It's like all they ever do at school is sit around watching videos on YouTube.....

One of my kids brought this gem home today. Apparently, their teacher showed it to them in class.

I know there was some educational subject she was trying to teach, however, I can't figure out what.

It is really funny, it made me laugh, and I was in a grumpy mood.

The next thing I'm going to do is get Max to tell a story and we can make a video out of it.

Now all I need to do is figure out a way to make a really authentic looking "Naughty Bird" costume.......

The mystery of the Christmas Eve ghost dog

Every year at Christmas, especially when we are up very late on Christmas Eve we hope that our children will let us sleep in a bit on Christmas morning.

This, however, has rarely been the case.

For example, the year when Brielle was 5. I woke up Christmas morning around 4:45 because the light from the living room was shining down the hall into our bedroom. Knowing that we had most definitely turned the light off, I got up to see Brielle dancing around the living room in her new pink bathrobe, with all of her other Christmas gifts scattered around the living room.....

She had obviously been awake for quite a while.

This year, however, was different. My husband woke me up at 7:00 to tell me that the kids were ready to see their Christmas gifts. Fortunately, he was awake when the kids came upstairs, and made them sit in the family room until I got up. I was very surprised that we needed to wake up Max also, because he had been so excited the night before, and had even gone to bed really early so that Santa could come to our house without fear of being caught by him.

As the kids were opening their gifts, I thanked them for letting us sleep past 5:00 and Brielle told me this story.

"Mom, I actually woke up really early this morning, around 4:00. I layed in bed, trying to go back to sleep until about 4:30, when I decided that I really needed to go to the bathroom, so I got up and opened my bedroom door, and I heard what sounded like a really big dog panting loudly in the hallway, so I hurried and slammed my door, jumped back in my bed, pulled the blankets over my head and stayed there until 7:00."

We don't nor have we ever had a dog, so I was trying to think of what could have been making this noise when CJ said "Really? I heard that same noise several years ago on Christmas morning when I was about to get up really early!"

So there you have it. It seems that we have some sort of ghost dog that shows up early Christmas morning, to scare our children back into their beds so that we can get a little sleep.

Now the question, why?

My older kids have a theory that the previous owners had a dog that died on Christmas, and he comes back every year at this time.
Max thinks that Santa was still in the house.

What do you think it could be?

My obligatory after Christmas post

Yes, Christmas is over in the house of whine.

I'll just give you a recap of the last few weeks.

We had a late start on decorating this year, due to the amount of work that I had, combined with school concerts, parties and three days spent at the middle school helping the Career Technology Education teacher try and teach four classes of 7th graders how to sew.......

I think my favorite kid was the one who screamed from across the classroom "I KILLED IT! I KILLED THE SEWING MACHINE! I REALLY DID! I KILLED IT!"
I went over to investigate the potential death of one of the rather new sewing machines, only to find that the thread was tangled into the bobbin case.
"You didn't kill it," I explained to the frantic kid "the thread is just tangled, I can fix it in no time."
"I didn't kill it?" he asked. (almost sounding disappointed)
"No" I said as I started clipping the thread. I soon discovered that the thread was knotted a bit more than it originally appeared. When frantic kid saw this, he slapped his forehead and started yelling again "SEE! I KNEW I KILLED IT! I REALLY KILLED IT! I KILLED THE SEWING MACHINE!"
He continued yelling this even after I fixed it. I have a sneaky suspicion that he didn't really want to learn how to sew.
The kids were making fleece hats. It was a very simple pattern and many of them finished their project quickly (however, many more of them did NOT finish quickly, however, I'm leaving that subject alone)
I had just finished fixing tangled thread in one machine and was walking across the room to fix yet another tangled thread situation (seriously, I have never seen so much tangled thread in my life!) when I saw a kid struggling to pull a white hat on his head. He pulled it down past his chin, which was OK because he had cut eye holes to see through.
"Look! I made a ski mask!"
He had indeed made himself a ski mask. One with eye holes in the front to see out of, and also eye holes in the back.
I asked him if he had cut the other eye holes for the eyes in the back of his head. He quickly felt the back of his head and said "OH NO! I guess I probably should have only cut holes in one side of the hat.
Then he caught sight of his reflection in the window. He gasped.

He was wearing what looked like a pointed white hood with eyeholes.

"Wow, I probably shouldn't have made this hat white." he said.
I agreed.

Then he took it off and threw it away.

