More Max

Max has a few new games that he likes to play.

A few weeks ago, our garage door broke. We called the repair man and he wasn't able to come until the next day so Max spent the day playing "broken garage door" He sat two of his little chairs together, then picked one up and dropped it, just like the garage door did when it broke. Then he would ask,
"Why is the garage door broken?"
"How did the garage door break?"
"Why are the wires on the garage door hanging down?"
"Why did the garage door go boom?"
"Why is the garage door broken?"

Did I mention this went on for an entire day?

The next day, the repair man came and fixed the garage door, so now Max was able to play "fixing the garage door"

This is still going on...............
A while ago I heard a strange noise coming from Max's room. When I went in to investigate, I saw Max standing in front of his mirror doing raspberries until the mirror was covered with spit.
He then put his hands flat on the mirror and slid them back and forth.

Can you guess what he was playing?

Give up?

"windshield wipers"

He wipes back and forth until all the spit is wiped off the mirror, and then he starts all over again.

He even has an intermittent setting.

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We started listening to Christmas music on the radio the day after Halloween.
One thing I didn't count on was that Max would be learning Christmas songs from the radio.
Here are a few of our favorites that he has been singing for the last month.
(these are the actual lyrics created by Max)

Sables ring are you listenin'
Sable's ring in the boober.
A singing a song, a goin' along
Walkin' in a winter wonderland.
In the vales snow is listenen',
In the vales in the boober
A SINGIN' A SONG A GOIN' ALONG!
WALKIN' IN A WINTER WONDERLAND!

And then there's this favorite

"Silver brando, silver brando......"

And the one where he just started making up lyrics of his own.

"Have a holly jolly Christmas and a frinjinjijinjo,
Say hello to Steve and Jo and Blue and Tickety tock."

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In other news, two of our toilets are hopelessly clogged, and nobody will claim responsibility. The plunger has been working overtime, and still not resolving the problem
The bigger problem, however, is that now the only working toilet is the one in the master bathroom, and the kids are not allowed to go in there.
(seriously, one of the main reasons we moved to this house was so we didn't have to share a bathroom with the kids anymore)
(OK, it wasn't really one of the main reasons, but it was definitely an added bonus)

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Today is our Anniversary! (Yes, we got married on New Year's eve)
16 years! It doesn't feel like it's been that long. (time really does fly when you're having fun;0)
In a few hours we will drop the kids off at Grandma's house for their annual New Year's sleepover, then we will go out.

At least Grandma will let them use the bathroom at her house;0)

Happy New Year to everyone!!

Would you like some candy little girl?

Last night after dinner, I was in the kitchen working diligently on what turned out to be an unfortunate series of cooking disasters. (more on that later, right now, the disappointment is too fresh, and it might take a day or two to see any humor in the situation) (but seriously, my mom is a FABULOUS cook. She makes all sorts of candy, fudge, cookies, you name it, mom makes it and it always turns out great. What I want to know is why that "Holiday treat making" gene didn't get passed on to me?) (and whoever the wise guy was who said that my mini muffin pan had a non stick coating on it is pure evil in my book. If it really was non stick, then things shouldn't stick to it, right? You shouldn't need to use a fork/spoon/jackhammer to get the stuff to come out of the pan, mangling the treat beyond recognition)

Anyway................

I'm in the kitchen working, my hands are messy, and the doorbell rings. I start to quickly wash my hands so I can answer the door, but Brielle and Aaron beat me to it. They came into the kitchen with a bag full of chocolates and said "Look! Sweets!"
"Oh how nice!" I said, because I really love it when someone delivers chocolate to my front door, "Who brought it?"

The kids looked at each other, then back at me and said "I don't know."

"Did you recognize this person at all?"

Brielle answered "Well, it was an older man. He looked like someone who might sit on the back row at church."
"Was it Brother Parker?"
"No, this guy was shorter and younger."
I couldn't think of anyone else fitting that description. "So does he always sit on the back row?" I asked.
"No" Brielle said "I didn't say that he sat on the back row at church, I said that he looked like someone who might sit on the back row at church."

(OK, that really cleared it up)

She went on to give more of a description, about 60 years old, kind of short blondish/brownish hair, glasses, drives a Honda, had a lady waiting for him in the car (whom she might or might not have recognized, she wasn't sure)...................but we still couldn't figure out who it was that brought us the candy.

So basically, our daughter is taking candy from strangers.

Of course that didn't stop us from eating the candy. (again, chocolate brought directly to the front door, like I'm not going to eat that?)

