Danny is sick today, so I’m playing crazy eights with him.
| Game 1 | Dad | Danny |
| Round 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Round 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Round 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Round 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Round 5 | 0 | 2 |
| Total Points | 2 | 10 |
| Game 2 | Dad | Danny |
| Round 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Round 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Round 3 | 0 | 9 |
| Round 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Round 5 | 3 | 4 |
| Total Points | 7 | 16 |
| Game 3 | Dad | Danny |
| Round 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Round 2 | 0 | 5 |
| Round 3 | 1 | 5 |
| Round 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Round 5 | 3 | 0 |
| Total Points | 7 | 13 |
| Game 4 | Dad | Danny |
| Round 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Round 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Round 3 | 4 | 0 |
| Round 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Round 5 | 2 | 0 |
| Total Points | 12 | 6 |
Yesterday was Kelly’s first birthday. She was sick and Kathy was melancholy.
Kelly’s fever had gotten up to 102 on Friday. Kathy took her to the doctor who said she had a virus and gave her some medicine. She managed to have fun on her birthday, despite her illness. She just took longer naps.
I had not gotten home from work until 1 a.m., so I slept in until about 8:30. I missed Danny being the first to sing happy birthday to her. Kelly often wakes up before Danny and talks to him from her crib until he wakes up. Then they both start talking to each other louder and louder until one of the parents gets up.
Patsy sent Kelly a big box that arrived on Friday. Kelly enjoyed climbing all over the box on Friday. When we were all up Saturday morning, we let Kelly open her birthday box.
It took her a long time to get the box open because she kept looking at us. She couldn’t believe we were letting her get into that box, and I think she was mistaking our laughter with being yelled at.
When she got three flaps open she was surprised to see little stuffed animals in plastic bags. There were about six or seven little stuffed animals. Most were dogs, but one seemed to be a pink mouse. She gave the pink mouse a hug, getting a big awww from Kathy.
There was also a brightly colored box at the bottom of the box. Again, Kelly seemed apprehensive about ripping it open. She would give it a little rip and then look around. She was surprised we were letting her ruin the nicely wrapped box.
Inside was her own place setting with a spoon, bowl, plate, cup and place mat. Later she used her plate to eat hamburger, corn, and sweet potatoes (her favorite for some reason.)
I had to go into the office, so I took Danny and Nicole with me. Then we went over to Mom & Dad’s where we joined them for peach ice cream and ginger snaps. After dessert, the three of us had hamburgers that Dad cooked for us.
Because Kelly was sick, we canceled the family birthday party. Tom and Jeannette came over though that evening with more presents. The first one Kelly opened was a baby doll. Kathy says she will never forget the look of wonder and surprise on Kelly’s face when she unwrapped the present and saw a baby in the box. “Baba” she started saying over and over impatiently reaching for the baby as Kathy got it out of the box.
She could not have put on a better show for her Grandpa.
She also opened up presents from us that included a couple of outfits and new shoes. Here favorite things seemed to be her pink mouse, her baby doll, and her new shoes.
She used her new bowl and spoon from Patsy to eat a piece of her cake. She was much neater than Danny who rubbed chocolate icing all over his head on his first birthday. Kelly insisted on using her spoon. Everyone started talking about how she might be left handed. I don’t know why. She was using the spoon with her right hand to chop up her cake. That’s what she did. Instead of eating her cake, she chopped it up in her bowl. Eventually she put the spoon in her mouth and tasted the icing. It didn’t take her long to start pushing cake into her mouth with her hands. When she was done, she threw the last piece of cake on the floor, then she threw her spoon, and finally her bowl. She was having a fun birthday, despite being sick.
Kathy and I watched “Passenger 57” after the kids went to bed. Kelly woke up, though, so I brought her down to lay on the floor with us. At one point, I looked to see where she was playing. She was trying to put one of her high-top sneakers on. Kelly watched with great interest as I slipped on the shoes and tied the laces. Kathy laughed as I stood Kelly up to let her try them out. (She had taken 12 steps before Tom and Jeannette had come over.)
The problem with standing up was that Kelly couldn’t see down to her new shoes very well. So Kelly stood on her head to get a better look at her shoes.
