Archive for the 'Makes Me Sigh' Category

Pa Palmer

May 15, 2007 | Antique Friends, GiGi and Poopah, Makes Me Sigh, Texas

Friday afternoon, Antique Daddy and Sean and I were on our way to celebrate Mother’s Day weekend with Memaw when we got the phone call. The father of one of our dearest friends had passed away unexpectedly.

Pa Palmer, as everyone called him, was 85-years-old. On Monday, we returned him to the sandy East Texas soil from whence he came.

Except that we all will miss him terribly, it is no tragedy really. Pa Palmer lived long and he lived well. He loved others and was loved in return. He lived by his faith and he died by his faith. In that there can be no tragedy.

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Pa Palmer was a mild and unassuming man with smiling eyes that turned downward at the corners. I remember the first time I met him. He was a greeter at a church I was visiting and he reached out to shake my hand as he handed me a bulletin. His hands were large and warm and soft and perfectly matched his face. As I got to know Pa Palmer, I learned that the only thing larger and warmer and softer than his hands was his heart.

Pa Palmer made his living working with his hands, but he made his life serving with his hands. Someone told the story of how one time when he was delivering a meal to a shut-in, he spied a rusty and broken fan in the trash. He took it home, fixed it and returned it the following week. A fan is a blessed thing to have in Texas. One time I mentioned in passing that a lamp I loved had quit working. Not long thereafter, he showed up at my house and fixed it. As I watched him sit at my kitchen table tinkering with mysterious lamp parts, there was an unmistakable light and glow about him that came from within. To do for others was a joy to him. But perhaps the memory most deeply etched in my mind is watching him pull his 4-year-old great granddaughter up into his lap and those large hands of his patiently and tenderly combing the tangles out of her wispy white angel hair.

As we filed past the coffin, I reached out and touched Pa Palmer’s hands for the last time, the hands that had touched so many lives in the past 85 years. They were not soft and warm this time, but hard and cold. He was not there. The spirit and and energy that had fueled his life’s work had flown away home.

Tears filled my eyes and overflowed. I patted his hand one last time. Farewell Pa Palmer. Until we meet again.

Things I Don’t Miss And Things I Do Miss

March 22, 2007 | Makes Me Sigh

Things I Don’t Miss:
Diaper Genie refills
Bottle washing
$20/can Nutramigen
Baby Bjorn Sling Thing Contraption (designed to send post partum women over the edge)
Rectal thermometers
Blue Snot Sucker thingee

Things I Do Miss:
Bottle feeding, even the 2am feedings
Nose sucks
Slobbery ear kisses
This sound: Mahmahmahmahmahmah!
Leg hugs
Rompers
Morning AND afternoon naps
Itty bitty baby socks, even though they never stay on.
The baby with the delicious fat cheeks.

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Rock Star Demands

March 21, 2007 | Makes Me Sigh, Mildly Amusing

I don’t have to ask Sean what he’s going to be when he grows up. I already know - a rock star. Not because he’s some sort of musical genius, but because he already has the “rock star demands” part down:

- All beverages must be presented in Builder Bob cups.
- Three specific bath towels must be available - the orange one (that has holes and is frayed), the lavender one that’s 20 years old and a brown one. (I know. That’s a lot of towels for someone who only weighs 28 pounds. But what can I do, I’m his roadie/groupie.)
- Will only wear socks with the orange band.
- No human hands are to have touched his gummy bear vitamin - must get his own out of the jar (which of course he can not open.)
- Never, under any circumstances, shall there be a green bean on his plate. And it would be better if there were none in the room or on the planet.
- Knows how to trash a room.
- Can get women to do just about anything he wants.

Unfortunately, with his DNA, he’s scheduled to be nearly bald by the time he’s 23 and everyone knows that you can’t be a rock star without a good head of hair. Luckily there are a lot of career options for a nearly bald working class kid.

Someone’s Pants Are On Fire

November 13, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh, Mildly Amusing

The other day we were driving in the car and off in the distance, we saw a hang glider floating and bobbing across the sky. We pointed it out to Sean who craned his neck to see. “Oh! A hang gwider!” he said, “I used to do that!”

Antique Daddy and I exchange glances.

“Or really?” I say “Is that so?”

“Sure!”

“When did you hang glide?”

