Tag Archive for: children

What Makes Me Happy

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What Makes Me Happy

By Saralyn Richard

 

Nana with the cast of “Peter and Wendy”

Recently, one of my writer friends, Kathleen Kaska, featured me in her newsletter, the theme of which was: What Makes You Happy?

I had fun answering Kathleen’s questions and thought I’d share them with you.

  1. What makes you happy? children and dogs! A long-time educator, I taught pre-school through twelfth grade, and I never had a dull moment. Every time I thought I’d seen and heard everything, something else happened to surprise me. Being surrounded by children guarantees that you’ll have new ideas and be forced to find creative solutions. I’m similarly happy when I go places with my sheepdog, Nana. Prior to Covid, Nana and I visited more than 100 schools, libraries, and museums, where we read the children’s book Naughty Nana. Nana is a show-stopping celebrity, and watching her light up when she’s with people is magical.
  2. What songs, when you hear them, make you glad to be alive? I love show tunes. I can belt out the lyrics to almost any Broadway musical, and I’ve been known to dance around the family room while I’m singing. Happy, sad, romantic, or whatever, I love to pretend that I’m on stage, singing like a Tony-award winner. Two of my favorites are, “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady, and “Tonight” from West Side Story. I also love the Bee Gees tunes from Saturday Night Fever.
  3. What are your most profound beliefs? One of my beliefs is that time is our most precious commodity. I’m terrible at keeping track of time, though. I also believe in the power of girlfriends, great books, and ghosts.

Last weekend, my husband and I got to hear Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. (formerly of the Fifth Dimension) sing, and we visited with them afterwards. We saw them perform on our first date many years ago, when we were in college. We are still together, and so are they! Another reason to be happy!

 

What makes YOU happy?

 

Saralyn Richard loves being a writer and connecting with readers. Visit her website at http://saralynrichard.com and sign up for her monthly newsletter to receive fun info, surveys, contests, freebies, and more.

Puppy Training

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by Bethany Maines


Recently my daughter learned to crawl. She’s six months old, so
basically any time she learns something it’s “recently”. But as she
learns new tricks she forces my husband and I to adapt (and hopefully
overcome).  Sadly, in our sleep deprived
state we find ourselves relying on the training we did with our previous “child.”
As she learns new things my mind reaches out for words that will
get the result I want. Ack! She’s chewing on a power cord! Drop it! It works on
the dog, so my brain now auto selects for those oh, so useful training phrases.
Sadly, the phrases mean less than nothing to my daughter.  The only one she obeys is “stay”
and that’s only if she’s strapped in the car seat.  As a result my dog, Kato, thinks I got the
runty, stupid puppy of the litter.  I can
practically see the thought bubble over his head.  “Look human puppy, I am demonstrating
what to do. Figure it out!” The tiny daughter’s thought bubble says,
“Look at those shiny eyeballs; if I could pluck them out, it might be
fantastic. Why is the fuzzy one leaving?” Which is a terrible way to treat a
dog who is trying his best to be supportive.

Tiny Daughter & Kato the Wonder Dog demonstrate their similar interests.

Kato performs many important baby related jobs. There is the
“I alert you to the fact that the baby is crying.” (Believe me Kato,
we know.) There is the extremely useful butt check. Kato, would you like to
smell this butt? Oh, you would? Must be time for a diaper change. And the
adorable guard dog duty.  He is not quite
sure why the human puppy hasn’t been weaned to dog food, but if I’m going to
insist on breastfeeding her, then he will do his best to guard us while we’re
vulnerable.
But she is learning. She now knows her name and his name, and she
knows where the dog food is and how delightful it is to spill it all over the
floor. So while the dog thinks she’s dumb, I can see the day coming when he
will realize that her little monkey fingers are useful to help him get the
delicious human food he desires. 
Hopefully, by then she will also know what “sit,” “stay” and “drop it”
mean. 





Bethany Maines is the
author of the Carrie Mae Mystery series and Tales from the City of Destiny. You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube
video or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.