Wilson Post Blogs

By Angel Kane

Wilson Living Magazine

As I was walking towards the kitchen last Saturday, I heard my dear husband, Brody, speaking in a rather loud voice. And anyone who knows Brody knows he pretty much never raises his voice, so, this intrigued me. As I walked from the den through to the kitchen, I stopped.

Brody was holding Court.

He was standing and our two girls were sitting at the kitchen table, arms crossed. In his hand, he was holding ….Exhibit A.

It seemed the girls (the Defendants) were on trial and Brody was cross-examining them …in his outside voice.

“Would you agree I am the tallest person in the house? And therefore, I have the biggest foot.”

He pointed to Exhibit A, a black dress sock.

(I decided to stand back…as this was going to be good. The only thing missing from thisJudge Judy episode was some good, buttery popcorn.)

The Defendants chose to remain silent and instead gave him the …are you kidding me, I got my phone taken up for this …look.

“Is that a YES or NO?” (Again using his outside voice.) Apparently, in Brody’s Court no one is allowed to take the 5^th.

“And sit up!”

Both immediately sat up and grudgingly agreed he had the biggest foot.

“If I have the biggest foot, then one should reasonably conclude I should have the biggest socks in my sock drawer, right?”

Again, the girls looked at him quizzically. Not sure if they should respond, make a run for it or call 911 to have him committed.

“I am asking an easy question here – what is the answer?”

Both in unison agreed that Yes, theoretically he should have the largest socks in his drawer.

“Then someone tell me why, WHY every sock in my drawer fits a 9 year old boy or your mother?”

It was his Perry Mason moment – the AHA! YOU ARE GUILTY QUESTION!

Both Defendants squirmed and then immediately ratted each other out.

“I fold and

Madison

is supposed to put up the clothes, I can’t help where she puts them.”

“That’s not true, I put up everything but socks, that is the one thing you are supposed to do Zoe!”

Neither was about to go down for this crime. And the Judge, by now, had lost his mind!

He pronounced his verdict…in an outside …. I’m in the middle of nowhere and need to scream really loudly so someone can find me…voice

“If I ever find a sock in my drawer again that belongs to anyone other than me, I am taking away your phones, computers, and I-pads for a month!”

With that he threw down Exhibit A and left the room. Seriously, John Grisham couldn’t have written the scene any better.

And somebody is a happy guy these days, all the socks in his drawer fit and his teenage daughters think he is completely nuts – which keeps everybody in line.

The Justice system…working at its best!

To read more of Angel and Becky’s columns go to www.wilsonpost.com and hit Blogs. 

Sitting in the car pool lane waiting to pick up my kids from a birthday party at a popular kids facility, I looked around at all the bumpers and realized I was sitting in the company of greatness and according to one in particular-terrificness. Because of all the decals and magnets it felt like being in pit lane at the Daytona 500.

From the looks of it, little Maggie(a cheerleader) was a straight A student, loved ballet and had her colligiate sites set on Vanderbilt. Then I watched as little Maggie’s mom helped her daughter and buckled her into her car seat-not booster-CAR SEAT. Maggie was adorable and apparently a prodigy. Because, she couldn’t have been more than 2 years old!

Then there was little Stevie. Stevie’s an honor student, plays football- very well- AND does all his own punting. Stevie is also left handed. How do I know this? From a decal on the back of his mom’s SUV that read, “Everyone is born right handed; but only the gifted overcome it!” I think that kid just insulted me. But I can’t be sure… since I’m right handed!

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine 

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they find out who their true friends really are.

For me, that day was Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012.

It’s a day that I’ve marked down in Sharpie and can never be erased.

I blame most all that transpired on my husband.

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine

With all that everyone is trying to accomplish in 24 hours, it’s clear that no one is planning on slowing down. So to that effect, I think there is a need to create some sort of reference formula to keep you from losing it while trying to do too much.

As sometimes happens, life gets the best of us and that is exactly where I was on Monday night when I called Becky. “It’s Monday night, and I’ve got nothing to write about!” To which Becky usually responds, “No problem, I’ve got something, so I’ll write it.” 

