the big man. Guess what? He drank BOTH glasses!
Look what Santa brought! Make-up, barbies and scrapping stuff for Girl and Transformers, Super Why and a fishing pole for Boy.
Happy. All of us so in love and SO happy.
Daddy opening Gigi's special magnets that she made at school for us.
Daddy and his two favorite Christmas gifts.
Jude's favorite Christmas gifts! Thank you Santa!
3D books require 3D glasses. And they look AMAZING on too! Fashion and reading all in one gift!
Gigi gave ME scrapping stuff too! Guess how we have been spending our spare time?
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How to Make a REAL Sno-Cone
Well, the first step is the most difficult. You have to broker a deal with Mother Nature and get her to dump enough snow on your lawn to cover up all the gross stuff so you can eat CLEAN snow. I’m not going to tell you what we did to arrange for this little snow festival, you can figure out your own deals with Mother Nature.
(After I did this, ALL the flavoring was up to him. Lets just say it was a VERY flavorful sno-cone!)
The second step is to get in the hot tub, naturally, where snow clothes are not an issue and clean up from the sticky syrup is a breeze. A bathtub will offer the same clean-up abilities.
Heap those little paper cones that you bought last summer in a round, ice-cream cone shape. This is a very important detail when you are three. It NEEDS to look like ice cream! Then hand the sno-cone syrup (also purchased during the summer) over to the three year old because, seriously, do you think the three year old is going to let you handle the syrup? Let him go nuts with the syrup as you have been storing that stuff for months and it is taking up precious real estate in the fridge, then, when the idea occurs to you, tell them to eat as many cones as they want as this will use up the syrup even FASTER. (Note – they have eaten only two sno-cones, not exactly the resource mover I thought it was going to be).
Sit back and enjoy the wonder that is a sno-cone. Really though? The sno-cones made of actual snow are amazing. The syrup doesn’t water down and drench the snow, it sticks to the snow leaving it fluffy and kind of dry. The cones are delish, a total new snow day tradition!
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SNOW
Yes! We were hit by THE snow, and we have been hit hard. I read an article recently that really struck home. It was written about seizing the day and enjoying every moment of your life, especially appreciating your own children’s short childhood while we parents are left with our heads spinning, trying to make sure that we fit enough fun, enough special memories into our children’s lives and we are left scrambling to make sure we have done enough, and how hard that can be…
Anyhow, I am making a text to self connection to this article and how it relates itself to our snowy weather! Here is my thinking – we in Washington have little enough snow that when it does come we tend to create a holiday for the snow by calling snow days when, quite often, MOST people can make it to work or school without a problem. I always force myself down from a ledge, telling myself that the extra days in June (or July, who knows if this will ever end this year) are not a big deal and I will be grateful that I had all of this extra wintertime fun with my husband and children. Seriously, how often are you handed a free day with no illness and no plans? It is a rare occurance.
That said, we have made sno cones, several, like perhaps six, snowmen, had snowfights, made snow ice cream, walked in the snow, drew pictures of the snow, drank hot cocoa after being in the snow, played in the hot tub while it was snowing, dried a plethora of snow clothes… you get the idea! We have used our unexpected holiday’s days up, squeezed every last drop of snow fun out of them. And we are still at home. Today we decided that the snow is too crusty, to grainiy, not sticky enough to play in so we are hunkering down, sewing, drawing, coloring, and cooking while watching the pretty snow as it continues to blanket our world. That seems like a pretty decent way to spend another snowy day.
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This Morning We Had a Cat
RIP Calvin
5/20/00 – 12/29/11
AKA: Calydalyrymple, Caly-Dal, The Rympler, The Claw, The Great Calvino
Our darling little beamish boy waited until our kids came home today before he exited his beautiful little body.
Our first baby will always be remembered for his silly, playful ways. The way he would fling his little cat arms over his head while chasing a cat toy. Or how he would hunt anything – crane-flies, people, chickens and rats! The way he would stop traffic with his lazy saunter across the road or how he would insert himself into our neighbor’s lives, our neighbor’s garages.
When we happened across this dear Little Bbuddy it was on our way into PetSmart as we were researching which fish would go best with our pond. As were were walking by the adoption center, out from a crate came this little white paw, batting itself around, looking for anything fun to take a swing at. Bradley and I stopped to play with him a little before we moved on, both of us had this little cat stuck in our head. We had all the reasons not to get a cat all lined up – we wanted to travel, Bradley was allergic, but there was something about that little peach-fuzzed white cat… We played with him on our way out again, and still charmed, we spoke with the adoption lady to start the process. He made us a family.
He inspired songs, poems and piles of pictures of him. Seriously, we have stacks of pictures of this boy. We fawned over him, congratulated his first hunting expeditions (crane flies) and his more advanced – he got one mouse before moving onto rabbits, rats and squirrells. He was insatibale, bringing his prey into the house to share through open summer windows. It was horrifying to wake up and tread on a dead rat on the way to the bathroom, or to be greeted by the sight of a dead rat on the floor, tail chewed off as it was his MO, if you did manage to avoid stepping on it, but I was grateful that he was catching the crazy things.
So today we woke up and turned on the fire. He waddled over, his swollen, distended belly looking so uncomfortable, and spread out in front of it. While we’ve known for quite some time he was sick, neither of us saw today as any more difficult or unusual than any other. Bradley and I both spent time with him, massaging his tummy, scratching his ears and telling him we loved him. He got his soft food, which he loved, his pills and all of the usual stuff. And when our babies came home he said his goodbyes and left us. There is a hole in my heart for each one of the pets I’ve been lucky enough to love, but my Calvino was the one who really etched himself onto it. At the time when it was just the three of us, Bradley, Calvin and I, we both would comment often on his brilliance, his trainability, his smarts, his athleticism, and both of us would comment that never could we imagine a more clever or better pet. He would curl himself between us, giving that knowing look that cats can give and drop off to sleep. It was a good time, a special time.
To our Calvin, who will always be loved by us, we will miss you and think of you often. We love you, little boy. XXOO
Caly’s Nursery Rhyme
For Calydalyrymple
Life is very simple,
sitting on the sofa when the fly caught the eye!
Out goes the paw
and
*POP*
Goes the fly
and Calydalyrymple just
Smiles, Smiles, Smiles.
Fresh Comments
24th Jan 12
Is that Calvin hiding under the Christmas tree in the last photo?
12th Dec 11
We are having SOOO much fun. It has been really nice to just enjoy making stuff together and not ...
12th Dec 11
Loving these! Sounds like you guys are having a good time with it.
8th Dec 11
Now, this is very creative. Thanks for the laugh!! xoxoxo
28th Nov 11
We can't wait to see you guys. We miss you when you are on the other side of the ...