“When I was at my farm. I would hang gwide and go way, way up in the sky and then come down - boom! - in the field and then I would get on my bicycle and wide away.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that. Is that true?”

“No. I just made it up.”

Okay then. So he either has a career as a politician. Or a mother.

A Little Boy Like Me

November 8, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh, Snips And Snails, Sometimes Sweet

Today Sean and I had a number of errands to run, which of course, included a trip to - you guessed it - Wal-Mart! But today, we did not go to our own personal Wal-Mart, the one that is one block away from our house, we went to the Wal-Mart that is one mile away. We are adventurous like that.

This Wal-Mart has a McDonalds in it and in a moment of weakness, as we were leaving the store, I agreed to stop in for breakfast. Anytime there is a possibility that my son will ingest food, I make the most of it. After we got our food, Sean chose a table by a window that looks out into the lobby of the store where the carts and the greeter are located.

As we were sitting there like two fish in a bowl eating our McFood, Sean starts making observations about the people who are coming and going.

“That lady’s in a hurry!” he said as a lady grabbed a cart and headed into the store like a racehorse.

“Sure enough,” I responded.

“That man has a hole in his paints. He needs new paints.”

“Maybe he’s going in the store to buy new pants,” I offered.

“That woman looks sad! Why is that woman sad?”

I looked at her. She did look as though the world were resting on her shoulders.

“I don’t know why she’s sad Sweetie,” I said, impressed with his astute observation.

He cocked his head and touched my forearm and said, “Maybe because she doesn’t have a little boy like me.”

Gulp. Tears instantly stung my eyes.

“Maybe so,” I said. “I was sad when I didn’t have a little boy like you.”

“Yeah” he said.

And then he shoved an entire biscuit in his mouth.

The Lonely Skeleton

November 3, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh

When I was growing up, like all kids, I loved and looked forward to Halloween. My brothers and I and the forty or so kids that lived in the neighborhood would start talking about what we would be for Halloween shortly after school started in September.

The years that Halloween fell on a Saturday or Sunday, we would spend the entire day scavenging for and cobbling together a costume. The ghosts in our neighborhood wore sheets with paint splotches the color of their living room. No one had a “store boughten” costume. Unthinkable.

Long before the sun would set, four or five kids would crowd around the mirror in our tiny bathroom, elbowing for space. We painted our faces with left over tempera paint, the gouged out remains of an old spot of blue or green eyeshadow or one of my mom’s old tubes of blood red lipstick. We’d rat up our hair and drench it in hairspray and practice scary faces holding up our hands Dracula-style.

Then, just as the sun began to set, 10 or 15 kids at a time would set off screaming down the street with brown grocery bags, going from house to house, descending like a horde of locusts hollering TRICKORTREATSMELLMYFEETGIVEMESOMETHINGGOODTOEAT! And hooboy! Wasn’t that funny?!

Amid the safety net of 20 kids, we’d roam a two-mile radius around the house for three or more hours. Our bags would be so full of candy we could hardly carry them and occasionally you’d see someone whose bag had broken, on their knees on the sidewalk, crying over their lost booty.

Tuesday, Antique Daddy took Sean out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood dressed as a cowboy. I stayed home and ate miniature Snickers waiting for the goblins to arrive at the door. Kids trickled up the sidewalk two and three at a time, escorted by their parents who were in the background hissing, “Say trick-or-treat! Say Happy Halloween! Say thank you! Did you say thank you!?”

Halloween seems so much more lonely an event these days, at least in my neighborhood. The singular Ariel or Ninja that comes to my door makes me nostalgic for the gangs of ghosts splattered with Sherwin William’s Burlap Beige and hobos wearing their dad’s work pants cinched up around their armpits.

As I stood at the door watching a tiny princess and her daddy make their way to the next house, a skeleton emerged out of the darkness and made his way up the steps. He was an apt skeleton weighing no more than a bucket of green beans. “Trick or treat!” he called to me cheerfully. I estimated him to be about 10-years-old. I looked beyond him into the darkness, but there was no one. I looked into the eyeholes of his mask at his bright brown eyes. I could tell he was smiling at me. I dropped a handful of candy into his bag. “Thank you ma’am!” he said looking me in the eye. Then he turned and started down the steps. “Wait a minute!” I called him back. “Here!” I said, dropping two more handfuls of candy into his bag. “Happy Halloween to you Mr. Skeleton!” “Wow! Thanks!” he called as he disappeared into the darkness. All alone.

