My food advice to a new mom, April 2009: With Shep, I was super mom. Tried everything, waited three days to introduce new stuff, etc etc. With Eva Rose, she had reflux so bad, she spit up everything she ate. So she got mostly white stuff to avoid stains. Lots of mashed potatoes ;) With Maggie, she had a tongue thrust so she started solids later, like 6 months. She got whatever was available. Ike was lucky if he got fed at all. So, yeah, I am not real stringent about introducing food!! I say give her whatever. If there is no history of allergies in the family, she should be just fine. You can take whatever y'all are eating and throw it in the blender. The only thing I was careful with was honey. And bananas, sometimes they cause constipation, but if you mix them with prunes then problem solved. You can try giving her chunkier stuff, like stage 2, if she does not like it yet, she will just spit it out. As soon as she has her pincer grasp, you can give her pick up foods. You can try giving her some puffs now - they melt on her tongue so she can't choke. Once she is down with the puffs, give her a cheerio and see how she does. She may gag a little - remember gagging and choking are two different things. My kids were all awesome eaters, but I don't think any of them liked the peas! Since she loves the peas, mix about 2/3 peas and 1/3 carrots and that way you can get the carrots in her. Or mix it with applesauce, they will eat anything mixed with applesauce! Or yogurt! If you make sweet potatoes or butternut squash yourself I bet she will love it - you just cook it in the microwave and then throw it in the blender. Mixed with peas - yum!! Can put some butter or cinnamon in there too if you feel fancy. Another great first food is mushed up avocado. In many countries, avocado is a baby's first food.

 This am in the car:

Bethie: Mom, I still have these little bumps on my legs.

Ike: Mumps.

Me: Yup. Leg mumps.

Bethie: What? What are Leg Mumps?

Me: They’re caused by a certain type of worm that gets in your body.

(Pause)

Bethie: I’m not falling for that.

Sigh. Another fun era has ended. 😞

 It’s 11:08pm, I’m lying in bed, in the dark, watching testimony from the Murdaugh case, which just happens to be that of the attorney Mallory Beach’s parents hired after their 19yo daughter was killed by her drunk 19yo friend, and my phone rings: SHEP. My 19yo son. 

My heart stops. “What’s wrong?!?”

“Momma?” 

“”YES WHAT’S WRONG?!?”

“Hey Momma. Can you please put $1.40 in my account so I can buy some ramen? I only have .60 and I’m real real hungry.”

He can thank this awful trial that I sent him the $1.40 plus a bonus.

One time Daddy told me that our last name is French, and it means French Fry. Then I told all my friends at school and everybody laughed at me! 

- Bethie

Bethie’s Tooth Fairy 🧚‍♀️ is the absolute worst. She always has excuses for why she forgets to bring her her rightful pay. The big sisters channel the fairy to write the pitiful apology notes. Past excuses include: on her honeymoon; got Covid; attacked by the cats, etc etc. B is back owed for 3 teeth, one from a whole month ago. I guess it’s understandable.

 A Real Life Halloween Horror Story.  

So, over COVID , to help lift moods and family morale, Missy Hooks Dollahon thought that it would be a good idea for us to foster kittens.  I am not an “animal person”, mind you, but gamely went along with the scheme in the spirit of unity.

Our first litter was a mom and five kittens...and that went well enough...but this second litter...three little rascals...are monster biters and scratchers!  They also, oddly love me, although I don’t give them any attention.  I can’t sit still without one of them climbing up on me and eventually biting my knee or knuckle.  Little #^%ers!!!

At night, they sometimes sneak in our bedroom and because I’m a big warm lumpy guy tuck themselves within the folds and creases of my beautiful, fleshy corpus.  This is a little terrifying in that I live in drowsy fear that I’ll roll over and utterly pancake one of them unknowingly...

But, sometimes they like to “play”.  In the darkest pit of night.  Which means they skitter about me and eventually - always - bite me somewhere painful.  Like the thin, parchment skin around my ankles...or a toe...

I will then have to get up and round them all up and then throw them outside our bedroom and firmly lock the door.

So the other night...  The kittens entered our bedroom and found Their Favorite...and like other nights couched themselves purring and peaceful around their most cherished “jelly rolls”....and then, hours later...roused themselves for a bit of midnight fun...and as they minced and capered around me one of them saw something inviting and intriguing to naw on...there...just in neath the thinnest price of fabric...

I SAT UP AND SHRIEKED IN BLINDING PAIN.   

Yes...

One of the kittens had decided to chomp down hard atop what is sometimes medically described as ones “Hooded Warrior”.  

