The event which caused me to realize that I should never again consult my five year old son for fashion advice

Max has an incredible memory.
He is able to memorize and recall many things. This would be a skill that would prove to be rather useful in school, unfortunately, Max prefers to use this talent to memorize lines from his favorite movies. (sometimes it seems like he memorizes the whole movie....)

Last week I needed to go shopping to find a dress for a semi formal event that I will be attending. Now let me tell you that Max HATES shopping. If we have been in a store more than five minutes, he begins to whine....."Mommmmmm!* You're taking too long!"** Then proceeds to drag himself around behind me, making himself look as miserable as possible.

You get the picture.

I knew that I would need to take Max with me to the dress store, so before we went, I stopped to get Max his favorite lunch at McDonalds. He ate all of his food, and seemed quite happy. He hardly even flinched when I told him that we were going dress shopping.

As we were walking into the store I heard him mumbling "Can we order a pizza? No, you just ate lunch. Can we get stuffed crust? OOOOOOOHHHHHHH! Stuffed crust!"
I was about to tell him that I wasn't going to get him a pizza because he had just eaten lunch, but then I realized that he was reciting a scene from his current favorite movie "Despicable me"

I didn't think much of it, and we continued through the store, grabbing an armful of dresses for me to try on, with Max following behind me, whining about the fact that I was "taking too long, why are you taking so long mom? We've been here for-ev-errrrrrr!" then throwing in a few random scenes from the movie. I finally decided I was ready to go to the fitting rooms.

Max is too old to go inside the room with me, but too young to be left outside, so I took him in the fitting room, and he decided just to turn around and keep his nose in the corner while I was changing.
I tried on several dresses, but I didn't really like any of them. I finally tried one on that I liked, but it was a little tight. I asked Max "Hey buddy, what do you think? Does this dress look nice?"
Max turned around and looked at me. He paused, then he lifted his eyebrows, tilted his head and smiled so I thought he was going to say I looked nice, or that he liked the dress, and he said........

"OOOOOOOOHHHH! Stuffed crust!!"




*I've always been amazed at how Max can take the one syllable word "Mom" and turn it into 3 or 4 syllables.

**Max has not yet learned his father's technique to put a quick end to a miserable shopping trip. All he has to do is say "Just buy both of them*** and let's go."

***This works wonderfully for ME when I can't decide between two pairs of shoes, two purses, two dresses, two coats..........

Do you want to see a real live video of Max???

Remember my friend who is trying to get this really awesome blogging job?

She made it to the final round of voting, and today is the last day to vote!

I am asking you to click on the cute little link below and vote for her (it's a total of two clicks, how hard can that be?) (I'm quite sure that I've done way more clicking than that just in shopping online for the last few days, and voting for Debbie won't cost you any $$$ or run up any charges on your credit card)

"Cute little link"


"What's in it for you?" you ask?

Well, I'll tell you what's in it for you. If Debbie wins this whole shebang, I will post actual video of Max singing and doing an interpretive dance.

At the same time!

SERIOUSLY, HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE????

This is video yet to be filmed, so song requests may be made, however, yesterday I did find out that he knows the words to "Poker Face" and "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga.

I blame Brielle for Max learning these lyrics, however, I have a sneaky suspicion that if I ask her if she's the one responsible that she will just blame the whole thing on Naughty Bird or Naughty Reindeer. (both of whom would be appearing in the video along with Max)

Vote, then come back to tell me you voted, (which I guess would technically be a third click) then give me your song suggestions for Max's online video debut when Debbie wins.


(This may cost me dearly in the bribery department because Max is now 5 and will no longer do anything for nothing)

Strangers in the night.........

Earlier today we saw a commercial for "Skating with the stars" * and we began discussing** the show.
While we might have many things that bug us about the show, we also talked about how there's no way that we're going to miss it.
Max listened to this conversation then said "OK, we can watch it, but let's just keep it really a secret. If someone comes to our door while it's on, we will just hurry and change the channel before we open the door, and if we leave the house while it's on, we should change the channel before we turn off the TV in case someone breaks into our house and turns on the TV, so they won't know that we've been watching it."

In other news, the kids are sick. Max started it yesterday, and in the last hour, Brielle and Aaron have proven to me that they are sick enough to let them stay home from school tomorrow.

I wondered out loud where they might have picked up this illness when Max says "I think it was some guy that came into our house while we were sleeping and coughed on us so we would all get sick."***

With this subject of people coming into our house without us knowing about it, I'm beginning to think that Max might be having a bit of anxiety about a certain "Jolly Old Elf"coming into our Christmas Eve. We've already freaked him out by telling him that Santa is watching him and knows everything that he does so he better be good, but now he's worrying about random strangers breaking into our house to make us sick or to judge our television viewing habits.....

CJ just informed me that he's starting to feel sick too.

I guess if they all stay home from school tomorrow, I can sleep in, right?




