Sweet Life With Mary

I guess, I spoke too soon.  Monday, we got treated to snow that melted the same afternoon— that was not too bad.  But, today!!! Today, we woke up to about two inches of snow and snow expected to fall till noon.   Quite depressing.

I don’t even want to take pictures anymore.

It’s probably because I have more time to appreciate it, more opportunity to participate in it, more awareness to revel in it— I am loving Spring in Colorado!

True, there’s still snow up in the mountains…

And the other day, I had to drive about 6 miles to the Storage place and during that drive I went through— HAIL, then, RAIN, then, SUNNY, then HAIL AND RAIN pouring down in buckets!  On the drive back to my house, it was SNOW and RAIN mix, then, SWIRLING SNOW and yet SUNNY enough to cast shadows.   A half hour later, it was all done— ground was wet for a couple of hours, the sun dried it all up and it was like, it never happened.  Like Jack said, I had “some weather.”

It is still quite chilly in the mornings and I have a hard time convincing Mary to wear a thick jacket for when I drop her off to school.  On the pick-up at noon, the teacher makes them wear their jackets (and I’m sure Mary does not give her a hard time) but as soon as she sees me, the jacket comes off, along with her backpack, and she prances around, revelling in the cool spring air. 

I’m not the only one who loves spring around here…

Amidst all the boxes all packed ready for moving, Mary finds a good spot to rock her baby.

Out of a bunch of grapes that she had for breakfast, Mary “adopted” this little grape as her baby, she wanted to keep it and take care of it. I warned her that it will become a raisin in a week.

She plans to keep it in the refrigerator with a warning.

The Travel Channel has a series called “Food Paradise” and one of their episodes featured the Top Ten Factory Tours in the country (open and free to the public which included Hersheys PA and Krispy Kreme).   I did not see the complete episode but I happened to catch the tail end of the segment about one in Denver, Colorado — Hammond’s Candies!

The gift shop was no Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory but it had enough candy.

You won’t find factory prices in here…

The tour started with a 5-minute video and then, consisted mostly of going down this corridor.

Looking through the glass windows.

At the factory workers, handling very hot candy made out of corn syrup, sugar and water.

They did bring out samples off the factory line, in the end.

Mary enjoyed the orange-flavored sweet.

The tour was interesting and worth driving down to Denver on a beautiful Friday afternoon— once! If I have out-of-twon visitors looking for things to do around Denver, I would probably mention this, for the novelty, especially if they have kids. 

See that twig amidst the garage clutter? 

That’s Mary’s stick.

Which I’m glad I did not let her bring into the house about two weeks ago when she first picked it up on the way to the neighborhood Mickey D’s.  Otherwise, I would already have broken into little pieces and thrown out with the trash. 

After all, it is JUST a stick, isn’t it?

When we were getting into the car this morning on our way to school, Mary saw it laying there.  Once in the car, she proceeded to tell me how much it meant to her. “I don’t know why but it’s just so precious— it’s so cute!”

Cute? This stick? 

I totally respect other people’s feelings even if I don’t understand them sometimes so I just told her that it might be difficult to pack it when we move— we might not be able to take it with us. 

“No, we have to take it!!!”

When I got back from dropping her off, I regaled Jack with the incident as I found it amusing.  To my surprise, he told me about how HE had found a stick when he was 10, kept it for a long time, and had even taken with him to college.  And he even named it— Sting!  He still misses Sting, he says, ever since one college roommate, unknowingly, burned it…

Mary may not take after Jack in looks, but she sure takes after him in other ways.

For St. Patrick’s Day.

Though, it is far removed from being a real green day here in Louisville today.  We woke up to about 4 inches of snow.

But, as you can see, roads look wet, not icy.  That is my only concern when we get snow— how are the roads?

Especially, this morning, I had planned to go early into Wally World (about 2 miles from our house) to get boxes, as well as pick up some green cookies for Mary’s Kindergarten class’ Green Day Buffet.

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, Mary’s teacher had asked the parents to send in “edible green food to share.”  They had to bring 10 individually wrapped food items.  I saw some green sugar cookies last Friday but I felt they would be stale by Monday, so I went early this morning to get them.

Except the store no longer had them.  Instead, I was lucky enough to find 6 donuts with green icing.

Otherwise, it would have been 10 servings of pickles or 10 packets of cucumbers - both favorites of Mary’s, but, as she said, not everybody likes them.  So, we cut these up in half, put them in sandwich bags, with 2 pieces left over for Mary to snack on later.

Want one?

This winter proved to be very mild, at least, where we are in Louisville, CO.  Officially, another week before Spring and yet, we have been getting spring-like days for the past month.  Interspersed with some snowy days, of course.  This year, we were lucky to just watch a LOT of snow up in the mountains.

Here is Mary, enjoying the afternoon with some of her Kindergarten friends.

While working out at our local gym this morning, I happened to glance up and caught Today Show’s Ann Curry’s interview with the Barretts and their 17-month-old daughter, Elizabeth, who can read. Amazing!

Aside from being astounded by the little girl’s ability, one other thing that gave me pause was the reason why the parents decided to go public — they said that they are reaching out to people about what to do next for Elizabeth, they wanted to reach out to experts who could help them deal with her abilities. 

What would I do if Elizabeth were my kid?

I probably would not have made it into a media event.  Even the Barrets acknowledge that their child is different and may have a difficult time growing up, why add to it by putting her into the national limelight?

I would have have nurtured the ability, as she grows, expose her to all kinds of books— math, science, philosophy, get her to the library, let her decide what she would want to learn.  Then, at the same time, taking care to challenge her in other ways— gymnastics, swimming, karate, etc.  Also, I would make sure that she gets to socialize with other kids.

What would you do?

——-

On another note:  There’s a lot of things going on in the homefront that is keeping me away from the computer, things that just need to get accomplished within the next two months.  Nothing traumatic, actually, they’re quite exciting. 

I will continue working on getting this blog back on its feet— I am glad that I had subscribed to my blog via email so I could copy the ones that were lost (about five posts, not very much), I have to update my blogroll and  alot of other little things.

Please excuse the temporary look.  Both Jack’s and this blog were hacked during the night.  I have lost a week’s post and all the comments that went along with it as our host only does back-ups once a week.

It just plain sucks when technology bites you.

I hope to have everything back to normal by Monday.

Good thing I procrastinated on some cosmetic changes this week….

No, this is not how about Mary being a little Imelda with lots of shoes or her love of shoes.

Its about how shoes “accidentally” drop off from her feet when she gets in the car.  Every time.  As soon as she is strapped in her car seat, whatever shoes (sandals, crocs, tennis shoes…) she’s wearing? They  drop to the floor.

Dad insists that Mary takes them off deliberately and should just stop doing it.  Mary insists that the shoes just fall off by themselves.  Me, I don’t mind as long as Mary puts them back on, with minimum delay, as soon as we get to our destination (which she rarely does and becomes the bone of contention between us.)

Mary explained to me what happens.  We all know that she is a toe-walker — she stands, walks, runs on her tippy-toes about 90% of the time.  She said that, as soon as she sits on her car seat, her feet points straight downward and the shoes just fall off.  Sometimes, even her socks follow.  Hmmm…

Like I said and like I have told Mary, unlike her Dad who insists the she keeps her shoes on in the car, I do not mind.  As long as she gets them back on right away. 

…We’re still working on that.