Never Say Never

Reptile Prohibition has been repealed! (Well, not entirely. Snake  Prohibition remains firmly in force.) Believe it or not, we talked Eric into allowing Nathan to use his own money to purchase a bearded dragon. I think Eric may have thought Nathan would forget about this before successfully saving enough money. No such luck.

The dragon, named Norbert, is very sweet. If you can call a reptile sweet. He looks rather shifty in the photo, though, don't you think? He's very calm, easy to handle, and easy to clean up after (compared to Mako), but he does have one negative quality. He is VERY expensive. Let me repeat... VERY expensive. Way more expensive than the cat. So, if any of you have been considering a bearded dragon, forget the college fund. I'm resigned to this now, but originally had evil thoughts of an early demise for Norbert.

Why is he so expensive, you might ask? Well... first, we had to purchase a $40 tank (which will need to be replaced in a year or so when he outgrows it); then the tank needed a lid, which was $13; then he needed a special UV light bulb, which cost $19; then we had to purchase domes for that light bulb and for the light that provides heat--$34; reptiles need a calcium supplement (who knew?)--$8; two thermometers to ensure we are heating the tank properly--$8; AND, as if all that wasn't enough, we have to feed him, too! He eats crickets. Lots and lots of 10-cents-apiece crickets that are always escaping and roaming free through the house. This has really affected my vision. Whenever I come across this:

I actually see this:

The kids hear me yell, "Quick! There goes a dime! Grab it!" One evening I captured 70 cents and put them back in the cricket keeper. Earlier today, that scaly little money-pit ate 12 crickets in a row. That's $1.20 for that one meal! Plus tax! Mako eats about $7 worth of food in a month.

So we're adding this to our list of things we said we would never do, but have now done:
Buy a mini-van
Get satellite TV
Buy a game system
Own a reptile

Oh - and the final kicker? The CRICKETS need food, too! And a cage...

What Does the Groundhog Know?

So, here we are, at the end of the "six more weeks of winter" decreed by the groundhog. These photos were taken last week. One of the days, we had a high of 84. The rest were in the 70s. We really haven't had any winter, which I find sad. And I blame the groundhog. Since he seems to think he's in charge, the buck(tooth) stops there.

But it's hard to hold a grudge while I'm surrounded by this:

"This is one time that television fails to capture the excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather."
--Bill Murray in Groundhog Day

The famous cherry blossoms will peak this week. So... Welcome Spring! How are things looking in other parts of the nation?

Pete, Re-peat, & She-peat

Hi. These are my kids.

What?

Hi. These are my kids.

Huh?

HI. THESE. ARE. MY. KIDS. *Sigh*

They're great kids, but they all seem to have come with a similar defect.  When I say something to them, the first response is almost always... "What?"  Even if he/she asked me a question first.

Re-peat: "Where are we going?"
The Patient me: "To the neighbors' house."
Re-peat: "What?"
The Eyebrows-raised me: "To the neighbors' house."
She-peat: "Why?"
The Patient me: "To take them some cookies." (Aren't we nice neighbors?)
She-peat: "What?"
The (less) Patient me: "To take them cookies." *sigh*
Pete: "Where are we going?"
Me: (deep breath) ... "To the neighbors' house." *huff*
Pete: "What?"
Totally frustrated me: "To. The. Neighbors'. House! We're taking them cookies! Does anyone else want to know where we're going?!" *hyper-ventilating*
Pete, Re-peat, and She-peat: "What?"
Lunatic Me: "TO THE NEIGHBORS' HOUSE!" (pause) "Actually, you know what? We're just going home. We'll go to the neighbors' house to give them cookies later, when I'm happier."
All the -peats: "What?"

Is this normal? Should I get their hearing tested? Ask for a refund? :) And don't say what!

The. End.

So this is love?

Last week, Eric and I went on yet another "date" to Target. (After nearly 19 years of marriage, we recognize that sometimes the best date is the one that will accomplish whatever is screaming for attention at the top of the to-do list.) One of the things we were picking up was valentines for Daniel to give out in his class, and, as we walked the isles filled with pink cards and red chocolate boxes, I saw a glimmer of a thought come into Eric's eyes.

Then he turned to me and said, "So... do you want me to keep doing the same thing I've been doing for you for Valentine's Day?"

"Ummm...  You mean nothing?"

