Are We There Yet?

"Occasional Comments" By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the July issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

When you become the mom of two boys, you understand pretty quickly that much of your time will revolve around sports. From the time they can grip, they have a ball in their hands and are throwing them across a room as soon as they can sit up.

Since my oldest, Samuel, was 2 years old, we’ve had a basketball goal in the living room and a surplus of Nerf footballs lying around the house. And still, my boys think they need to purchase another ball when we are at the store. I have yet to figure out why.

Last spring, we ventured into organized sports for the first time with T-ball. It was fun for the kids and great entertainment for the parents. One friend described it as “the amoeba of T-ball” and I found that to be an accurate description. While the coaches did their best to help teach the kids about the game, that didn’t stop players from running from home plate to third base or the entire team from running to the first base line to fight over one small T-ball.

This year we moved on to machine pitch. The kids better understood the basic mechanics of the field, but hitting a ball coming at them at 35-miles-an-hour was an entirely new skill. We spent hours in practice learning when and how to swing, where andhow to stand and what to do when you finally make contact with the ball.

After games, other mothers and I would laugh about how excited we would become when our sons hit the ball and I will proudly say that I was one of those moms screaming, “RUN, RUN” every time Samuel hit the ball. As a parent, I found that I am just as excited as he is when he makes a good play or hits the ball. But I also found that I also feel his disappointment. Not dissatisfaction in him, but merely in knowing that he is disappointed with himself.

We were lucky this year to be placed on a team with a great group of parents who were supportive of all the kids. Whether they hit the ball or not or overthrew to the first baseman, the supports in our stands were yelling “good job” to the kids. Friends on other teams were not so lucky with overbearing coaches, angry parents and whiney kids.

But whether the kids can play well or not, they look the part from their bat bags down to their muddy cleats. As a momma, I don’t think there’s anything cuter than a field full of 6-year-old boys in their matching jerseys, baseball pants and monogrammed hats playing on a miniature field of dreams.

hey, batter, batter, swing!

By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the June issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

When you become the mom of two boys, you understand pretty quickly that much of your time will revolve around sports. From the time they can grip, they have a ball in their hands and are throwing them across a room as soon as they can sit up.

Since my oldest, Samuel, was 2 years old, we’ve had a basketball goal in the living room and a surplus of Nerf footballs lying around the house. And still, my boys think they need to purchase another ball when we are at the store. I have yet to figure out why.

Last spring, we ventured into organized sports for the first time with T-ball. It was fun for the kids and great entertainment for the parents. One friend described it as “the amoeba of T-ball” and I found that to be an accurate description. While the coaches did their best to help teach the kids about the game, that didn’t stop players from running from home plate to third base or the entire team from running to the first base line to fight over one small T-ball.

This year we moved on to machine pitch. The kids better understood the basic mechanics of the field, but hitting a ball coming at them at 35-miles-an-hour was an entirely new skill. We spent hours in practice learning when and how to swing, where andhow to stand and what to do when you finally make contact with the ball.

After games, other mothers and I would laugh about how excited we would become when our sons hit the ball and I will proudly say that I was one of those moms screaming, “RUN, RUN” every time Samuel hit the ball. As a parent, I found that I am just as excited as he is when he makes a good play or hits the ball. But I also found that I also feel his disappointment. Not dissatisfaction in him, but merely in knowing that he is disappointed with himself.

We were lucky this year to be placed on a team with a great group of parents who were supportive of all the kids. Whether they hit the ball or not or overthrew to the first baseman, the supports in our stands were yelling “good job” to the kids. Friends on other teams were not so lucky with overbearing coaches, angry parents and whiney kids.

But whether the kids can play well or not, they look the part from their bat bags down to their muddy cleats. As a momma, I don’t think there’s anything cuter than a field full of 6-year-old boys in their matching jerseys, baseball pants and monogrammed hats playing on a miniature field of dreams.

Just Starting Out

Written by Shaila Creekmore, illustration by Brittney Guest, as printed in the May 2010 edition of Jonesboro Occasions.

Eleven years ago this month, I received my diploma from Arkansas State University along with nearly a thousand other people ready to tackle “the real world.” Many of those walking with me already had jobs lined up to start within days or weeks of graduation. Others, like myself, had decided to wait until the summer to look for employment.

