Skip to main content

Waterlemon

This morning bright and early a neighbor friend of mine called with a big problem. Her two-year old was so sick, she was dehydrated and needed to be taken to the ER for intravenous fluids. She asked if I could watch her other three daughters for her. Sure! Absolutely! We all know what it is like to need care for your kids in an emergency. I'm glad to be in a position to help out!



She brought her kids over and flew out in a hurry. As luck would have it, some group on post was having an "Organizational Day" right behind our house. Those used to be called "Mandatory Fun Day" when we were first in the military. We walked back there to see what was going 0n. Lo and behold, they had two giant inflatable toys back there. One was a giant slide and one was a giant obstacle course. I took all the girls back there and we crashed the party, uninvited. The girls had a great time, and I let them go through the line as many times as they wanted until they were hot and tired and ready to go inside.



When we got back to the house, my friends four-year old said to me, "I want some lemon." I told her, "I don't have any lemons, honey, I'm sorry." She looked at me and said, "But I saw a lemon." I walked into the kitchen with her and she pointed at the large green object on the counter.



"That's a watermelon." I told her. "I want some materwelon" she said. "We'll have watermelon for desert after lunch," I reply.

All through the morning, she asked me for lemon. I kept reminding her that we have to eat lunch first, but we would have watermelon later.

I made hot dogs for lunch, because it was the only thing I had enough of to feed that many kids. I didn't have any kid friendly food like chips for a side dish though. So I decided to make popcorn. Most kids like it and I can make a bunch in a pot on the stove.

The four year old liked popcorn. She liked it so much she didn't eat any hot dog, just popcorn. "Can I have lemon now?" she asked. I told her she needed to have something besides popcorn for lunch before we could have the watermelon. She informed me she doesn't like hot dogs so I made her a peanut butter sandwich.

As soon as she was done, she pulled me into the kitchen. "I want some lemon," she told me. So I got ready to cut up the watermelon. "Is that green?" she asked me. "Yes, it's green on the outside, and it's red on the inside," I said. "I just want to eat the green part," she said. "The green part will give you a tummy ache," I told her. I sliced open the watermelon and cut off a juicy bite and handed it to her. "Try this," I said. She took a little nibble and said, "I don't like it." Then she popped it into the trash can and went back to watch the movie.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...

Japanese Fishing Shrine

Here's an interesting little spot we stopped to see. I'd passed this many times before and had never stopped to see what it was. Since GG and Sherry were here, we decided to check it out. There is a shrine of some sort with a statue and a carved rock. There was no information on sight as to what it is that I could find. There were flowers, food and incense left around the base of the shrine. There was a ceramic statue and a rock with a figure carved into it. None of the food was old or rotting (although plenty of it had clearly been pecked by birds) and the flowers were all fresh which made me think it must be cleaned and cared for on a regular basis. After we got home, I did some research and found this article about it from the Hawaii Star Bulletin, our local newspaper (I have edited out some bits, but otherwise the article is unchanged): "Maintenance" of the monument has been assumed by a group of Vietnamese Buddhists - Shingon Shu Hawaii, the Buddhist temple th...