While LM might have proclaimed the SAT “easier than I thought it would be” (see skeptical post), thankfully absent from the test was a pronunciation section.
Add to our list:
‘municipal’, pronounced, ‘munickipal’ as in, “Mom, how come all the muNICKipal cars have an ‘x’ on the license plates? Isn’t it obvious which ones are police cars already?”
It is often the highlight of my day to drive Bird and George home from school. No matter how difficult my day of subbing, no matter what matters lay heavy on my mind, the ride always leave me smiling.
Earlier this week, Bird and I were discussing the rain, and how grateful we both were that it didn’t fall from the sky as more snow. George quickly reminded us that we did, however still have several more weeks of winter, according to the groundhog.
“Are you telling me that you’re putting your faith in a groundhog to tell you the weather?” I inquired.
“Yeah, don’t you know that God controls the weather?” chimed in Bird.
“I know God controls the weather, Bird,” George retorted, “But the groundhog has to tell him when to make it Spring!”
Well, duh.
For moments of majesty I might have missed if not for a dear friend’s ‘eagle eye’.
For children that made me laugh from the inside out.
Seeing the intellect, the wit, the maturity that has come from the toddler I once knew
With the rare treat of family game night. I’ll admit, I was silenced by my envy of so much laughter around one table.
With glimpses back to my own childhood.
And reminders of how grateful we should all be just to be alive.
I could have gone to Eastern and saved myself eight years of student loan payments. But the minute I set foot on campus, I knew Augie was the right fit for me.
I lived all four years in the same residence hall (the building on the right). Set on perhaps the only hill in the state of Illinois, I learned quickly my freshman year that 564 stairs between me and breakfast would keep me in shape without even trying. Now, there are brand new ‘dorms’ (I’m allowed to say that 15 years after being an R.A.), a security system and an empty front desk (where I used to manage a staff of 20 students). But some things never change.
Men are still not allowed unescorted in the ‘Virgin Vault’.
Some sights are just as beautiful as they ever were making me wonder how 15 years could go by so quickly.
The library that was built early on in my collegiate career. I avoided it at all cost, only going in long enough to photocopy whatever materials I needed so I could return to my room to study.
The snack bar where I spent many mealtimes reading my mail over a deli sandwich and Sun Chips.
When I heard about the trajedies at Virginia Tech and NIU, my mind always pictured Old Main, the building where I spent many hours in classes on religion, history, literature. The true icon of the college.
No tour of campus would be complete without standing on the now snow-covered spot where his dad and I were married. The day so memorable for so many reasons:
We stood on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi, the bridge in the background, and I thought about the years that have gone by. I thought about the husband I fell in love with during a Modern Fiction class my freshman year. While I watched the eagles floating over the river, I thought about the man I married and 8 years later divorced. I knew that I could look back regretfully if I chose. But there, in between me and all those memories, walking next to me along the campus paths, shopping with me for sweatshirst in the bookstore, throwing snowballs and laughing all the way, was the one who makes regret impossible.
A few short blocks away was the townhouse we lived in for three years after we were married. It was the home LM first came home to as a newborn; the home he left when he was too young to remember it. The home I left on my fifth wedding anniversary for a new start in Pennsylvania.
No trip back memory lane would be complete without sandwiches from Arthur’s. The owner is still the same, only the pictures on the walls have changed (for the better). I used to sit in a booth surrounded by the man that I loved and all our friends. Now I sat with the boy that I love and our dear friends. Some things never change.
Even the ice cream still tastes as sweet.
I have two siblings. The elder, a sister (Jules) is a textbook eldest child. While I would never wish ill-will against her or upon her, she’s had a life that followed the book and now has a good husband, two kids, a dog, a home they built with a swing on the porch and enough money in various places that Dave Ramsey himself would be proud. My younger sibling, G, is fun to be around, carefree, tied down to nothing more than his two dogs, he has made his way through life trying different paths, different jobs, different locales and has thus far come out unscathed. While Dave Ramsey might not be impressed with my brother, I suspect he might make quick friends with someone like Toby Keith.
I was sitting here this morning wondering over a lot of different things and it occured to me to think about what it might have been like to have Jesus as your older sibling. First of all, what shock Mary must have had when her second child was born. The first one had been, well, perfect, and now, she has one that gets sick, cries, throws tantrums, is selfish, lies, bites and screams for no reason at all. But as I keep my own envy in check over my sister’s seemingly perfect life, I have to think that being a younger brother to Jesus might have been the worst situation a child could be in. Your mother would never stop saying, “Why can’t you just be perfect like your brother?” And while Jesus could go off, wandering around the country without a job, writing home to say he’s off preaching and performing miracles, but has no real source of income, no place to lay his head, no intentions to marry, there would be enormous pressure on every other child in the home to have a good job, raise a family, be a good provider.