I was more concerned about my June wedding and honeymoon and was certain I could find a job afterwards. My soon-to-be husband had graduated in December and had spent the spring semester substitute teaching.

We were young, jobless and without a care in the world. We didn’t even care that we didn’t have jobs when we returned from our honeymoon. That would all work itself out. We had an apartment, degrees and enough money saved up for about three months of expenses.

Our parents said we were living on love. We laughed and said don’t worry about it. They would often bring groceries on visits or send us home with a bag full of food, extra things they bought and didn’t need. My mom would mail me coupons, just in case there were any I needed. It was their way of helping out without butting in.

For two months, I spent time setting up the apartment and Kevin played lots of golf. In early August, I said, “I guess it’s time I got a job.” I made a phone call, had an informal interview and started working four nights a week as a copy editor at The Jonesboro Sun. Later in the month, Kevin received a phone call that one of the Jonesboro elementary schools needed an additional fourth grade teacher and he started the day after Labor Day. See Mom and Dad, it all worked out – no worries!

But that was a decade ago when jobs were ready to be had and a career was only a phone call away. You could drop off a couple of resumes and wait on a phone call. I knew very few people we graduated with who were worried about finding a job.

Today, students graduating with college degrees are waiting tables and working at Wal-Mart while sending out hundreds of resumes and hoping that someone is hiring. Some are pursuing a master’s degree instead of entering the workforce just so they can remain on their parent’s health insurance.

During college, my husband and I only worked summer jobs to earn extra money for the school year. Now, more college students are working in their degree fields part-time or through internships just to try to get a leg up over the competition while working their way through college.

Looking back now, I can see that the world I entered 11 years ago was in many ways not “the real world” after all, but ideal circumstances that I happened to be lucky enough to encounter without realizing how fortunate we were.

Storm Stories

Written by Shaila Creekmore, illustration by Brittney Guest, as printed in the April 2010 edition of Jonesboro Occasions.

I don’t remember being afraid of storms when I was younger. It was just part of growing up in Arkansas.

The first memory I have of a tornado was when I was three years old. We were visiting my grandparents in rural eastern Arkansas when the storm reports began on television. I remember my grandmother being concerned because my Grandpa Dailey had not returned from town. When he did finally make it back home, we learned of a tornado that had touched down only miles from their home. I can still remember seeing the metal of the twisted main power lines that ran across the farm fields as we made our way home the next day.

Two years later, I sat in my elementary school hallway with my head tucked between my knees as a tornado went directly over the school. It was the last day before Christmas break and the buses were already lined up outside when the tornado sirens began to sound. The teachers lined us up along the inside hallway and covered us with our kindergarten mats. Minutes later, there was destruction on each side of our school, but the school remained untouched. The damage kept the buses from being able to run and parents had to walk to school to pick us up. As my dad carried me back a mile to our car, I remember seeing damaged houses, including a classmate’s house with a roof that had been lifted off the house and propped alongside the front wall in one piece. For many years later, sheet metal and other debris in the trees around the area served as a reminder of that day.

Following that initial tornado, the storms continued to come for several days. We spent a number of nights in our cinder block shop listening to the storm reports on the radio. My nieces and I slept under my dad’s John Deere tractor on a mattress until the warnings were lifted and we could return to the house. On Christmas Eve night as we walked back to the house, my nieces and I asked over and over how Santa Claus would be able to come to our house through the bad clouds but we were assured that Santa’s magic would get him there. Until writing this column, I had never thought about what my parents must have gone through that day the tornado narrowly missed my school. How did they find out? Did they initially think the school might have been hit? Was there a moment of panic? Until thinking back on those memories with the knowledge I now have as a parent, I only saw them from the perspective of a 5-year-old.

Many other storms came and went over my years growing up in southwest Little Rock and we always escaped the damage until my later high school years. Just prior to a Saturday afternoon storm, I remember thinking that the clouds looked like someone was stirring them with a spoon. Minutes later, my mother came running in telling us to get into the hallway. When we came out, 11 of our tallest pine trees laid across the five acres, one missing my bedroom by only a few yards. My dad stood in the shop and watched as a funnel cloud moved overhead, touching down in a neighbors pasture destroying their barn.

