The Headless Eagle

Before we purchased our current home,  I did a drive by to do my preliminary list of pros and cons. As I approached the house, this is what confronted me in the front yard:

It was almost a deal breaker for me.  Luckily, my more level-headed husband suggested we buy a chain saw, chop it down and move it to the backyard.  This was on our short list of things to do when we moved in, but five years later the eagle still resides on our front lawn.  

The eagle has grown on us, mainly because of the importance it had to John, the man who we bought the house from.  He was a World War II veteran who survived one of the worst naval disasters of all times. Here is just one harrowing account of what his experience may have been like: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/indianapolis.htm  The eagle is the emblem of he U.S. Navy and when we met this former war vet at the closing of our house, he spoke so fondly and proudly of the eagle, that we pretty much knew right then and there that we wouldn’t have the heart to chop it down.

That being said, we also didn’t do much to take care of our eagle.  It gets egged and toilet papered on mischief night, it gets infested with bee hives in the summer, and the base of the tree is beginning to rot away. 


The eagle is an original Marty Long sculpture -  Long is responsible for many other recognizable carvings around the main line, a few are even on our block. We have had people offer to chop it down for us if they could keep it and, ironically enough, I get all defensive of MY eagle and think, “Hell no, you can’t have our damn statue!”


Unfortunately, it is time for the eagle to go.  This past winter it’s head fell off and the rotting tree trunk is in danger of attracting termites and more bees. This is now what greets people as they approach our home:

 I feel guilty that we let the eagle fall into such disrepair, and that this remembrance of John will soon be gone.  Without getting too sentimental about the eagle and all that it represented, it is an end of an era.  John and his wife passed away shortly after we moved into the house. The first person accounts of the experiences of John’s time are getting to the point of only being available in print and, as more wars and disasters fill our immediate memory, the war that old John fought is fading into distant history.

I am sorry to no longer be able to say to someone coming to our house, “It’s the fifth house on the left.  The one with the eagle in the front yard.”

Forever the baby of the family

My third child lives with both a fair amount of neglect and four other immediate family members frequently doting on her. She watches more tv than her sisters ever did, still walks around with a binky in her mouth most of the time and is so far removed from being potty trained that she calls the potty her pet turtle.  She is two and half and is taking her role as baby of the family very seriously.  When asked if she’s a big girl, she responds with, “No. I just a baby.  I the baby.”

I go through phases of guilt since I don’t have her signed up for any play groups or music classes so she winds up spending a lot of time at home with me.  And, with the exception of some play doh or paint and the occasional book or puzzle, I’m not really great at playing with toddlers and, honestly, don’t really enjoy it.  I can hang much better with infants or people over six - those years in between, not so much my forte; ergo, the lack of potty training or binky removal.  

We do spend a lot of time together having snacks and eating long, three course lunches.  Little miss A is obsessed with food and can more or less eat non-stop in between sleeping.  Hot cocoa is a favorite staple around here, or our version of the drink which is lukewarm milk with a squirt of chocolate syrup and whipped cream on top.  

Despite all the sugar from our daily cocoa fests, her whacked out brain from all the tv watching and her soon to be gnarly teeth from the binky sucking, I feel as if, in many ways, she is turning out to be the best of the bunch.  She’s independent, yet affectionate, funny and creative, and loves to wrestle while in her ballerina outfit.  

As my father in law once told me, “A healthy dose of neglect does a child good.”

The Lost Art of Re-gifting

While perusing a gift shop in downtown Wayne, I caught this exchange.  

A woman walks in with a bag, puts it on the counter:
Woman:Is this from your shop?
Owner: No, that’s not our bag.
Woman: Do you know where these bags come from?
Owner: No, I wish I could help you, but I don’t know who uses that particular bag.  
Woman: Oh, that’s too bad.  I was really hoping it came from here.  It’s a necklace that someone gave me and I have to return it.  
She takes out the necklace and displays it on the counter.
I’m so disappointed in the person who gave it to me.  I really thought she knew me better than this.
Owner: Why don’t you tell her that you love the necklace and would like to get matching earrings, then ask her where she bought it, so you can return it for something you like.