* "Stars?" seriously, I don't even know who most of them are.
** Might have been mocking more than discussing.
*** If this is the case, I certainly hope that this spreader of disease didn't come near me, however, with all 4 of the kids sick, it's just a matter of time anyway, right.

The saga of the Naughty imaginary animals part 2: The arrival of Naughty Reindeer

For part 1 go here. If you haven't read that one, this one won't make much sense.

I can't really remember the exact day that Naughty Reindeer showed up, all I remember is that it was last year about a month before Christmas.

Naughty Reindeer made Naughty Bird look like an amateur troublemaker.

This stupid reindeer seemed to have the run of the house and had the power to make Max do whatever he wanted him to. He was responsible for Max not being able to do good things like get his pajamas on, brush his teeth and flush the toilet. (for some reason, Naughty Reindeer was very much against the flushing of the toilet) and he was also responsible for things such as leaving the crayons out, knocking over block towers and scattering game and puzzle pieces all over the floor.

By this time, we had good Fewtons all over the floors in every room in our house, but apparently, the Naughty Reindeer was able to avoid them. (and when I say every room, I mean EVERY ROOM. One of the kids started scanning and printing copies of the original Fewton so Max could have more of them without having to draw and color each one individually, making it MUCH EASIER AND FASTER to make enough Fewtons to fill our house)

At that time, Max seemed to have given up the idea that NR would touch a good Fewton and become good, (and start flushing, because seriously, that whole not flushing thing was a big issue for me) So he started to make some new Fewtons.

SNAPPY Fewtons.

All Naughty Reindeer had to do was be close to the snappy fewton and the little tiny pinchers on the side would SNAP and Naughty Reindeer would be caught and Max could then force him to touch a good fewton.
Unfortunately, these did not work either, and we were now stuck with having to avoid stepping on the regular Good Fewtons, and avoiding the Snappy Fewtons so that we wouldn't have our toes snapped off.

Meanwhile, Naughty Reindeer was still up to no good.

Finally, one of the older kids had reached their limit.

"Max, isn't there any other way we can get rid of the Naughty Reindeer besides the Fewtons?"

He thought for a moment and said "Yes, we should call the Naughty Reindeer eating cats to come and get him.

Naughty Reindeer eating cats????

Yes, apparently, there are cats who like to dine on Naughty Reindeers, and as luck would have it, they live downtown and are just a phone call away.

CJ grabbed the telephone and made a call to the NRECs, and within minutes, the doorbell was ringing*

CJ answered the door.

"Hello! Are you the Naughty Reindeer eating Cats?? Thank you so much for coming!" he lifted the heavy imaginary reindeer and tossed him out the door into the eagerly awaiting arms (paws?) of the Naughty Reindeer eating cats.
"Thank you very much for coming. Have a nice day!" Then he slammed the front door and turned around to see the confused (and slightly shocked) look on Max's face.

Eventually, Naughty Reindeer managed to find his way back to our house and he brought friends, more Naughty Reindeer, Naughty Frog and Naughty Rabbit.

And apparently, that whole Good Fewton thing doesn't last, because Naughty Bird became naughty again too.

Join us next time for part 3. The demise of Naughty Bird.


*Aaron may or may not have gone out the back door and around to the front door to ring the doorbell.

What's the problem?

For the last few days, Aaron has spent his time tormenting Max.



Day 1


Max came up to me sobbing.
Me: "What's wrong?"
Max: (between sobs)"Aaron said that I'm in his tummy!"
Me: "Well, are you?"
Max: "No."
Me: "Then what's the problem?"

Max calms down and walks away.



Day 2


Max comes up to me sobbing.

Me: "What's wrong?"
Max: (between sobs) Aaron took my nose!"
Me: "Feel your face, is your nose there?"
Max: (feels his face) my nose is here"
Me: "Then what's the problem?"

Max calms down and walks away



Day 3


Max comes up to me sobbing.
Max: "Aaron says he's going to take my eyeballs!"
Me: "Do you really think he can do that?"
Max: "No."
Me: "Then what's the problem?"
Max calms down and walks away.



Day 4

Max comes up to me sobbing
Max: "Mom! Aaron said I set off the alarm and the police are here to get me!"
Me: "Did you hear the alarm?"
Max: "No."
Me: "Are the police here?"
Max: "No."
Me: "Then what's the problem?"


Max calms down and walks away.





I'm beginning to think that Aaron's sense of humor combined with Max's imagination and gullibility are the problem.

Cold showers, experimental fudge, illegal drugs, the evils of texting, and other random stuff.......

Apparently, my theory is true about our appliances signing a suicide pact earlier this year.

Today we came home from church to find that our water heater was leaking and had caused a small flood in the basement. (Fortunately, we caught it before the water got too far.......)

Here's the dead appliance list for this year.

Oven/stove

Dishwasher

Disposal

Refrigerator*

Water heater

*I don't think I blogged about the refrigerator. It stopped working a few months ago, but it wasn't very eventful because it didn't cause a flood, just slushy popcicles.