With these stories, you would think I would have been afraid of storms, but I never was … until I had children. Before then, my husband and I never went into a safe room. We were usually outside watching the clouds or at least looking out the windows. Now, I prepare our master closet with flashlights, pillows, the radio and any other supplies I think we might need. We head there with the boys with the first sound of a siren. Having two little boys to care for has changed the way I view storms and I now find myself much more nervous about them.

With spring's return, so will the storms. If you need to find me, I’ll be in my closet with Samuel and Tyler pretending it’s a fun new place for story time.

Occasional Comments - Kid's Welcome?

Written by Shaila Creekmore, illustration by Brittney Guest, as printed in the March 2010 edition of Jonesboro Occasions.

We strike fear into the heart of every seating hostess. Waiters and waitresses panic at the mere sight of us. Customers sigh a breath of relief when we are not seated next to their table. We are a group of mothers with small children.It is not our intention to cause such mayhem in our local restaurants; we just want to enjoy a non-chicken nugget meal with friends. But the looks of dread are noticed all the same.

Usually at least once a week, I enjoy lunch with a group of girlfriends and our small brood of children. Over time, the looks of dismay by various restaurant staffs across town have become a little joke among us.

The most notable was on a visit to a family friendly restaurant for brunch one morning. The two hostesses ran around, nearly falling over each other trying to figure out where they were going to put our group of four moms and seven children. The confusion over how many highchairs and how many adult verses children’s menus was nearly too much for the pair. When we reached our table, we quickly realized our experience would not improve when our waitress asked, “Are ALL these children yours?” To top off our trip that morning, the waitress sat a small plate in front of one of the two-year-olds who promptly knocked it off the table, shattering it on the tile floor.
But not all of our trips are that exciting – well except for the day I set off an alarm on a fire door adjacent to our table – most are a time for visiting, laughing and asking for more spoons or straws to replace the ones thrown to the floor.

It is always our intention to be as respectful as possible to those around us and for the restaurant staff. We expect our children to behave, we attempt to make as little mess as possible and try not to bombard the server with requests.

But in return, we expect a few things as well. We expect a clean highchair with properly working safety straps. A working strap in a highchair is a matter of safety and yet getting one with buckles that work is a 50-50 shot. If a restaurant wants to make a momma a happy customer, never bring a highchair to the table with missing straps or broken snaps. I will just send it back for you to find one that does.

We ask that you don’t pass food or drinks over the top of a child’s head. When my oldest, Samuel, was nearly two years old, a waitress dumped a tray of drinks on top of him as she passed our drinks across the table. He was cold, wet and had red marks on top of his little bald head where the ice had hit him. He immediately started screaming and I quickly rushed him to change his clothes and calm him down. Part of my frustration was that we had intentionally seated him near the wall and left an area of the table clear for her to serve, but she still stood over him as she waited on us. As I returned to the table, the manager was there helping to clean the mess up and apologized for the accident. He tried to make light of the situation and remarked, “I guess just be glad it wasn’t coffee.” I quickly turned to him with a look only a momma can give and said, “No, YOU better be glad it wasn’t coffee.” Our meal was free.

So what are a few things that can be done to keep a momma happy? Please give toddlers appetizer plates, salsa or cheese dip bowls or silverware just like everyone else. They like to eat too. Don’t place refilled glasses directly in front of small children. That empty area on the table in front of them is there for a reason. Children can be sneaky, so please only take food and drink orders from the parents. And bring extra napkins – lots of extra napkins!

A First Love

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the February Issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.

My first true love was Daniel Green. We were 5 years old, and he was dreamy. We met my first day of school in Ms. West kindergarten class at David O. Dodd Elementary in Little Rock. He was my first boyfriend, but alas, I was not his first girlfriend. He had been the boyfriend of my two best friends before me. By the end of kindergarten, he had been the boyfriend of nearly every girl in our class. But we didn’t care, he was worth sharing.

I was lucky enough to be his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. He brought all of the kids suckers to the Valentine’s party, but I was home sick and had to miss the party. When I returned the next day, Ms. West told me that my sucker was broken and Daniel Green had insisted he take it back home and get me a new one. He brought back a huge, red heart sucker that I proudly told my mom was from my boyfriend.

Eventually he moved on to another girl, but that was okay, because I was the one who had gotten the big heart sucker for Valentine’s. When we began our first grade school year, Daniel Green, as we forever referred to him, was gone. For six years, he was a legend among the girls. We often wondered what happened to our beloved Daniel Green and would still talk about him at bunking parties.

