Thankful for Bald Bus Drivers

Ooops- It's November. Not just November, but the week of Thanksgiving. Where did that come from? I'm supposed to bring a dessert to my family's Thanksgiving feast bonanza. It's like they don't even know me at all. If my darn camera wasn't broken, I would give you the wonderful picture of my Dessert Pre Thanksgiving Trial Run. I've never seen cookies so unhappy with themselves. It's not that they tasted bad, but I have enough self pride to not serve goo with chocolate chips to my family. Pete was nice. He kindly ate several glop's before letting me toss them-well, It, in the trash can. But it's the week of Thanksgiving. No gripes allowed. I'm supposed to give my list of things I am thankful for today. I am thankful for store bakery's. Post Its. My family. Cell Phones. Spare keys. Spare Spare Keys. Old Friends. New Friends. Books. And Old Bus Driver's. Not necessarily in that order. Although the last one especially stands out this week. We have a new Kindergarten, and new kindergarten routine. In many ways it's been great. My daughter rides the bus to school, instead of me driving 20 minutes to drop her off like before. When Kindergarten is only 3 hours long, that translates into about an hour and a half of more time between when Madisen goes to school and I have to pick her up. She loves the bus. She always sits by her friend Henry because he brings treats. He also gossips. Apparently Boston (a girl) and Frank are in love. "Yes Mom, Henry told me. He said it looked like they were kissing." Besides, the exposure other kids are giving my young innocent daughter, most days I love the bus too. Except for last early day. I was soaking up my post treadmill run shower, and lazily doing my hair when I realized: "Ohmygosh! It's early day!We have to go NOW!" It was 5 minutes past the time the bus was supposed to be there (around the corner a little ways) and here I was blissfully unaware that my daughter could be wandering alone and lost looking for Mom. I screamed to Shea to grab her shoes, and yanked the Boy out from under his nap (only in a diaper of course. perfect. ) and buckled them quickly into the cold car. I sped around the corner and spotted the bus. Phew. They were late. I was fine. NOPE. They had been driving around looking for my house, and gave up and just waited for me. Yikes, how late was I?? And how many other Mom's are waiting for their kids, because he wasted so much time at our stop? I felt like world's worst mother, but so grateful that he let her get back on the bus when I wasn't there. So I am grateful for him this week.
What are you thankful for?

Saturday Report

Madisen burst open the door early Saturday morning to give us the report:

"The Boy's being Japan! The Boy is being Japan!"

What?

"Like this" She proceeds to jump up on the cedar chest, bend over halfway and leave her arms swaying back and forth as she says (in a deep growl) "ooh-ooh ahh-ahh! ooh-ooh ahh-ahh!"
Wow. The Japanese are strange. What sort of ritual is this ?And pat myself on the back if my son is so brilliant to be in the know at only 16months! As my brain slowly wakes up, I realize:
"Oh, chimpanzee! The Boy is being a chimpanzee."

"Yup."

She leaves the room. Comes back in to give us a new report.

"Now he's being Daddy!"

Pete puffs up his chest with pride. That's right!

She jumps up on the cedar chest again, lays flat on her back with her arms folded behind her head. Relaxed.

"Just like you Daddy!"