But this Monday, Becky was as exhausted as I was. With work, the upcoming Holiday Expo and the latest edition of Wilson Living Magazine coming out next week, plus our customary drop off and picks up at basketball, football, cross country and soccer, neither of us found the time to write our article this week. 

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine

Its midnight and I can’t sleep. So instead of just enjoying the quiet hum of an otherwise bustling house, I think.  And you know what “that” leads to... I start out thinking about the birthday party I need to plan for my youngest. Then I remember Thanksgiving hits right before his birthday, so I need to mentally and physically prepare for hosting a day full of brothers, sisters, and in-laws, not to mention nieces and nephews with sticky fingers, loaded diapers and missing parents.

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine

So, I was sitting in Court this past Friday, speaking with my friend Melanie.

Melanie is an excellent lawyer, and also a new Mom to a 7 month old baby girl.

We were looking at her phone as she was showing off some photos of her precious girl, and we kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and …. you get the picture.

This is her Baby #1.

If you have kids, then you know the story behind Baby #1.

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine

Every year when the Fair comes to town, there is one attraction I insist we visit before all others.

You’ve probably seen the attraction yourself.

At the very back of the Fairgrounds you will find a race course. Sometimes there are so many people gathered around the course, that I can’t easily find a spot, so with child in hand, I push and shove my way to the front.

The gun goes off!

And out come the two racing dogs, each with a monkey on their backs.

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine

A few months back, I convinced my husband to embark on a small remodeling project.

And actually, remodel is too strong a word. It was really an organizational project.

We are a family of clutter. At any given time there are trails of tennis balls, footballs, baseballs, cleats, shin guards, backpacks, dog leashes, bathing suits, goggles, purses, and files leading the way through our house.

“I just want to put in some built-ins for all this clutter. Maybe bump out the laundry room. That’s all - promise.” were the words that came out of my mouth.

And yet as I sit here writing this afternoon, I’m staring into a huge hole on the side of my house.

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine

My oldest child, a teenager now, gave me the most incredible gift recently. He agreed to spend the day with his mother shopping for new clothes, eating lunch and occasionally make eye contact with me. If you have boys of just about any age, you know what a BIG deal this really is. I was acting like a giddy teen in anticipation of spending one-on-one time with my first born.

The morning of our big day, I woke up early, finished a little work, did a load of laundry, got ready and waited for him to wake up so we could get the memory makin’ under way. So I waited and waited and waited. Could it be that he wasn’t as excited about this as me?

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine

WE are on a diet.

Because WE are going to the beach in five weeks.

And WE need to lose 15 pounds.

My husband and I have been having this discussion each and every Sunday evening for the past 15 plus years. And yet, every Monday morning, I find him in the kitchen, eating Cocoa Krispies with our children, as if WE were not dieting.

“WE are supposed to start out diet today!” I say in the most un-shrewish wife voice possible. (No really, I have a very pleasant voice. I’ve been told it’s very soothing.)

To which my husband responds, “Who is stopping you?”

Well that just sets me off, and of course, there is no way I can diet after being spoken to in that manner!

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine

My children have very different personalities. The oldest is kind, considerate, extremely unorganized and forgiving to a fault. Some of these traits he inherited from his mama. The youngest is cautious, focused, type A and if he’s wronged, he holds a grudge.

Proof of this was when he played baseball a couple of years ago.  A little boy from an opposing team ran on the field.  My child turned to me and said, “That’s the boy who took the ball away from me when I played soccer!”

He then walked past the kid, stared him down and gave him the universal sign for, “I’m watching you.”

This may not seem like a big deal ifJacksonwasn’t referring to the one season he played soccer when he was 3!

He inherited these traits, especially the grudge thing, from his dad. My husband still talks about a friend from elementary school who tore his Bo Derek poster, and even though he hasn’t seen this person in more than 30 years he insists that kid should be punished.

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine

If you were to look in Webster’s Dictionary for the definition of the word despondent you would find the following:

Des-pon-dent (adjective) - a feeling or showing of extreme discouragement, dejection or depression.

If you were to look even closer, under the word, you would also find a picture of Brody.