Searching for the Jonsbo Ilsbo

Today I took a trip to the local Ikea in search of a small, inexpensive lamp.  I know that many people find Ikea to be annoying - hard to navigate, cheap furniture, overwhelmingly large, and, for a while (after leaving my Ikea decorated studio apartment in Manhattan) I, too, tried to ban all things Ikea from my “real” home.  In part the ban had to do with the fact that my husband was almost incapable of putting the stuff together, and I only got married so that someone else would be responsible for putting the stuff together or fixing the broken stuff.  

But I am now back on the Ikea bandwagon.  It’s just a great place to find all sorts of little household goodies, AND there’s free childcare.  As an aside, back in the day before my youngest daughter came into our family, I was a college teacher and I would go to Ikea on my days off, put the kids in the fun room, go up to the cafeteria, drink coffee and grade papers for an hour.  Don’t worry, I always bought something in exchange for the babysitting. I didn't totally take advantage.

Our little miss A is still too small for the fun room (note to self, get platform shoes for the two year old for future Ikea trips), so she stuck with me as we strolled through the immense warehouse (which counts as my aerobic exercise for the day week)  Part of the appeal of Ikea is the presentation: they make you want new kitchen utensils,

or fun lamps like these,

or these,

or this...

And no one cares if you child is running around like a maniac, climbing on furniture or man handling the candles.  In fact, I’m not sure why there aren’t more toddler play dates organized at Ikea.  Our trips always end with lunch for under five bucks including frozen yogurt.

But my favorite part of the Ikea shopping trip is being able to say that I got the Jonsbo Ilsbo for my living room, which I think looks sharp against the green walls.

I also picked up three stalks of bamboo which are very feng shui.  They should bring me happiness.  It's that easy.

Days Gone By

The past few days my middle daughter, Lanie, has been sick.  She spiked a fever of over 103 and spent the better part of the week on the couch covered in blankets up to her eyeballs.  She was pasty with gray crescents under her eyes, and her curly hair was beginning to dreadlock from not being able to lift her head off the couch.

I know that a sick child in February is hardly noteworthy. But if you happen to have an especially boisterous child, who will literally climb the walls, and who spends the better part of the day making jokes and answering you with “poopy” or “doody” or “don’t know and don’t care.”  Then this change in behavior is totally offputting.  But, horrible as it may sound, (and ONLY because she wasn’t vomiting or spewing any other liquid from any bodily orifice) I actually didn’t mind having her home sick like this for a few days.  

It gave us a chance to cuddle and watch way too much tv.  She just sat, quietly, and let me mother her in the most basic way.  It reminded me of her infancy (minus the moaning and the crazy hair) when she was completely content to just snuggle with her mommy.  Of course, this was also the child who walked at nine and half months which pretty much ended her infancy phase and turned into the climbing walls phase, so I may feel a little gypped.

Anyhow, Lanie is almost back to her normal self, who I completely adore.  And who I am convinced has been given to me to test all that I thought I knew about parenting and all the baggage I hold about being a middle child myself.

Summer in a Day

Although I’m fairly certain it is a sign of global warming, experiencing a day of seventy degree weather in the middle of February is quite a treat.  I wouldn’t exactly say that I loathe winter, but it is my least favorite season here in Pennsylvania.  I am basically cold from about mid-October until April. This was our backyard on January 26, 2011.  The snow was deep and heavy, and the air frigid.  For weeks this was our view.

This year seems particularly grueling on the cold front.  Two full days off from school in one week, countless two hour delays and hundreds of dollars spent on having the driveway plowed.  And then there are these poor creatures, whose magnificent grace completely distracts me from the fact that they have eaten every flowering plant, bush and tree in my yard.

So for the past two days around here, it felt like Ray Bradbury’s short story, “All Summer in a Day.”  An hour of sunshine amidst seven years of rain.  All of the kids, especially the little one, enjoyed playing outside without cumbersome winter accessories. A brief precursor to the beautiful fall and spring that make us tolerate these winters.  And for a few moments, I felt genuinely warm in February.