I did survive the week of sewing education, and some kids even learned a few things :0)

And I learned that no matter how many times I reminded the kids to put the presser foot down before sewing, they still would still forget and I would end up fixing yet another tangled mess of thread........


We managed to get all of our house festively decorated a good 6 days before Christmas!

The shopping, however, was a different story.

I still had some things to buy on Christmas Eve, and headed to the store to purchase them, however, when I saw the parking lot at the grocery store, I had second thoughts. I noticed that the parking lot at Walgreens was much less crowded, and thought to myself that surely, Walgreens would have that last item that I needed, so I foolishly went for the easy parking.
No, Walgreens didn't have the item that I was looking for, I did, however, still manage to spend $23.82 on a bunch of stuff that I didn't go there to buy.

All day on Christmas Eve, Max was really struggling to contain his emotions. The excitement of the day was just too much for him, and he fought with his siblings multiple times. We had to remind him that Santa was still watching him, and even threatened to send Santa an email.
CJ finally pulled up the NORAD website so that Max could see that Santa was on his way, so he better straighten up.
It worked, mostly because Max spent the rest of the day in front of the computer, watching the updates from Santa's sleigh.

Max was ready to unwrap his new pajamas and go to bed at 6:00, however, being the meanie that I am, I insisted that he eat dinner with the family first. He did refuse dessert, and got in his jammies and went to bed early.
I guess he can't misbehave if he's asleep.

Christmas morning came, and Santa brought Max a Fisher Price camcorder (which he asked for) and a wooden train set. He played with the train set for 3 solid hours.

He used the tracks to build an amazingly accurate model of his favorite freeway interchange.

This year, we chipped in with Grandma and Grandpa and bought the kids a Wii.
Apparently, according to one of our children, we are now officially a part of the human race, due to the fact that up until Christmas morning we were the only family in our children's group of friends who did not have a Wii.

The kids played on the Wii for the majority of the day.

Sunday, none of them could move their right arms.

As it turns out, Max is really quite good at the Wii games. He has skunked his siblings multiple times. In bowling he gets mostly strikes and spares, and he is dominant in the sword fighting.

It's a good thing that Max seems to excel at the games, because as we are discovering, he is not very good at losing.

The saga of the Naughty imaginary animals part 3: Naughty bird, now you see him, now you don't, now you do......

For part 1 go here.

For part 2 go here.


A few weeks ago, Max was sitting on the family room floor building something spectacular with his blocks when I asked him to go wash his hands for dinner.

He pretended to try to stand up, then fell back to the floor, sighed and said "I can't get up, Naughty Bird is holding me down and won't let me go wash my hands." Then he went back to playing with his blocks.

Daddy told Max that he really needed to go wash his hands and Max repeated "Naughty Bird won't let me!"

My husband walked over to Max, picked up Naughty Bird, opened the back door and threw him out.

Max stared for a moment then said "No Dad, Naughty Bird is still here. He died and now he is a ghost, so you can't pick him up because your hands will go right through him."
Then he went back to playing with the blocks.

I went over to Max and said "If Naughty Bird is a ghost, then he can't hold you down and make you do things, right?"

Max looked a little surprised, then got up of the floor and went to wash his hands for dinner.

Unfortunately a few days later, Max informed me that Naughty Bird had "Magically" come back to life and wasn't a ghost any more.


Awesome.



You'll never guess who showed up a few days ago.

"Naughty Turkey"

Fortunately, Aaron cleverly explained to Max that tomorrow we would be eating Naughty Turkey, so hopefully we won't be seeing much of that critter anymore.

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.

All I want for Christmas is free shipping. And clean socks.

I've got a huge work project that I am working on that will keep me super busy for the next three weeks, so last week I decided to get a jump on things and do some Christmas shopping before I got too busy. I also wanted to get a few things before everything gets sold out.

Unfortunately, the only think I've been able to get is annoyed.

Why is it that a company can't just let you know how much the shipping will be without you creating an account and/or logging in with all of your personal information?
Why can't they just give me an estimate?
Often, the price of shipping is the deciding factor on purchasing an item at one site instead of another.
Shopping from home is supposed to be easier, isn't it?
(and I guess that technically, it is easier than driving to several different stores to compare prices on the same item, but still.........)

I don't want to have an account at every website I visit, besides, I can't remember that many different usernames and passwords. (no, I won't use the same one at each site. I'm just paranoid that way) Plus, I just don't want to give my personal information to a site if I don't end up buying anything from them.

So, long story short, I haven't bought anything. (which actually has turned out to be a good thing, because one kid keeps changing his mind about what he wants)

So much for getting it done early.