I watched him until there was nothing but darkness beyond the bright porch light. I heaved a heavy sigh. Something about the slightness of his form, his cheer, his courtesy that made me think of my little cowboy, who will never be one of a roving gang of paint-splattered ghosts, but a polite, lonely skeleton. And that makes me sad.

You Know You’ve Been Married Eight Years When

October 26, 2006 | Antique Crazy, Makes Me Sigh

Your spouse brings home your anniversary dinner in a take-out container
and you are just happy that you don’t have to cook
and even happier that you don’t have to clean up.

You gaze across the table at your partner
over your child’s head
who is sitting in your lap and audibly passing gas
and it doesn’t even ruin your appetite.

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In a curious juxtaposition, the flowers that he brought home
are sitting on the table
amid a pile of socks and underwear
waiting to be folded, since yesterday.

You’re aware that you’ve used the word juxtaposition.

It’s 6pm and you are wearing flannel pajama bottoms
and a shirt with macaroni stuck to it.
You are happy that you didn’t have to get cleaned up to go out
because it’s too much work
For a Tuesday night.

To reward him for putting up with you for eight years
you give him a package of M&Ms
which you will eat tomorrow after he leaves for work.
He gives you a gift certificate for an expensive spa package.

You promise yourself you will give him his “real” present tonight,
the one he really wants,
after the kid goes to sleep.
But you are both too tired.

So you drift off to sleep
in his arms
thanking God for a good man,
a patient man,
a sweet life.
another day,
another year.

The Tangerine Blouse

October 19, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh

“I know most women hate maternity clothes, but I loved mine. When Sean came six weeks early in mid-November, I was so disappointed that I had holiday maternity clothes that I wouldn’t get to wear.”

Why oh why can’t I part with my maternity clothes? Is the decision to let them go the decision to let go of the dream of having another baby?

You can read the full post at DotMoms.

Here’s Your Baby Ma’am. Welcome To Adulthood.

October 14, 2006 | Faith, Makes Me Sigh

The years I lobbied to be treated as an adult have blown up in my face.
~ Lisa Simpson

I managed to put off adulthood until I was 44. Once I was handed that precious bundle of screaming, puking, pooping responsibility joy, my carefree protracted childhood lonely meaningless life came to an end. Adulthood blew up in my face in one big gush of baby blue confetti. And I’ve never been the same since.

The first time that Sean looked up at me with those unfocused drunken eyes of infancy, the weight of the responsibility for his wellbeing and survival bore down upon me, and for the first time in my life I felt like an adult. And it was terribly frightening. I remember looking into Sean’s tiny face and praying, “Dear God, I’ve managed to screw up a lot of stuff in my life — I guess you already know that — but please let me get this one right.”

Adulthood has meant that I am no longer the center of my own universe. It has sometimes meant cleaning up puke for six straight days, inspecting poop, wielding a rectal thermometer, getting only four non-sequential hours of sleep in any given 24-hour period and existing on a diet of luke warm coffee and left over chicken nuggets.

Yet it is in the servitude of motherhood that I’ve discovered another facet in the prism of my being — a richness and depth of experience that can only be gained from dealing with someone else’s boogers. To love is to serve.

Yes, being an adult has blown up in my face. And I could not be happier.

Always

October 9, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh, Papa Ed, Wivian

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My parents left yesterday morning after a week-long visit.

When you start your family as late in life as I did, thoughts of time and how precious little there is of it, are never far away. When I look at my parents, I have to remind myself that they are not in their mid-40s, but in their mid-70s. I still think of my dad as a lean and wiry young man able to hurdle a 4-ft. fence. And I suppose that when they look at me they have to remind themselves that I’m in my mid-40s and not seven. No matter how many years go by, they’ll always be my mommy and daddy and I’ll always be their baby. After a week like this past one - one that went entirely too fast — I’d drain my bank account in exchange for the promise that I could get more time for Sean, for me, for all of us, before it all comes to pass.