"Yeah. That."

"Sure."

That was it. Plus a little chuckle at the end of the exchange. No facades. No hurt feelings. No expectations for gifts or grand gestures. And I'm very happy with the way we do things. He has never made a big deal out of holidays, but don't be fooled into thinking less of him for it. Have I ever mentioned that he does the dishes pretty much every day? Or that he gets up between 4:30 and 5am every morning so that he will be home before dinner to spend time with the kids? Or that he packs a lunch every day to save money? And never complains about his commute?

Yes. This is love.

Barf-vergnugen

Recent vomiting at our house led me to some fond reminiscing...

First, I should say--I HATE to clean up barf. The smell of it alone can cause me to gag and nearly barf myself. But there was so much of it that I couldn't, in good conscience, leave Eric to deal with it solo. So, as I cleaned, I needed a place for my mind to wander so that I wouldn't end up barfing on top of the barf.

I thought about the time when my brother and I told our German-speaking friend all the different phrases we use for "vomit" in the American-English language. Our friend, who is an Austrian, teaches high school English near Linz, Austria, and he couldn't wait to go back and tell his students all about this. He was in awe of our wide array of these descriptive phrases. Here are the ones I can remember:

VOMIT
BARF
UP-CHUCK
RALPH
TOSS YOUR COOKIES
LOSE YOUR LUNCH
HEAVE
BLOW YOUR GROCERIES
BLOW CHUNKS (this was one of our favorites - so visually inspiring)
WRETCH
HURL

What a fascinating language! Got any more to add?

Half-days, Sticky Notes, and Touching: A Public School Update

Warning: I may sound a bit snide, sarcastic, or cynical in this post. If that's not a departure from the norm, please don't tell me. :)

HALF-DAYS:  Perfect timing. A satisfaction survey from the public school system arrived today in the mail. It just so happens that today was a half-day. Why? Because of some parent-teacher conferences. Which is fine. Except... why today? This is the way it is done every year. We have a day off on Martin Luther King Day (which is fine by me), then they go to a full school day on Tuesday, and then we have this half day on Wednesday. Always in the same week as the Monday off. Hmmmm. Wouldn't it be great if we could have that half-day on the Friday before the Monday off? (I know what some of you will say--"But then the people who really need those mid-year conferences might not come because they could take that long weekend and go somewhere." Poppycock. Nobody's going anywhere. They just got back from Christmas Break.)

But I've gotten off track here. The real kicker about the half days is this: The schools are so crammed that my 2nd grader has lunch at 10:30 every day. But on the HALF days, he has lunch at 9:30. 9:30!! Seriously. They're being dismissed at 12noon--why are we feeding them lunch? So this morning he had breakfast, got his backpack together, got on the bus, went to school, and then...they read a book, followed by lunch. Crazy.

STICKY NOTES:  Does your child's school do this also? It's not so much an annoyance as a curiosity. Every once in a while, when there is some event (usually of the fund-raising type) coming up, Daniel comes home wearing a sticky note. Today's was a reminder of a fund-raising night at Chick-Fil-A. It just strikes me as funny that he is sometimes tranformed into this human bulletin board.

TOUCHING:  Although I opted my child out of all the "Family Life" objectives for this year (you know, that's when the school makes a somewhat pathetic attempt at doing the family's job of teaching proper behavior and morals to our children), so...although, I signed him out of these, they failed to take him out and he recently was taught about "good touches and bad touches." You may be thinking--harmless enough--but I disagree. When I asked him to sum up what he had learned, he told me that if a touch feels good, then it's a good touch, and if it feels bad it's a bad touch.

WHAT?!?

This is WHY I opted him out of these so that we could cover these topics at home. I'm glad I asked for a summary or I might not have known how he interpreted the information he received.

So I filled out that little pink survey and it is ready to be mailed tomorrow. I have to wonder, though, if my completed surveys end up in some discard pile because I sound like I'm frustrated enough to reach out and "touch" someone.

Going for the GOaLD



Here's a brief look at our top goals for the coming year:

TABLE MANNERS.  Dinner has somehow become a full-contact sport at our house. We have had injuries, time-outs, an ending buzzer, and even a penalty box of sorts. That's it. We've had enough. And we're cracking down on the major offenders. No manners, no dessert. Should've thought of that a while ago.

