Angry feet

This morning started out like any other morning. I woke up the older kids* then dragged Max out of bed.
Max is not a morning person (a trait he inherited from me) and I stood him up on the floor, holding on to him until his eyes opened a bit, and he stopped swaying.

"I'm awake mom" he croaked, then stumbled off to the bathroom.

I went back downstairs to wake up the other kids again (apparently they aren't morning people either) and when I came upstairs, Max was sitting on his bedroom floor, staring into space.

"Are you playing with your blocks instead of getting dressed?" I asked.

"No!" he growled, jumping up and grabbing his school pants.

Ten minutes later, I went back into his room to check on his progress.
He was now wearing pants, and holding a shirt.

Progress!

When I came back ten minutes later, his shirt was on and he was holding one of his tennis shoes.

"I can't find the other shoe!"

I helped him look all over his floor, behind his door (a favorite hiding place for his shoes) and under the blankets on his bed. (9 times out of 10 this is where we find his shoes) (seriously)

We couldn't find his other shoe.

I sent him to the kitchen to start eating his freshly toasted frozen waffle, and I continued to look for his other shoe.

Logically, I thought that it would probably be somewhere near the place where he found the other shoe, I looked under all of his block piles, behind the door again, in between all of his stuffed animals.......
I even looked under his pillow (remembering that time when I was Max's age and didn't want to go to school, so I hid my shoes under my pillow)

The shoe was nowhere to be found!

The time was getting late, so I grabbed his church shoes and brought them out to the kitchen.

"Sorry Max, I couldn't find your other shoe, you'll have to wear these."

"BUT NONE OF THE OTHER KIDS WEAR THEIR CHURCH SHOES TO SCHOOL!!"

The shoes are brown, and perfectly acceptable to wear to school. I pointed this out to him as I removed his one tennis shoe.

I looked up to see his arms folded across his chest in defiance, and he was wearing his angry eyes.

He refused to put the shoes on, so I put them on his feet for him. He spread his toes as wide as he could, just to make it as difficult as possible.

Fortunately, after raising his older brother, I knew how to deal with the uncooperative toes and still managed to get the shoes on, with Max giving me the evil eye the entire time.

"Oh yeah!" he growled "well then I just won't eat!" and he refused to eat any more of the waffle.

I guess he showed me.

And then I put his jacket on him, handed him his backpack, and he walked to the car...........very slowly........

Because, apparently, church shoes are incapable of moving as fast as tennis shoes.


When he gets home, I'm going to tell him that Naughty Bird ate his shoe.



* OK, CJ woke me up first so I could take him to school at 7:00, otherwise I would probably still be sleeping.....

Too many video games?

Yesterday I asked Max for a kiss on the cheek. As he leaned over to kiss me, I turned my head and planted one right on his lips.

He wiped off his mouth and said "OK mom, let's try it again!"

He tried to kiss my cheek, but again, I quickly turned my head and kissed his lips.

Frustrated, he said "Again, try it again!"

The third time, he was a little quicker, and I kissed his chin, then he said "OK, score for level 1, mom, 200, Max 100. Begin level 2, double points, and GO!"

When friends stop being friends

It's happened folks, I've recently discovered that I have been de-friended on Facebook.

I wouldn't have even known it, until I got a little suggestion that I add someone to my friends list, that was already on my friend list.

I laughed when I saw this, because, seriously, she's already on my friend list, and we've been friends IRL since first grade!

So, I clicked on her profile link, and I no longer have access to all of her information.

"This is strange" I thought "It must be some mistake!"

I looked at her friend list and I was not there!

It's true, I have been officially defriended.

Was it something I did? Was it something I didn't do? Was it because I continually ignored her requests to join her in Farmville, Mafia wars and all of the other games she invited me to play?
Was it because I never clicked on the link to find out what questions she answered about me?
Was it because I didn't come to her (fill in any multi-level-marketing company) party when she advertized it on Facebook and begged everyone to attend?
Was it because I never included a profile picture of myself, so she just had to look at that creepy sillouette whenever I made a comment?

What would make a person purposely eliminate someone from their list of friends.

I was rather perplexed.

I decided that she probably just left her computer logged on to Facebook, and her cat defriended me.

Stupid cat.

Then other friends from my list started appearing in the "friend suggestions" page on Facebook. Three of them to be exact, and I'm pretty sure that at least one of them does not have a cat, (and I doubt that dogs have that kind of dexterity)

Now I'm wondering what is the proper protocol for this type of situation. Here are my ideas.

1) Act completely oblivious to the fact that they have purposley eliminated me from thier friend list, and send a friend request to them. (multiple times if necessary)

2) Sit in front of the computer, staring at the friend list that I'm not on, and feel bad.

3) Go out for ice cream.

Your suggestions (and friend requests) would be appreciated.

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..........

Fool me once?

Today Brielle was trying to play a trick on Max. She told him to say "fork" ten times really fast.

Max said "Fork, fork, fork, fork, fork, fork, fork, fork, fork, fork."

Then she told him to say "fork" five times, really fast.

Max said "Fork, fork, fork, fork, fork."

Next, she told him to say "fork" really fast two times.

Max said "Fork, fork."

Then one time, really fast."

"FORK"

Then she told him to say "fork, r e a l l y s l o w............"

"Fffffffffffoooooooorrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkk."

Next, Brielle was ready for the punchline, and asked Max "What do you eat your soup with?"

Without hesitation, Max said "CRACKERS!!"

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

Do you remember several years back when Max would use the word "also" at least three times in every sentence?

Do you remember how sad we were when he grew out of this adorable habit?

Well, never fear! Max has a new phrase! He begins EVERY sentence with..

"Well......... it's just that......."

Max: "Well, it's just that Aaron was being mean to me!"

Me: "What is he doing to be mean?"

Max: "Well, it's just that he won't let me play on the Wii!"

Me: "I told him to turn it off because it's time for bed."

Max: "Well, it's just that he turned it off and I didn't get to win!"

Aaron: "I let you finish the game first, mom told me to turn it off."

Max: "Well, it's just that I didn't win the game and I wanted to play it again until I won!"

Me: "It's bedtime, you've had plenty of time to play."

Max: "Well, it's just that I DIDN'T WIN AND I NEED TO WIN BEFORE I STOP PLAYING!"

Me: " NO, It's time to get your pajamas on."

Max: "Well, it's just that I don't know where my pajamas are!"

Me: "I washed them, they're in the dryer."

Max "Well, it's just that they shouldn't be in the dryer, they should be in my room!"

Me: "You could take them out of the dryer and put them in your room."

Max: "Well, it's just that I don't want to do that, I want to play the Wii!"

But tell me, Max, how do you REALLY feel about the snow?

We got hit with a snowstorm this afternoon.
As we were driving home in the storm Max says "I have 200 reasons why I don't like snow......

#1. Because it's cold.
#2. I don't like it.
#3. I don't like it.
#4. I don't like it.
#5. I don't like it.
#6. I don't like it.
#7. I don't like it.
And the rest are "I don't like it."

Video Vednesday