Cute lil' baby monkey

Ok,that is a Disney movie Quote, who knows it?
That is not entirely what this post is about but it is about a lil' baby. Those of you that babysit or have very young siblings will probably understand this better.
Just imagine that you have a baby to care for. Your job is to keep it clean, fed,keep it safe and sheltered at all times. You are invited to go see a movie with your friends and you really want to see the movie that is playing but you can't go because the baby might cry and disturb the movie. So you stay home. Another night you have been invited out for dinner but your baby is sick with a fever, so you can't go. One of your close friends, who is a heavy smoker, calls you up and need a place to stay for a week. You and this person are good friends even though your relationship has been in a strain since the baby came into your life so this is your chance to reconnect. You know they will be offended if you tell them no, so you say that would be cool but they can't smoke around the baby as a matter of fact you would rather they smoke outside. They tell you that won't work for them so if they stay they can smoke when ever and were ever they want, if you have a problem with that then they never want to hang out with you again. So trying to be responsible and provide a healthy environment for the baby, you let your friend know that you can't let them stay if they are going to insist on smoking around the baby. They tell you off and say they feel like you have change since the baby came along and won't have a problem with finding someone else to stay with and add that you were never a good friend to them anyway.(just to hurt your feelings) Time goes by and more of the same kind of things happen, you can't do the things you did before the baby and what you can do is short lived because of the baby. You finally realize that your life is going to be different from now on, so you accept it and make the best of it. You tell yourself that one day you will be glad you made these choices and that you will have made a positive influence on this life you are in charge of, one day they will thank you for all you have done.
One day the baby is crawling around the room and finds a pencil on the floor. You immediately take it from the baby and express negative sounds to discourage them from playing with it because it is sharp at one end. You make a mental note to be more careful about what is in baby's reach. Another day the baby finds another pencil and you repeat the procedure so the baby will learn that isn't a toy and should be avoided. You realize the baby is just curious and doesn't understand that they could poke the pencil into their eye, nose or mouth and damage tender tissues or chock on the eraser. Many things could hurt the baby and it is your job to protect them from harm, even harm they can do to themselves. But one day you know they will thank you for protecting them providing a safe place for them to play and learn.
Now the baby is walking and stumbling around, aren't they cute waddling around all over the place in their diaper? You can't help but snicker at them sometimes. This causes you to watch one step ahead of them to make sure they will not fall onto anything that will hurt them though,so you have to step up your reflexes and pay attention to them a little more when they are in a new environment. You begin to teach them not to play around stairs or stoves, windows and screens that they could fall into and break. Once again you just accept that you have to redirect your focus and your life to be their bodyguard. Sometimes you go out to the park with a friend that will respect that you have a baby to run after and not get frustrated that you can't go to a party with them anymore. Many of your new friends either have babies and understand or they babysit for people and don't mind too much. You tell yourself again that one day you will be glad you made these choices and your baby will be glad you did too.
Now you have a toddler that has learned enough words to form sentences. You take them to the toy isle on occasion to treat them to a new play item. They ask for a ball so you offer them a purple ball but they want the red ball. So they scream, "Red Balllll! Me want red ball!" so you take the purple ball and give them the red ball and nicely say, "Ok, honey here ya' go, see the pretty red ball?" The child giggles with glee and all is good in the world again.
Now the child had grown older and wants to "help" you cook pancakes. You decide this will be a learning experience so you agree they can mix the batter. So you sit them a safe distance from the stove top and give them the spoon and bowl of ingredients. Once the batter is mixed (with a few stirs of your own) you pour the batter into the griddle. Your child wants to see and you tell them to stay back because the stove it hot. They do as you have instructed and stay back. You feel proud that they obey your wishes and don't want to be burned by the hot stove. You enjoy your pancakes together.
Now you have a preschooler that is testing their independence and individuality. There are times when you have to say, "No" to a lot of their request to do things themselves. You let them do as much as you know they can handle and encourage learning new things with your supervision but sometimes the child tests you to see if you will let them do things they usually can not.
One day you get a call from the preschool that your child has been injured and they want you to come to the school right away. Once you arrived at the school you find that your child fell down the stairs and knocked out a couple of their teeth. You take the child to the dentist to make sure no permanent damage was done to the jaw or will hinder the permanent teeth from coming in correctly. "Everything is ok, just a couple stitches in the lip." the dentist says. Your heart leaps to your throat, "Stitches!" you think, "that means a needle, this can't go well."
Holding your child still while someone is administering pain to them is hard to do. They cry and look to you for comfort to see that you are the one holding them there, letting them do this horrible thing to them. It just breaks your heart.
Later you find out the reason for the fall was stubbornness. Your child didn't want the preschool teacher to tie their shoes for them, so they took off running away from the teacher. The turned to say, "No I do it meself!" not seeing the stairs and tripped over their shoe laces and busted their mouth, loosing two teeth and getting two stitches. If they would only listen, right?
Now imagine that same child a teenager demanding to go out with some friends that you know to be smokers, law breakers and one of them is pregnant so you know they have sex. Your child tells you to, "Back off, they are my friends. I'm not going to do anything stupid. Do you think I'm dumb?" Inside your head you are screaming back at them to "You are not going anywhere with them. Go to your room, now!" but you want them to think you believe in them so you let them go, saying a little prayer that God will keep them safe and out of trouble. Where's the thanks you thought you would get for all those time YOU STAYED HOME? You think to yourself, "I gave up my youth, my freedom, my friends, my LIFE for THIS?" You can't believe you are sitting there crying because you are afraid for their safety, for their future when they don't care at all about you. You want to be mad at them for treating you this way, but mostly you just worry. You gave away everything you could have done, could have been, could have had to help them be the best they could be and all they want to do is throw it away for a good time.
Cute lil' baby, huh?

