February In Review

#1 & #2- N won the award for 'best workmanship' in the Pine Wood Derby. Perhaps we should mail his certificate to the company that pre-carved the car form and sold it at the craft store where I bought it! #3- I chopped my hair in a radical new do. Since moving here, I have learned that long, thin hair can be teased into looking good in Utah, but looks like junk when exposed to humidity. I progressively chopped 10 inches off over the last 6 months. Usually, when it is short I keep it in a clean bob, so this is a bit extreeme. I may have to go back to the salon and conservative-it-up. What do you think? #4- Our chocolate covered Strawberries from Valentines Day. #5-This is the magnet board that I made for a school fund-raiser for the elementary school. #6- We were treated to several ice storms. I now understand the severity of freezing rain and the subsequent foreclosure of schools based on the probability of said weather phenom.

February Quotes From My Kids:
N: Rules are dumb.
A: Could you be more suspific?
Z: If Dad is dead can we get a dog?
Z: I don't get it. Why do they call it a fur-og? There is no fur on it. Only green
Z: We like good boys and good skunks. The kind with out any stink in them.
A: I would give up my I-pod if we could move back to Utah.
N: I wish I was Davey Jones - just not so tentacally.

Assignment of Numerical Value

For a long time, Z - who is 4 - had a favorite number.  It was 1,038.  I don't know how he came up with the numeral, but he frequently used it to quantify his feelings.  For example.  "I love you 1,038...I hate this 1,038...I want to do this 1,038"...etc.  I found this expression hilarious and I was quite sad when recently he ditched it's use.  However, he now has evoked greater creativity in his assignment of numerical value to different emotions.  The following is an interview I conducted with him to illustrate his matmatical evaluation of personal feelings.

How much do you hate pickles?

459 a thousand and 30.

How much do you love ice cream?

459 a thousand and 78 and 9

How much do you like mustard?

0

How much do you hate mustard?

Maybe 459 and 7

How much to you love Disneyland?

Oh, I don't love it...they have stamps...well maybe.. I love it 78 and 459 and 80 thousand.

How much do you love thin mints?

That's a hard question.  I am thinking...I am thinking...9 thousand and 66....and 459.

How much do you hate latin music? (Which he decided he greatly disliked after being exposed to it at a music kiosk thing at Target recently.) 

479 and 58

How much do you like preschool?

Maybe 1 except when it is fun and I like it 1 thousand

How much do you like Scooby Do?

Oh! 459 and 78

How much do you like brocolli?

Oh, maybe 1

How much do you like salad?

0

How much do you hate salad?

Never-ending 4,000

How much do you love your mommy?

459 and 4,000 never-ending

Awww!  To be loved 459 and 4,000 never-ending makes my day!

A Philosophy on Fitness

I go to the gym, not for love of physical fitness but out of necessity.

Translation: I like treats and I have to compensate for my liberal consumption of them.

So when my Hub recently shared with me his humorous opinion of the gym he really cracked me up. His statement was as follows:

"I hate the gym because it wears me out. The weights are heavy and the cardio makes me tired".

I whole-heartedly concur.

And now, I take my leave to go to the gym, because I see some Thin Mint Cookies in my near future.

Your Mom Yells

"I feel sorry for you because your Mom yells at you". It was a comment that I overheard my daughters friend utter one night. I had spent the evening with my 2 sons, my daughter and her friend. We had gone to dinner and a movie, and for the life of me, I could not recall one unpleasant moment. I never raised my voice...in anger.

I will admit that in general, it is true. Yelling is never my plan, but at times - I raise my voice when talking to my kids. Nothing 'mommy-dearest' or anything, but I will 'yell', when I deem it necessary.

But when I overheard this friend of my daughter share her opinions on my parenting. I had to stop and think. Had I been handling things incorrectly?

After dropping the friend off at home, I asked my daughter about the overheard comment. She confirmed that our evening had been great - and didn't know what the friend was talking about.

Still, it bugged me. I started to examine the minutiae of the evening, recalling every detail of the night to figure out what this girl had been talking about.

Slowly it all came back to me. I hadn't yelled, as in screamed, but I had raised my voice several decibels- many times.

When one of my boys was listening to his MP3 player in the car as we were driving to dinner, I raised my voice (so he could hear me through the ear phones) to remind him that the volume of the player should not be so high that he could not hear me when I needed to speak to him.

Once we arrived at Chick-Fil-A, my other son started to throw a medium sized temper tantrum over not being allowed to order a dessert instead of a dinner. I raised my voice to tell him to knock it off.

At the movie theater, my daughter and her friend, in a fit of giggly girly-ness, darted into the parking lot without looking for oncoming traffic. I raised my voice again, to get over their din, reminding them to be aware, and stay with me as it was dark and we were in a public place.

And after we had gotten seats in the theater, all four kids started loudly begging for different snacks, and expressing displeasure over one anther's choices. I again spoke, more loudly than normal, informing them in a firm tone that they would get what ever I selected, and they would then say 'thank you'.

But I never yelled. Not by my definition.

A few days later, the comment was still bugging me when I went to pick my daughter up from this same friends home. While there, I overheard a conversation between the girl and her mother. It was about 9:00 at night and the girl was begging her mom to let her start a movie. The mom said no. This went back and forth for many minutes while I waited for my daughter to find her shoes. The Mom had many reasons why there was not time and why the girl needed to be in bed - and the girl kept begging. As my daughter came to the door with her footwear, we said goodbye. On our way out the door I heard the Mom say "Oh - all right. But you have to go to bed right after."

What?

In my house, when I say NO, that's it. I will not entertain anymore conversation on the disputed topic. And if my kids try to press an issue, I will firmly, possibly a bit more loudly than normal, remind them - "Your Mom said No."

As I drove home, something clicked. I had been worrying over this girls perception of me. Feeling self conscious that some random nine year old percieved me as having parental defficiencies. I was concerned that I was an embarrassment to my kids, but suddenly, I saw the light. If this is the type of parenting that my daughter's friend was used to, than I would indeed by viewed by her as quite a loud and tyrannical authoritarian.

When I think back on the night of dinner and a movie, I am fairly certain that I spoke firmly on more than the few occasions I can recall. That is my style. My number one job it to be my kids disciplinarian. And if you look up the definition for the word discipline you will find that it means 'training to act in accordance with rules.' I am their advocate second, friend third, but their push-over? Never.

In the car, on the way home, after listening to the mother/daughter exchange, my own daughter said: "Can you believe how she was begging her mom? That is totally not okay. And I can't believe her Mom actually gave in! You would NEVER do that!"

No. I wouldn't. And apparently, my daughter knows who is in charge in my house.

So, here is to all of you Mom's that 'yell'. May we produce a more responsible, respectful generation.

The Most Disgusting Thing Ever

Nothing tops a long hard day of Mommy-ing like vomit ALL OVER the kitchen table. In the middle of dinner.

And this is what happened.

I will openly admit that I intentionally included red peppers in our chicken and pasta dish. I added them at the last minute, so that the flavor would not infuse with the cream sauce.

In retrospect, I should have just used them as a garnish for those adults who wished to partake, but alas, I did not.

I told all of the kids to simply place the offensive vegetable to the side of their plate and not bother with them any further. However, 'A' (my oldest) came up with a fateful plan. She asked for some dessert, in exchange for her consumption of red peppers.

I agreed to the deal.

She nervously ate them, claimed with relief that they weren't too bad, so I told her she could have an ice cream bar. 'Z' (my youngest) asked if he could have a bar if he just ate one pepper. Though 'A' thought he should have to digest all peppers on his plate, I agreed to his terms. He ate one bite, earning his ice cream.

Then 'N' (the middle child) decided that he did not want to be left out of delicious dessert-ing, so he opened wide to eat his one bite. No more than 30 seconds lapsed before he vomited - the entire contents of his stomach - on to the kitchen table, completely filling his own plate and liberally splattering everyone else's . He then angrily bawled "that was the most disgusting thing I ever put in my mouth".

Apparently he does not care for red peppers.

The weird thing is, and I quote, "the most disgusting ever"?

I am talking about the kid who one day in church was licking the bottom of his shoe.
The same kid who tasted his own ear wax to see if it was a similar flavor to snot.
This child has scraped ABC gum off of a metal railing - with his teeth.
I have dragged him, as he kicked and screamed, from where he was sampling a pile of cotton candy that was on the ground. It looked as though the sugary treat had been there for some time as it had been melted by the sun. And driven over multiple times.

But a quarter inch square piece of red pepper?

Yeah, THAT is disgusting.

He did not get dessert.

And I cleaned the table.

Presidential Weekend

Mom and I decided that the best possible way to kick off our President's Day weekend was by visiting Mount Vernon, the family home of George Washington. Once we arrived (after getting a bit lost on the -267 E-495 S-95 N-1 S- freeway combination) we had a great time!

We visited with Martha, but sadly never touched bases with George - we spotted him from behind though - he looked pretty good for 276 years old!

When asked their favorite aspect of our outing the kids replies were as follows.

N: "Fort Necessity was awesome. It was soooooo bloody."

Fort Necessity was the British Fort under Washington's command during the French and Indian War. The museum on the estate grounds had a miniature diorama of the carnage at the Fort after the British/Colonists were attacked by the French/Indians. It was indeed, bloody.

A: "I liked going into the Mansion House because it was really big. Way bigger than our house - which is not very big, you know.

Well, here is a big fat apology to my daughter for moving her across the country where real estate is just plain e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e. She has her own room, so she can go sit in it, and mope about our diminutive real estate holdings.

Z: "I thought I liked Martha, but I don't. She was fake. I liked nothing. Mount Vernon is boring. I like the dogs in the parking lot.

Happy President's Day!

Candy Free/Tabloid Free Grocery Check-out

It sounds like a great idea - right?  

You be the judge.  

I was at the local grocer's today and though I had no kids with me (a rare and fantastic feat) I ended up in the newly advertised 'candy and tabloid free' check out.  

You may be wondering what the hierarchy of the grocery store chose to fill the empty shelving units where candy and tabloids once resided.

Any guesses?

It was a vast selection of trashy romance novels!  There were numerous salacious titles, complete with illustrated covers depicting barrel chested, lusty looking men and scantily clad, rather voluptuous women.

I had a difficult time selecting my personal favorite but it came down to either 'Wicked and Wild' or 'Pirate's Pleasure'.    

Because I was there with my Mom we laughed at the irony, but If my kids had seen any of that I would have been livid.  

We complained to the management. What were they thinking?