It has been a great day and Mom has prepared a great meal, set the table, and called the kids. The kids enter the kitchen, and take their seats with minimal arguing. All is peaceful. Ivy is asked to say the prayer. She quietly folds her arms and begins:
Ivy: "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day and for helping us stay safe. Please bless the food. Please give us blessings. Except for Ethan...OOWWWW Mooom let GO of my ARM! Where are you taking me?"
Mom drags Ivy by the arm to a corner and looks at her.
Ivy continues: "But he said he didn't WANT blessings!"
Everyone starts trying not to laugh out loud (except Ethan) as we remember the LAST time Ivy said the prayer:
Ivy: "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day and for helping us stay safe. Please bless the food. Please give us blessings. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen."
Ethan: "Ivy WHY do you always ask Him to give us blessings. It's so stupid to just say give us blessings. You should be more specific."
A fight ensued and Mom broke it up by saying no one was allowed to talk about Ivy's prayers anymore.
I guess she got the last word. But I don't think (hope) she'll do that again...
Monday, May 24, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Just When I Thought I'd Seen Everything...
OK--so I'll probably be able to use that title for many more things in my life but I have had bedwetters for 8 years now--for the last few years I've had 3 bedwetters. They are starting to outgrow it thankfully, but I still wash a lot of bedding. Last night was a first. Ethan came downstairs to tell us that Nathan stood up, pulled his pants down, peed all over his bed and then climbed back in bed and went to sleep. The boy was so tired that he didn't wake up enough to walk to the bathroom. But I have to say it is an improvement--at least he got up and pulled his pants down.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Last Friday/Saturday Vince took Ethan to a Webelos overnighter--they had a great time! Vince told me that when they first got there the boys could go to a station and make marshmallow shooters. Vince hated the marshmallow shooters. For obvious reasons. In any case when Ethan went to make his shooter he went to the station and the first words out of his mouth were: "Do we have to follow the directions?" Pretty typical--Ethan loves to figure things out on his own and in his own way!
Monday, May 10, 2010
Ivy CEO and Other Misc
Ivy was selected as CEO (Chief Example to Others) by her teacher. Each month two students from each grade are selected and recognized for their exmple. Here is what Ivy's teacher wrote about her (Vince, Eva, Ethan, and I chuckled at many parts):
"Ivy has brought us a gift this year...the gift of enthusiasm. It has been contagious, and our whole classroom has been affected by her great attitude. She is a natural leader. She can organize, delegate, and get everyone on board, working as a group, and completing a classroom project. If someone doesn't hold up their end, she steps in and helps them get through it, guiding by example. She finds joy in the most simple things...it doesn't take a lot to make her happy. She is appreciative of any small kindness. Not only is she a joy to be around, but she is a great student. Ivy is a creative thinker. She can come up with multiple ways to solve a Math problem. I like watching her in action...she can be amazing. Ivy often completes a chapter book almost on a daily basis. She loves to read and she shares her joy by telling me all about her favorite books. I have truly enjoyed having Ivy in our 2nd grade classroom this year."
We are all quite proud of Ivy and love her personality!
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the last week:
From Nathan, at 9:00, after taking the kids to school at 8:45 and refusing to eat his breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns (he did eat the bacon) at 8:15: "Mom, can I have a snack?" I said of course and pointed to his breakfast to which he replied, "Mooom you can't dooooo this to me!"
From Eva after we paid $2400 for a new violin: "Thanks Mom! You're so great--this is so nice, I owe you my life!" Yes. Yes she does and personally I thought life was a bit better than a new violin but OK.
I had a lovely Mother's Day--it is such a blessing to have kids. They make life so meaningful and bring me smiles and laughter each day! I've feel very fortunate to have so much time to spend with them! Truthfully. I am not being sarcastic at all unless it is 9:30 at night and I am telling them to go to bed. Again. For the 20th time. But one of the cutest things is when Nathan comes down at 9:30 and says, "Mom, can I have a snuggle--just a teeeny one?" and he makes the motions with his fingers. So I give him a teeny snuggle--sometimes just 10 seconds and he jumps up happily and runs to bed. The other kids have tried a similar tactic but it doesn't work for them.
I love how Mother's Day gives me an opportunity to think of my own mother and all she has done for me and all the wonderful qualities I love in her. I know her dedication to me as a girl has helped me be the mother I am today. Thanks mom! And thanks to Vince's mom--I feel blessed every day to be married to a thoughtful, compassionate, selfless man who loves the Lord and our family.
"Ivy has brought us a gift this year...the gift of enthusiasm. It has been contagious, and our whole classroom has been affected by her great attitude. She is a natural leader. She can organize, delegate, and get everyone on board, working as a group, and completing a classroom project. If someone doesn't hold up their end, she steps in and helps them get through it, guiding by example. She finds joy in the most simple things...it doesn't take a lot to make her happy. She is appreciative of any small kindness. Not only is she a joy to be around, but she is a great student. Ivy is a creative thinker. She can come up with multiple ways to solve a Math problem. I like watching her in action...she can be amazing. Ivy often completes a chapter book almost on a daily basis. She loves to read and she shares her joy by telling me all about her favorite books. I have truly enjoyed having Ivy in our 2nd grade classroom this year."
We are all quite proud of Ivy and love her personality!
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the last week:
From Nathan, at 9:00, after taking the kids to school at 8:45 and refusing to eat his breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns (he did eat the bacon) at 8:15: "Mom, can I have a snack?" I said of course and pointed to his breakfast to which he replied, "Mooom you can't dooooo this to me!"
From Eva after we paid $2400 for a new violin: "Thanks Mom! You're so great--this is so nice, I owe you my life!" Yes. Yes she does and personally I thought life was a bit better than a new violin but OK.
I had a lovely Mother's Day--it is such a blessing to have kids. They make life so meaningful and bring me smiles and laughter each day! I've feel very fortunate to have so much time to spend with them! Truthfully. I am not being sarcastic at all unless it is 9:30 at night and I am telling them to go to bed. Again. For the 20th time. But one of the cutest things is when Nathan comes down at 9:30 and says, "Mom, can I have a snuggle--just a teeeny one?" and he makes the motions with his fingers. So I give him a teeny snuggle--sometimes just 10 seconds and he jumps up happily and runs to bed. The other kids have tried a similar tactic but it doesn't work for them.
I love how Mother's Day gives me an opportunity to think of my own mother and all she has done for me and all the wonderful qualities I love in her. I know her dedication to me as a girl has helped me be the mother I am today. Thanks mom! And thanks to Vince's mom--I feel blessed every day to be married to a thoughtful, compassionate, selfless man who loves the Lord and our family.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Laundry Day
I have just realized why I don't like laundry day. All these years I thought it was because it took all day, matching socks is a pain, laundry is the ultimate boomerang.... But I now know the true reason I don't like laundry: it's a puzzle. I HATE puzzles! I can never figure them out--I don't generally like to spend hours looking at little pieces and fitting them together. In fact, I drive Vince crazy because after 5-10 minutes or so I will just grab a random piece and check it in every possible place/way it could possibly go. I just don't have the patience to sit and figure it out.
Anyway. Back to the laundry. You may be wondering what is puzzling about laundry--this is probably because you don't:
1. Have a sock bag full of dozens of odd socks. Really. Where do they come from? I have given this serious thought over the last few months and I have decided there are really only two explanations. One: My kids randomly drop a sock in the trash every other day so the socks in the odd sock bag will not feel lonely. Of course, they deny this but they also deny every forgetting to flush the toilet and I have yet to meet a ghost that needs to remember to flush the toilet. Two: The companies who produce socks are brilliant because they make all different kinds of socks--each time I go to the store for socks I end up buying socks that don't match any other socks I already own. Job security for sock factory workers. It's a conspiracy.
