Did any of you know the book The Gruffalo? I discovered it on display at the library and it became one of my favorites. I often give it to babies who are born although they won’t be ready for it for quite a few years.
omg you guys, stop t. I am teary now.
I have made lunch (and b’fast) for D for years, but it’s been pretty matter of fact. What I will cherish is this book, an SAT vocab prep book (the one with “essentials” or whatever, not a ton of words only the most-used ones). Both her older brother and I used to set it out the night before with her lunch box, open to a page on which he or I or both would write funny comments or explanations or examples of the 6-10 words for the day in the margins. She’d read them in the morning while she ate. I think I will always keep that book.
Funny story…DS hates shopping. I mean really hates any kind of shopping…food, clothing, etc. I used to try to cajole him into going along just to have company and tear him away from video games. I eventually gave up. Until yesterday. Due to a surgical recovery, I am unable to drive, so I flat out told him I needed him to take me grocery shopping. After a bit of eye rolling (and an unsolicited apology in the car) we arrived at the store. I am a methodical list shopper, so imagine my shock and horror at the strange assortment of crap that ended up in my cart! Some of it was good crap (dried pineapple chunks) but fruit snacks? Chile-lime Takis? Yikes! My bill was sky high, but it was a fun time. So I’ll miss him when he leaves, but not his portion of the grocery budget
Oh, these bedtime books are killing me! In addition to stories every night, we for the early years had lullabies too, different ones but always ending with Brahm’s Lullaby.
Lullaby and sleep tight.
Hush my darling is sleeping
On her sheets white as cream
With her head full of dreams.
When the sky’s bright with dawn
She will wake in the morning.
When noontide warms the world
She will frolic in the sun.
with the child silent until the last line and then joining in by hollering ‘frolic in the sun!’ at the top of her lungs.
Lots of goodnight stories over here too…Love You Forever, Good Night Moon, all the Sandra Boynton board books when they were tiny and teething (Moo, Baaa, La, La, La…inane but they loved it especially if we made the real animal sounds. No phoning it in). But each goodnight rock and read ended the same…with me singing either You are my sunshine or The Little White Duck. Again…gotta make the real animal sounds! I thought I was doing pretty well one night, when DD was about 2, and she put her chubby little hand over my mouth and said, “shhhh, mama. No more singing.” After that I stuck to reading with that one. The other two happily listened as long as I was willing.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj-q7LGoBmk
Did anyone else listen to Joanie Bartels to their little ones? Or Sharon Lois and Bram? Joanie’s Close your Eyes was a big hit with all my girls.
The lacebark elm tree in my backyard has been festooned with plastic dinosaurs since 2005, when the kids placed all their carnivorous dinosaurs in the tree and dubbed it “The Meat Eaters Tree”. I never have the heart to take them down.
We moved into our current house when I was about 7, so there’s not a lot of nostalgic stuff from when I was a baby around.
@shellz LOL. We never had the ‘No, Mama’ moment, but I think I sensed it might be coming and knew when to quit. I should try singing again sometime soon and see how she reacts 
Love you forever book= child abuse. HATE that book.
Just found out that my youngest’s preschool class is going to have a “graduation ceremony” next week on the morning that my two oldest (twins) are graduating high school. Too much emotion for one day!!!
I have actually been googling “how not to cry” tips on line - so far the best seem to be distracting mental math problems and pressing your tongue really hard up on the roof of your mouth (weird, but I just tried that one as I was reading these touching posts, and it seems to work?). I soooo don’t want to cry at their ceremonies b/c I am afraid I won’t be able to stop and I don’t want to detract from their joy… I keep chanting to myself - “this is not about you, this is about them!”
@kidsrexpensive You could hope that you get a real turkey that will speak at graduation so that way you can have some disgruntled thoughts to offset the rivers. At my older sister’s college graduation, we were feeling pretty emotional until the speeches started - the first speaker said some pretty stupid things that irritated my mom. (She goes to the college and has taken some of the same classes as my sister, so she knows the quality of education isn’t quite what they would have you to believe.)
But kidding aside, I’m sure you’ll do fine. Besides, showing emotion isn’t the end of the world, just don’t go running onto the stage bawling “No, honey, give your diploma back - go back to preschool, I can’t stand the thought of you growing up!!!”
My kids tease me sometimes because I couldn’t make it through The Lorax without getting all choked up.
They both have copies of their favorite childhood books - Where the Wild Things Are, Go, Dog, Go!, The Last Basselope, There’s an Elephant in the Bathtub, and There’s A Monster at the End of this Book are among the top choices. My younger one adored a book called Little Pickle, which had no words, we would just look at the pictures and make up the story when we “read” it to her.
kids books - they had no real favorites except a couple of collected fairy tales / bedyime stories. They liked King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub
Someday, I’m going to nominate “The Monster at the End of this Book” for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Excellent choice.
I think I finally figured out how to summarize the atmosphere around here as we kill time 'til commencement.
SOG’s state of mind: [R.E.M. – “It’s the End of the World”](R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - YouTube)
DC#2’s state of mind: [Arcade Fire – “Ready to Start”](Arcade Fire - Ready to Start (Official Video) - YouTube)
Got an email from college housing that my kid can find a roommate via a FB app called RoomSync.
Except D isn’t on FB. 
Sign her up @scholarme!
I’ll ask her again this weekend @suzy100
Last week D was like " I don’t like FB"
“Love You Forever” = worst. book. ever. ~X(
“Guess How Much I Love You” = oodles of awesomeness. :D/
@scholarme “kids today” don’t seem to use FB much but my D has had to revisit FB with all this college stuff.