Sweet Memories, Funny and Sad

November 30, 1998: Sarah walked away from the table one morning, after hearing the cat meow. "I need to see if she's in trouble or just talking."

 

Sarah was talking about a story with a greedy pig in it. She said they made that pig wait to eat until the other pigs got “their fillings.”

 

December 7, 1998: Rebecca was seeing her doctor today. "How much do you weigh, Rebecca?" "I don't know... Yesterday, I weighed 51 pounds."

 

Murray got a haircut the other day. When he came home, Ping-Hwei came to me and said, "Why Baba cut hair?" “Did he?” I asked. "Yeah. Maybe bald," he told me.

 

December 15, 1998: Murray called for Kathy, and Caleb answered the phone.  "Hi. Is Momma there?" Caleb answered, "Yes, she is, but I want to talk to you for a minute," and proceeded to tell Murray about his day.

 

December 16, 1998: Rebecca is accompanying Kathy on the piano for a Christmas special at church this Sunday. It's hard and Rebecca's never been enthusiastic about it. Yesterday she said, "I'm still planning to get out of doing this."

 

This morning I told the kids that some friends had bought some Gideon's Bibles, maybe to put in hotels, that would have written in them "In Memory of Weaver McKinsey." (This was Murray’s father, who died earlier that month.) Caleb said, "But it says in Revelations that we're not supposed to write anything else in the Bible."

 

December 19, 1998: Last week one day I told Sarah to take a shower. She said she wanted to finish coloring a picture from school first; she said she was almost done. I said, no, to take a shower first. Later, she came to talk to me in the kitchen.  I was hurrying to finish supper and didn't pay much attention to her at first; I kept telling her to scoot. Finally I heard what she was telling me, very seriously. "Mommy, I know you feel better when you tell the truth. When I said I was almost finished coloring the picture, I lied. I just wanted to color it so bad. I'm sorry."

 

December 25, 1998: Last night we were getting ready to go to the Christmas Eve service at Church. Sarah asked me to help her find a dress to wear. She said, "Daddy said I only have five minutes, and you know how fast Daddy makes minutes."

 

Rebecca was playing a bunch of songs from a book this morning, and she said, "I can play Johnny rowed the boat ashore."

 

December 26, 1998: Yesterday when we were getting ready for supper, Caleb mentioned disappointedly that Christmas day had gone by so fast. Rebecca said, "Let's pretend we're bored, and it will go by slower."

 

December 30, 1998: Murray and Kathy were in the car and Murray rubbed his eyes. Sarah asked what was wrong, and Murray said that it was a hard, hard world. Sarah said, "Especially for little girls who get sooo bored. And for parents, who tell their little children not to say 'bored' and 'not fair' and not to beg and beg when they say no. I'm lucky, because I still have a daddy to snuggle up with."

 

January 4, 1999: Sarah's friend Karianne stayed over Saturday night to celebrate Sarah's birthday. She forgot to bring a hairbrush. When they were getting ready for church yesterday, Sarah told me matter-of-factly, "Karianne didn't bring a brush so she needs to borrow ours; she doesn't have lice." Amazed, I said, "Did you ask her?" "Yes," Sarah replied.

 

January 12, 1999: Murray and the kids were in the car, with 3helium balloons. Caleb asked, "What if these didn't just have helium, what if they also had air?" Rebecca said that helium WAS air. Caleb answered quietly, "Actually, it's a gas. A very, very light gas."

 

Later, Rebecca was working on some math problems such as "3.8minus 2.5", and she told Kathy, "These are all dismals."