In second grade, I had two boyfriends at the same time, Josh and Brian, who were best friends. They carried my books and passed me notes in class. For Valentines, they both got me a box of chocolates and Josh had his mom meet me after school with a balloon. In fifth grade, my boyfriend was David. He and I participated in a school orchestra program together, I played viola and he played cello. I broke up with him by slipping a note into his cello bag one afternoon.

When we reached seventh grade, our junior high pulled students from three elementary schools into one school. At a bunking party later that school year, we learned what had happened to Daniel Green. He had moved into one of the other elementary schools for a couple of years and they too had all loved Daniel Green. Each of them had been his girlfriend at one time or another and after a couple years, he had left them just as he had left us.

A couple of times at other bunking parties, we tried to find Daniel Green, once calling nearly every Green in the Little Rock phone book asking if Daniel was home. We’re pretty sure we found him one night, but he denied that he had gone to either of our schools. We were not convinced.

My oldest son is now the age I was when I had my first boyfriend. While he has friends that are girls and turns a little red when you ask him about certain ones, he has not yet had a girlfriend. But one mother recently told me that her daughter said she only liked Samuel and one other boy and all of the other boys are mean. She went on to say, “I think Samuel’s quite the lady’s man.” Is he the Daniel Green of Ms. Sarah’s room? Luckily I think not. When I asked him about the girls in his class, he replied, “YUUUCCKK, girls!” The sly smile he gave me afterwards, however, tells me it won’t be much longer until Samuel finds his first love.

My Double Life

Editorial by Shaila Creekmore, Illustration by Brittney Guest as printed in the January 2010 issue of Jonesboro Occasions Magazine.   

   I lead a double life. Maybe I’m not even who you think I am.
   

   To some, I’m the photographer from Occasions. That girl who catches you in the middle of a conversation or with a mouth full of food and asks, “Could I get a picture of you guys?”

   To others, I’m Samuel and Tyler’s mom: The mom in car line, helping at the school class party or on a play date at Chick-fil-A.

   Occasionally these two lives cross, but only on rare occurrence.

   Three days a week, I’m your typical stay at home mom. I drop off and pick-up Samuel from school, clean house and watch Sesame Street with Tyler. I often attend a Bible study with a group of other stay-at-home moms and then go with our brood of children to lunch. Twice a month I attend MOPS, Mothers of Preschoolers, enjoying time of fellowship, learning from each other and sympathizing with the struggles of being a mother. I put on jeans and a T-shirt or my mommy suit (those comfortable two-piece outfits that every stay at home mom has) and run errands, buy groceries or meet friends for a play date.

   The other two days, I’m your typical working mom. I rush around the house to get myself and the boys dressed and drop them off at school and make my way to the office. I answer e-mails, return phone calls, mark off items from my to-do list and run to meetings. I often meet friends or business associates for lunch, or use the hour to run quick errands without children in toe. I end the day by picking the boys up from school and quickly getting home to prepare dinner.

   On many nights, I quickly eat with the family and then rush to cover one of the countless social or philanthropic events around town. Although I am often invited to eat at events, you’ll rarely see me do so because our family rule is that we eat together as a family every night. Upon return to home, I give baths, brush teeth and tuck boys in bed. I also slip out of my mommy role most weekends for a couple of hours to cover large formal events or benefits for one of the many Jonesboro non-profits.

   I love my mommy days at home. It gives me time to watch my boys grow and share in their lives. But at least twice a week, I get to be something other than Samuel and Tyler’s mom. I am able to continue working in my degree field and building my portfolio, work on projects, meet and talk with interesting people and have adult conversations.

   I have the rare opportunity to be a mom in both worlds. Those two worlds, however, often hold a lot of animosity for each other. The first time I became aware of these negative feelings was before I became a mother. On an early episode of the Dr. Phil show, a studio full of moms verbally attacked each other. I watched in amazement as these women yelled and screamed at each other from across the studio. The working moms accused the stay-at-home moms of being lazy, having no initiative and being selfish for keeping their children at home instead of giving them the best early education possible. Stay-at-home moms called the working moms self-seeking and questioned why they even had children if they were going to let other people raise them.