In other news, the kids have figured out a way to make some of the more annoying Christmas songs more enjoyable. (did you notice how I didn't say less annoying)

They have been rewriting the lyrics.

Imagine all of us in the car singing ..............

"Last Christmas, I gave you my socks,
but the very next day, you threw them away.
This year to save you some tears,
I'll wash them before I wrap them."

Yes, I know it doesn't rhyme, however, every time we sing it, Max bursts into a fit of giggles.

And now you'll be singing the same thing whenever you hear that song too.

You're welcome.

The reason that I am currently really annoyed with Naughty Reindeer

Tonight I was trying to get Max's backpack ready for school tomorrow and I couldn't find his homework, so I asked Max where it was.

"Naughty Reindeer throwed it away. It's at the dump."

I asked him why Naughty Reindeer would do such a terrible thing like that and he said "Because he didn't like the way I did my homework. Even though I wrote really nice letters, Naughty Reindeer didn't like them and so he throwed it away."



Stupid imaginary reindeer.






Fortunately, Brielle was able to find his homework AND his library book which needs to be turned in tomorrow.

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.

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.

Help solve the mystery

Last night around 9:00 p.m. our doorbell rang.
When we got to the door, there was no one there, however, three notes were left between the door and the screen door.

Note #1 said

What's your secret?

Note #2 said

I know you are in the witness protection program

And note #3 said

I know you are Aliens.



What do you think it all means?
Why was there no punctuation used on note #2?
Why does the note writer think that they know so much about us?
Why did they use three pieces of paper when they could have fit everything they needed to say onto one?
Why is this the most interesting thing I can find to blog about?


Why?

Why?

WHY?


Any of your ideas would be appreciated. Leave me a comment.

Thank you.





And just for the record, we are not Aliens, nor are we in the witness protection program. (Not that I would admit it if we were, because that would kind of defeat the purpose of the witness protection program now wouldn't it.)
(But we're really not.)

And the only secret that we might have would be that great big flying saucer in our shed, but I didn't tell you anything about it, mkay?

Tiger catch a fish

Last weekend, CJ and Aaron spent a great deal of time tinkering with an old computer that a neighbor gave to them. We were so impressed because they managed to fix it!
We dug out all of the old computer games that they played when they were younger, (but won't work on our newer computers) thinking that Max would really enjoy playing them.

I suppose he would have enjoyed playing them if he had been allowed to play them.

After a while, he got tired of watching his siblings play the games so he took matters into his own hands. He took three pieces of paper and drew a keyboard and a mouse on one, a monitor on another, and a pair of speakers on the third.
On the back side of the monitor drawing, he drew the "inside" of the computer which looked amazingly similar to the inside of the CPU that his brothers had been working on earlier in the day.
He laid the drawings next to each other on the table then drew "cables" between them.

"Hey guys!" he said excitedly "Look! I've made my own comprewter!"

We all took a look at his creation and told him how great his computer looked.

Next he sat down at the table and began typing on his keyboard and clicking his mouse. Every once in a while he would say things like "Oh no!" or "Yay!"
I asked him what he was doing.
"I'm playing a game on my comprewter, it's a game called Tiger catch a fish! It's a really fun game!" then he continued to type on his paper keyboard and click on his paper mouse.

He played this game all weekend.

Seriously, he sat at the table and pretended to play this game for 30 minutes straight.


Yesterday, he asked me to get a few games out of the closet. A while later he yelled "Mom! Come and see what I did!"
I went into the living room to see that he had set up a game board. One side of the board had 18 pieces set up on it and the other had 6 pieces.
"Mom! Will you play the game with me?"
"OK, I said, noticing the mismatched pieces, "But what are we playing?"
"Tiger catch a fish!"
"Oh, so it's not just a computer game?"
"No, it's a two person game. Will you play it with me?"

He sat down on the side of the board with fewer pieces. He spun the spinner from the Hi Ho Cherry-O game and moved one of his pieces two spots.

I spun the spinner and landed on 4. I moved forward two spots, then sideways two spots.

"Is it OK if I move sideways?" I ask.
"Yes" He answered, "But when you move sideways, then you get to take one of my pieces.

So after that, I moved sideways on every move and he handed me one of his pieces.

When He got down to one piece, I asked him "How do you win this game anyway?"

He giggled and said "The first one to have all their pieces get gone is the winner!"

Sneaky kid.

I guess it's easier to win if you make up all the rules as you go along.

Max in space!!!! An interview with an astronaut

Last week we took the kids to the planetarium and saw two shows.