The Week Of Pete

And boy was it! We moved to our new house this week. It's beautiful down here, and people have been awesome. The neighbors were even really friendly and welcoming. In the beginning at least. I thought we could at least go a couple months or so before people found out just exactly who we are but nope. I leave Pete home alone once and he exposes us. The old owners left us a tiny key which he assumed went to our mailbox. There was a big group of women standing outside in a neighbors front yard, and he thought he would be Captain Awesome, and go introduce himself. He shakes hands with all of them and gives his million dollar smile. Then innocently asks if they can direct him to the mailboxes. PAUSE.
"um, in the corner of your yard. . . . " they say. He turns around and sure enough, there it is. And wouldn't you know it: there's boxes in everyone's yard. He backtracked to explain how we had group boxes at our old house and the key looked just like our old mailbox key, but the damage was already done. Now we're out there. There's no hiding it anymore.
We moved in to a house with a field in the back. Nice big open space. And mice. Sometimes those mice like to find their way into a house to get warm food. And sometimes guys named Pete might spot them in their brand new home and try trapping it into a corner with their trusty dog Kona as right hand man. And rumor has it that Pete does a wicked impression of Michael Jackson slash wiggly jello slash screaming little girl when that mouse runs RIGHT UP HIS PANTS!!! Seriously! The inside of his pants! It was headed up to the buttocks before he was able to shake him back out. He's hunting with a vengeance now though. So gross! But also so very, very, funny. I might have laughed really hard for the rest of the night. Even all the way through the bedtime story for our girls, and the evening prayers. Turns out his eyes can really bulge when met with hairy rodent assassins. He got me back though. I asked him if he had seen my wallet because I needed to leave, and he told me he had put it (with all of my other necessities for said trip) in my purse, and in my car so that I wouldn't forget them. Pshaw! Like I would forget something. I stuck my chin out, rolled my eyes and explained harshly how I didn't need a babysitter. I was plenty old enough to get ready without someone holding my hands. I spun quickly to make my dramatic exit and went face first into the wall. I wasn't even kind of close to the hallway where I thought I was. Bad deal. Good week for Pete though. Yay PETE!

Boo for B.O.U. S's

Boo for Halloween and it's unfairness. My kids eat candy and candy and candy and get crazy energy, which then leads to running around and burning off all of their candy calories. It rots their teeth, and makes them fall out, so what happens? They get a new set of teeth that grow in. What's that teaching them? It's no wonder why I never learned to not eat too much candy as a child. But I'm old now. Candy isn't the same for old people. We eat too much candy, we get sick and lay on the couch which leads to B.O.U.S's: Belly's of unusual size. It's not our fault though. It's the candy that pulls a bait and switch when we grow up. Ever notice how loud chocolate is? I never heard it when I was little. But you better believe it was screaming at me as I snuck some from the girls bag's when they weren't looking respectably purchased a small sample from the grocery isle. There was a dentist advertising last week he would pay kids to bring in their candy. I like that kind of motivation. If every time I wanted to eat chocolate, someone paid me 50 cents, that I could do. I think that would shut the Snicker's right up. "I don't need you, melty, crunchy cornicopia of sweet heaveness: I have a dollar. Take that!" (insert tough guy chest thrust here)

Below I will leave you with pictures of my little candy beggars:
This is Skye. She's laughing at my weak candy calorie burning metabolism.


Closest one of my little Jasmine AKA Sydney. Skye was a witch for her school party and Hedwig for trickortreating.

Jack, trying to escape after being forced into an embarrassing Mickey Mouse costume

We're faster than he is Mwahahaha!
My kids and their cousins. I wish we had better pics, but it's hard to get them to stand still when they know their about to be immersed in candy begging mischief.

Straw-ba-ba-ba-berry Breakdown!

Unfortunately, having big sister's does have it's drawbacks. Like learning that when Strawberry Shortcake is playing for the umpteenth time, there can only be one thing left to do:

School Pictures

I cannot believe how expensive school pictures are! It's incredible. The cheapest package Madisen's school was offering was $22 bucks. Guess what it get's ya? A class picture, a sheet of 3X5's, a sheet of 2X3's and that's it. yup. 22 dollars. For the package I would have wanted it was 38 big ones. I'm too much of a cheapskate to pay for that, but I had to get Kindergarten pictures in her uniform. So I was torn. Then in a moment of unexplained brilliance, I decided that I would get her ready for pictures early that day (she has afternoon kindergarten) and take her by walmart to get their $7.00 package which is only one pose (just like school pictures) but you get a gazillion photos. With 8X10's and 5x7's and the whole deal. I paid 7 bucks for a class picture, and $7.00 for all her school pictures. That's a total of a whopping $14.00 dollars. Pat. On. Back. Thank you very much. I love beating the system. Especially after being completely duped in my last post. What do you guys do for pictures? Do you even bother with purchasing them?