   While I’ve not been around women in real life as opinionated as these women, there are little snide comments and disapproving looks that you occasionally see in conversations among women. But as a mom who lives in both worlds, I can easily say neither life is easy, both have their negatives and positives and moms on both sides are doing their best to provide the best life for their children in the best way they know how.

Christmas Traditions

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Dec. 09 Jonesboro Occasions.

I grew up with simple Christmases. A few little gifts, lunch with my parents and maybe my oldest brother’s family, and a lazy day of lying around the house watching old Christmas movies or football.

Christmas of 1997 that all changed. The first year my husband and I were dating, I decided to spend Christmas with his family. We spent the entire day of Christmas Eve going from one store to the next and that night wrapping all of our finds. Christmas morning, we ripped through gifts and then sat in mounds of wrapping paper and boxes while his dad made everyone pancakes.
Then, the mad rush began. Six adults in one house began to run around to quickly get dressed and ready for the day’s activities. Lunch at one grandmother’s house with the family and dinner at the other grandmother’s with all seven brothers and their families.

It was overwhelming and exciting all at the same time. Later in the evening when my mom called to wish us a Merry Christmas I remarked, “I didn’t know people had Christmases like this.”

But that was to become my Christmas tradition for the next nine years. The last couple years, I began to prepare the family for the change that was about to come. With the birth of our first son in 2003, I began to long again for the quiet Christmas at home, and it was time to begin our own family traditions.

Even my husband, who had always been home on Christmas morning, wasn’t sure about the change we made three years ago. I assured him that it was time to let our then 3-year-old wake up in his own bed and open gifts under his own tree.

That first Christmas Eve, Samuel and I finished up a little shopping and baking. After a quiet dinner at home, Samuel opened his Christmas Eve gift, a tradition in my family that my husband has learned to appreciate. Later that night, we attended our church’s Christmas Eve service, a program we had never attended before.

Early the next morning, we woke to Samuel joining us in bed where we played and talked before making our way to the tree. As we sat in its soft glow, my husband read the story of Jesus’ birth as recorded in Luke. Then the three of us enjoyed opening gifts from each other and spent the morning playing with all of the new toys. Later in the evening, Kevin’s family joined us for dinner – the first Christmas meal I had ever prepared by myself.

It was a perfect Christmas. Over the last couple of years, we have begun to develop a few other Christmas traditions just within our small family. I hope that some of these traditions our boys will continue in their own families, but I know that some will give way to their wives’ traditions and others that they will develop on their own.

Occasional Comments

Each month, I write a column for the magazine where I work. It is usually about my boys or stories from my life growing up. This morning, I posted many of them to my blog including the two to follow. To read more, click on the label below or on the girl waving to the right. I would love to hear back on some of your own stories or thoughts.

Occasional Comments

Editorial by Shaila Creekmore as printed in the May 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

I heard the words coming out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop them. And even as they passed through my lips, in my mind I was thinking, “I cannot believe I’m saying this.”

“I don’t care what (Timmy’s) momma let him bring to school. I’m not (Timmy’s) momma, I’m your momma and I said no.”

There it was, another one of those things our parents said to us that we swore we would never say to our own kids. Oh the rules we break. Our very own rules. Before we know it, we have become our parents.

My husband and I have now become pros at the worst of these little sayings. “Because I said so,” is now a common phrase at our house. With a five-year-old who constantly asks why he has to do something he’s been told to do or why he must stop doing something, I hear it ringing through our house several times daily.

I used to believe that I would never give my children such a simple answer; that I would always stop and explain every detail as to why they must do or not do something. But a few years ago, I heard a preacher explain that while at times we must explain such things to our kids in order to teach them, at other times the child must just learn that some things ARE just because we said so. As the child, they must learn to do what we ask simply because it was asked of them and that because we are the parent, we make the decisions. This made a lot of sense to me.

But the list of things we would never do includes more than what we say. I will never use the television as a babysitter; I will never feed my child chicken nuggets twice in a day because it’s easy; I will never bribe them with candy in church to keep them quiet; I will never let my child play a video game in the middle of a restaurant; I will never send them to grandma’s for the weekend just to get some quiet … I, in fact, have done all of those things.

I have even broken one of the biggest rules on the list of things I said I would never do, let them sleep with me. As we picked out a crib before my oldest was born, my dad said, “It’s a waste to spend all of that money on a crib, he’ll just sleep with you.” And I in all of my expectant parent wisdom replied, “No, no. He won’t be sleeping with us. He has his own bed and he’ll sleep in it.”