Kelly added the words “shoes” and “thank you” to her vocabulary. We had counted twelve words the other day, including: juice, mama, dada, doggie, cookie, uh oh, banana, bottle, bye bye, birdie, night night, and no no.
Kathy already is missing her baby.
August 26, 1993
Mr. Ron Towler
Towler Electric
331 1/2 S. Old Belair Road
Grovetown, GA 30813
Dear Mr. Towler,
We would like to thank you for your hospitality in offering the use of your lake house for the Cashin family reunion earlier this month. The gathering was a tremendous success.
We had good weather, so we were able to take advantage of the lake and land surrounding the house. Jeb and Nicole (10) had an adventurous canoe paddle across the lake to the point. Danny (6) and Uncle Bob Cashin enjoyed flipping off the docks. Kathy appreciated the fence and gates around the outside patio where Kelly (11 months) and her other small cousins could play without fear of rolling into the lake. Alas, the gate did not contain the turtle that Bob Cashin caught.
If you spy a large eastern box turtle with blood red eyes, it belongs to Bob.
Thank you again.
Yours truly,
Jeb Kathy Nicole Danny Kelly
We had a nice time at the bay until the escaped convict made us close up shop and head back to Gulf Terrace.
Our day at the bay had been very short on Wednesday because of a thunderstorm that swiftly crossed the bay in our direction.
Friday, though, featured perhaps the greatest hermit crab race of all time. This was our third or fourth annual hermit crab race at the bay. Danny reported 24 crabs. The average size was much larger than previous years, most crabs about the size of golf ball according to Nicole.
The reason we had so many large crabs was that on Wednesday we had discovered that a stump and roots on the edge of the water had a heavy population of large hermit crabs. Most of the crabs were in the usual snail shell. Nicole found the largest conch-shaped shell.
Kathy, however, found the largest hermit crab since Cashin hermit-crab records have been kept. After the race, all of us crawled about 100 yards out into the shallow waters of the bay. I crawled on my back with my hands behind me and my knees up and feet in front of me. I was Kelly’s water camel.
Kathy went back in to get a float and as she was walking away she yelled “WOW! THIS IS THE BIGGEST HERMIT CRAB I’VE EVER SEEN.” Kathy brought over a cup-cake size (her measurement) snail shell with a large clawed hermit crab inside.
Later I took a picture of “Cupcake” in Kelly’s bucket. I put my ring in the picture to indicate the size. This will be important as I try each year to find a larger hermit crab than Cupcake.
Nicole and I bought [the book] Jurassic Park in Destin. Nicole was asking me some questions about a part she had read. This lead to a discussion between me, Danny, and Nicole about time and God.
Danny asked the question: “How did God make his parents?” I told him that he could go to Notre Dame and base an entire course on that question.
The next day at the pool a lady came up to me and Kathy and said what nice children we had. The kids were sitting around the table under the umbrella, finishing lunch. Nicole was reading Jurassic Park.
“How old is your older girl?” the lady asked. She thought that Nicole was awfully smart to be 10 years old and reading Jurassic Park. “That’s got DNA and such in it!”
I’m not sure if Nicole’s reading Jurassic Park made all three of our kids good, or if Danny and Kelly had done good things on their own. I didn’t ask.
We bought tickets at the race track. Danny and Nicole picked three rides each. Both wanted to do bumper cars and the big race track. Nicole wanted to do the bungee-tramp and Danny wanted to do the kiddie race track.
Kelly and I watched Nicole ride in one bumper car and Danny and Kathy ride in another.
As I watched, I thought that bumper cars revealed the personality of each driver. Nicole probably traveled a greater distance than any other driver. She looked for gaps and open spaces trying to avoid hitting anyone. That’s Nicole. Trying to avoid conflict even in bumper cars. I could almost hear her apologizing as she nudged her way through the pack of cars. However, as soon as she spotted Danny, she rammed him full speed again and again, laughing loud and hard. She repeated her attacks, driving Danny crazy because he was busy trying to get on with his own plans. That’s Nicole, too, beating a dead horse. But she was having fun.