The day after his Bivian and Papa Ed leave are always hard for Sean. He misses them and it takes some time for him to get over the fact that he is stuck with just me. So this afternoon as I was putting Sean down for his nap, I took some extra time to read to him and for a time, he let me just cradle him. His head rested in the crook of my arm and his long legs draped over the edge of the arm of the rocker. For a long time, we just sat there in silence listening to the sounds of the day - the creaking of the rocker, a lawn mower in the distance, an airplane, a passing car. As I looked long into his face, without realizing it, I wondered out loud “Where did my baby go?” He reached up and touched my face and whispered, “Here I am.”

When I’m 89 and he’s 46, I’ll still be his mommy and he’ll still be my baby.

PHOTO: Sean with Bivian who showed him how to decorate a stick wasting using an entire bolt of Christmas ribbon. Liberal usage of ribbon, sissors and tape is just one reason why Bivian is way more fun than Mommy.

Milestones

October 1, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh

The other day as Sean and I walked hand-in-hand across the parking lot into the grocery store, I looked down at him and very clearly remembered the first time he walked into the store under his own power, just last year. I remember wanting to burn that image into my mind, wanting to force myself to remember that moment, knowing it was a milestone. Looking at him now, with his long strong legs and confident stride, makes me feel as though someone ransacked my heart and carted off his babyhood.

The months that I carried him into the store, all six pounds of him, in an infant carrier seemed to go on forever. I would have him snuggled down into the carrier and covered with a blanket. If anyone even looked like they were thinking of peeking under the blanket, I would give them the mama bear glare that promised I would rip them to shreds.

I remember thinking what a lot of work that was to get him in the carrier and then get the carrier snapped into the base in the car and then out of the base and then schlepping it into the store. There is no way to carry those things that is not awkward. I never dreamed six pounds could feel so heavy. And then once I had the carrier secured to the shopping cart, I couldn’t see over it and I was always bumping into somebody or something. And then doing it all in reverse on the way home. I remember it being exhausting. There was no energy left for any other tasks on grocery store day. Yet I miss that infant carrier.

I remember the first time I took him to the store and let him sit in the shopping cart seat - with a seat cover of course and only after I swabbed down the entire cart with Clorox wipes. I remember how much fun we had goo-gooing over one another and rubbing noses and hugging all through the store and how strangers would stop to tell me how cute he was. It was fun, but still it was exhausting. No one tells you how much schlepping comes with motherhood. Yet I miss that shopping cart seat cover.

Now he gets himself out of the car. Now he tell me to “Look both ways Mom” and protectively guides me across the parking lot. I try to remember to Clorox wipe the cart, but sometimes I don’t. He doesn’t want to sit in the seat so much anymore, but likes to hang off the back like a surfer catching a wave. Now I try to keep him from running down the aisles and stashing Coco Puffs and other contraband in the basket unbeknownst to me. And it’s exhausting. When we get home, he likes to help carry in the groceries, or at least the bag with the Coco Puffs. Someday I will miss my grocery store buddy and finding surprises when I put groceries away.

As we approach his third birthday, I look around the house and I see that the infant carrier is gone, the shopping cart seat cover has been tossed into a box in the garage, the baby gates are gone, the cabinet latches are gone. The baby is gone.

And it makes my heart ache because I know that someday too soon, the boy will be gone too.

Home Again Home Again

September 28, 2006 | Joy, Makes Me Sigh

Does anyone else find vacations exhausting, or is it just me?

We just returned from spending seven days in San Francisco, our favoritest of cities. On the plus side, we got to see some dear friends, do some hiking out on Pt. Reyes (where a family of deer bounded by right in front of us), see the sights, enjoy sleeping with the windows open, walk on the beach, feel good about our mortgage and eat, eat, eat and eat some more. We were all set to move there until we found not one restaurant that understood the true meaning of chips and salsa - and that was a deal breaker.

On the negative side, on the flight out I was convinced that two suspiciously nervous guys were terrorists. I spent the entire three-hour flight eating Tums like popcorn and clutching my smuggled nail file in my coat pocket and praying. I was ready for a Sally Hansen-style duel where I ended up landing the plane or they ended up with a bad manicure. Either way.

The other bummer was that the second day we were there, someone hi-jacked our credit card number and went on an $800 spending spree at Wal-Mart. As if someone could outspend me at Wal-Mart! The hoist was discovered when we tried to pay our dinner bill and the card was rejected. The waiter was nonplussed at our display of astonishment. When we indignantly informed him that this had NEVER happened to us before, his expression told us he’d heard that one before. Although it was true, it sounded false even to me, so I didn’t blame him.

