7 Quick Takes About Hunts, Medals, and Kiddy Aliases

1. I love taking photos. I think it’s delightful how some photos just really speak to you. What do you think this photo is saying?

I’ll tell you. It says, “The husband gave up buying anything for himself for Lent. Lent is over and it’s almost time to start fishing!”

At least two of those boxes have fishing rods in them, one for my husband and some for the girls. I don’t know what’s in the rest yet, but I do know that my kids are begging to go fishing.

2. This morning Sis wanted me to read her a book. I needed to get going on breakfast before the early-morning-hunger meltdown started. I had a momentary dilemma, because I never like to refuse reading a book if I can help it. Then I remembered. I now have an oldest child who can read!

This opens up a whole new world of possibilities!

3. Easter morning.

Even though I was super tired after the big events of Saturday and the late-ending Easter Vigil Mass, I still had to stuff and hide Easter eggs and baskets when I got home. I enlisted the help of my husband and in-laws for filling and hiding the eggs, and I strung yarn around the house and tied it to the doorknobs to lead the girls to their baskets. I always put their baskets in different rooms and have them search separately to make it fair for Sis (I “hide” her eggs mostly in plain sight). Once they get older I’ll just hide them all together and let them duke it out, but for now they really like the strings leading them to different rooms.

^^ She was saying, “I can’t find anymore!”

My kids love hunting for stuff. We did three hunts just last week, with the search for 30 pieces of “silver” on Wednesday, the resurrection egg hunt on Thursday, and Easter eggs on Sunday. They were all over it. Maybe I’ll do lots of scavenger hunts this summer.

4. Last night there was nearly a mommy melt-down to rival Hurricane Charley. Sis was playing with my jewelry on my side table after baths while I was putting her laundry away. She pulled apart the chain of the necklace Super Friend gave me for my baptism/first communion/confirmation gift (I was able to fix it). I could not find the wonderful Saint Rita medal from the necklace anywhere. I was so upset. As in almost-in-tears-and-on-the-verge-of-raging upset. After we searched and searched, and I asked Sis myriad times, “Where is Mommy’s necklace?” to which she either replied with “I nunno!” or by running to my side table and picking up the chain, sans Saint Rita medal, I decided I just needed to put her to bed. My husband suggested that I check in her clothes first. She sometimes likes to put things in her onesie. I checked, and whadaya know? The medal was in the crotch of her onesie, just where my husband suggested it would be.

We have a running joke/competition in our house because my husband likes to pretend that he is good at finding things. As every woman reading this will understand, I laugh hysterically whenever he makes this claim. Once in a while he does find something, and he likes to say, “What’s my name?” To which he desires the response, “The Finder” (get your mind out of the gutter!) Of course, I have never called him by that ridiculous name, though he claims the title for himself frequently.

Just yesterday, after a few instances of needing my help to find very obvious items (not that this was unusual), he said, “Wow, I must be losing my touch!” (snicker, snicker, “mm-hmm”). THEN, The Saint Rita Episode. Know what I called him after he found that medal? Yup. “Okay, okay. You’re The Finder.” Painful. But worth it.

5. After finding the medal, my husband suggested that I buy a jewelry box so my stuff isn’t just all lying on my bedside table. I figured this was a good idea, but instead of buying one I went to my closet and got down the one that my Mom gave me that had belonged to my Grandma.

I opened it up and started cleaning it out. I love looking through my Grandma’s jewelry. I used to play with a lot of it as a little girl, and there were plenty of pieces in the box I remembered seeing her wear. Even though I’ve been through this box many times since my Mom gave it to me, there was one piece in it that I’d never noticed before. My Grandma was not Catholic. So imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered a Miraculous Medal among her jewelry.

It needs to be cleaned up a bit, and I’ll have to get a chain to put it on, but I will absolutely be wearing this some day soon!

6.Tonight before bed Lass said to me, “Mom, even though the color of your hair is ugly, I still like it.” It’s great being a Mom. They love you even when you’re ugly.

(My girls, especially Lass, are really into “group hugs” right now)

7. I am considering doing something different with the way I refer to the girls on the blog. I started using “Miss” for my oldest when I started this blog without putting much thought into it. The other two nicknames just followed from that.

I use the nicknames because I used to work in a prison, several prisons actually and some jails, with some scary folks who are out walking around the world now. I don’t really know what I think would happen if people knew my kids’ real names, but. . . I tend to be a little over the top about things like this.

I’ve never really loved using the nicknames. They don’t flow well in writing, or in reading for that matter. I’ve had a few people express to me that they sometimes have a hard time keeping the girls straight with their “aliases.” Even people who know them in person!

The thing is I don’t know how I would change it. Unless I started using their real names, which I don’t think I want to do, switching their online names to something else would likely just be more confusing. Perhaps I’m stuck with forever referring to them as Miss, Lass, and Sis. Maybe I could switch to #1, #2, #3? No. Poor Lass would not be happy with that someday. I’ll keep thinking on it.

Find more Quick Takes HERE.

P.S. You didn’t imagine it. I did post on Wednesday, and that post has disappeared for a few days. I mistakenly put up the book review of Something Other Than God too soon. Sorry about that. It’s be back up next week when the book releases on Tuesday.

Have a happy weekend!