Hide and seek with Max

I have this fun game that I've played with all my kids when they were little. If I knew that they were coming into a room, I would hide around the corner and as they walk by I jump out and growl at them. Sure, at first they had this look of sheer terror on their faces, but it soon melted into uncontrolled giggles then they would be their turn to hide and "scare" me.


Today, I got into the hide and growl game with Max. He loves this game, and will play it forever. When it was my time to hide, I hid in the kitchen closet.





I heard Max walk in the kitchen and around the island.





He looked in the bathroom by the kitchen.





He looked in the hall closet.





He looked behind the couches.





He looked in the laundry room.





I'm still in the closet waiting. I can't believe that he hasn't looked in the closet, I mean, it was the only place he hadn't looked, and it was SO obvious!





He went and looked in the living room, then I heard him go downstairs.





I continued to wait.





When he came upstairs he went down the hallway and looked in the bedrooms and bathroom again. I heard him opening all the closet doors. He even started calling "Mom! Where are you?"





Then it dawned on me.





You know those white childproof doorknob covers that you put on your doorknobs so that little kids (and some adults) can't open them?

There was one on the door to the closet that I was hiding in.

Max the Magician

Today, Max walked into the room with his hands behind his back.

Max: "Hey Mom! Can I show you my new magic trick?"

Me: "Sure!"

Max: "Guess which hand is hiding something!"


:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
V

Overreacting over an inch?

Warning: Rant ahead.

Yesterday I wanted to make Brielle a new workout outfit. She wanted matching leggings and a top, so we went to our local fabric store to buy some black spandex fabric.

I arrived at the store with my 40% off coupon, which was a good thing because the fabric was several dollars more per yard than the other fabric store that I frequent.

We took the bolt of fabric to the cutting table, took a number and patiently waited for our turn.
I should have known that something was up when the lady in front of me finished and rolled her eyes at me as she walked away from the cut table.

When our number was called, I stepped up to the table, handed the bolt to the girl and asked for two yards.

She looked at the bolt and said "I'm not sure if there's that much here" then she unrolled all of the fabric and started to measure it. She seemed to be having great difficulty deciding which end of the fabric to start measuring from. She finally decided on an end to start with and tried to line it up with the yardstick.
I immediately noticed that the edge of the fabric had been previously cut at an angle, and she was measuring from the longest edge of the fabric. I pointed this out to her, and she tried several times to straighten the edge, she was about to trim it even and then decided that it wasn't that uneven (which it was)
She continued to struggle with measuring the fabric, complaining that the spandex just wouldn't cooperate, and finally measured the two yards and there was just barely an inch of fabric left over.
She asked another employee what she should do with this remaining inch of fabric.

"You can offer to sell it to her for 50% off."

She turned to me and asked if I wanted to buy the remaining inch of fabric for half price. I stood there dumbfounded and said "You're really going to cut that off?"

She looked at me with a straight face and said "Yes, unless you want to buy it. We will give it to you for half price."

Then I said "ARE YOU SERIOUS? I have NEVER been to a fabric store where they were this close on measurement and haven't just included the extra inch or two."
She replied "I'm sorry, this is my first day here and I'm just doing what I was told to do."
Then the older lady chimed in "We need to come out even on our measuring. it needs to be exact because sometimes they measure the fabric at the checkstand and we need to be correct."If you want to buy the extra fabric, we will sell it to you for half price."

I then pointed out to the older lady that the edge of the fabric had been cut unevenly on an angle to start with and the girl jumped in and said "It was only a quarter of an inch and I already gave that to you!"
I knew for sure that this wasn't true because I had watched her measure from the very edge of the fabric.

By now I was fuming. "What on earth are you going to do with one inch of fabric?!!! You can't do anything with one inch of fabric. You're only going to throw it away, I can't believe that you are really going to cut that off!"

"If you want it" said the older lady "we would need to charge you for it. If they measure it at the checkstand, the numbers need to add up."

I couldn't believe what she was saying. Never in my life have I seen them measure fabric at the checkstand at this particular fabric/craft store.

So I told her to go ahead and cut off the inch.

She trimmed off the inch (with much difficulty, I might add) handed me the fabric and told me to have a nice day.

I went to the checkstand and paid for my fabric. Nobody measured the fabric again. I kind of wished that I had because when I got home, I measured the fabric and it was one inch short.

I measured it again, it was still one inch short.