Our first night in the hospital, I wouldn’t even let my husband lay him in the bassinet beside the bed. When he tried to take that sweet, little sleeping baby from me to lay him down, I burst into tears and said, “He can’t sleep in there. He needs me. He’s never been away from me.” Now, looking back, maybe that was the hormones talking, but I slept all night with him asleep on my chest.

When we came home, he slept beside me for weeks on end. Slowly we transitioned him to that beautiful crib we bought, but I had to eat those words I had spoken to my dad just months earlier.

Even now as I have become a constant rule breaker, I hear myself saying “I would never let my child do that.” I guess that means I probably will.

A Case of the Gimmes

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Nov. 09 Jonesboro Occasions.

As we walked into the toy store I announced, “Remember, we are here to buy a gift. You will not be getting anything today.”

Within five minutes, Samuel had already announced a small list of things he wanted or “needed” and Tyler was walking around carrying a toy as if he already owned it.

Need is my favorite. He really needs - not wants - the 500-piece set of Zoobs at J. Christopher’s or a new Bakugans at Walmart to go with the other dozen he already has at home. But I guess to a kid, new toys really are a need.

We have a saying in our house when these little needs arise: “You have the gimmies.” The term comes from one of the classic Bernstein Bears books, “The Bernstein Bears Get the Gimmies” in which Brother and Sister Bear want everything they see and throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want. But Mama and Papa solve the problem by teaching the cubs about a budget and how to appreciate what they already have.

This time of year is especially difficult for our household on this matter because everyone in our family of four celebrates a fall birthday quickly followed by Christmas. Our weeks are filled with birthday parties, trips to the toy store and gift buying. And as the closet doors and toy boxes burst at the seams, I continue to hear “I want…”, “I need…”, “Can I have…”

Mercifully in the middle of it all, comes Thanksgiving. A holiday with no presents and a time to remember and to be thankful for what we already have.

In America, many children don’t have a true understanding of what it really means to “need” something. Needing a new Hot Wheels car really pales in comparison to children in other countries who need clean drinking water and have never even asked for a new toy because it would never even occur to them to do so.

In the mist of all the gimmies in our house, we work to teach our boys about these true needs that other children have, how lucky we are to have the things we have and how to be giving. One of the ways we do this each year is through Operation Christmas Child, a ministry of Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse.

For the past several years, our church, Highland Drive Baptist, has participated in the program that sends shoeboxes filled with toiletries, toys and candy to children around the world who would never otherwise receive such a gift. In fact, many of these children have never received a Christmas gift at all.

Each November, I have the opportunity to take my children shopping so that they can pick out items to fill our shoeboxes. Samuel also now colors a picture or writes a letter to the little boy who will receive his box. On Shoebox Sunday, Samuel gets to carry our boxes to the front of the church to place on the altar with all of the other boxes donated or packed during our Vacation Bible School week.

My husband and I have also had the joy of going to Atlanta to one of the distribution centers to help prepare boxes for going overseas. The first time I went, I explained to Samuel that I would be helping send the boxes we packed to the little boys for whom he had packed boxes. For months afterwards, he asked me about the little boys and if I thought they liked the toys we picked out.

This year we have another opportunity to teach about giving. Our church has recently partnered with a children’s home in Mexico and we will be packing and sending shoeboxes for specific children in the village around the home. But instead of our boxes going to the children in the home who already receive numerous gifts, the children at the home will take our boxes to the children of the village who would likely not receive anything. A double blessing!

There are many other ways to help teach children about giving to others, such as the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree ministry, making cards for patients in a local nursing home, or taking cookies to elderly shut-ins. The idea is simply teaching your child to be thankful and to think of others. 

My Town

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Oct. 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

After a visit from an Arkansas State University recruiter at my Little Rock high school 15 years ago, I announced to my parents that I would be going to ASU in Jonesboro. I then very quickly found a map to see where Jonesboro was located.

I grew up in what I now call the central Arkansas bubble - where Arkansas generally goes no further north than Searcy and no further south than Hot Springs. And other than the general direction, I had no idea where Jonesboro was or what type of city it was.

At the end of my junior year in high school, my mom and I visited ASU for the first time. I thought it was a beautiful campus and while Jonesboro was small, I was happy to see it had a mall. I figured with a mall and Wal-Mart, I could make it.