Pumpkin Fraud

Kid's love the pumpkin patch. It seems likely since it's full of dirt and gooey messes. It's so fun to go and pick out the "perfect" pumpkin to bring home. Kind of makes me feel sad for all the other vegetables. When was the last time you heard of someone taking their families out for a special night of plucking the perfect radish? Just not the same. Poor radishes! At least radishes are honest. Pumpkins are living a lie. At least at our Farmers market. From where I sit to pick up my daughter from school, I can see the patch. I don't want to gossip, so I'll just tell you a super big secret that no one else is supposed to know: The pumpkin patch is a fraud! You're not picking pumpkins, you're lifting them from the dirt from where they were tossed after being shipped in on a little blue truck. Shipped in by some disgruntled worker who apparently doesn't even like pumpkins, judging by the way he was chucking them out of the truck bed. I hate to be the patch police, but I call pumpkin b.s. (bull snot of course). I feel so cheated! I HATE getting duped by the pumpkin people. Now it seems no different than going to the store and pulling one out of the box (which by the way is where Shea finally found hers after scouring the whole faux-patch and not finding one she liked).
I'm not going to stand for this kind of mockery next year. No one will make a fool out of this family! Next year we're going out for Halloween Radishes. Care to join us?



You see the little twig thingies they placed along the dirt to make it look like the pumpkin "grew"? FAKE


Don't be fooled by their masks of happiness. Underneath those smiling faces, they are just as upset as I am.

Snotty Boy Chicken

So, get this: I'm in the shower. (Not NOW! It's a story!!) The Boy comes toddling in covered head to toe in tiny pieces of toilet paper. Kinda like feathers. The roll is stretched out across the bathroom floor. He looks like a tissued chicken. His snotty nose is blubbering down past his chin. This shower didn't last long. sigh. I get out, dry off, wipe his nose, and hurry to get dressed. My interest is piqued. Finding nothing, I conclude that the paper must be attached by some sort of booger-glue. Gross. I wipe the snot n' feathered child down and move on to cleaning the house. The kitchen first, where I scrub something brown and sticky off the floor. (Pepsi?). I finish the bathroom and move on to my mom's carpeted living room. That's where I discover the open syrup bottle . . . .

Big Break

"Ahem." She said. I turned from the cheesecake I was pondering while waiting for the slowest deli meat cutter in the world to finish. I see a pretty young woman, about my height with make-up overkill, waiting to speak to me. After a quick mental check from me (are small tight black dresses the new standard for walmart? No, probably not) I cover up the child finger print mustard stain at the bottom of my t-shirt anyway, and wait for her to go on. "Your children are beautiful! How old are they?" Okay, now I know something is up. Not that I don't think my children are gorgeous, but do other people really think that when (after shopping for 3 hours and 3 different stores) their hair is skeewompus, their eyes are red and bloodshot because of 30 different crying spells, and their faces are covered in the chocolate m&m's I bribed them with if they would be good for "just one more store"? Do they? Seems suspicious. I tell her their ages and she laughs and says it's cute how they are hugging eachother. I look down. I'd say it was more of a headlock/deathgrip, but I guess she called it how she saw it. She gives me a feather-light handshake and introduces herself as so and so from some casting company. "We've casted for bla bla and High School Musical. Do you think we could set up a time when we could have them come in?" These children? I think. Do you see them with toungues wide open waiting for the sprinklers to spray down on the zuccinni? Hmmm. . . I guess that is kind of cute. "I don't think so" I say. "Really? Oh, okay. Well, take it as a compliment, your children are beautiful. . . " and she walked away. She is right about that I suppose, but I think what she was selling was a bunch of huff, and besides, shuffling kids around to casting calls doesn't seem all that much fun. Too much waiting. Kids wiggle when they wait. It's exhausting. When the sloth of a meat cutter was finally done, we checked out and went home. Fame free and tired. Do you think they'll hate me when they're older for making them miss out on their "big break"?