Joining the credit card crud in the negative column, I lost my new sunglasses in Golden Gate park, our washing machine broke as soon as we got home with three suitcases of dirty laundry and now my computer is PMSing. And I am tired.

But, then as I’m looking through my pictures, there is this:

A little boy who was thrilled with every new thing — a bar of hotel soap, jumping on the hotel bed, a seashell, the “go-go-gay” bridge, a pinecone. I am tired. And it was totally worth it.

Photo temporarily removed.

Noiseless and Patient

September 22, 2006 | Faith, Makes Me Sigh

The first time I caught sight of Margie was late in the springtime. I was walking through the dining room and happened to look out the windows and there she was, just beyond the Nandinas. It was startling to look out and find someone looking back. We both stood perfectly still for a moment, pretending not to notice the other.

I crept quietly to the window to get a closer look. She was beautiful and delicate like a ballerina with long thin legs. I stood there and spied on her for quite some time watching her steadily knitting and knitting the most stunning circle of lace you ever saw.

At the end of the day she was still there. And she was there again the next day. And the next day and the next day after that. We didn’t know what her name was so we just started calling her Margie and that seemed right.

Every day of the summer, Sean and I ran to the dining room windows first thing to see if Margie was still there and to watch the morning sun cast its pink and then yellow glow across her glossy web. And every day she would be there, noiseless and patient. No matter what kind of harsh weather the Texas skies served up — hot and sunny or rainy and windy - Margie stayed put, confident that she was where she was supposed to be, doing what she was supposed to be doing.

The days are growing shorter now. The leaves are beginning to turn brown and occasionally one will spiral softly downward. Another season of life is upon us. One morning, we will look for Margie in the window suspended between the earth and sky and she won’t be there. All things come to completion.

There are probably many lessons that can be drawn from watching a spider all summer, but for me, in this season of my life where patience eludes me, Margie has taught me that there is beauty in being noiseless and patient — no matter what life serves up.

September Rain

September 21, 2006 | Joy, Makes Me Sigh, Snips And Snails

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Sunday afternoon brought a warm and gentle (and much needed) rain to North Texas. Sean and I celebrated by grabbing our umbrellas and strolling around the neighborhood, making sure to stomp in every puddle along the way.

Too few are days such as these.

The Problem Solver

September 15, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh, Outsmarted

Learning to share is contrary to human nature and like all toddlers Sean has to learn how to do this. And it is taking some work. For both of us.

So when I was at the grocery store today, I picked up the Blue’s Clues book One for Me, One for You hoping that the idea of sharing would be more appealing to him if presented by a blue dog rather than by his perpetually squawking mother.

The book gets to the point quickly. On page two, Joe pitches the concept to Blue:

“Look! Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper have a cookie for me and Blue! How thoughtful! Hmmm. There are two of us and only one cookie. What do you think we should do?”

Sean all but rolls his eyes and asks, “Bake more cookies?”

Part of me appreciates his ability to problem solve and think outside the box and another part of me fears that he will grow up to be some sort of Einstein hoarding cookies in his underground laboratory.

Edited to add: Would it be too much to ask the editor’s of our children’s books to use proper English? I believe it should be ‘a cookie for Blue and me’ (not ‘me and Blue’).

The Negotiator

September 12, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh, Outsmarted

This morning, as I’m standing at the kitchen sink washing up breakfast dishes, there was this exchange:

Sean: Mom, can I have a popsicle?

AM: No Sean, you just had breakfast.

Sean: Well, then how about an ice cream bar?

AM: No. You can have an ice cream bar after dinner.

Sean: Mom, can I have dinner?

* * *

I could have said “Go play!” or “I said no!” or any number of other mom-isms.

But instead, I dried my hands, went to the freezer, got out an ice cream bar and sat down on the kitchen floor and shared it with him. Just because. Just because he looked so cute in those dinosaur pajamas with his hair all askew, just because he opted for negotation over whining, just because I sometimes over-compensate for having to be the parent who metes out most of the discipline, just because as I looked at him looking up at me I wanted to gather him up in my arms and cover him in kisses, just because life is too darn short. Just because.