In 1995, I moved into Kays Hall and began my life as a college student on campus. At first, I only ventured off campus to eat, go to Wal-Mart and to church. I knew only the main roads and wouldn’t even dare to venture off of those. Over time, I began learning the back roads and feeling more at home in Jonesboro.

After graduating college and getting married in 1999, neither my husband nor I wanted to return to our home cities and with no idea of where we wanted to go, we just stayed here. We began working in our degree fields and eventually bought a house.

Over time, Jonesboro has truly become our home. Our boys were born in Jonesboro hospitals, Samuel at St. Bernards and Tyler at NEA Baptist. We are active in one of Jonesboro’s great churches and work for family-owned companies in the area.

I now feel very proud of the city I call home, and I am amazed at what a smaller city has to offer. Our parks system is one of the best in the state and provides great places for our children to play and sports programs for them to participate in. Our library likewise has a wonderful space for our children and educational programs throughout the year. Our growing schools are dedicated to educating our children and are providing them a fantastic education.

And the giving spirit of Jonesboro is unbelievable. Through my position withOccasions magazine, I have the opportunity to see the work of numerous non-profits and the many people who give their money and time to ensure success.

Since coming to Jonesboro 14 years ago, I have seen incredible growth and no longer really feel like it’s that little place I first came to visit. We rarely travel to Little Rock or Memphis to shop any longer and I spend too much time – according to my husband – in our mall playing, eating and shopping. Jonesboro now offers many of the advantages of a big city, along with the all the advantages of a small town.

When friends and family ask us how we like Jonesboro, we’re quick to respond – it’s home.

Simple Reminders

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Sept. 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

Every day, I wear a ring on my right hand that my dad gave to my mom nearly 54 years ago. A white gold band with a round diamond in a square setting, it’s a beautiful ring that often gets noticed by others. But it’s not the ring itself that means so much to me – it’s the 53 years of marriage that my parents have enjoyed and endured.

I wore the ring on my wedding day 10 years ago and have worn it since. Twice, I have taken the ring off for one of my nieces to wear on their wedding day. Later this month, I will again hand the ring to my niece, Renee, for her something old and something borrowed as she marries her fiancée, Jarrod.

It’s not typical for someone my age, 31, to have nieces who are married, but I don’t come from your typical family. My dad, Alvin Dailey, was 47 years old when I was born and my mom, Marilyn, turned 41 the month I was born. My brothers were 18 and 20 at the time. When I was just 10 months old, I became an aunt to my niece, Andrea. In total, I have six nieces, two great-nephews and five great-nieces. And just for the record, I was never called “Aunt Shaila” until the great-nephews and nieces came along.

As a child, I got used to people referring to my mother as my grandmother and as an adult I’ve become accustomed to the remark, “Well, YOU were a surprise!” or “You were a late in life baby weren’t you.” That one term has defined me for most of my life and is a large part of who I am.

Being a late in life baby has some disadvantages. While we are a close family, I find that I have a closer relationship to my nieces than I do with my brothers simply because of our ages and our places in life. I’m also having to deal with aging parents much sooner than the average person. With parents who are now 79 and 71, I spend a lot of time on the phone asking about doctor visits and test results.

But in many ways, those disadvantages are far outweighed by the advantages. My parents were basically pros at the parenting lifestyle by the time I came along (which was both an advantage and disadvantage). They had not only been through the duties that come with having a preschooler, but had already been through the struggles of raising teenagers and had learned about those do’s and don’ts. Although I had brothers, I grew up basically as an only child since they were both out of the house. But unlike an only child, as an adult I have the help and support of my brothers.

And there is some measure of being spoiled when you’re the baby of not only the immediate family, but the baby of numerous cousins on both sides of the family. My grandfather, who was a small farmer in Lee County, once came home with a squeaky toy lion and gave it to me when I was just a few months old. Growing up, I would often hear about that afternoon and how special it was for my grandfather to give me that little toy because he had never given another grandchild a toy. I still have that faded plastic lion with my little chew marks on the crown sitting atop a bookshelf in my boy’s nursery.

Both the lion and my mother’s ring serve as two constant reminders to me: although I was a surprise to our family, I was always wanted and loved and that sometimes the unpredictable things in life are better than what we’ve imagined for ourselves.