It's been 24 hours and we're all still alive and healthy.

And Brielle is not allowed to answer the door by herself anymore.




P.S. I'm cooking a turkey tomorrow. I've never cooked a turkey before. Please cross your fingers and wish me luck that my recent string of culinary disasters will come to an end before I get this bird in the oven.

Tis the season............

Christmas cards.

Every year we try to get a nice picture of the kids for our Christmas card.

You notice that I said "try."

Because every year without fail, one of our kids will have a bad attitude, and refuse to smile.
Each year I have these visions of some festive location with trees and snow and beautiful decorations and our children posing happily together, smiling, happy............

Yeah right.

Last year was easy, we went to Disneyland the first week in December, and we were able to get a nice picture of the family in front of a nicely decorated tree somewhere in the Magic kingdom. The kind Disney "Cast member" even managed to get all of us looking at the camera and smiling.
Last Saturday we decided that it would be the day to get the picture. We were going to a Christmas party in the afternoon, so the kids looked somewhat presentable.

(speaking of the Christmas party, I wore a white sweater to the party, where they served multiple delicious appetizers including barbecued meatballs.

Did you catch that?

White sweater + barbecued meatballs = .........................

I'm sure you get the point. I'm just glad that Max still likes me to carry him everywhere. He covered the stain nicely.)

After we left the party, the plan was to go downtown to take the picture with all of the Christmas lights. Unfortunately, it was so darn cold that we decided it wasn't a good idea to go there, so we went to a place in town with quaint little old fashioned shops and tons of fun Christmas decorations, including displays full of elves.
Last year we tried to go there, and Max was completely freaked out by the elves. We couldn't even get within 12 feet of one of them without him screaming. This year, all he has talked about was going back to see the elves.
As soon as we got there and got everyone out of the car it started snowing. And the wind was blowing. And it was SUPER cold.

We just wanted to get the darn picture, get back in the warm car and go home.

We found an elf display, stood the kids in front of it, explained to the teenager for the third time that yes indeed, he did need to stand there and be in the picture and then tried to get Max to undo the hood of his coat so that we could see more than his eyes.

"No. I not take off my hood. I also leave it on."

"Please Max, just for a second. Just undo it so we can see your cute smile."

"No."

So we took the picture. Yeah, not great. Max even managed to turn away from the camera just as the flash went off.

Twice.

Then I got a great idea. There was an old fashioned candy shop just down the lane from where we were standing.
They give out free fudge samples.

"Max, why don't we go get some fudge, get warmed up a bit, and then take the picture?"

He didn't disagree, and the other kids were now all excited about the free fudge, so we walked down to the candy shop.
As we were reading the sign on the door that said "Unattended children will be given a cappaccino and a free puppy" the girl inside locked the door and said "Sorry, we're closed.
Closed? You've got to be kidding?
Sure enough, the other sign on the door said they closed at 8:00.
It was exactly 8:00.

Fine.

There was a cute elf display mere feet from the door so in one last effort to get this picture thing done, we stood the kids in front of it and told them to smile.
We still couldn't see Max's face, so I leaned over and told CJ (who was holding Max) that I would count to three, he would undo Max's hood and we would take the picture.

What we got was a picture of three of our kids smiling nicely and Max SCREAMING.

We finally ended up just doing what we do every year. After church on Sunday, we sat the kids in front of the Christmas tree and snapped a picture. (and even that was harder that it should have been) We did get one really good picture and will be using that for our card this year.

What I should have done was just get them all out of bed at 4:00 a.m. sat them in front of the tree and taken their picture, morning hair, mismatched pajamas, sleepy faces and everything. That way, they would look the way I feel when they get us up that early on Christmas morning.

Maybe next year.

Join me tomorrow for the adventures of actually getting the picture to the Costco photo lab and having the cards printed.

I can hardly wait.

Three year olds are random

Tuesday is our garbage day and Max's favorite day of the week. I need to open the blinds in Max's room and make sure there is a chair in front of the window for him to stand on. A few weeks ago, I forgot to open the blinds, and we heard the garbage truck on our street. Then I heard Max screaming in his room "IT'S NOT OPEN! IT'S NOT OPEN! OPEN IT! OPEN IT! OPEN IT!!!!!!!!"
I ran in the room, opened the blinds and lifted Max on the chair just in time for him to see the garbage truck. His little heart was beating about 280 beats a minute.
Last week he discovered that if he looked out the kitchen window, he could see the garbage truck on the street behind us.

I've never seen him so happy.