My “Top Hat and Tails”.

My “Meat With Two Veg”.

Tiny little fang-like daggers...eager to make mince of Your Trusted Author’s “Master Of Ceremonies”.

I am still in recovery.

Stars

My grandfather Chester (b. 1913) told me a story about how when he was a boy he knew an old woman who had been a slave.  I wish I could remember her name - they all called her Aunt something?  Or Granny? He said she was so old, the children would always ask her how old she was, and she would always answer, “don’t know when I was born, don’t know when I’ll die, but I was born when the stars fell out of the sky.” 

I’ve long wondered what she was referring to, and figured it must have been a local meteor shower. I’ve tried to research it before but found nothing. Then today, reading the Texas Slave Narratives, I came across this quote from Sylvester Brooks, a slave of Josiah Collier in Green Co, Alabama: 

"Old Marse often told me 'bout de stars fallin'. It was 'long 'bout sundown and growed dark all a sudden and de chickens goes to roost. Den some stars with long tails 'gins to shoot, den it look like all de stars had come out of Heaven, and did dey fall! De stars not all what fell. De white folks and de niggers fell on dere knees, prayin' to Gawd to save dem iffen de world comin' to a end, and de women folks all run down in de cellar and stayed till mornin'. Old Marse say it was in 1833, and he say dem stars fall awhile and quit awhile, like de showers when it rains."

This must be what it was! The storms happen every 33 years but it must have been the 1833 storm for her to be considered ancient by 1920 or so when Chester was a boy. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonids

Mom, did Jesus die on Black Friday?
- bethie 

Our room gets really stuffy at night.
Maggie is watching some YouTube crap in the family room so I said, when you go to bed could you open our door?

She replied, “I’ll open your chest & rip out your entrails”

I only dreamed parenting could be like this. 

Maggie, talking about babies coming:

"...when the seagull drops the baby through the chimney."

Eva: Seagull?

Maggie: Wait. Not seagull. Pelican! When the pelican drops the baby through the chimney."

Mom, why do people get post-mortem depression?
-- Maggie

The Lazy Poem

October 2014

The Lazy Poem

Aka, the Maggie Poem 

By Evangeline Dollahon, age 10

(written on a napkin, just like the Gettysburg Address)

My butt sinks deeper into the couch

The tv is blaring, I tend to slouch

Popcorn kernels litter the floor,

Don't feel like getting up to get any more

Soda cans towering 

People are cowering 

They call it crazy

I call it lazy.

“Eva, we open bibles, not legs.”
- Maggie Dollahon
6-2-19

Walker's mom has been staying with us a couple of days, helping to watch Bethie while I pack. The concensus: "She seems better adjusted than, you know, most of the other grandkids" and "I think she is upping the Dollahon IQ pool." #Bethieforthewin

I love it when Walker Dollahon whispers sweet nothings in my ear, like "loving you is the sanctification scheme God had for my life ..." 💋

 So Missy Hooks Dollahon and I went to BurgerFi for lunch...

Walker:  I'll take a BurgerFi double cheeseburger garden style.

Cashier:  You want tomatoes on that?

Walker:  Yes, everything on it.

Cashier:  Lettuce too?

Walker: Yes, it's the garden style one I want (note:  the burger that's wrapped in lettuce where the bun should be).

Cashier:  And onions too?

Walker:  Yes, everything on it.  The works.

Cashier:  And the BurgerFi sauce?

Walker:  Yep.  Load the thing up to bear.

Cashier:  Pickles too?

Walker:  Yes.  Everything on it, please.

Cashier:  Okay, for you Miss?

Missy:  I'll take a Burgerfi Cheeseburger with everything on it.

Cashier:  You want tomatoes on that?

Missy:  Yes, please.  Everything on it...

***  AND THIS IS WHEN A SPACE TIME CONTINUUM WAS TORN INTO THE FABRIC OF MATTER AROUND US FROM OUR COLLETIVE RAGE AND FURY AND WE BRIEFLY SAW TIME AND LIFE ITSELF UNFOLD LIKE A SPOOL OUT FROM OUR VANTAGE POINT BEFORE WE RESUMED OUR PERCH ON THE BLUE ORB WE CALL EARTH AND WE STARED AT EACHOTHER WITH SLACK JAWS AND DIMMED MINDS  ***

(Backup) [Auto-saved Post]

2-16-2016

Maggie came to my yesterday. She was topless, and she had taken a tank top and wrapped it around her like a g string, and she goes "Look! I'm Miley Cyrus!!"

First I was concerned, then I just remembered, that's just Maggie: