Cornered: My Life in Boxes

I'm starting to feel a bit suffocated. I may not have mentioned this here before, but...we're moving. Not far, just under three miles away. Nonetheless, everything still has to be packed, ready and accounted for. We have been pecking away at the packing a piece at a time. A box here, a box there, as we decide which of our precious things we can live without for a month, for 3 weeks or, now, for 12 days. My husband jumped the gun on our bedroom lamps. He packed them up on Wednesday morning before heading out on a business trip. (Side note: today is our anniversary and he is spending it in our honeymoon location-San Diego. I, on the other hand, am spending it here, surrounded by boxes and hungry children. But, back to the matter at hand.) So off he went, and as I got into bed that night I realized that, if anything startled me in the middle of the night or if I just had insomnia, I would not be able to reach over and switch on the lamp. So I have borrowed a decorative nightlight from the baby's room for the next 11 days.

It's fascinating to me to see our daily life gradually being reduced to brown cubes with Sharpie writing on them. As you might guess, I am starting to wonder why we have all this stuff. And why on earth are we going to the trouble of playing Tetris with it to get it neatly and safely packed into boxes, just to take it to our next home and not know where to put it? In case you're wondering, yes, we have had one of those moments when we discovered we had packed something we shouldn't have and had to hike Mount Cardboard to find and extract it.

Packing has been an interesting study in priorities. Books have been packed away, but the TV is still up and running and the DVD collection remains readily available. Piano music has nearly all been packed, but the CDs are still in use. Only the essential dishes have not been packed, which begs the question, "Why do we have more than the essentials?"

We have every intention of being extremely organized in our new house. A place for everything and everything in its place. Of course, once we get settled, we will realize how much more space we have and we will start to buy things and fill the empty space until we are once again...cornered. The circle of life. (Or at least one of them.)

Decoding Kidspeak (I think)

A couple of days ago, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner when Nathan came in the front door and began removing his shoes (the usual method of using the toe of one shoe to hold down the heel of the other--no wonder shoes have short lives at our house). As he finished, he announced animatedly to me, "Mom! I'm breeding."

Surely I didn't hear that correctly. "What did you say, Nathan?"

"I'm breeding."
"Okay. (pause) What are you breeding?"
"Pokemons!" (with a destinct "Duh!" on the end of it)
"Uh...er...you can breed them? How does that work?" (not sure I will like this answer; I really would prefer my children did not learn the details of the birds and the bees from little Japanese pictographs)

He went on to explain how this is done in terms I was not entirely familiar with, which actually put my mind at ease. I keep thinking I am so "with it" as a mom. I finally understand webkins (pretty much); Nathan and Daniel taught me how to do Picto-chat on the DS; and I know what it means to "verse" someone. But this breeding thing was definitely new territory. We've moved from reading groups to breeding groups. I decided to check into this a bit online and found that there are whole websites devoted to properly matching up your pokemon creatures for breeding. If you want to know everything I know, follow this clue. There is a detailed sorting of Pokemons into breeding categories. What I found most interesting about this was the fact that the "Mineral" group and the "Indeterminate" group (don't you love that label?) were both separate from the "Cannot Breed" category. Apparently, you can breed minerals and indeterminates, as long as they're pokemons. The other interesting thing was the link to a site for finding "Hot & Smart" egg donors (the real kind). Hmmm... not a site I want the kids browsing on their own.

Looking at the picture above, I'm starting to feel quite concerned about a possible Pokemon invasion. Will there be room left for us slower-breeding humans when all the Pokemon breeding is done? And does anyone have a good Kid-to-English dictionary? Sometimes this decoding work is troublesome.

Pizza Incognito (Again)

School lunch just isn't what it used to be. Remember how tasty everything was when we were in elementary school? (Except the tostadas.) Yummy spaghetti, savory corn dogs, scrumptious cookies, delectable pizza slices. Okay, maybe my memory has been warped over time, but it sure seemed delicious back then.

Yesterday, I ate lunch at school with Daniel. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I had lunch with Daniel's classmate, Fatima. Daniel, though he has been begging all year for me to come eat lunch with him, spent the entire time talking and giggling with the child next to him. But the girl across from us (Fatima) was more than happy to be my lunch partner and talked my ear off while I chewed (and gagged). I opted for the salad, which was nothing to write home about, but I also tasted Daniel's slice of pizza and was sorely disappointed. It had a very wheat-y crust (why do they feel such a need for it to be healthy?), the cheapest sauce available, very chewy cheese, and a pathetic little row of 3 pepperonis. (The photo above looks better than what I ate.) Thankfully, though, they still serve chocolate milk, so I had something good to wash it all down with. (Fatima very kindly showed me how to insert the straw into the carton.) I know--you're probably thinking, "What were you expecting for $3.10 in a school cafeteria?" I guess I just wanted it to be like it used to be. But $3.10 seems like a reasonable price for making my son happy. To his credit, the first thing he said when he got off the bus yesterday was, "Thank you for having lunch with me today, Mom!"

Hazards, Traps, and Preferred Lies

Any golfers out there? All of the above are golf terms. Hazards refer to things like water that might be in the way of your perfect shot. Traps refer to little pockets of sand here and there that will trap your ball and add to your score. For information on Preferred Lies, see the "Tiger Woods" section of this post below. Over spring break last week, we visited family in Augusta, GA, home of the Augusta National Golf Course where the Masters is played. This is the most special place for golfers in the country, maybe even the whole world. It is the greenest emerald of all the Greens. Fortunately for us, we arrived there the week before the Masters tournament, thereby avoiding the great pilgrimage made by rich golfers (is there any other kind?) to their mecca.

Golf is a mystery to me. Wanting to play the game is not so much a mystery as wanting to watch people play the game. My husband informs me that the spectators in attendance will have paid $700 per day for the privilege of waiting in a horrendous line of traffic (then probably having to turn around and go elsewhere to find parking), and then cramming themselves into a large crowd of people, all of whom are walking around in the heat, following other people who are attempting to knock a little white ball into a hole, 18 monotonous times, over a 4-hour period. Why would they do this?!? Could it be just to admire the beauty of this famous course? Below are two lovely photos that show how this might be tempting:

It doesn't look at all the same from outside the fancy gates. Our view was of a high hedge, clearly intended to keep out the prying eyes of the riff-raff. They have a category of green highway signs that we had not encountered before in our many travels: "Golf traffic" signs.

By the time we left for home at 7:30 on Monday morning, the lines had begun. We passed an enormous line of cars waiting for their turn on the exit ramp that would lead them to the signs saying, "Lot full", where they could then queue up for the next traffic torture session. And the real tournament doesn't even start until tomorrow. One other possible draw for this peculiar spectatorship (Mom, is that a word?) is the presence of the notorious Tiger Woods. One headline today stated, "Guards on Lookout for Tiger's Girls." The guards referred to are Tiger's personal guards whose lofty assignment this week is to watch for any of his former exploits who might have it in mind to show up and make an embarrassing scene. The guards each have a stack of photos to use as a reference for these identifications. That's no small task.

We are very glad to have escaped the hazards and traps of Augusta this week. If I'm lucky, Eric will enjoy the Masters on TV without any need for companionship from me. Won't the reporters have fun asking Tiger about his "preferred lies" this tournament? Here's the first line of the definition of this term: "Preferred lies is a condition that exists by local rule only and under which golfers are, on certain parts of a golf course, allowed to improve their lies without penalty." Love that--"improve their lies." (If you want greater details on this in golf terminology, follow this clue, but really, why would you care?)

Picture Puzzle Solution

The photo in the post below is of the Everglades. I took the picture from the front of an airboat we rode when we visited the Miccosukee Indian Village in southern Florida. It's a wild (and loud)sensation to ride along just above the water and grasses. Nice guessing again, Afton! You're certainly earning all that fame and glory.

Updated Picture Puzzle

Any guesses? This picture has made it to the sixth round of additions and still has not been figured out. Hello? Anyone there? Remember...fame and glory.

Codename: Mean Mom

I have just invented a new system for measuring the relative mean-ness of individual mothers. It's called The Strichter Scale and, as the name suggests, it measures the impact of rules, chores, and punishments on children who are in the vicinity of maternal seismic activity.

For many years, I have compared myself to other mothers and tried to be less strict than that one over there, but perhaps more strict than this one over here, in the hopes that my children will have a nice balance somewhere between spoiled rotten and indentured servitude. As long as there are a few mothers who are stricter than I am, I feel like a nice mom. It also helps to be able to say to my children, "I know I'm strict, but aren't you glad 'Mrs. So-and-so' is not your mom?"

Now, of course, some children are more sensitive to these tremors than others. Something that would normally register at about 5.5 on the Strichter Scale may come in at something in the neighborhood of 7.9 with a sensitive child. Without naming names, let me just say that I know what I'm talking about when I say "sensitive child". A simple request to pick up a few blocks and toys can register as an 8.8 quake in our house. And sometimes the aftershocks can be more severe than the initial one.

Once in a while, when the situation warrants it, we attempt to cause an earthquake. This happens when there has been a severe infraction of a rule and we are set the task of fixing the appropriate punishment. We then go for the gusto and announce the removal of some privilege, with the hope that that will really shake the house and help that child to make better choices in the future. However, it usually registers very low on the Strichter Scale and we scramble to come up with some kind of aftershock that will add to the blow.

I must admit, from time to time, I am the sensitive person over-reacting to events in our household. The aftershocks in those cases are completely unpredictable and always result in regret on my part, which just shows how unstable and fragile our little world really is. Do scientists ever attempt to repair those cracks in the earth's crust that lead to earthquakes? They probably don't, but maybe we mothers should.

Picture Puzzle #4

Here it is, another picture puzzle. See how quickly you can figure this one out. A little more will be revealed each day in the Picture Puzzle section in the right-side column. To make a guess, comment on this post or email me. Fame and glory await you.
No prize, but...fame and glory.

Deciphering Boys: Gross Things

What is it about the Y chromosome that compels its owners to an eerie fascination with gross things? Like some kind of strange black hole, pictures like the one below seem to pull on a boy's mind and place him in a sort of hypnotic state. Transfixed gaze, slightly elevated heart rate, open-mouthed wonder at the hideousness of it, yet unable to pull himself away. Daniel opens up to this page of our "Ancient Egypt" book every time he looks at it. He asks about where the man's eyeballs are now and whether or not those are his original teeth. Now, I certainly find mummies and ancient Egypt to be quite spellbinding myself, but a five-second look at the mummy photo will suffice. The death and decay are not a pleasing sight.
Here are two more examples of the love of gross things amongst boys:

1. Nathan had a friend over recently and they were talking about snakes. (No, I do not put snakes in the gross category, in and of themselves.) His friend was saying, "You have to go on youtube and watch 'Snake regurgitates antelope'! It's so awesome!" The antelope is dead and all covered with slime, which I guess must have been part of the excitement. That was the gist of it anyway, and of course, Nathan did ask me to see it later that day. (If you must watch it yourself, follow this clue.)
2. (This is literally "#2", just so you're forewarned.) Nathan came out of the bathroom the other day and said to me, with a huge smile on his face, "I weighed myself and it was 66. Then I went #2 and then I weighed myself and it was 65.5. Cool, hu?"

Note: I know I said I would refrain from toilet topics for awhile, but at the time I said that, I really hadn't given enough thought to how much of my life seems to involve the bathroom.

So what is the answer to this mystery of why boys have such an affinity for gross things? Does it make them feel more manly if they like them? Do they truly just relish the look of those things? My personal opinion is that if they convince themselves (and other people) that they love those gross things, then they won't feel so scared of them. Find it funny or awesome and it loses some of its horror. Maybe I'll have to test this hypothesis somehow...