Reading Sundays Paper on Tuesday

Yes, that is what I am doing. I am sitting on the porch waiting for Tasha's bus, reading Sunday's paper.

I have gotten so far behind in what is going on in the world, I decided to sit down and read the paper to catch up, and of course go though the ads.

I  can see most of your faces. The Newspaper? Why don't you just go to the website of the newspaper and choose the stories you want to read?  Get through it much quicker. Click  Click and you are done. It is a waste of money to read an actual newspaper.

Well,  I understand all of that, I truly do. But, did you know there are articles int he paper that aren't on the web? Yep. There is. How would I know about Miss Amie over in Summerville losing her  Dachshund? Nope that kind of news doesn't make the web. 

OK so that is boring. When I was a child, we were very very poor. The Sunday ads were the highlight of my week. My Grandmother and I would splurge a quarter (yes a quarter, Hush)  and buy the paper then she would let me have the ads.

I would very carefully go through and look at all of the beautiful things in the ads, things I would never have.

In Palo Alto, California in this time period, (thought I was going to tell, huh?) There wasn't a Walmart, or a Target. No. There was Macy's,  Nordstrom  Mervyns (forerunner of Target) all wonderful stores with fancy clothes and shoes. Pretty smelling perfume in fancy bottles.

"What shall we buy?" My grandmother would say and with that we would go through the ads. I would find a pretty dress and smooth it out, and carefully sit it next to me. Some day, I was going to own all of these beautiful clothes. Nice Furniture that was not hand me downs, or from the second hand store.

And food. On a budget of  25 dollars a week, we ate a lot of peanut butter, tuna. Going through the groceries ads. My eyes would bulge with the wonderful food on sale.
I used to love to look at the meats, we had meat so seldom, hamburger was dream to me. Chicken. Special things, like cookies, cakes and chips. I would cut coupons to save for the time we had the money to buy such wonderful things.

The time did come, many many years later.  I had my first full time job in the  summer of my junior year. Up to then I had only babysat, an that money went for school supplies and buying clothes at the
Goodwill.
But in my junior year5, I got a job at IBM as an Intern, when the intern program was still going on.
With my first pay check, I brought the Sunday paper. We went through and cut out the ads, then we carefully gathered up the ones we could afford and purchased them. Them. What a wonderful shopping trip this was.
It didn't matter it wasn't from Macy's or the big name store. What mattered  was, we actually brought somethings new and from the Sunday paper. We went to Sears. But that was ok.

Today the Sunday paper still has a lot of meaning to me. I can't afford a lot of things in there still, but sometimes it makes me remember of those Sundays, when going through the ads was a dream of tomorrow and things to come.

So you see, reading the Sunday paper on the web, just wouldn't work for me.  Even if I don't have time to read the Sun day paper on Sunday, It just isn't a good week until I do read it. So Today, I am reading Sundays paper on Tuesday.

I don't think Grandma, minds.

Rites of passage:The Potty training experience

Today is the day,I decided. The big day. The important day, it comes but once in a lifetime for a person. Today I will start it and Natasha will be on her way to independence. she will accomplish much! She will do great things, and maybe become president! Yes! This is the day we start her on a new life and new adventure!

Today I will start  potty training! Yes! and a new world will unfold! All right, this was probably a tad dramatic. Let me roll it back a bit.

It probably isn't the best day. We are going to Florida on Thursday for 4 days and that will interrupt the procedure, but everyone has to start somewhere.

Not that we haven't been trying, but Natasha has told us in no uncertain terms, going potty simply is not for her. yet, today we had a change of heart, I was on my computer busily twittering something I do every morning, when Tasha came up to me and gave me a hug. I asked her if she wanted cereal and she replied Yes, but she really wanted to go potty first and then eat her cereal. 

So, after about 2 seconds of shock, I flew from my computer, feet b

barely touching the hard wood floors and set up her potty, removed new pair of Christmas jeans, that had fancy new belt, removed pull ups and sat her gently in the seat of seat. 

I sat on the side of the tub, and talked to her and talked to her, and played finger games for 20 minutes. I turned the water on.(worked for her mom) and Sang songs. For 5 minutes and 15 seconds. She had a ball.

 I finally, decided that she didn't really need to go she just thought she did and that was a good start. I took her off and put her pull up back in place.

When she promptly took care of business.

I don't know whose timing was off,hers or mine, but I just sighed. Potty training can be a long process or short. 

I remember her Mother, Denise walked up to me and said Tammy goes potty, I want to to..and she did. Never looked back. 

Her uncle was a little more of a battle. He just didn't want to, but in the long run he acquiescence, I guess he discovered it was easier then watching Mommy cry. My youngest daughter was ill. She  was suffering from heart disease that would later claim her life. I was always softer on her. I couldn't bring myself to force her, so she just did it herself. One day I found her sitting on the potty like Eric and Denise. Mission accomplished. Who says peer pressure is a bad thing?

we will accomplish the training thing, It might take a minute. But more frightening then that to me, is the next project.

Yes, you guessed it. The Sippy Cup. Second only to the Bo Bo or pacifier, what just has to go. My daughter like any mother is slow in instituting these rites of passage. It takes her baby from babyhood, to childhood. getting her closer to that dreaded age, teenager and of course leaving home. 

Don't we all want them to stay at that age. I have sketches of memories, that make me smile when they com out of the blue. 

 My baby, my Sharon waking her up in the morning and her saying to me, "let me sleep just a little minute" and lying back down. How long is a little  minute? Didn't matter she got her wish.  Denise being the peacemaker between her older brother and younger sister. "it's a tough job, mom" She said once. 

And Eric, the only boy therefore he should be the boss, right? So he thought then and sometimes still thinks. His sisters put him in his place.  "Girls!" He said more then once.

Rites of passage from infant to toddler to child to teen to married and gone.  We pass through this time and it hardly seems to us we have.I think someone stole that time from us, because wasn't it just yesterday I was training Denise? not her daughter? Wasn't it yesterday, Sharon was climbing in my lap with her Teddy Bear wanting a hug? And wasn't it yesterday, Eric tried to blow up the house because he didn't know throwing lighter fluid was very flammable when you throw it on hot coals in the Weber?

Savor the rites of passage. time flies, life changes and in a moment we are training our grand kids instead of our kids. 

So, as I always say, Life goes on.