Back online

At the risk of reminding Jeff that ReedRight Communications isn't paying him anymore, I have to give him a shout-out for his tech assistance. Again.

I wish I was more curious about how stuff works, but I'm just not. I want the computer to work when I sit down. I want the DVR to record the shows I like when I press a button. I want the camera to download my pictures when I put it in the cradle.

It's the camera that's been uncooperative lately. For the past few weeks, I've had to pull out the memory card, insert it into a reader and download from a different drive. That's about as technically advanced I am. And it was a fine system until Jeff did me a favor and took some photos not knowing I hadn't re-inserted the memory card.

That left some photos trapped in the camera. Jeff can be a patient man, but even I'm tired of my technological reticence. So he stood over me and walked through the uninstall, re-install process. And voila! we freed the captive shots and it appears that Kodak is again EasySharing with me.

I'm really growing as a person. Two weeks ago, Peggy Boehm revealed the mystery of why the formula to factor percentages actually works. Today, I've installed software. Who knows what next week might bring?!

We have another great weekend under our belts. Next week is pottery camp for Alison -- we were all set to go to overnight camp for a solid week, but her buddies couldn't go and she opted to wait until next year. She was looking forward to it, primarily because she thought she could go the whole week without brushing her hair and there would be NO PARENTS around to tell her what to do.

While I'd braced myself and was willing to drive her for her week away, I'm not-so-secretly relieved that she'll be home. Jeff made fun of me, and I know I need to let her grow up. But not this year.

Even with me holding her back, though, she's been growing a bit herself.

1. She slept in the backyard with Jenna (and without me) last weekend. I did sleep with my head of my footboard, which is closer to the window overlooking the backyard. I wanted to be ready to spring up in case they needed anything. They didn't.

and 2. She got to ride solo on her bike down the street to a play date with a little neighbor girl. I watched from the driveway, but she went all the way. And before you join Jeff in laughing at me, it involved a stop sign and crossing a street where there's sometimes cross-traffic...

I woke her up Saturday morning to see if she wanted to bike over to the Ogdens with me. Karin and I were planning a little work out and the kids wanted her to play. She was sound asleep when I woke her and gave the option of sleeping or biking.

She yawned and stretched and then popped her eyes open awake as could be. "You mean by myself? I can bike all the way to the Ogdens by myself?!" she asked.

As if.

I'm not sure I ever want Alison to know about all the things my brothers and sisters and I did without adult supervision when we were growing up. We still marvel about how none of us were killed or permanently maimed. We literally ran wild in the summertime; barefoot, dirty, tangled hair flying in the wind. We only went home to eat.

A lot people raise their kids just like they were raised. Me? Not so much.

I think back to when my brothers chased me with snakes; smacked our horse on the butt with me astride her, sending her flying through the new trees along the creek bank; and the high times we had playing with gasoline and matches.

I got into a little dispute this weekend with my sister Donna who claimed she was my only sibling to have never tried to drown me. Upon my recitation of time and place, she allowed that she may have tossed me into the pond, but she never intended me to stay there.

To be fair, I don't think any of them intended murder. When my brothers tossed me into a raging creek, they simply wanted to see if I would float all the way to the river. And when they put me in that home-made boat every year, they just wanted to see if it would float. (For the record: it never did.)

As my sisters and I were recalling some of our bloodier childhood exploits at a cookout Saturday with my Columbus aunts and uncles, my cousin Lori leaned over to her mother and said, "Thanks for stopping at one."

If Alison ever complains that she should have had siblings, I'm going to send her to Columbus. Lori can set her straight.