The Vow of 9/11

September 11, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh

Today is the 5th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on our nation. When I allow my thoughts to settle too long on that day, I still feel as nauseous as I did the morning I sat on the end of the bed in my pajamas watching it all unfold like a Hollywood movie on morning television. Even after five years, there is still a certain degree of disbelief as though something so horrific couldn’t really have happened. It is one of two events in my life that is too great, too atrocious, too awful to fully absorb.

Across the nation today, newspapers will feature stirring tributes written for the victims. There will be public ceremonies and memorials marking the day. Politicians will give impassioned speeches. Somewhere a soldier wearing white gloves will hoist his shiny bugle and sorrowfully play Taps. The television will replay the footage of airplanes slicing through the magnificent towers and the confetti of life raining down into the streets of Manhattan on an endless loop while the newsreaders wear a practiced and appropriately grim expressions and pretend to be wise. But at the end of the day, after all the noise has faded with the sunlight, nothing will have changed. There will still be children without parents, widows without spouses and a nation that is bitterly divided. There really are no words to adequately honor those who were lost or soothe those who remain.

Some need to replay and review and analyze and intellectualize the events of the day - as though it can somehow be made to make sense. For others, the public tributes and ceremonies will provide a measure of comfort. Each must mark this day in one’s own way. As for me, I will turn away and turn inward to the still quiet spaces in my heart where I will renew the vow I made on September 11, 2001 to live in the moment and to love those around me more freely, more fiercely and more deeply.

What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.~ James 4:14

Long Long Ago, Last Year

September 8, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh

The other day, I fixed Sean some bean dip and I handed him a bean dip cracker — or what the rest of the world calls a saltine — to eat with it. As I handed him the cracker, he gave me a big smile and exclaimed, “Oh! Thank you! I used to eat these kind of crackers when I was a baby!”

Yes, way way back in 2005; the olden days.

Don’t Sing, Just Wipe

September 7, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh, Mildly Amusing, Outsmarted

If you ask a room of ten people what is the one thing they wish they could do well that they can’t, nine of them will say sing. The tenth person is William Hung.

I am in that group of nine. I have no illusions about my singing abilities. I have always wished I could sing well, but I know I can’t and I’m a little sensitive about it. And after you have a kid, there is a lot of pressure to sing and there is even this assumption that your kid will like it. Not so.

Even though I can’t sing worth a flip, I can compose a song on the spot — another one of my many non-income producing talents. And if you have a baby in the house, you already know that spontaneous lyrical composition is a parenting prerequisite and that they won’t even let you bring a baby home from the hospital if you can’t think of something that rhymes with poop.

So the other day, I was sitting on the floor bent over Sean changing his diaper and I started singing the “Changing The Diaper” song that I wrote that goes something like this:

Bottoms up, bottoms up,
Bottoms down, bottoms down,
You’ve got the cutest bottom in town!

After I sang the first line, he reached up and put his hand over my mouth and said, “Okay, but Just. Don’t. Sing.”

So I finished changing the diaper in smoldering silence. The nerve. He is insulting ME as I’m wiping HIS butt. Before I could make my knees work again to stand up, he grabbed my head and pulled me down to him and kissed me squarely on the forehead, punctuated with a big “MWAH!”

If my life were a broadway musical, I would have burst into song at that very moment. That is, if I could sing.

Cinnamon and Sugar

September 2, 2006 | Makes Me Sigh

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If you were to walk into my kitchen, the first thing you will notice is that it smells like cinnamon. And you might look for one of those delicious Yankee candles burning somewhere or pretty bowl of potpourri. Or maybe even one of those scented plug-in deals.

But then when you noticed that with every step you took there was a slight crunching sound underfoot and that when you leaned up against the counter something brown and dusty rubbed off on your pants, you might think that maybe it’s not potpourri, but perhaps something more sinister.

What you probably wouldn’t suspect, unless you yourself have a child, is that when someone was granted the privilege of putting cinnamon and sugar on his toast by himself, he got a little carried away and started waving the open bottle of cinnamon over his head like a cowboy trying to lasso a wayward calf.

And then as you tried to wipe cinnamon off your butt, you might wonder how many days it takes for cinnamon dust to settle out of the air.

And the answer to that is, as of yet, unknown.