Max was fascinated. He was particularly interested in the huge models of the planets they had on the wall outside of the dome theater. All he talked about the next day was the movie that we watched on the ceiling.

He has spent the last two days drawing multiple pictures different planets and moons, and has them plastered all over his bedroom walls and ceiling.

Brielle and Aaron remembered that we had some glow in the dark stars and they dug them out of the storage room and put them up on his walls in between his planets.

Max then turned his bed into a spaceship. He put sat his Lightning McQueen chair on the bed then stuffs all of his stuffed animals in his headboard. He sits on the chair and shines his flashlight on one of his planets on his wall and ceiling and then travels to that planet.

I decided to ask him about his adventures, and so here is the interview that I had with Max the Astronaut.

Me: "What planets did you go to today?"

Max the Astronaut: "All of them."

Me: "Which planet was your favorite?"

Max the Astronaut: "The moon."

Me: "Why?"

Max the Astronaut: "Because I like that planet."

Me: "But the moon isn't a planet."

Max the Astronaut: "I know it's not a planet, some people didn't go to Mars but I went to Mars."

Me: "What was it like on mars?"

Max the Astronaut: "Weeeeeeeelll, I didn't get off the ship when I was on Jupiter."

Me: "Why not?"

Max the Astronaut: "Because it's a gas planet."

Me: "What would happen if you got off of your spaceship on a gas planet?"

Max the Astronaut: "I would sink through the planet if I got off the spaceship on a gas planet OK? that's why I don't get off!"

Me: "Which planet did you go to after Jupiter?"

Max the Astronaut: "I don't know, what planet?"

Me: "Did you go to Pluto?"

Max the Astronaut: "Yeah, it's a teeny, tiny planet."

Me: "How small was it?"

Max the Astronaut: "Very small, it's the same size as the moon."

Me: "What color was it?"

Max the Astronaut: "Silver."

Me: "Did you go to the McDonald's there?"

Max the Astronaut: "No."

Me: "Why not?"

Max the Astronaut: "McDonald's is big. Bigger than pluto."

Me: "Is there a McDonalds on Jupiter?"

Max the Astronaut: "No, McDonalds is bigger than Jupiter."

(At which point Aaron says "No wonder everyone is obese.")

Me: "What about Wendy's, do you eat at Wendy's in space?"

Max the Astronaut: "No!"

Me: "Why not?"

Max the Astronaut: (rolling eyes) "Because the people that builded Wendy's didn't want it to be there!"

So there you go, McDonald's is bigger than Jupiter and there are no Wendy's in space.

Why sixth grade teachers quit

On the first school day after Halloween, Brielle's school teacher told the class that he didn't have any Christmas decorations so they could bring any decorations they wanted and he would let them put them up in the classroom.

Brielle took this as a challenge.

My darling daughter has spent the last two weeks drawing all sorts of Christmas pictures and has taken them to school to be put on the walls of her classroom.
I think my favorite is the one she drew of her teacher wearing a Santa hat. The caption at the bottom of the picture says
"Santa, the bringer of presents, Mr Andrews the bringer of HOMEWORK!"

Then she drew a speech bubble coming from his mouth saying "HO HO HOmework!"

The teacher liked it so well that he framed the picture and put it on the wall.

A few days later, at the end of school, the teacher announced what homework would be assigned for the next day. Brielle proceeded to give him "the look" This is her half joking, half serious version of the "Evil Eye" (I have no idea where she picked this up..............really, I don't)

Mr Andrews found this rather amusing, so naturally, he laughed.

This only encouraged Brielle, and for the next several days, every time the teacher mentioned homework, she would give him The Look.

Yesterday, apparently, the teacher had had enough of the "evil eye" and told Brielle that the next time she gave him that look, he would take a picture of her, make a bunch of copies and plaster them all over the school.

Brielle then put up a sign on her desk that said "No flash photography."

(again, I don't know where she gets this stuff from)

Just giving you a warning to watch out for imaginary bird droppings

Remember a while back when Max obtained his imaginary pet bird "Naughty bird."

Do you remember how we got rid of the stupid bird?

Well guess who found his way back home?

Yes, Naughty bird is back, and just as naughty as ever. His latest mischief is to keep Max from doing things that I ask him to do.

Me: "Max, please change out of your pajamas and get dressed."

Max: (sitting on the floor, playing with garbage truck) "I can't get up, Naughty Bird keeps holding me down to the floor!"

Then he pretends to struggle to get up and then falls back down to the floor.