It started innocently on Monday morning when we were all rushing out the door to work and school. And we heard him call out, “Has anybody seen my phone?”

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine

I’ve been cheating on Angel. And by cheating, I mean working on call for a Nashville news station. From the beginning, she thought it was a bad idea.

“Where is the station?”

“Nashville.”

“As in Davidson County? Can you work from home?”

“No. I can’t work from home. It’ll be okay. I’ll train and if I can’t break away from work here, I don’t have to go in.”

When the training started, so did the complaining...from my husband and Angel. For two people who don’t like to text, I received more typed messages from them than that of two 13-year-olds.

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine

If you are a religious person, then you’ve probably heard of Hell.

All religions have their version of this place and all cultures describe it a little differently. But at its core, Hell is the most horrible place one can imagine. It’s hot, suffocating, filled to capacity and in this horror you will anguish for eternity.

In other words, Hell is our local DMV.

That’s right, who would have ever imagined, this place we’ve all read about and studied is located right here amongst us? But I kid you not, take a left off 231 South onto Maddox Simpson Parkway and you’ve arrived.

So we got there around 11:30.

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine

There seems to be an epidemic going around. It’s an epidemic that involves our children. I noticed something off in my own household a few years ago during a school break. After a few days of hanging out at home I was going stir crazy. When I suggested we go to a movie or ‘ANYTHING you want to do’ their response was confusing.

“We don’t wanna go anywhere.”

“Are you sure?  We can do whatever you want. What about the batting cages? Or Target? Chuck E. Cheese?”  I was desperate. There’s only one mouse I hate more than the one who resides at the happiest place on earth and his name is ‘Chuck E. Cheese’. The unsupervised children, the ‘prizes’, the bacterium filled pool of filth or ‘ball pit’, it was more than I cared to experience, but I was determined to get the kids out of the house.

“We just want to stay home.”

Who were these kids? When I was growing up and the opportunity to leave the house arose, it was a death race between my brothers and sisters to see who could get to the car first and win the coveted front seat.

By Angel Kane
Wilson Living Magazine

One Thousand Three Hundred Twenty Hours...(this is how long my kids have been out of school.)

One Hundred Sixty Eight Hours…(until peace is restored to my life!)

The countdown has begun in the Kane household and Brody and I are thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that in one short week, our lovely, adorable children will be back in school.

Don’t get me wrong, who doesn’t love driving kids around all day long between work, tennis camp, soccer camp, art camp, Wendy’s and the pool?

But all good things come to an end and the end, my friends, is in sight!

By ANGEL KANE
Wilson Living Magazine

The first words out of Neill’s mouth when we hit the beach were, “Nikoli, do you want to dig a hole?”

And so it went for a solid week. Each morning my youngest would rise and his day would go something like this.

Get up whenever he naturally awoke.

Breakfast was served to the little master. His only decision being, would it be Cocoa Puffs or eggs and bacon?

Decisions, decisions.

Immediately thereafter, he would put on his swim trunks and grab a newly washed and dried beach towel and would race out the door to the beach.

There he would find waiting, just for him… chairs, umbrella, pale, shovel, kite and a boogie board. Together with his friends he’d spend hours and hours… digging a hole, running into the surf, catching a few waves and then back to… digging a hole.

By BECKY ANDREWS
Wilson Living Magazine

There is something very scary about the crossover from 12 years old into “teenage land.”  Not for the child – ahem – young man of course. He’s elated. Even though this new milestone has very little impact on anything in his life as far as rules for bedtime and social schedule goes. Besides the number itself, the only noticeable change is the tone in his voice and facial expressions when me or his dad talk to him about… ANYTHING.  In the span of one year, it seems this oldest child of mine has inherited the entire world’s wisdom.

Our conversations as of late go something like this:

Mom: “Turn the TV down; I could hear it when I pulled into the garage.”

Teenager: no response. In fact, I don’t think he even notices me standing beside him.

Mom: “Hey! Turn the television down!” This startles him.

Teenager: “Alright! You don’t have to yell at me! It was this loud when I turned it on. Why do you blame me for everything?” This is always followed with a very exaggerated eye roll.