Danny didn’t travel much distance at all. He was too busy trying to bump in to every car around him. The name of the game was bumper cars, and he was bound and determined to do his best bumping. You’ll never know Danny is having fun by looking at his face. He wears the same face whether he is up at bat, running with a football, or driving a bumper car. He sticks his jaw out and furrows his brow with a very serious expression. But he was having fun, too.
Now Kathy is competitive by nature. And being a more intelligent driver than Danny or Nicole, she understands that you’ve got to work somewhere between Danny’s maximum bpm (bumps per minute) approach and Nicole’s fast and bump-free approach. You’ve got to get up speed in order to get in hard bumps. Hard bumps are the key, and the best are when you can strike someone unaware. So Kathy couldn’t resist grabbing the wheel a few times and getting Danny out of a spinning cluster and aim the car for some unsuspecting driver. I had to yell at her once and say “They’re Danny’s tickets!” That’s Kathy, getting caught having too much fun.
Kelly sat on the side rail in awe of all the motion, lights, music, and the sizzling sparks on the ceiling where the electricity passed from the wire mesh to the poles on the cars. The smell of ozone was strong. She had fun watching.
And of course, I had fun analyzing the whole thing. That’s me.
Uncle Edward sent the check for $500 for the drawings and layout of the his book. He wants to discuss another at the reunion in August.
Danny called me at work tonight to ask when I would be coming home. He reported that Kelly was standing up.
Today was library day. Between the heat and Nicole and Danny’s refusal to join a neighborhood gang, Kathy is suffering with her trapped children. She has been reading a book on starting a desktop publishing business. I think she is looking for an escape.
In two weeks we go to Destin. I think Kathy is looking forward most to our vacation. She needs to get away from summer vacation.
Danny and Nicole got to march in the Stone Mountain 4th of July parade. The turnout was not as great as past years when the 4th of July parade was actually held on the 4th of July.
Kelly and I made it to Coach Tom’s house just in time with the camera. From Tom and Marrien’s front yard in downtown Stone Mountain, Kathy, Kelly, and I got to watch Danny and Nicole go by with what would be the 1st prize float: the Stone Mountain Youth Athletic Association. It was mostly created by and populated with baseball players, since the season had just ended.
We also won first prize float at the beginning of the T-ball season.
This is a list published in the paper about the top things kids worry about in the U.S.
1. Drugs and drinking around me
2. How well others like me
3. Hunger and poverty in the U.S.
4. Looks
5. Nuclear bombing in the U.S.
6. School Performance
7. That I might lose my best friend
8. That I might not get a good job
9. That my parents might divorce
10. That one of my parents might die
11. Violence in the U.S.
12. Whether my body is growing normally
I put the list in an outliner on the Mac and let Nicole order it most concern to least. She gave it a lot of thought and came up with this list, adding a couple of her own. (Tornadoes scare her more than most kids.)
1. That my parents might divorce
2. That one of my parents might die
3. How well others like me
4. That someone might rob the house
5. Drugs and drinking around me
6. Tornadoes
7. That I might lose my best friend
8. School Performance
9. Violence in the U.S.
10. Nuclear bombing in the U.S.
11. That I might not get a good job
12. Hunger and poverty in the U.S.
13. Looks
14. Whether my body is growing normally
I then read the list to Danny to find out if he worried about what things he worried about most. Danny doesn’t worry much.
1. Drinking & Driving.
– People might get in an accident.
2. Drugs and drinking around me
– Kind of. That they might give me some and I say no.
3. That someone might rob the house
– Kind of worry about it.
4. Hunger and poverty in the U.S.
– I worry about that. That they hardly have anything.
5. Violence in the U.S.
– I worry about it.
6. That my parents might divorce.
– I hardly ever worry about it.
7. That one of my parents might die.
– I don’t worry about that.
8. School Performance
+ Making good grades.
– I like that.
+ Doing bad in school.
– I might get in trouble.
9. How well others like me
– I don’t worry about that either.
10. Tornadoes
– No.
11. That I might lose my best friend
– I don’t worry about that.
12. Nuclear bombing in the U.S.
– I don’t worry about that.
13. That I might not get a good job
– I don’t worry about that.
14. Looks
– I don’t worry about that. (How do you look?) Fine.
15. Whether my body is growing normally
– I don’t worry about that.