Me: "Max, could you please clean up your blocks?"

Max: "Whenever I try to clean up my blocks, Naughty Bird just messes them up again!" Then he knocks over the pile of blocks.

Needless to say, I'm getting pretty darn tired of this stupid bird. I can't figure out how he found his way back here, we even tried leaving him at the Grand Canyon when we were there a while ago.

But he came back.

Last week, Max was sitting on the floor putting together his favorite puzzle.

Me: "Hey buddy, it's time for lunch, come and eat your sandwich."

Max: (starting to get up, but then falling back onto the floor) "I can't get up! Naughty bird keeps pushing me back down!"

So I marched over, grabbed Naughty bird by his ratty old feathers, carried him to the back door and tossed him outside.

"There you go Max, problem solved, now come and eat your lunch."

Max started to get up then fell back to the floor.

I said "Hey, I just threw Naughty bird out the back door, he can't make you stay on the floor, he's outside."

Max started to stand up again but fell back on the floor, then he said "It's not Naughty Bird that won't let me get up, now it's Naughty Frog!"

Naughty Frog?

Tee-rrrrrrrrrific.

So now we have a Naughty bird AND a Naughty Frog.

And a Naughty Rabbit. He showed up later that evening to prevent Max from getting his pajamas on.

Happy Bagsalody Day!

Remember my post from yesterday where Brielle was being mean to me? Then when I told her she couldn't have a popcicle because she was being rude, she started sucking up so I would let her have a popcicle, and I still wouldn't let her have the popcicle because the only reason she was being nice to me was so that she could have the popcicle, not because she was actually sorry that she had been rude.
Today, I was looking at the calendar on my iPod and I noticed that there was an event scheduled on Saturday, August 22.
I couldn't think of anything we had scheduled for that day, so I clicked on it to see what we were doing.

Apparently, August 22 is Bagsalody day.

What is Bagsalody Day you ask? Well, I didn't know either, so I looked at the memo section for that day, and this is what I read.

"This is a day in honor of my mom being pretty. I hope everyone thinks my mom is pretty. I love you mom."

So there you have it.

How do you think I should celebrate Bagsalody Day? Should there be gifts involved? Cheesecake? Chocolate?






Brielle just finished her popcicle.

School lunch. Yes this is a boring title, but I'm not feeling incredibly clever today.

As of today, I have less than one week to enjoy sleeping in.
I have been blessed with 4 wonderful kids who all love to sleep in as much as I do. They all got their father's height, good looks and intelligence, however, they take after me in their ability to stay awake until all hours of the night and their love of sleeping in until the crack of noon.

And I couldn't be happier :0)

We have less than one week until CJ starts school, then I need to start getting up early again :P
(Max goes back to preschool next week too, but that doesn't really count because he has afternoon class)
Normally Brielle and Aaron would have gone back to school at the end of July, however, this year we've changed schools and they get 8 weeks off of school! (which means 8 weeks of sleep in time for me)

We do, however, have one problem. The school that Brielle and Aaron will be attending doesn't provide school lunch, which means that if they want to eat lunch, we actually have to send it with them, which means that somebody will need to fix it for them.

In the morning.

Before school.

Which means that someone will need to get up earlier to do this. (I predict that there will be days when I just take them to school then drop off their lunch to them later)

Last school year, the kids decided that they liked lunch from home better than the hot lunch at school. Apparently, the schools grilled cheese sandwiches came in a sealed bag that said "hot off the grill" which is interesting because they showed up in a SEALED PLASTIC BAG!" Perhaps they were hot off the grill right before they froze and packaged them.
The school would send home a lunch menu for the month and the kids could decide which days they wanted to eat at school and which days they didn't want to.
This worked out well because if they didn't feel like making lunch (yes I made them make their own lunches! It builds character!) then they could just eat whatever was being served in the cafeteria.
For a while peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were sufficient, however, they got old after a while, and the kids got creative in their lunch choices. We bought them each a thermos so they could take hot soup or noodles or whatever, but I think the best one was when Brielle took cereal for lunch.

You heard me right, cereal. (She took a quarter too so she could buy milk)

But wait, there's more!

She didn't want to eat just cereal, that would be boring, she took a large bottle of strawberry ice cream syrup to pour over her cereal!

I didn't know about this until that night when I was cleaning out her lunch box and pulled out this huge bottle of syrup. I can only imagine what the lunch teachers were thinking.

So basically, this year we are faced with a problem. What to fix for lunch.
For a whole school year.
Every day.

