Mixing Up Words: The Funny Side of Life

I’m a morning person and I like to stay up late at night, but I have to take a nap every day. This morning I woke just after 5 am and stayed in bed for another 40 minutes just because it was too early even for me. When I did get up, it was so dark that the stars were still shining brightly. Since my husband isn’t a morning person and he also likes to stay up late, but doesn’t take a nap like me, I try not to wake him.

Amanda and Samantha

The other day, both Amanda and Samantha were already up after I had showered and wanted to get dressed, so I took my things to their room. A little bit later, Amanda came walking through to the office and thrust my pajama bottoms at me and said, “I found this on my bed!” She then told me to follow her to her room.

When we got there she said, “Look! Your dry hair is on my bed too and it’s making it so messy!” She meant my hairdryer and she isn’t normally so concerned about her bed. Later that day she mixed up another word. She called corn-on-the-cob "cob corn." This morning she gave me a new one, horse seals as in sea horses, too funny!

It’s hilarious when little kids get their words mixed up. By the time the evening of last night rolled around, I found the opposite to also be true. Both Amanda and Samantha were watching a cartoon. I asked them if it was the show where the kids turn into dinosaurs. Amanda felt that it was important that I know the proper name of the program and so she told me in her best teacher’s voice with great emphasis, “It’s Dino Squad.”

Well, I just burst out laughing. She could say Dino Squad perfectly, but not hairdryer. It just goes to show that some things are more important than other things in a 4-year-old’s life.

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Wordless Wednesday - 2

My 3 kids feeding African elephants up close 2006

Feeding African elephants up close 2006

Please check out my photography blog 1camera1mom for more photos of my family. I also give photo editing tips that will help you make your pictures awesome. These tips are great for making your blog beautiful.

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Nicknames

My brother and I, Western Cape, South Africa

Do you have a nickname? Do you use nicknames in your home?

I associated nicknames from family members as a form of endearment, but I grew up in a home where nicknames were not really used. On a few occasions I wished I had one, other than Tina, which is short for Christina. When I was a teenager, my brother called me Peanut Brittle. He did this for a couple of weeks.

For me, hearing a cute nickname from him was a big deal. When we lived under the same roof, my brother was hardly ever civil toward me (this is litotes – an understatement). I knew that I should never tell him that I liked it, but I’m an encourager. One day, against my better judgment, I bubbled over and told him it was a neat nickname. Well, I never heard it again, at least not while we lived in the same house.

Christina, Western Cape, South Africa

It’s funny how things work out, because I married an only child whose mother had several nicknames for her son. This was hard for me, as I felt that he was dearer than I, but now I know that she didn't intend it that way. My husband carries on the tradition and makes up names for lots of things. When Jeremiah was a baby and had a stinky diaper, my husband called it a pongo. Two of his nicknames for Amanda have been Amanda the Panda and Tookie Bear.

Do you use nicknames in your home, and if so, do they have a special meaning behind them? I'd love to hear from you! Please leave a comment and I will reply.

My husband and brother enjoying a simple picnic after touring some of the 
wine estates, Western Cape, South Africa. I took this awesome photo.

Please check out my photography blog 1camera1mom where I give tips on editing photos and making great memories.

P.S. My brother and I were reconciled years ago.

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What’s in a Name?

My first name is Christina. It means a follower of Christ. While growing up, I was sometimes asked to give my full name along with its spelling. I would say that it's Christ and then add ina. I always got a surprised reaction by that. Since Christ was never spelled with a K (at least not in English) I figured that was a clear enough explanation. I later found another way to say my full name. My maiden name is Littlefield, so I would tell people that it’s Christ in a Little field.

My middle name is Allison. It means truthful. One day, while looking up the meanings of names, I came across a more intriguing meaning, truthful warrior maid, like Joan of Arc. My favorite quote that I put on my Facebook profile states: In the movie The Return of the King, Eowyn is facing the Lord of the Nazgul in battle and says (as she takes her helmet off), "I'm not a man, I'm a woman!"

I wrote a bit more about my warrior side on my post 7 Things about Me.

Do you have a name with an interesting meaning? If you do, I would love to hear about it! Please leave a comment below and I will reply.

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Wordless Wednesday - 1

Calla Lilies Under a Full Moon

Photographer: Christina Morley

Visit my poetry blog Consider the Lilies and be blessed!

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Father’s Day: In Honor of the Father of Our Children

Tomorrow is Father’s Day. In these last few months that I have been blogging on my own sites and following other mom bloggers, I have come across moms who are happily married and whose husbands take an active role in their children’s lives. This is always wonderful to hear. Sadly, this is not the case for everyone. I’m sure that there are many mom bloggers who will not be making Father’s Day crafts with their children, simply because the fathers of their kids are absent. To these moms and their kids I wish them a creative way to spend the day, so that it’s memorable. And if the dad is absent by choice, God the Father is not.

"If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up" (Psalm 27 :10 NIV).

Today, I want to honor the father of our children. He often does homework with them in the evenings. Every day he helps with driving them to where they need to be. He’s not an absent father, but a very present one and he enjoys being around his kids.

Here is an entry from my journal dated July 14, 2011: Robbie said with a heavy voice, “Today was one of my toughest days.” And then he added in a lighter tone, “But I enjoyed Amanda!”

The funny thing about that entry is that it is the only one in my nice, hard-cover journal. Yep, it’s blank inside except for that one! Writers should keep journals, but I haven’t in years. I would say that this blog is my new journal.

He has a blog called Real Church Life (church beyond the four walls). I came on board and share the site with him, but it’s where he does most of his writing. Today I chose “Do What You Can Do” as a post by him to recommend to my readers. It’s a quick read on the topic of Bible study with a link to his Bible Coaching web site.

Related posts:

• More than a Prince
• Happily Ever After

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Blame It on the Fairies!

Girly Comments & Graphics

Enjoy your weekend!

How does Shakespeare, fairies and knots in hair have anything to do with each other?

This is a follow-on from my previous post Knots in My Hair! 

Last year, while teaching Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare to my son’s high school class, I came across a funny mention to knots in the hair. It appears in the bizarre speech made by Mercutio. He blames the fairy, Queen Mab, for putting knots in dirty hair and that once combed out, the locks are unlucky.

After years of brushing Amanda’s hair, I wouldn’t say that the locks are unlucky, but that the children are who have to endure the combing of their hair!

Here’s the quote below:

"She [Queen Mab] is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone.......
That plaits the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes."

Wikipedia’s conclusion to this states, “Therefore, the appellation of elf lock or fairy lock could be attributed to any various tangles and knots of unknown origins appearing in the manes of beasts or hair of sleeping children.”

I also found this interesting quote on Wikipedia:

“When young children, especially girls, wake from an evening's slumber with tangles and snarls in their hair, mothers with a tradition of fairy folklore might whisper to their daughters that they had caught fairy locks or elf-locks. Faeries, they say, tangled and knotted the hairs of the sleeping children as they played in and out of their hair at night” (A Child’s Book of Faeries by Tanya Robyn Batt).

I’m so glad I’m from a modern era that understands the need to wash and that I can buy good shampoos and conditioners!

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