Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Actually it was the first Snow Fest for ALL of the Carsons on Saturday in Frankenmuth.  The giant snow sculptures were certainly impressive, but the best thing about our day was reconnecting with an old friend who was in town with her adorable family.  She and I were pregnant together twice, and her boys and my girls seemed to pick up right where they left off about six years ago...but without the diapers and oral fixations this time.  Here are three of them frolicking amongst some typical Michigan winter scenery... And here is another particularly impressive snow sculpture.  It kind of makes our anatomically correct snow dude from last winter appear inadequate.  Poor guy. As spectacular as those snow sculptures were, we found ourselves even more captivated by the breath-takingly beautiful single snow flakes we kept finding on each other.  Here is a rather poor photo of a perfectly wondrous pair of tiny snow flakes that landed in Emma's hair... After...

...and his name is Monkey.   George bought this little guy many months ago in a shop called Mothercare in the UK.  Monkey got packed in a box and was rediscovered a couple of weeks before Christmas.  Since Lili didn't remember Monkey, George decided he would be a perfect Christmas gift for his littlest girl.  Since then Monkey has become a favorite.  Lili looks for him at bedtime and becomes distraught when he is not immediately available.  (Apparently he is a busy primate.) George brilliantly suggested that we get a couple of other identical monkeys so that we wouldn't have as many panicked "Lost Lambie" moments as we did with Sophia during her tender toddler years.  George obviously forgot that Monkey was from Britain.  This explain all of the cups of tea and plates of biscuits he demands throughout the day. Happy Weekend, Friends!

I have this daughter named Emma, and she and I have had a passionate relationship from the beginning.  I told my husband earlier this week that she is like the boyfriend that I am head over heels for, but with whom I eventually have to break up because we fight too much.  Obviously I do not plan to "break up" with my daughter, but I do need to remember that I AM THE GROWN UP and when she pushes my buttons, it probably isn't the best course of action to stomp my feet and scream, "Arrrgh!!  EMMA!!" in the middle of the grocery store. Hugging seems to help.  When I find that I have allowed myself to be dragged into the childish drama, when I realize that I am arguing fiercely with an eight year old, when I just want to vent and scream,  I remember: I am the grown up .  And I stop.  And I hug that impossible little girl for as long as it takes my blood pressure to regulate.  Then I say, "I'm sorry."  and "I love you."  Because I am the gro...

This week I have spent a good bit of time with Mitch the painter.  Mitch resembles John Jacobson (show choir choreographer extraordinaire) in manner and voice.  I am pretty sure he is constantly high on paint fumes as he becomes far too excited about ordinary topics of conversation.  Mitch also has a startlingly loud voice and has scared the crap out of me several times this week when he comes up the stairs and his flamboyant voice booms something like, "Hey!!  Do you mind if I use the slop sink in your laundry room??"   Mitch has been re-painting our basement after the flood fiasco of 2011.  The basement looks great now that it has been painted in the lovely shade of "Goodwin Court".  (Ah, I know you are just picturing it right now.)  The key to Mitch's speed and accuracy, as far as I can determine, is the horrifying death metal he plays in the background all day long.  I can only surmise that Mitch paints so furiously well due to his f...

Since I shared some of Sophie's diary, I thought it would only be fair to invade Emma's privacy as well.  I just found a notebook of hers open on the bathroom counter.  Here is what I read... For What I'm About to do There are Some Rules. No hitting people with books. No slapping people on the bottom No doing things that involve someone else's underpants. Thank You! You might be wise to follow these rules yourself today.  

September 28, 2010 Last Thursday and Friday I had a fever for two days.  I did not feel good.  Not at all! September 29, 2010 I do not like waking up erlee!! November 10, 2010 Today my mom cut my fringe*.  My mom cut it neat and not in an angle for once. November 12, 2010 Today I had porridge for breakfest.  My mom made it.  She put in some relly sweet bananna and wallnuts and it tasted like cake.  ( Yay Mom!) November 16, 2010 I threw up on Sunday.  It was like a huge pile of green peas because I had macaroni and peas for dinner.  (This entry was accompanied by a detailed illustration.)   December 10, 2010 I did not brush my hair today.  It is like a rat's nest.  It is tangled. January 4, 2011 I went sledding on the winter vacation.  It was brilliant!  My Uncull came as well. January 10, 2011 I had Irish oats for breakfest.  It was bitter.  My mom will make it difrent next time. I see a ...

I continue to learn about myself.  I have struggled with wintertime blues for several years, but up here in Michigan the snow actually seems to be helping me.  For one thing it reflects the sunlight, and this is major since we all determined while living in the UK that the absence of sunshine is what drives me into the depths of apathy.  But in addition to simply magnifying that all-important light, it also happens to be beautiful.  There is something wonderful about rocking a warm baby in the big red rocking chair while looking out her bedroom window and seeing hundreds of snowflakes fall gleefully toward earth.  Falling snow is so much more pleasant than the weeping frigid rain that saturated my last five winters. Falling snow is truly joy-inducing for me.  This morning when I was driving with Lili to my Jazzercise class, I got so tickled seeing the multitude of snowflakes hurtling toward the windshield that I honestly had to pull the car over and laugh...

All throughout the day I think of things that would be interesting to write about, and then I sit down here in the evening and listen to the imaginary sound of crickets chirping. I'd tie an ink pen around my neck and jot these brilliant ideas down on my arm when they occurred to me if it weren't for my precocious toddler who would immediately steal the pen and draw pictures of spaghetti on the wall.  I suppose if I didn't have such a wonderfully precocious toddler, I would just sit down at the computer and compose something brilliant when inspiration struck, but how annoyingly easy would that be? So here I sit, waiting for Emma to come and declare that she is finished with all of her "getting ready for bed rituals," and that she is ready for her story.  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets it  happens to be tonight.  Here I sit, wracking my brain for something interesting to tell you... Hmmmm.... I  have joined the church choir as of last Thursday evenin...

Good news!  Although we have spent a large part of this past week dealing with the drama that ensued when we discovered that our basement had flooded, I seem to be coping  rather well with the dreaded Michigan winter and my seasonal affective disorder.  To be honest I haven't really been struck by the blues this year, but I did find that my sleep patterns were pretty disrupted throughout December.  Typically when I found myself wide awake and full of energy at 11:30 pm, I would entertain George by showing off my best Jazzercize moves in our home office.  He was impressed but seemed eager to hook up my light box so that I could get myself back into a more sensible Circadian rhythm.  Although I was full of fun late in the evening, I would be a groggy mess in the morning.  But I am pleased to report that the light box coupled with getting back into a more sensible routine seems to have fixed me.  Sometimes I can however sense that George yearns for ...

It's that time of year again, isn't it?  I didn't leave my Seasonal Affective Disorder across the pond in Wales unfortunately.  All week I have seriously struggled to drag my sorry behind up out of bed in the morning.  The fact that New Year's Eve brought us a balmy, rainy day that washed all of the sparkling white snow away hasn't helped my depressive moods, BUT it's new day and a new year, and I am choosing to fight my seasonal lethargy tooth and nail...as long as it's after 9 am. As has been the case for the past few years, we do our New Year's celebrating on New Year's Day rather that the night before.  This gives us a chance to celebrate with our traditional New Year's meal, toast with sparkling beverages and make wishes for the upcoming twelve months, and there isn't even a small part of me that misses the late night celebrating.  As Danny Glover's Sergeant Murtaugh would say, "I'm too old for that $#!*." I took ...