We've been trying to come up with some new ideas for what these kids can eat for lunch. We'll start out with the PB&J until they cant stand it anymore, but I'm thinking we're going to need some other ideas.

I would be grateful for any suggestions.

Aftermath of the afternoon nap

Today just before we arrived at home from our last activity for the day, Max fell asleep in the car.
It was after 6:00, and I should have known better, but I carried him in to his bed and let him continue to sleep.
I can hear you shouting at me "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? A NAP AT 6:00 IN THE EVENING? ARE YOU CRAZY???"
To which I answer, Yes.

On the other hand, I was able to fix dinner without any of Max's "help" which was quite refreshing.
I spent about an hour trying to figure out what to make for dinner before I threw something together the next while creating a delicious, well thought out meal for my family.
We sat down to eat around 8:00. Max woke up and came to the table, just a bit grumpy and refused to eat anything, but drank several glasses of milk. After a while Max said "I think I drinkeded too much milk"
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
"Because when I shake I can't hear the milk in my tummy so I must be clear fulled!"
Then he wiggled around in his chair to demonstrate that the milk could not be heard sloshing around in his tummy. "See? the milk is not makin' noise!"
After dinner was over and the table was cleared Max got the box of UNO cards and dumped them on the table. With both hands, he stirred the cards around for a while until CJ asked him what he was doing.

"Im shuffoling!"

He then insisted that CJ play a game of UNO with him.
Apparently, the game had gone on for quite a while because when I walked back into the room CJ said "MOM, I'm trying to let him win and it's not working!"
It seems that Max really enjoys collecting the cards instead of getting rid of them, and getting rid of them is pretty much the object of the game.
When he didn't have a card he could play, he tried to convince us that he should just be allowed to play any card he wanted even though it didn't match the top card on the pile.
Max: "Why I can't put this card down?"
CJ: "Because you need either a yellow card or a 5."
Max: "But I want to put this card down on the pile!"
CJ: "No, I can see another card you could use. See that red 5 card that you have? You can put that on the pile."
Max: "I not want to put that one on! I want to put THIS one on!" (as he waved a green 7 above his head)
CJ: "No Max. You need to put down a card that either has the same color or the same number on it, that card doesn't match either way. Use the red 5!"
Max: " I not want to put that card in the pile ! I want to put this card in the pile!"
He put the green 7 on the pile.
CJ took it off the pile.
Max drew another card. He now had about 13 cards. He then decided that he wanted to hold them in his hand, fanned out, like CJ was holding his cards, but he couldn't figure out how to get them that way and wouldn't let anyone help him. Every time he dropped a card, Max freaked out just a little bit more.

CJ finally ended up winning the game then Max went and got the Perfection game.
He had me explain to him how to play (set the timer, put the shapes in the correct places on the board, if you run out of time, the board pops and the pieces go flying) I helped him the first time, and when the timer went off, Max was startled and may have freaked out a bit.
He played the game two more times before he decided that it was more fun to dump the pieces on the board, set the timer and wait for it to pop.

Then, being the mean mom that I am, I told him that it was time to get his pajamas on.

He didn't want to get his pajamas on because "I not being sleepy!"

Then the races began.

Max stood against the refrigerator.
"Ready! Set! GO!!!"
Then he ran the length of the kitchen, through the family room then down to the end of the hallway. Next, he yelled "Ready! Set! GO!!!"and ran from the end of the hallway into the kitchen. He ran back and forth for a while, each time YELLING "Ready! Set! GO!!!"
He wasn't actually racing anyone, he was just running and yelling. From the other room I heard him say "HEY LOOK! I HAVE FAST FEET!!"

It is now after 10:00.
P.M.
I stopped him and took him into his room to get his pajamas on. He said he couldn't put on his pajamas until the ceiling fan stopped spinning. I was too tired to argue so I turned off the ceiling fan and we both sat there and watched it slow until it stopped.

Do you have any idea how long it takes for a ceiling fan to stop spinning when you turn it off?

A really, really long time.

or as Max would say "A reeollee, reeollee long time!"

The fan stopped spinning (finally!) and Max started to get his pajamas on. He took his sandals off and his feet were dirty from playing outside earlier in the day. He Yells "HEY LOOK! I HAVE STINKY FEET! LOOK AT MY STINKY FEET! THEY'RE STINKY! I NEED A BATH! I NEED A BATH!!" Then he waved one of his cute little feet in front of my face.
Dangerously close to my face

I finally got Max into his pajamas, then he ran some more solo races and drank more milk before I finally talked him into going to bed.

