The perfect storm.....

"Sure, I can have that project finished for you. I'll have it ready for you to pick up at 3:30."

"You'll be able to deliver the new refrigerator today? GREAT! Yes, 3:30 will be fine."

"You don't have anyone to tend the girls for an hour this afternoon? Sure, I would love to watch them! I'll see you at 3:30."

Max, the king of Kindergarten

Max just went to bed. (by 9:30! High fives everybody!) He is SO excited to start school tomorrow that he got ready for bed the first time I asked him.

He even took a bath!

Woo Hoo!!!

However, he is really worried about something.

Yesterday I asked him if he was excited for school to start, and he showed me how excited he was by smiling as big as his face would let him.

Then I gave him the news that caused him to worry.

"Max, I think you're going to miss me while you're at school."

He rolled his eyes.

"In fact, I think you're going to miss me so much that I should probably just come with you."

He shook his head "No Mom, the only grown ups there will be the teachers."

"Oh, I'm sure they won't mind, I'll be very quiet."

"No Mom, there won't be enough chairs there. You won't have a place to sit."

I thought for a moment then said "I know! I can sit on your chair, and you can sit on my lap!"

"No Mom, the chairs are too little!"

"OK, then maybe I can bring one of our folding chairs and just sit next to you."

"NO MOM! You can't come to school with me!"

"Max, I really think that you're going to miss me too much. I need to come with you."

Then he says "You should just drive me to school and drop me off at the front doors with the kids and I will walk in by myself!"

"I don't know," I said "What if I drive you to school, drop you off at the front doors, then park in the parking lot and walk in the school?"

Then he got a little testy.

"Look mom, HERE'S THE DEAL! You will drive me to the school and DROP ME OFF at the front doors, then you will GO HOME!!"

While he was saying this, he waved his arms around kind of like one of those guys who directs the airplanes to the gates. All he needed was the big flashlights. I might have snickered a bit, because really, it was funny.

Then he says "Look, I'm SERIOUS, see, I'm wearing my SERIOUS FACE!"

And he was indeed wearing his serious face, although in my opinion, it looked a little bit more like his "I just smelled something bad face"

"Hmmm" I said "So exactly what do you think I should do when I get home? I'll be there all by myself."

Max told me that I should get some work done.

"No, I think I should probably take a nap."

"Mom!" he said with a big sigh, obviously trying to hide his exasperation "You can't go back to sleep after you drop us off, because then you will just dream about missing me."

So then I asked him if it would be OK if I just stood outside and watched him through the window of his classroom.

He shook his head and walked away.

That kid is seriously going to miss me.

I'm too tired to come up with a title for this very short post

Best kid question of the week (by Max)

"What would be more dangerouser, if all the houses fell apart, or if the earth broke?"


Best kid quote of the week (by Aaron)

"HEY MOM! COME AND WATCH ME CLEAN THE BASEBOARDS!"




And yes, the baseboards are shiny clean :0)

Hi, my name is Jill and I'm sleep deprived

I am not a morning person.

I have decided that the only sleep that really counts for me is what I get after 5:00 a.m.
My husband, on the other hand, is quite the morning person, he wakes up on his own around 5:00 a.m. and is actually awake!
This is a strange phenomenon to me, because my mom raised us to be night owls, she liked to stay up late, and let us stay up late too.
I remember one time in high school when on the first day of class one of the teachers had us fill out a "get to know you" questionnaire, then we went around the classroom, and everyone read their papers.
One of the questions was "What is your favorite TV show?"
Nearly everyone in the class said that M.A.S.H. was their favorite show (one of the local TV stations was airing it about 4 times a day at that time) but I answered "Late night with David Letterman"
The teacher looked at me in shock and said "YOU'RE UP THAT LATE???"

Honestly, it didn't seem that strange to me, at that time, Dave came on at midnight, and watching his show was what kept me awake long enough to do my homework.

Anyway.......

School started this week for Brielle and Aaron, (who I have decided are not morning people either) (pretty sure it's genetic) (from my side of the family, obviously)
The problem is that my alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. (and again at 7:10. 7:20, 7:30..........) and I wake them up again, and again and again.

It would probably be easier to wake them up if they weren't awake so late at night, however, my husband doesn't get home until nearly 7:00 p.m. and after we eat dinner, watch the current reality show on TV, make the kids do the homework that they didn't seem to remember they had several hours earlier, make lunches for the next day and wrestle Max into his pajamas, it's usually after 11.

Max will be starting kindergarten next week, and get this......................





I SIGNED HIM UP FOR MORNING KINDERGARTEN!!!!!




WHAT WAS I THINKING?????



I had very logical reasons for doing this (I won't go into detail, just be assured that I did) the problem is that he likes to sleep in until 10:00 or later.

School starts at 8:30.

I've had discussions with him about how he needs to go to bed earlier because it will be hard for him to wake up for school if he's up too late and he agrees with me until it's actually time to get the pajamas on.

He is the master of stalling.

So this week, we decided to have him go to bed a little bit earlier each night, to get him used to it before school starts. We had good intentions, but as it's turned out, he's actually ended up going to bed a little bit later each night.


This is going to be a long year.





p.s. I told Max that after taking them to school, I would come home and take a nap. He told me that I couldn't do that, because I would dream about missing him.

Duh!!!

Brielle went to girls camp last week. On the last day, they woke the girls up at 2:00 a.m. and they hiked to the top of the mountain to watch the sun rise.
Brielle was telling us how cool it was to watch the sun rise from the mountain top when Max said (in his most condescending voice)


"Brielle, the sun doesn't RISE, the earth is SPINNING!!"

The unfortunate fate of my future grandchildren

A few nights ago at dinner, Max didn't want to eat any of the food I had fixed. One of the kids told him that he needed to eat vegetables so he could grow, but Max still didn't want any.

"Max, if you don't eat healthy food, you won't grow any bigger, you want to get taller, don't you?"

Max rolled his eyes and said "Yes, I want to grow bigger so I can be a dad!"

I asked him how many kids he wanted to have and he said he wanted to have 5 kids.

"What are you going to name them?" Brielle asked, and Max replied "I'm going to name one of them Human."

"Human???" we all questioned in unison.

"Yes" Max said, "Human Chen. I'm going to name one of my kids Human Chen."

Why can't they just get along?

This week our two oldest kids are away at camp. You would think that this would have cut the amount of fighting and teasing in half, but instead, the other two have really bumped it up so that the noise level in the house is still pretty much the same as when CJ and Brielle are at home.

For example......

Yesterday morning, I heard Max screaming so loud that I thought he had lost a limb. He came running into the kitchen, sobbing so hard that I couldn't understand anything he said.
I finally got him calmed down enough to understand, in between the screaming and sobbing, that Aaron had done something to him.

"AARON....... HURT........HEAD! ......THREW THEM AT ME!!!

I looked all over his head, trying to see any visible marks, but couldn't find any. Max continued to cry.

Just then, Aaron walked in the room with a smirk on his face.

"What did you throw at him?" I demanded.

He burst out laughing and told me what he threw at Max. Are you ready for this? Do you want to know what he threw at him to make him so upset?






Imaginary bricks and bolders.

Yes, Max was crying because Aaron had pretended to throw invisible, imaginary bricks and boulders at him.