FITNESS.  We're going to begin a new healthy eating and exercise program. We'll probably start tomorrow.

MORE FAMILY TOGETHER TIME: This is the one that might kill us. But we want 2012 to be the year of less TV time, less electronic time in general, though the Wii is still going to be a big part of our lives. It's one of the only things we do together that keeps everyone pretty happy all at the same time. Here's a great insight from Nathan on playing Mario Kart: "I learned a trick so you don't hit the wall a lot. You slow down." Profound, hu?

I've collected a lot of great Nathan quotes lately. Here's one more. I came downstairs and found Nathan and Daniel watching a video of themselves that they had just made. In the video, they're screaming like lunatics and making crazy faces and, while watching this, Nathan says, "I feel so grown-up on the camera."

Happy New Year! And may your new year's resolutions be achieved this year.

HO-memade HO-liday. HUM-bug.

Okay. Here's how this works. I show you a picture of the hand-made gift I created for each of my children, and then you say, "Wow! That's beautiful! It's amazing! You made that? Your kids will love it! That will be a treasure they keep forever, and they will feel your love every time they look at it! Natalie, how wonderful of you to try doing a homemade Christmas this year, instead of just giving the kids more toys to treat like garbage in the basement."

It doesn't have to be those exact words, but you get the idea. Just say something that expresses the awe and wonder you would feel if your mother spent many back-breaking, yawning, late-night hours working secretly on a special gift just for you.

Here it comes. This is the one made for Nathan. His favorite color is blue.

That was your cue. "Wow! It's amazing, it's beautiful...etc."

And next we have the Daniel quilt. He loves holidays and seasons, so the blocks represent those.

CHORUS

And, lastly, the crown jewel of my efforts, Stephanie's pink quilt, which I made in less than 3 days. And I'm not a quilter, people. It's really sewn together with love (and I hope it holds up, HA!).

I felt a need to show the back of this one also because the fabric is just beautiful. SO beautiful, in fact, that THAT is really what makes the quilt and the real reason I could do it in 3 days--no matter what pattern I chose, it would have been lovely because of this unique fabric.

So, way back in July, I told the kids (or warned the kids) that they would not be getting a lot of toys for Christmas because we were going to do more homemade things instead. Who needs MORE toys? We have 3 bedrooms and a basement full of them. And they're not interested in parting with any of them. So I said they would receive homemade items and things they need, and a FEW things that were just for fun. Well, I forgot about grandparents and friends giving them things, so they still got plenty of gifts to play with. But my hope was that they would truly be wow-ed by these quilts and immediately begin loving them forever.

Now I'm not picking on my kids. They're great kids and they were thankful for all their gifts. They DO seem to like them very much, but these quilts are already being used for tug-of-war, for fort-building, for putting over the head and walking around like a ghost, etc. In short, they are just another blanket. HO-HO-HUM. But maybe, when they go off to college, this will be the one thing they insist on taking with them, right?  Maybe.

Gingerbread Prison

There are a lot of interesting things about 12-year old boys. I'm keeping a list, and this is the most recent.

It all started with my clever little plan of turning a 1-gingerbread house recipe into a 3-gingerbread house recipe so that each child would have their own house to decorate. I foolishly skipped the important step of creating a triangular shape on the tops of the walls to support the roof and ended up making an executive decision that this year's houses would be Adobe gingerbread houses. Flat roof. I was worried the kids would be disappointed, but they really took it in stride and got right to work. Nathan asked for the pretzel sticks immediately and set them as bars in the windows, announcing that his house was going to be a gingerbread prison. So sweet. "How does Santa get in to bring the inmates their gifts?"

"They don't get gifts. They have to stay back from the windows so they don't get shot. And there's barbed wire all around, so if they try to escape, they'll get cut up."

Fa-la-la-la-la....la-la-la-la.

After a while, we stopped asking questions about the prison because there was just no way to bring it back around to the happy topic of Christmas. He had a blast decorating and was very proud of his creation. So we chose to find it memorable and humorous. And it really is.

Here's Daniel's. His gingergread man is wearing mittens so he won't get too cold going out to get the firewood:

 And here's Stephanie's. About 20 minutes later, it was bare adobe again.

 Here they are creating their masterpieces:

And here's Nathan, meticulously setting the security measures in place in his holiday house of pain and suffering:

You just can't predict these moments.