Tomorrow, I'm taking the nap.

Bird is back

Do you remember Bird?

He's back. Apparently, after Max threw him in the garbage, he somehow managed to find his way back home.
Yesterday, Max was sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch, and calmly announced that "Bird" was in my office.
"What on earth is Bird doing in my office?" I ask, "I thought the garbage truck took him away."
Max replies "He's back, and he's messing up your garbage can."
I was a little concerned because my garbage can was pretty full, and the last thing I needed was an imaginary bird messing it up. I told Max he needed to go get Bird out of my office.

Max got down from his chair, went into my office for a minute then came back.
"Bird is stopped playing in your garbage" he says "Now he's also playing with all your papers."

Bird spent the rest of the day getting himself into trouble. Max was quietly playing in his room when he came running to me and says "MOM! MOM! Bird is knocking me over!"
"Are you OK?" I ask (you know, because I want to make sure that this imaginary bird hasn't been causing my sweet little boy any serious harm.)

"NO! He did knock me over like this."

Then he fell over.

"SEE! HE DID IT AGAIN! HE DID IT AGAIN!"

I told Bird that he really needed to stop picking on Max or he would be in big trouble.

I must have really scared Bird, because he was quiet for a while, in fact, we didn't see him again until later that day when we were in the car. Bird showed up, and true to form, started misbehaving.

"BRIELLE! BRIELLE! HE'S GETTING YOUR COAT! HE'S GETTING YOUR BACK PACK! HE'S FLYING AROUND THE CAR! HE'S MESSING THINGS UP! HE'S TEARING UP THE SEAT! HE'S BEING NAUGHTY!"

I said to Brielle "Maybe Bird needs to go out the window."

Before Max could protest, Brielle quickly rolled down the window, threw Bird out, then rolled it back up.

(and for any of you that are worried that Bird might be hurt, first of all, he's a bird, and birds can fly, second of all HE'S NOT A REAL BIRD!)

Max looked a bit shocked.

I said "Max, don't worry about Bird. I'm pretty sure he will find his way back home."

Max thought for a moment then said "NO. He not will find his way to home, he will fly to a different house."

My heart leapt at the thought of the stupid bird moving somewhere else. I mean, this imaginary bird was causing quite the commotion in our home.

But I was also curious.

"What different house will Bird fly to?" I ask.

Max very calmly replies "He will fly to Amanda's house." (Amanda is my SIL)

So Amanda, I'm really sorry. Watch out, he will attack your head when you least expect it. He is rather fond of flying into the closet and messing things up. In fact, he messes everything up! You can try putting him in time out, but apparently, he can fly right through a wall, and will get back at you by attacking your head.

And no, we do not want him back.

We have a new imaginary bird. His name is Fooba, and he is a nice bird. He's small, and he has pretty, fluffy feathers, and he has never once attacked any of my children.

We will keep this bird.


I'm serious Amanda, I DO NOT want this bird back!!

Mail time!!!

I was in the kitchen fixing dinner when heard Max screaming. Aaron came running down the hall with Max following close behind.

Screaming.

Now this in itself really isn't that unusual. Aaron enjoys teasing Max, and Max enjoys screaming when Aaron teases him.
Usually in this situation, Max will come running to Mommy for a hug, but not this time. Aaron ran past me, and when Max got to me, I scooped him up to give him a hug and make him feel better but Max wiggled free and continued to chase Aaron back down the hall.

Screaming.

Then Brielle came into the room "I can tell you what happened" she said "Max wanted to play mail box. He sang the "Mail time" song to Aaron, but before he finished Aaron just left the room. Max just wanted him to take the mail out of his head."

Max pretends to be "Mailbox" from Blue's clues. He bends his head over and then we pretend to take the mail out of his head.

So, when Aaron came running back through the kitchen, with Max in close pursuit, DH grabbed Aaron and held him. Max stood in front of Aaron and bent his head while I struggled to get Aaron's hands and make him touch Max's head.
"There" I said "Aaron has his mail."

Max stopped crying for a moment until Aaron threw his arms in the air and ran back down the hall saying "No, I didn't get my mail, I just threw it on the ground."
Max "picks up" Aaron's imaginary mail and runs after him screaming "GET YOUR MAIL! GET YOUR MAIL! GET YOUR MAIL!................"

My kids are so weird.

Therapy Thursday

The year..........2029

The place..........Therapists office

Dr. Therapist: "So CJ, at our last appointment, we spent quite a bit of time discussing your childhood memory of how your mother told you that zucchini tasted like chocolate."