Time Travelers

Most everyone wishes they could travel in time, some want to speed ahead into the future and some want to travel back in time to the past. I believe that most everyone has a wrong they would like to make right just as I believe that many young people would like to know how certain choices would change thier future. However that is not exactly what I am thinking about, I thinking about traveling back to the past way before my existance to experience a different way of life. I have always beleived that I was born in the wrong era because of the things I enjoy doing and the hobbies in which I choose to spend my free time.
Just imagine what it would be like to live in the late 19th century, in the 1880's. What would it be like to live on the frontier as a new settler in the west? I can imagine myself there getting up before sunrise to start the fire in the woodburning stove and cooking breakfast for my family. Of course the wood is something that would have to be taken care of ahead of time, the chopping and splitting for firewood is something that would have to be done daily. I've done that as a child and as a teenager with my parents. Gathering the eggs and milking the jersey cow is also something that would probably be done ahead of time or would have to be done right after breakfast, depending on the weather and the means of chilling the milk and the production of the hens. Once the family got up thier responsibilities would depend on thier ages and thier physical ability. If my husband had to work in a mill or mine to pay for supplies or medical care that we needed or to pay for our property would also depend on how much the children had to help with. Women on the frontier were consumed by making enough food and clothing for thier families to survive and keeping the home and clothes clean not to mention traveling to the supply store for supplies and food that was not produced at home. Then there are the nurturing, feeding and general raising of the children that was always considered woman's work. If the husband worked or the children were very young the livestock was also added to her duties.
No ME time in that schedule, huh?
I would imagine that when the darkness of night came, everyone was tired and ready for bed. Some school aged children probably didn't get to thier homework, which certainly wasn't much, until after dark because children had to help to keep things going. Gardening was important as well as feeding livestock and maintaining the woodpile. Wood was not just used for heating the home but for cooking and warming water to clean dishes and for taking baths. Animals were not pets but a source of food, domesticated animals like dogs, cats and horses had purposes not just companions or playmates. Cats took care of the mice, dogs took care of alerting when there was trouble, horses and mules carried heavy loads, pulled plows and wagons and were the mode of transportation for supplies. These animals were no more pampered than the people were of that time. Todays pets would never survive as some people wouldn't either.
Childhood was short lived in that time. Toys rarely existed and if so it was a special occasion to play with them or on bad weather days when work outside could not be done.
Can you imagine living like they did? It would be a culture shock for most if not all of the people I know. I, however, would see it as a challange worth accepting.

Christmas memories

Through the many years of my life I have seen Christmas come and go with different speeds. When I was a little girl I thought Christmas Day would never come. I longed for the last day of school before Christmas because we always went half a day and the only thing we did was have a party. I can still (yes, even now) remember the thrill in the air as we would enter the classroom filled with the smell of icing, cupcakes, sugar cookies and peppermint. Best friends would exchange simple gifts secretly as to not hurt the feelings of those you didn't bring a gift for. The teacher would give instructions to mothers that helped out for such events. We always brought a gift to exchange and sometimes we would bring goodies or candies to share with the class. There was always a few that you could count on thier mom's bringing enough homemade cupcakes or brownies for everyone to get one and staying to help with the party.The girls brought a $5 gift for a girl and the boys brought a $5 gift for a boy. Everyone ate too much sugar and played games or did Christmas crossword puzzles and word searches until the bell rang to go home. I remember most years it snowed at least a little or there was some leftover snow from a day or two ago. We always look forward to laziness and fun as we awaited the big day that we would wake earlier than school days to see what Santa had left for us. We would play all day long, rarely wanting to stop even for a meal.
There was a few years that I remember going to my Grandparents' house in Maryland for Christmas. That was always fun because we would play with our cousins and explore everyone's house for fun things to play with. Grandparents can have the coolest stuff, they don't want you to play with it, but it's all so interesting.
As I got older Christmas became a drag. We always had to clean the house and going to grandparents' house wasn't as much fun because you were too old to play and too young to go anywhere by yourself. Everyone was cooking, cleaning or watching the news (and you were never allowed to change the chanel or make too much noise while the television was on) and sitting at the table and talking about people you never heard of before. Everything was boring or stupid, no one would let you have any fun. The music you liked was considered noise and you always played it too loud. Everyone was mad at you for something.
Then when I became a mother Christmas was exciting again. Then it became overwhelming and tiresome. Now that my children are growing up Christmas is changing again. Who knows what memories lie ahead.
One thing for certain is that this year's Christmas memories will be remembered for many years to come. I usually have an idea what to expect for Christmas, but this year I would have never imagined what would transpire over the Holiday break. Last year I was sick and watched the Disney Christmas Parade from my bed, this year I watched the Holiday Wishes over Cinderella's Castle in person on the eve of New Year's Eve. WOW! That was an awesome sight as was the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. I took lots of pictures to cherish these memories as the years will fly by with unimaginable speed.