Each day, Max takes his cars and big blocks and puts three of them in front of every door in our house as well as the couch and chairs and refrigerator and dishwasher and filing cabinet and.................well, you get the idea. We have blocks and cars all over the floor.
These aren't ordinary blocks and cars, however, they are "garbage cans." Max crawls on the floor and stops at each grouping of garbage cans, picks one up, lifts it over his head and dumps it then returns it to it's original place. Then he lifts a second one over his head and dumps it, puts it back then moves on to the next pile.
He went around the room doing this and finally I asked him why he was only picking up two of the three blocks/cars (excuse me, "garbage cans") and leaving the third one there.
He looked at me like I was a complete idiot and said "Because I'm the garbage truck and those are also the recycle cans. With I come back later and be the recycle truck and get the recycle cans"

I stand corrected.

Silly me, I don't know why I couldn't tell those were recycle cans.

Aaron and Brielle are now off track from school and won't go back until January. This means that Max has two friends to play with, who NEVER annoy or tease him.
Several times yesterday, we accidently bumped or kicked one of his rows of cars/blocks, and this brought Max running from whatever far corner of the house that he was collecting garbage "NO! NO! NO! YOU ALSO LEAVE THE GARBAGE CANS ALONE!! YOU NOT MESS THEM UP!!!!" Then he would very carefully line them back up in the proper place, and his heart rate would return to normal, until the next time that one of the kids would move them, then it would start all over again.

Multiple times.

Each day.




Yesterday we had Christmas music playing on the radio all day. When it was time to get Max ready to go to preschool, I asked him to come into the bathroom to get his hair combed. He stood outside the door, shaking his hips to the music and said "I can't. I'm dancin' "
I said "Do you think you could come dance in the bathroom so I can comb your hair?"
"Nope" Max said as he boogied away "I'm still dancin'."

He went to school with messy hair.

When we picked him up from school, I asked him what he did in school (as I do every time I pick him up) he said "We got to watch room five's Christmas program, and they also watched our program."
"How fun!" I said "What kind of songs did room five sing?"
And Max replies "They singed too much songs!"



Last night we attended CJ's band concert (which by the way was fabulous! The band is great) Max did pretty well at the concert, but we got home later than his bed time, and he'd had it. We decided to have some ice cream as a treat, but only after everyone had their pajamas on.
Apparently, Max didn't feel the need to put his pajamas on but still expected to get ice cream. He threw such a fit that he got put in time out.
I won't go into great detail, but eventually he got the pajamas on, but he didn't get his bowl of ice cream until after everyone else had finished theirs, and he was sad.
I hugged him and we talked about it."Max" I said "the reason you didn't get your ice cream sooner is because you were having some issues with pajamas." and Max says "I not did! I have issues tomorrow!"
(Yes, I'm looking forward to his "issues" today)

In the end, he took one bite of ice cream then decided that he would rather have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

My grandparents tree

Today I was thinking about my grandparents Christmas tree. For as long as I could remember, My Grandma and Grandpa had this artificial tree. It was made all of plastic with plastic branches and needles.
I loved the shiny plastic ornaments and the big lights that would adorn the tree. It was always so exciting when they put their tree up.
Each year the poor tree became increasingly fragile, until one year Grandpa decided just to put up the top half of the tree which he stood on an end table in front of the window.
One year, my brother went and cut down live trees for some of our family and friends. While he was there, he cut one down for our grandparents.
When he brought the tree to their house, grandpa discovered that it was too tall for their living room.
He cut off the bottom of the tree to see if it would fit, but it was still too tall.
He cut off some of the very top branches, but it was still too tall.
Finally, he cut off some more from the bottom of the tree, this time above the very bottom branches.
Now he was faced with a new problem. The bottom branches were the ones that curved upward and filled in the shape of the tree. Without those branches, the tree looked quite scrawny and bare, so he cut the branches off the part of the tree that he had just removed, and nailed them back onto the tree.
This seemed to solve the problem, and he was able to put the tree in the tree stand and it fit perfectly in their living room.
My grandparents spent the next while decorating the tree. They hung the lights and the ornaments but when they got to the star they had a problem. With the top few branches missing, there wasn't a branch that stood straight up to hold the star.
Grandma went to the kitchen, got her wooden spoon and tied it, handle up, in the top of the tree. This held the star perfectly.
The tree looked beautiful, and unless you knew the story, you wouldn't have known about how the tree was held together.

Word Verification Wednesday!!

Believe it or not, I remembered that today is Wednesday, and you all know what that means!