I measured it a third time. You guessed it, One. Inch. Short.

This was spandex fabric and I think she might have stretched it a bit as she was measuring it, either that or the yardstick on the cutting table is short.

Over the years, I have spent literally thousands of dollars on fabric at this particular fabric store. I have been buying fabric there for over 20 years!

Tomorrow I will call the manager. Do you think I should ask her to refund the money they overcharged me on that inch of fabric that I didn't get.




This really happened, I only wish I was making it up.

Super (flaky) Mom

This morning, at 8:01, I was awakened by the telephone ringing. I had been up VERY late last night, trying to meet a deadline for work, and to say that I was annoyed would be putting it lightly.
I looked at the caller ID, and didn't recognize the number, so I just assumed that whoever was calling would call back if it was important.
Then I heard them leave a message.

"Hi Jill, this is Jamie Jensen from the Cub Scouts, we are all ready to go to Day camp and we're just checking on Aaron, we can only wait a few more minutes before we need to leave. Hope to see you soon! Bye!"

Wow. Chugging a big gulp full of Dr. Pepper couldn't have caused me to wake up any faster than that phone call.

My first thought was "How on earth could that be today? I know for sure that it was on the calendar for Thursday and Friday."
So I went and looked at the wall calendar in the kitchen, and sure enough, written on Monday and Tuesday was "Cub Country"

Shoot.

I quickly called her back.

"Hi Jamie, we're on our way, I'll have him there in a few minutes. Ummm, he needs a lunch today, right?"

I went and dragged a groggy Aaron out of bed, hoping that he would at least have some clue as to where his scout shirt was. He found the shirt (whew) and it was clean (or at least I couldn't smell it) I made him a super fast peanut butter and jelly sandwich, stuffed a can of pop and some chips into his lunch box (which I was amazed that we actually found) gave him a piece of toast and rushed him over to the church where everybody was waiting.

And then I made him hug me in front of his friends. (It's kind of my payback for all the grocery store tantrums he threw for me)

As I drove away I looked at my watch. 8:12.

In 11 minutes I managed to get up, confirm that day camp was indeed today, get Aaron out of bed, dressed and fed (I even managed to sneak a little gel in his hair. If I hadn't, everyone would have seen his bed hair and known that we just woke up) found the sunscreen, made him a lunch and drove him to the church.
If my alarm had gone off at 8:02 and I had hit the snooze button, I would have been back home in time to turn it off.

Seriously, I think I deserve some sort of award* or medal or something.

Or at least chocolate.



*If you totally ignore the fact that I wasn't aware that the camp was indeed today.

When I got back home, I looked at the calendar in my electronic organizer and the camp
WAS listed for Thursday and Friday, NOT today and tomorrow.

I realize now that I forgot to check to see if Aaron was wearing clean socks. Heck, I'm not even sure that he was wearing socks.



PS. I had a really great weekend because I got to go to TWO blogger lunches on Saturday!
These were hosted by Crash from Crash Test Dummy diaries and Erin from If you give a mom a moment.

If you want hear more about the lunches, please click on the links because, obviously, I'm too scatterbrained to write anything about them. (However, I had a great time at both!)

It's THREE! THREE! THREE posts in one!

#1. Quote of the week by Max............

"Hey Mom! Come and see what I made in my room! Hurry! Hurry!
Come and see it, it's NOT DANGEROUS!"


#2. Wordless Wednesday.


Before you ask anything about this photo, my answer is I DON'T KNOW!!
Seriously, this is why I posted the photo for wordless Wednesday, I can't find any words to explain it.

#3. Due to the overwhelming requests that I bring it back,* here it is, back by popular demand!**

WORD VERIFICATION WEDNESDAY!

For those of you that are new here, (or those of you with memory issues) here's how to play.
#1. Go to the comment box.
#2. Look at that annoying word verification code.
#3. Make up a definition for the WV word and leave it in a comment.

It's just that easy!
Please remember to keep it clean as my children do read my blog.

Keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times and HAVE FUN!!!

* Nobody actually requested that I bring back WVW, I'm sure everyone wanted to, they just got busy.
**Nobody popular demanded that I bring back WVW either.

Just how bored are they?

Apparently, my kids were very bored yesterday.

"How bored were they?" you ask.

Two words................ Snail races.

The cute little voice you hear in the video belongs to Max.





On a related note, does anyone know of a good way to get rid of snails?

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.