A New Milestone

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Aug. 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

As parents, we go through many milestones with our children, first steps, a first tooth, learning to ride a bike. This month, I will join my oldest son in another of these milestones as I walk him through the doors of Valley View Elementary for his first day of kindergarten.

Samuel has long awaited this day. I on the other hand have not. While I am excited about all of the new things that school will bring him, this is one more step in his becoming a “big boy.”

In the next week or so, we will head to Wal-Mart to buy all of his school supplies and get him ready for that first big day. He’s excited to pick out his new boxes of crayons and markers and to buy new scissors and glue. And he’ll probably show me all of the things he’ll want to pack in his lunch each day.

The past two years, Samuel has attended pre-k two days a week, leaving us three weekdays to spend together. For nearly six years, he has been my sidekick, going with me to run errands, to the mall, on play dates, to the park, out to lunch with friends, to the library or just spending a lazy day around the house. It will certainly be different not to have him with me on those days.

And the same thing recently occurred to him. He, however, is not as concerned so much with not having the extra time with me as he is that baby brother will be getting all of that alone time with Momma while he’s at school. I just remind him though that he and I had four years with just the two of us before Tyler came, Tyler and I have never had any time for just the two of us. This hasn’t quite persuaded him yet. He recently told me I should just go to work more since he’ll be at school anyway.

And I’m a bit curious of what Tyler will think about big brother being gone all day. Will he be excited to have the extra Mommy time? Will he look around the house for big brother the first few days? Will he even notice?

Samuel isn’t sure he wants to go to school five days a week and sometimes reminds me that he was able to learn all he needed to know going only two days a week. I reassure him that there is much more to learn and that he’ll like being able to see his friends everyday. We talk often about all the things he’ll be able to learn and do at school, but mostly he’s just curious about the important things like how big the playground is and if there’s a slide.

My Two Front Teeth

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the July 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

As teenagers, my husband and I both went through the dreaded process of braces. I was a metal mouth for a couple of years, while my husband had to endure nearly four years of braces followed by a retainer.

While our boys will likely follow in their parents’ footsteps, we were overly confident that our frequent trips to the dentist wouldn’t start until at least their preteen years. Samuel and Tyler were both late teethers, 11 ½ months and 10 ½ months respectively before we saw those first bottom teeth break through. Samuel was three-years-old before we even saw a hint of his two-year molars and at 20-months, Tyler still only has four bottom teeth. We have been happy to have late teethers because studies show that the later a child gets their first tooth, the healthier their teeth generally remain.

So needless to say, when Samuel returned from the church playground with a large chip out of his front tooth, I was a little upset to see damage to that beautiful little smile. A quick early morning trip to the pediatric dentist the following day showed the tooth fracture was far below the root area, but he warned us that the tooth could begin dying and not to be surprised to see it turn dark. A couple months later, the tooth remained pretty and white and the chip looked smaller to me each day as I grew accustomed to seeing it. We were out of the woods of further dental work and we were relieved to not be spending a small fortune to repair a baby tooth.

But if you’ve ever been a parent – especially to boys – you know they are only accidents waiting to happen. Samuel is addicted to Star Wars and loves to practice his “Jedi skills” as he calls them. But on one particular night, his “skills’ weren’t quite skillful enough.

As he jumped and turned and twisted, his feet went up and his face came down — straight onto the ceramic tile floor. Never mind this was after being told twice to stop because he might get hurt, now we had tears and blood and four loose front teeth. The small chip was now a larger chip to match a new chip on the tooth to the right and small cracks could be seen on the tooth to the left. Within days, both front teeth began turning dark.

What we once considered to be good luck was now a problem. Because he was a late teether, we are still likely two years from losing the baby teeth for the permanent teeth. Soon we were scheduling a visit for root canals and veneers to be placed on the front two teeth – baby teeth! The veneers looked beautiful and no one would have ever known he had had dental work. Unfortunately, the veneer didn’t work on one of the teeth and within three months we were back at the dentist to have a less attractive, but more permanent crown put on to protect the tooth.

At only five-years-old, Samuel has already had more dental work than I’ve had in my lifetime and cosmetic procedures to boot. But as my mom keeps reminding me, “It’s just part of being a parent, it is only baby teeth and the next accident is just a playground trip away.”