Time to define those word verification codes!

Since I don't want to retype all of the rules again, if you don't know what's going on, click here.

How to irritate a three year old

Max: "I'm going to count to ten. One, two, three, four, five, six....."
Me: "Three two seven five eight twelve six four"
Max: "No. You not count, I also need to count by myself."
Me: "OK Max."
Max: "One, two, three, four, five, six....."
Me: "Two five three nine eight one"
Max: "NO! I count! One, two, three, four, five, six....."
Me: "Eighteysevenfortytwothreehundredninetwofour"
Max: " NO! NO! NO! You also NOT COUNT! I COUNT TO TEN BY MYSELF!!!"


Yes, I did finally let him count by himself.

Word Verfication Thursday .....because I forgot today was Wednesday

Last night I was tired and couldn't think of anything to write. Since NaBloPoMo was over, I felt no obligation to come up with something.

So I didn't write anything.

This morning I thought "I sure would like to write something, but I have no idea what to write."

So I didn't write anything.

This afternoon, Max did something funny, but I couldn't think of a way to write about it and have it be as funny as it was in person.

So I didn't write anything.

A few minutes ago I was thinking "I really wish I had something to write. It will be nice when it's Wednesday so I can do Word Verification Wednesday.................."

So here it is, mere minutes before Wednesday is over.

If you've been living without internet access for the last month, here is how to play.

1. Go to the comment box
2. Look at the jumbled letters of the word verification code.
3. Create your own definition and leave it as a comment.
4. Bonus points if you use it in a sentence.
5. More bonus points if you use the word "also" in the sentence.

The rules
1. Nothing rude crude or unrefined. Remember, my kids read my blog.

And as a special treat to those who keep whining...............

Just for today,

Mocking of the other contestants answers is allowed!!!

You may play as often as you wish!!!


Ready,


Set,



GO!

Tree tales

As I was writing yesterday's post, I got to thinking about the Christmas trees of my past.
When I was little, we always had a live tree. My dad would meticulously hang the icicles one at a time all over the tree, perfectly spaced and perfectly even. (hey, at least I know where I got it from)
When I was a little older, we invested in one of those new fangled fake trees. They didn't smell as good, but they didn't leave sap and needles all over the carpet.

As time went on, our artificial tree obtained the nickname of "The toilet brush tree" mostly because it looked like a bunch of green toilet brushes sticking out of a green pole.

Eventually we (meaning me and my brother) decided that the toilet brush tree just wasn't cutting it anymore, and we begged and pleaded to have a live tree because having people see a bunch of light covered toilet brushes in one's window can really damage the social status of a teenager once again had live trees at Christmas time. (sap and pine needles included)

Plus, the live trees just smelled so much better. (not that the toilet brush like branches were ever used for anything other than decorative purposes) (to my knowledge)

I remember one year that someone told us that if you put sugar in the water for the tree, that the tree would stay green longer.
Each day, we would fill up the water dish in the tree stand with a generous amount of sugar water.
That tree was so thirsty! Each morning we were amazed to see that the water was nearly gone!
This went on for days and days. We figured that at this rate, the tree would stay green until Easter.

One evening, we were sitting in the kitchen eating dinner and we heard a strange noise coming from the living room.

When we went in to investigate, we found our dog drinking the sugar water out of the tree stand.

We should have known. Bubbles had been extra hyper all week long (and that's really saying something for a poodle/terrier mix)

Next story............

Several years ago, back when I had a real job (with a cubicle and a 401K and everything) I was sitting in my cubicle one morning working hard as always, and my friend who sat next to me came in late.
She seemed rather upset, and after a while told me why.
She had put up her Christmas tree the night before, and that morning her cat (a seriously HUGE cat) jumped in the tree and knocked it over. She had spent the morning cleaning everything up and trying to set the tree back up. Unfortunately, every time she got it standing, the big cat would jump in it again.

Eventually she gave up and came to work.

After an hour or so of her stewing over the tree while trying to get some work done, she went to the manager and told her that she needed to take some vacation time for a few hours to take care of an emergency.
When she came back that afternoon, she told us what she had done.

She said that she hung the tree from the ceiling so when the cat jumped on it, it just swung back and forth instead of falling over.

Genius.

I think she should have patented the idea. I think it would work for babies and toddlers too.

Earlier today, Aaron helped me write a song.


(Sung to the tune of Deck The Halls)

Trim the tree with OCD,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Space the ornaments evenly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Don't hang them close to one another,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Or you will annoy your mother,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.