--Wind in the Attic and a Coon Hat

Neither Lori nor I are sure how this happened, but our first born children have wind in their attics. We know they are intelligent. Erin started speaking in full, understandable sentences at 18 months, and Madeleine was tested when she was younger and tested quite high. We don’t know if it was something in the way we parented them or is it the fact that they were only children for the first three or four years of their little lives? Do we need to let them watch TV more and read to them less? I must say it does have us scratching our heads at times. Either of these two girls will do something and common sense just flies right out the window after it has circled their heads a couple of times.


What’s funny is now Pearce is explaining things to them. I’m afraid he’s going to tell his older sister about Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny!

Catherine wearing a coon hat.

Tonight at Honey and Poppar’s Christmas party for the grands, Catherine had found a raccoon hat – if you know Cat, you appreciate this. If you don’t know Cat, you might think this a little odd. Not to be outdone, when Catherine took the hat off, her older sister put the hat on backwards. Poppar called Madeleine (the older sister) over to him. He lifted the tail and wiped her forehead with a piece of tissue paper. Pearce was watching it all – taking it all in. He is all too keenly aware of things. Madeleine didn’t have a clue what Poppar was doing or what it meant. I asked Pearce if he knew what came out from underneath a coon’s tail. I wish I could have recorded his laugh. It was the biggest belly laugh you have ever heard and continued everytime he saw Madeleine with the backwards coon hat. He has one of those infectious laughs. Meanwhile, Madeleine stands there – not even catching a whiff of what is funny – then turns and walks off to the kitchen.

How can these two beautiful and smart little girls be so dingy?

Then you throw Catherine in the mix, and we have ourselves a mass chaos of 4. Catherine is all about having a good time. When she gets to say the blessing (and a Honey’s house, EVERYONE who wants to say a blessing is permitted), she always prays, “Help us to have a good time and no one to get in trouble.” See where her focus is?

It’s funny to sit back and watch them interact with one another or to see how they’ve changed. Even though Madeleine and Erin have been in the same grade at the same school since they were babies, we’ve had them separated in different classes since Erin could talk. We found out Erin was telling the other two year-olds she and Madeleine were twins. At that point, we thought it would be a good idea to separate them.

AND FOR THE RECORD…Honey and Poppar are NOT my parents. I’m not even sure where my parents went. At tonight’s Christmas party, Honey served the children cookie cake and either chocolate milk or juice. That would have NEVER happened when I was growing up in their house. If I would have asked for that Honey’s response would have been, “You’ll rot your teeth out.” Now mind you these were my baby teeth, and they were SUPPOSED to fall out of my head. It would have been cheaper than having to have them pulled. I was just trying to save them money.

I say all of this to say this…during this holiday season, observe your family. See how God wove you together as a family with each of your idiosyncrasies. It is by no accident that God put you together as a family. Be sure to thank Him for each and every nut in your family tree. Find something positive about each person and encourage them. Too often we wait until it is too late to say the simplest of things that mean the most.