CJ: "Yes, it turned out to be a very traumatic experience for me."

Dr. Therapist: "Were you able to have a dialog with her about this in the last week?"

CJ: "Yes, I called her and we had a long discussion. Apparently, she was just trying to get me to eat something green. I didn't like green food."

Dr. Therapist: "Was this a useful conversation? Were you able to find closure?"

CJ: "Yes, I think I've finally worked my way through this subject. Zucchini tastes like zucchini and chocolate tastes like chocolate. No confusion anymore. I think that I've learned that it's time to let it go and leave this incident in the past. Mom was only trying to do something which she felt was in my best interest. I won't bring it up with her again."

Dr. Therapist: "Good! Good! Excellent CJ, you've made tremendous progress. Now last week at the end of our session, you mentioned something about these flashbacks you've been having. Should we discuss this further and see how you feel about it?"

CJ: "Yes, I think I'm finally ready to talk about it. I believe the flashback comes from an experience I had when I was about two years old. My mom took me to the store to buy some shoes. Apparently, she usually had a hard time finding shoes to fit my chubby feet."

Dr. Therapist: "So your flashback is about shoes?

CJ: "More about this particular shopping trip. I never liked shoe shopping, so when we got to the shoe department at Target, I was in a bad mood."

Dr. Therapist: "Did you not like shoes?"

CJ: "No, I liked shoes, in fact, I rarely took them off. My parents used to take my shoes off of me when they felt I was misbehaving."

Dr. Therapist: "They took your shoes off as a punishment? APPALLING! What things could you have done that would be so terrible that your parents felt they needed to remove your shoes?""

CJ: "They were always saying stuff like ........."CJ, stop jumping on the couch or I'll take your shoes off." or "CJ get your seatbelt on or we're going to take your shoes off" and "CJ, if you let go of my hand in this parking lot, I'm going to take your shoes off.........."

Dr. Therapist: "Hmmmmmmm.......... interesting. I think we may need to examine this more closely, but I think we'll discuss it later. For now let's get back to the shoe department at Target. What happened?"

CJ: "Mom found a pair of shoes that she thought were my size and then wrestled my shoes off."

Dr. Therapist: "And how did this make you feel?"

CJ: "I wasn't very happy, but I dealt with it."

Dr. Therapist: "So it wasn't the act of taking off your shoes that led to the trauma?"

CJ: "No.........No........... it was .........when .........Mom put the new shoes on me.........................."

Cr. Therapist: "Go on, what happened?"

CJ: " She tried to force the shoe on my foot. The shoe was kind of narrow through the arch, and I guess she thought that was why it wasn't going on."

Dr. Therapist: "Was the shoe too small?"

CJ: "No. It was a larger size than the shoes I had been wearing. Mom kept pushing my foot into the shoe. It just wasn't going in! She just kept trying and trying.........and trying......................................(sob)"

Dr. Therapist: "Go on CJ, take your time. Talk when you're ready, I know this type of trauma can be very difficult to talk about after being suppressed for so many years."

CJ: (taking a deep breath) "I'm OK, I can get through this. Mom kept pushing and shoving my foot into the shoe."

Dr. Therapist: "Did it ever go in?"

CJ: "Well, Mom finally took the shoe off and looked............. inside........................."

Dr. Therapist: "Was there something wrong with the shoe?"

CJ: "There was a big wad of tissue paper in the toe, that's why my foot wasn't going in."

Dr. Therapist: "How terrible for you! I honestly can't see how you lived through the trauma! Have you discussed this with your mother?"

CJ: "Oh, I've discussed it all right. I've brought it up on numerous occasions. At first, Mom acted like she couldn't remember the incident, and after that, she would just laugh when I would talk about it."

Dr. Therapist: "Did she ever apologize?"

CJ: "Well, yes, she has said that she's sorry multiple times, and told me that she felt really bad about what happened, but I still can't seem to get over it."

Dr. Therapist: "Our time is nearly over for today. I think we've had some major breakthroughs this session. This week I'd like you to call your mother and discuss this shoe incident as one more item on the growing list of things that she did to traumatize you and scar you for life."

CJ: "Thank you Dr. Therapist, I'll do that."

Dr. Therapist: "You're welcome CJ, I'll see you next week. When you get to the waiting room could you please have my receptionist send in my next patient? The poor guy, if you think you had it bad, you should hear his story. He keeps having a recurring nightmare about Elmo wearing a pink fairy princess costume."