Category Archives: Little Sprouts

By Chrissy the Hyphenated

You know how banging on a faulty appliance is called “percussive maintenance”?

TEXT from Mama Buzz: “he has been asking to color more and more often!  today he went to the storage closet (all the art supplies are in there) and was hitting the door, then when i opened it he went directly to the set of drawers that has all our coloring supplies!”

Remember last month when I told you my girls had done something for me that was so utterly whelming, I could hardly speak? Well, it’s been 5 weeks and I’m finally ready to share.

True … not all of my whelmation was due to the party. I had a LOT of other stuff going on, big emotional ups and downs. But this was definitely one of the big UP ones!

June 2, 2011 – It took a huge effort just to get all four of us girls in the same place at one time. I can’t travel and my daughters live thousands of miles from me and each other. But they all managed to be here at the same time for one whole day!

I suspected they had something special planned for me, because every time I tried to talk about what we would do on Girls Day, they told me to just never mind my pretty little head. And then, of course, they locked me in my bedroom for half an hour, which kinda sealed the deal on the whole “surprise” thing.

I figured it was going to be a belated Mommy’s Birthday-Mother’s Day party. They’d all called the month before, but the usual pile of gifts, cards and flowers were notably missing. This proved to be a useful dodge on their part because I was UTTERLY BOWLED OVER when I found out what their party was REALLY all about!!

My family knows I Do Not Like Surprises. But they also know I blubber when I’m happy. So the girls all cheered and took LOTS of pictures when I saw the surprise party was a shower for my little jewelry business and promptly burst into tears!  After I dried off and quit gasping, we got down to the fun part … food, games and presents!

The Chrissy Crossword … you think I’d have won that one, wouldn’t you? I mean, who knows me better than me? Turns out … Mama Buzz! LOL  Most of the guests live too far away to come in person, so sent cards and photos of themselves wearing jewelry I’d made for them. More tears from me.

I got lots of presents!  Beads galore, magni-eyes, business cards and magnets, even fabric for my quilting. Lil Buzz enjoyed helping me open everything. He didn’t care much what was inside. He just liked the wrapping paper! LOL

The biggest, funnest game was the Recycle Jewelry Contest. Many of our out-of-town guests mailed entries and there was an amazing level of creativity displayed!

Here are just a couple close ups of contest entries. Isn’t this elegant?!

This photo cracks me up!  Once there was no food or wrapping paper, Lil Buzz got bored with the party, so we let him watch one of his beloved Veggie Tales DVDs. For the record, I don’t agree at ALL with Bob’s opinion of that necklace! 🙂

This entrant apologized for “cheating” but wrote she just couldn’t resist adding some sparklies to the stuff she cadged out of her office’s coffee room trash! LOL

Here just one more. There were so many, but I’m afraid to show them all for fear I’ll goof and leave someone out. Plus, this blog entry is long already.

I only wish I could show you my beautiful girls … but you know about that.  I hope you enjoyed “attending” my little party! 🙂

By Chrissy the Hyphenated

Lil Buzz figured out how to put the Duplos together. He made this tower all by himself. I’m so impressed! When he was here, not too long ago, he was still hit-or-miss on getting the shapes into the shape sorter holes. More “jam it and hope for the best” than “match the shape to the hole.” Matching up the Duplos so they snap together is a big step! ::beamingGrammy::

Gotta share!  This is a pic of a newly framed pic Mama Buzz just hung up. I need to get the file for the photo so I can have one too!!

What a joy to watch him engrossed in something I made for him!! It’s going to last him a long time, too. The only skill he’s ready for is pulling the biggest snaps apart and he’s only at the “half skill” stage for that one.

Half skills are like when a baby can roll from tummy to back, but not back to tummy or pull herself up but not sit back down again. They demand an adult stand at the ready like an operating room nurse to “reset” the situation so the tot can practice the newly developed half skill again and again.

Lil Buzz worked hard at figuring out just where to hold his fingers to pull those intriguing snaps apart, then he’d hand it to me to resnap them so he could try again. He pulled the lace out (middle photo) by accident when he was messing with the snaps and after that he moved on to riffling the pages of his Mommy’s book. He’s been ignoring his own books lately in favor of grabbing adult paperback books to riffle. LOL

We’re having a kind of lazy day. Yesterday was a long one, with all the girls here for a Very Special Big Day. When I am a little more rested and a lot less whelmed about what they did for me, I’ll tell you about it. I’ve been trying to think if anyone at any time in my 5½ decades ever did anything so totally thoughtful and special. So far I can’t recall a single thing.