Monday, March 23, 2015

The Oldest Draft on My Blog {Tiny Talk Tuesday}

There's something that bothers me about my blog.

Oh, it's not something that would bother anyone else; as a matter of fact, no one else would even know about it.  But I do, and it's this.

There are 67 unfinished blog posts in my Drafts folder.

Some are barely begun--just a snippet of an idea I once had about a post I'd like to write.  A few are mostly written, but need to be revised and finished before posting them.  And at least one is completely done, but I decided not to post it (but couldn't bring myself to delete it either!).  But all of them bug me as they lounge around in their unfinished state.

Besides those 67, there are numerous other posts that I want to write and sincerely intend to someday write; but that day hasn't come for them.  I'd estimate that I could easily find 100 topics or events to write about; and based on that, you can see why, when I was in a bookstore recently and saw a special journal-type book that included a writing prompt for each day, I had to laugh.

If there's anything I don't need, it's writing prompts!  :)

Tonight I wanted to do a blog post, but could not be enticed to leave the computer in the warm living room to go downstairs to the computer (which has my photos) in the cold library, so I decided to look in my Drafts folder and see what the oldest post in it was...and, if possible, finish that post, regardless of the fact that I wouldn't be able to add photos.  I'm not making any promises that I'll continue this trend and work my Drafts folder significantly down to a much lower number, but maybe I'll rest easier if there are only 66 unfinished posts, rather than 67?  ;-)

At any rate, what I discovered was that my oldest draft was a collection of things my children had said--things that had put a smile on my face, things I wanted to remember.  Sadly, it's been so long that I can't remember the context of each quote I had jotted down; but quite a few of them were so memorable that I at least have some idea of what was going on when the comment was made.

I used to write this type of thing down in my posts in a category called Tiny Talk Tuesday.  In my old blog, they can be found here; and in this blog, I discovered as I searched the archives that there were two such posts: here and here.

Well, now there is one more.  :)

Here then are some funny things that my kids said.  Never mind that they might have been uttered five or six years ago!  ;-)

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David, perhaps four or five years old, happened to be wearing a tie one day when the subject came up of him going over to visit our Old Order Mennonite neighbors.  His response?  "I'm sure I can't wear a tie over there.  They'll think I'm the President!"  Although I'm *pretty* sure they wouldn't have mistaken him for the president, it was considerate nevertheless of him to want to avoid any unnecessary confusion.  ;-)

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Several times through the years we've lived here in Virginia, we have been privileged to take a short family getaway to Massanutten Resort, usually in the off-season, staying in a condo there (made affordable by the generosity of a friend) and enjoying a day at the indoor waterpark, one of my family's all-time favorite places.

During one of those mini-vacations, we decided not to take dry clothes to change into after our time at the waterpark, since we were staying nearby and could very quickly get back to the condo to change where it was more private and convenient.  David was wearing his wet swimsuit and was wrapped in a towel, sort of stumbling along as we left the waterpark, still entranced by the sights and sounds around him, oblivious to our decision to wait for the condo to get into dry clothes...that is, until we walked out the door, and the cold air hit his legs.  "WHERE'S MY PANTS??" he exclaimed; and I'm not sure who laughed more: Jeff and I or the other waterpark guests who were standing right outside the entrance and who were amused by this little boy who had suddenly realized, to his great shock, that he was missing pants!  :)

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Also during that getaway, we ate out as a family at a delicious restaurant not far from the resort, the kind of place where you inevitably get messy as you pig out on BBQ ribs with all the yummy side dishes.  As we got close to the end of our meal, I was doing my motherly duty of getting baby wipes out of the diaper bag and passing them out to whoever needed them--and also assisting, of course, in the scrubbing of smeared faces and sticky hands.  When I got ready to pass a wipe to David, he indicated that he didn't need one.  "I keep a wipe in my mouth!" he chirped; and to prove his point, he opened his mouth and began to use his tongue to clean up his hands and as much of his face as he could reach.  Imagine that: those built-in wipes sure are a handy invention!  ;-)

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At some point, we must have had Mozilla Firefox on our computer as a web browser (I don't know enough about computers to even know if I said that right).  One of the boys--I seem to think it was Josiah--used to call it Mozzarella Firefox.  :)

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David, professing his great love for his youngest brother who might have been a year at the time, give or take a year ;-), once said this:  "Shav, I still love you, even though sometimes you're a little stinky and you don't want anybody to get too close to you."  Is this what the Bible means when it talks about speaking the truth in love?  ;-)

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This is a more serious one that I jotted down and wish I would remember more of the context because I always treasure the conversations we have about heaven, but sadly the details are lost in the sands of time.  Apparently we were talking about drowning in a river, and one of the boys said, "Maybe heaven would pull us out!"  And I thought, "Well, yes. That's exactly what would happen if we drowned in a river."

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Another one without context, although I did record the speaker.  Tobin asked, "Who stole my river?"  Seems to me that's a pretty tough thing to steal, but sure, son, I'll help you look around here and see if we can figure out who the culprit is.  :)

And another time someone said, "There's something in my nose.  I think it's a chicken!"  :)

Maybe someday when the boys read this post, their memories will be jogged and they will be able to remind me what was going on when these comments were made.  :)

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I had written down this phrase--"Maybe this milk feel me better."--and I'm pretty sure it was Tobin who used to mix up his words and say it that way.

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David was talking with me about some plastic figurines we have from the Narnia series, and he said, "I haven't played with these in a LONG time!  I didn't want you to get rid of them, so I played with them."  He knows me well.  Unused items around here sometimes tend to disappear.  ;-)

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And speaking of disappearing, this post in my Drafts folder is soon to be gone,  Pushing the "publish" button means I get to knock down that absurdly high number by one.

That's almost as much fun as throwing away unplayed-with toys!!  ;-)

1 comment:

Pam said...

I loved this post Davene. Loved all the adorable things the boys said, and I can picture them all (I especially loved David's tie and President story… so cute.

I thoroughly appreciated your "draft" dilemma, since I have the very same problem. I haven't counted how many there are in my folder, but I know there are plenty, and all in various stages just as you wrote about… and I feel just like you do, they bother me having them all there; why is that? We should consider it a wise thing to have them there; they are little seeds of ideas waiting for their moment, but instead they feel as if they are nagging me saying I am neglecting something. Anyhow. Have a great week, and many blessing to you and your precious family.