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Today was a very sad day at Gentlewood Cottage. Through an unfortunate accident, Lyle met his maker today. If fish meet their maker.
The accident involved Kinsley removing Lyle from his comfortable home to examine him – unbeknownst to us. By the time Aunt Paula happened upon the scene, it was too late for Lyle.
It was pretty traumatic once Kinsley had comprehended that Lyle was dead. She wasn’t able to grasp what had happened, until I told her that Lyle had depended on us to feed him everyday, and watch him swimming in his nice bowl. Then she went into the living room and looked into the fishbowl – then began to cry.
She wailed for a long while for him, wishing that she could feed him again, and not wanting to bury him – but after a while, she gave in and led the funeral procession, with Lyle in his tiny casket in her hand.
She chose a spot under the clothesline, and after Glen dug the grave, Papa said a few words about Lyle’s life, and she carefully placed the Altoid casket into the hole.
Then she cried some more.
Then Marme and Grandma both called with their condolences.
As we were headed into the house, she asked Dan if he could read the book Lorenzo the Fish “in honor of Lyle”. Those were her words, by the way.
And so they did. She asked if Lyle had brothers and sisters and a mom and dad. Dan told her that Lyle had been pretty much alone in the world, and she wanted to know if it was because he was a little baby…
Goodbye Lyle. Thanks for being a good fish.
The Nester has had a few really great posts lately on decorating with what you have, and making each room in your home a place that you really do want to be. Her series “Ten Minutes to a Room You Love” has been good, but for some reason I found her Tablescape Tutorial especially inspiring.
It’s the perfect little task for a highly pregnant mama to do on her due date. I feel like I’m getting something done, and still managing to expend very little energy.
It also is a perfect way to showcase a few of my very favorite items, like this little wooden sandpiper that Dan’s dad gave me for Christmas. His parents give the best gifts!
The new arrangement also brings the proper attention to one of Kinsley’s favorite things:\
This is Lyle Maxwell The Kindly Fish. He is a gift from Marme and Grandad, and my grandparents. They also are amazingly talented gift givers. Of course, Kinsley did hint very blatantly (she suggested that it might have been a more appropriate Valentine’s Day gift than a balloon).
As you can probably tell, Kinsley named Lyle. She says that when we say “goodnight” to him, we have to say “Goodnight, Lyle Maxwell!” When we say “good morning”, we only have to say “Good morning, Lyle!” But when we leave, then we say “Goodbye, Lyle Maxwell the Kindly Fish!” I once messed it all up, and when Kinsley gently corrected me, I told her I was sorry. She said “That’s fine, Mama. Just don’t let it happen again.”
So, back to the decorating. I need a few opinions, here.
Arrangment (1)a:
Or
Arrangement (1)b:
Or none of the above?
Also,
Arrangement (2)a:
or
Arrangement (2)b:
Or, no plant there at all?
What should I do to finish it off?
(photo credit – pasotraspaso)
A few evenings ago, we were all piled on the couch, Dan reading The Wind In The Willows aloud to us, and me knitting happily, when I heard a scurry of activity across the living room. I looked up in time to see a large-ish mouse slipping and skidding on our smooth laminate floor, and around the corner into the guest room (won’t that make you feel welcome at our home?). I shouted (the obvious)…
“A mouse!”
Dan got up to see if he could find any trace of the rodent, and then went about re-setting the traps. We thought we had won the war (in our house, anyway) against mice a while back, but alas, not so.
Kinsley followed along behind Dan rather dreamily, watching the traps being set, then wandered back into the living room.
“Mama, I wish that we had the kind of mouse that stood on it’s back legs and talked. Then I could call it Stuart Little, and you could like it.”
Want to guess what cook the girls and I are reading at nap times these days?
I snagged this probably incomplete deck of Snoopy playing cards, for ten cents at the thrift shop a while back. I put them away for a moment of desperation. The time came, recently.
Kinsley loves card games, and can spend lots of time playing her own versions of them. Her favorite is Liar. Her version of the game involves lining all the cards up into a “long train”. It takes her a while to do this to her satisfaction.
After playing with her cards the other day, she gathered them all up and handed them to Dan, saying: “Papa, can you put these away where I can’t reach them, so that I don’t lose them?”
Kinsley: Mama, I wrote on my blog, a long time ago, that children don’t like to eat vegetables!
Sophie: In Heaven, there won’t be any Hippos.
Kinsley: No, there won’t be any hippos, but there will be elephants. But not African elephants, just India elephants.
Kinsley: Is God bad, or good?
Mama: He is very good, in fact, He is perfect, and He is the only reason we even know what is good…
Kinsley: Well, does God kill people, or not?
Kinsley: Well, I couldn’t go live in Heaven right now, because once this house falls apart, then we have to go live in the house at Granddad’s office.
Kinsley: Oh, Sophie, I have so much to teach you… ’bout riding bikes, and how to pedal, and building houses and stuff..
It was almost too much for the girls to bear when I drew back the curtains in the living room to show then the lovely large snow flakes blowing by outside. They started making plans at the rate of about a thousand per minute…
They would make a snow man. They would sled.
They could make snow ice cream. They could drink the snow, if we ran out of water.
They would make snowballs to put in the freezer so that they could have snow when the snow was all gone.
Which made Kinsley think of summer. Which made her think of plans for a summer day, again. She and Papa must play baseball at the park. And football. And they should wear the new hoodies which Uncle Zion gave them when they play football. And they needed a special hat with a fence for their faces, for baseball. And for football. And patches on their knees for baseball. And a bat, and a ball, and a glove. And we could store it all in the basement so we will be ready for summer.
Kinsley tells me that this is how a penguin walks. You’re missing a lot by not seeing the facial expressions as they flit across her tiny face. Most of “the penguin” appears to be in the expressions…
I’d much rather the girls take their naps at the same time, since this is the only way I ever accomplish anything. But sometimes, in Real Life, this just isn’t going to happen. So the trick seems to be giving up on the idea of a nap for the Wakeful Child (hey – that just means earlier bedtime, right?), and instead finding a quite activity for her to do, while sitting still on the couch.
I’m so glad that Kinsley is finally getting into the idea of these lacing card. I think she’s been a little too young for them until just recently. She thinks she’s sewing, and so loves the Bigness of the activity.
She has recently been begging me to teach her to “crochet, except not with one needle with a thingy on the the end (like my crochet hooks), but with two needles that are pointy and don’t have thingies on the ends”…
I’m hopeful that maybe we can both learn to knit together someday, as this is one of my dream goals… doesn’t knitting just seem so much more sophisticated than crochet, somehow?
Kinsley: Mama, do sheep turn into goats?
Mama: No, they are two completely different animals, but they do have some similarities –
Kinsley: But Mama! When the papas come and cut off all the sheep’s hair, and lay it over the fence, and the hair turns into a blanket, then the sheep turns into a goat!
Sophie: (Not wanting to be left out) Yes, Mama! And Hippos, too!
“Mama, can we get some of those patches for my knees, and I can wear shorts and go out on the sidewalk and roller blade on my skates, and Sophie can jump rope or ride her tricycle, and she can wear a helmet and patches too, and then after we roller blade, then you can tell Sophie and I to go buy a cow – a white cow, with black spots – and then we can milk it in our yard, and then we can bring the milk in and set in on the counter, and then you can tell us to put the milk away in the refrigerator. Wouldn’t that be a nice, summery day?”