As kids, Mary might walk into the room and see her children fighting. Asking one what happened, she might hear, “Jesus stole my toy!” only to have to reprimand her son for lying.
When you held a summer job as a teenager, your employer probably mumbled under his breath, “Jesus was the best kid we ever employed. His brother, however, leave a lot to be desired!” Even if you worked hard, you could never work perfectly. When the donkey didn’t get fed, or the eggs hadn’t been gathered from the chickens, you couldn’t try to suggest that maybe it was Jesus’ fault. You’d learn quickly that Mary would instantly know better and you’d be to blame. Again.
Women probably fell in love with Jesus, but settled for a brother thinking there must be similarities. How disappointed they must have been to realize they got the short end of the stick! “Your brother, Jesus, is sympathetic! He would have understood! How can you be so calluous?”
Even children might favor their uncle Jesus over their own fathers.
I guess, when I give it some thought, I am fortunate to have a sister to look up to, but one that I can surely say isn’t perfect.
It wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t as difficult as the practice tests we took. The math wasn’t nearly so bad, he says. On a scale from one to ten, 10 being how hard the practice tests were, this one was a 6 or maybe a 7.
On the practice tests, his scores weren’t high enough to get in to the gifted program.
But maybe, just maybe…
Dare I hope that there is an end in sight to his boredom in math class?
Dare I even think it?
I want to post pictures from our trip. I want to post about LM’s latest mispronunciation, I want to post about George (I probably have three posts just about George) but tomorrow is the SAT (which LM is not going to score hgh enough on in math to qualify for the gifted program, but sine I already shelled out my dollars, he might as well take the darn thing) and next week LM’s Science Fair project is due, and I’ve been fighting a cold and the house is a pit, the dog is desperate for attention and I haven’t seen anything green outside in months and well, I guess posting is going to have to wait. Even if I still can’t see grass or leaves outside, I’ll post soon. I promise.
I will say this much, though, hibernating through the winter months is sounding better and better every day.
Nothing but sleep, baby, nothing but sleep.
I can’t quite get my mind around how long it has been. More than five years, and even then only long enough for a quick lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. For LM, it’s truly been longer than he can remember. He was 2 when we moved away and has no recollection of the dear sweet, polite, quiet, methodical boy he used to play with.
Since we moved, our friendships have only grown. Stacy and I email nearly every day. She’s been my friend, my support, my cheerleader, my secret-keeper, my joy, my laughter and my sister in Christ. LM and her son are sporadic but heartfelt pen-pals. Trading jokes, successes, pictures and contrasting details about their lives the two are a study in opposites bonded by friendship.
Tomorrow, after all this time, we will set off on a long overdue visit. To her house that I’ve never seen. To see children of hers that I’ve never met. To finally sit and talk with the dearest friend I have in my small precious collection.
While we are in the area, we’ll stop in and see how my grandpa is doing. I hope to also take LM on his first-ever tour of the college where his parents met, including the famous ice cream shop and maybe even a sandwich from Arthur’s where his dad and I used dine.
The trip will be far too short, and it will be hard to leave, but I can say with certainty that this trip will be good for the soul.
I’ve posted previously about LM’s fantastic pronunciations for various words. Today, I give you three more: ‘documentary’ pronounced ‘documentarry‘, ‘Shaff-er” which is LM for ‘chauffeur’ and my new all-time favorite, “uROphic”, which is the new, trendy, LM-way to pronounce “euphoric”. Try it in conversation for yourself and see if you don’t like it.
“The thought of never studying the pythagorean theory again in my lifetime makes me simply uROphic!”
A train leaves the station at 6:34pm with a child aboard who is studying for his SAT exam less than two weeks away. If his mother has just taken a heavy dose of cold medicine after an agonizing day with first graders, and the dog desperately wants to go out, which of the following is true?
A. The child will forever associate the acronym “SAT” with “Stupid, Absurd, Test”;
B. The mother’s head will implode at the mere mention of the words “algebra” and “geometry”;
C. The dog will actually score higher than either the child or the Nyquil-induced mother, but will be unable to properly mark his answer key without an opposable thumb; or,
D. The child, the mother and the dog will all mutually agree that the train is an antiquated and nearly obsolete form of transportation in America and thereby declare all questions involving, pertaining to or referencing trains to be null and void.
Blessed Little Things 