Jelly Belly

How old are your children supposed to be when they stop believing you're the smartest person in the world? 13? 15? 5?!!! Five. Madisen's five and I've already lost it. I have no hold over her now, it's very depressing. I thought I could at least hold out until 8 or 9. No worries though, because she still thinks I'm awesome. She told me today I was NOT smarter than Jared (her uncle), but my brain was AWESOME! Does that seem like a sympathy compliment to you? I've been trying to rack my awesome brain to think of a reason for her shift from team Mom to team Jared. Could it be the fact that I spent a whole 20 minutes this morning making goofy sounds and faces to get her to stop playing the "copy-me" game? (she's got a killer copy-cat. ). No, probably not that. Because I sometimes forget things? No, I guess not. Ah, yes, I remember now. . . it must be because of last night when I lost the Jam lid. I made a pb&j for the boy. I went to put the jam back in the fridge and couldn't find the lid anywhere. Not on the counter, not behind me on the oven. Not back in the fridge, not on the floor, not on the counter where I had just barely looked . Oh! There it is: Stuck to my belly. Not the best accessory I must say.
Yup. It must be that.

Kinderdiscrimination

Sometimes people are just rude. Sometimes those people are about 3.5 feet tall. I'll explain. I've always known that children are cruel. Don't spread this around or anything, but I may have been the target of quite a bit of cruelty in elementary school. I had crooked front teeth and couldn't play kick ball. It's amazing I even survived. Thankfully I had an awesome BFF Lindsay. She was the pretty, popular, funny, amazing at kickball girl. I was her oddball sidekick. We got along beautifully. On the way to school yesterday Madisen was telling me about her 3 pre-school best buddies. I asked her who her best buddy was in Kindergarten. Here's how it went:
Madisen: Well, everyone is in two's.
Me: In two's?
Madisen: Yeah like Kaston is with Cooper, and Jerzie is with Aspen, and Mayu is with Hola, and Brinley used to be my best buddy but now she plays with Sydney. I'm just one.
What?? My daughter is just one? What's wrong with these children? Can't they see that she's so much fun to be around, she's completely sweet, angelic, beautiful? She practically has "I am cool" tattooed on her forehead! I felt like marching into the classroom, to teach those children a thing or two about choosing their friends. They obviously haven't been raised right.
Me: what about Billy? I hear you talk about Billy. . .
Madisen: Um. . . Billy is by himself, he's just one.
Me: Great! Why don't you be best buddies with Billy?
Madisen: (sighing) O-Kaaay Mom, but, he IS the smallest person in our class. . . .


That's right. My daughter the discriminator. Unfortunately we just can't change some people's views about short people.
Upon closer examination of the situation, I've decided that maybe I went about this all wrong. I guess I probably should have said it was wonderful she didn't have a best buddy because it's great to be best friends with everyone. I can't help it though. All those years of tortured torment otherwise known as 5th grade 6th grade and 7th grade. I can't change the past; however, I can teach Madisen how to trick her classmates into gluing their fingers together. . . .

If I had a dollar for. . .

Every time I needed a dollar, I'd be a rich woman. Also, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me I "never" answer my phone, I'd be rolling in the dough. It's always confusing, I think, "Wait, didn't I just answer my phone?" I pick up the phone every time I hear it ring. The phone rings, I pick it up. Just because the majority of the time my phone is left out in the car, or in my purse out in the car, or left inside my purse not out in the car, but in the dressing room of the store I last exited, does not mean I'm hard to get a hold of. Besides, who doesn't like a challenge? If I was easy to call, people would stop calling me because where's the fun in that? Don't get me wrong, I think cell phones are a beautiful thing. They've saved me from many a predicament. (Sometimes I almost run out of gas) It's just that a strong independent woman like me, who is always on the go, and in the mix of things (today I did laundry AND loaded the dishwasher. how's that for excitement?) can't be tied down by cellular leashes. Problem is, I want to have my cake and eat it too. Or make my calls and have you answer too. So. . . . . when I call tomorrow. . . you're um, gonna answer right?