When we first discovered the water leaking, we turned off the main water valve, and told the kids not to use any water until we turned off the water to the water heater then turned the main water back on.

Max has been freaking out all evening because he isn't sure whether or not he should flush.

Super.

We finally get him to actually start flushing the toilets, and now after not being able to flush for an hour, he's back to not flushing again.

No matter how many times we tell him it's OK to flush, he still won't and also when he turned on the bathroom faucet, it made a spitting sound, so..............

"AND NOW I CAN'T WASH MY HANDS BECAUSE THE WATER IS MAKING A FUNNY NOISE!!!!"

So now, we won't have hot water until we get the darn water heater replaced.

And the noisy fans are back.

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I just made fudge, except instead of putting chocolate in it, I used vanilla and root beer extract. It was quite good! (and I say "was" because the teenager ate all of it)

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Tonight I explained to my pre teen daughter that she is required to actually speak full words instead of text speak.

Yes, I will be insisting that she speak the words "I don't know" and "be right back" instead of IDK and BRB.

We thought that not having texting on our phones would avoid such nonsense, but alas, the teenagers are now so lazy that they can't speak full words, and must speak in texting shorthand.

LOL!

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This past week was red ribbon week at our elementary school. They had an assembly where they discussed the dangers of taking drugs.

All weekend, Max has been coming up to us at random times and saying "HEY! DON'T TAKE DRUGS!!"

*********************************

I just checked on the homework that Max is doing (What? Doesn't your kindergartener work on their homework Sunday night??) (shut up)

He was doing a worksheet where there are pictures, and he is supposed to say what the picture is, then write down the first letter of the word.

For some reason, he had written numbers under all of the pictures instead of letters.

I took the paper and studied it closer. Under the ant, Max wrote a 6, under the octopus he wrote 8, the goat, table, dinosaur, cat and elephant, he wrote 4s.......

He was writing the number of legs on the object in the picture instead of the first letter of the word.

There were other pictures too, the dress had a 2 under it (someone wearing a dress would have two legs?) the house had one, the fish had 3, the ladder had 8.

I counted the steps on the ladder, and sure enough, there were 8.

I showed Max that he was doing the paper wrong, and he laughed and said "I guess my teacher probably won't like it like this!"

Then he flipped his pencil around and started erasing..........

Max the future architect?

Max is an interesting kid. (probably an understatement)

Wherever we go, he observes everything closely, and then when he gets home, he builds whatever he saw with his Duplo blocks.

You wouldn't think that Duplo blocks would be that versatile, but I have to tell you, it's amazing what that kid can build with those brightly colored, chunky blocks.

Take last week for example, in the last 7 days, he has built the following.

1. A very accurate model of his school, he even included the playground. (He built this so his pet imaginary birds would have a place to go to school, unfortunately, naughty bird wasn't in the mood for school, and knocked it over)

2. A model of the ice skating rink, complete with bleachers and a garage for the zamboni. He built this in the very center of his room and instructed us not to step in the middle because the ice was very slippery and we might fall.

3. The high school football field, including both the bleachers where we sat at the first of the game,* and the ones we moved to after we decided that we didn't like sitting in the visiting team's section due to the fact that we were the only ones cheering when our team made a touchdown. (one of MANY touchdowns I might add)

He did not, however, build any cheerleaders, which surprised me slightly, because they were jumping around right in front of us the whole first half. This however is the subject of a post that I was going to write, but have decided against, due to the fact that I might offend someone who knows the exceedingly cheerful cheerleader (from the visiting team) that I was itching to mock.

4. The big inflatable slides from the company picnic.

He built a remarkable likeness of these slides. When he went to bed that night, I noticed that he had knocked them down. A while after he got up the next morning, he had me come into his room to see the slides. Apparently, he had taken the air out of them before he went to bed because it was night and nobody would be using them, but now that it was day, he had put the air back in them. Sure enough, he had rebuilt (reinflated) the slides.

5. The Bingham Copper mine.

We took a family field trip to see the mine. It's the largest open pit mine in the world, and can be seen from space.

When Brielle heard that we were going to the mine, her first comment was "I don't think that Max has enough blocks for that one."

Sure enough, when we got home, Max headed straight to his room and built his rendition of the mine.

6. The new SUPER car wash we took the car through to after visiting the mine.

There are few things in life that Max enjoys more than going through a car wash, and this one didn't disappoint. It's the kind that has multiple brushes and waxes and foam, and then to top it off, UNLIMITED time for the vacuum.

He built a copy of the car wash, and cleaned many of his toy cars.

7. On labor day, we took the kids to a local burger joint downtown, then made a trip to the cemetery to visit some family grave sites.

Today I could hear Max building something with his blocks so I went in to see what he was doing. He had made neat little rows of blocks, some in small towers, and some taller towers.

"Look Mom" he said "I made a garden of for dead people!"

* I don't really like football, we actually went to see the marching band at halftime, because CJ is in the band, and because they are awesome.