2. Have to wash 3 DOZEN bath towels after just SEVEN days!!! This is a major puzzle since the children don't take as many baths/showers as they should. Except for one--she takes a shower every day. Last Monday I finished the laundry and today I have to wash THREE. DOZEN. BATH TOWELS. Possibly more--there is literally a mountain of bath towels sitting on my bedroom floor right now. Vince and I used one towel each--ALL WEEK. A concept I've been apparently failing to insert into my children's minds for the last several years. Which is why today everyone will get to choose ONE towel for the ENTIRE week which they are responsible for. The rest are going to disappear.
3. Have children who refuse to change their clothes every day. Don't judge me. I do what I can. I can hear you asking yourselves how this makes MORE laundry...wouldn't it make sense that if the children don't change their clothes every day there would be LESS laundry??? AHA--that's the PUZZLE! Which I dont' like. It's like those story problems in math where one train is traveling 35 mph going south and the other train.... After last week I am ready to postulate a theory on this puzzle. One of my children who I know wore the SAME outfit for THREE consecutive days had NO clothes in their dresser after the laundry sort. NOT A STITCH! Maybe that's why he wore the same outfit for three days... How does this happen?
4. I'm sure this doesn't happen to you but it may explain mystery #3--the kids don't like to use their dressers! I have different theories because the same theory won't work for each child. One idea is that the child is a daydreamer and somewhere between the table where I fold the laundry and their dresser they absolutely forget what it was they went to their bedroom for and set the laundry wherever it is convenient--which is not in their dresser--and this is a puzzle to me because wouldn't the fact that you are carrying a stack of clean folded clothes REMIND you why you were there in the first place?!? A second theory is that the child has seriously overestimated how much time it takes to put the laundry away and decides in their brain that they have no time for it and they put it someplace--not in their dresser. A third theory is that the child has no room in the dresser because they have filled an entire drawer with nut shells, pine cones, and old peach pits. Still don't judge me, OK? A fourth theory is that the child finds it way more entertaining to stuff the clean laundry under their bed, between the bed and the wall, under the dresser (and really if you are going to put it under the dresser then why not IN the dresser--wouldn't that be easier anyway?), under their pillow, wadded up with their blankets on the bed,... I think the reasoning behind this child's thought process is that it's a GAME! Every morning they can play hide and seek with their wardrobe!!
5. Run out of dish towels and dish rags 4 days after laundry day and wash an entire basket of said towels and rags on laundry day. Remember--I have a front loader washing machine so these are big loads. I CANNOT figure out why we run out of dishrags--it's not like the kitchen is super clean. I have two entire drawers full of them! I have even been known (don't judge) to walk through the kitchen, being very exasperated at all the dishrags all over the kitchen and evaluating which ones were still OK to put back in the drawer.
6. I'm sure at your house no one leaves a laundry trail. It's like mouse tracks only from kids--there is a stream of laundry all through the house. A little pile here, a bigger pile over there, a few socks under that sofa, a pair of dirty underwear in the entry way (still no judging--except maybe the kids--you can judge them because I see absolutely NO reason for dirty underwear to exist outside a laundry basket),..... Every Monday morning I get to go on a scavenger hunt. Except there is no pot of gold or treasure--just stinky laundry.
7. Probably at your house people don't blame you for their dirty clothes. (Ethan just gave a sigh of relief and said "Oh-I thought you were going to write about that other thing" I asked him about the other thing but he won't tell me.) Anyhow. I can spend two entire days doing laundry. I'll good naturedly (most of the time) do the scavenger hunt, the smelly laundry sort, and wash, dry, and fold everything and yet if I miss a single article of clothing THAT will be the ALL IMPORTANT piece that someone HAS to wear! It's Murphy's Law. At least the part about the ONE piece that gets missed is the ONE piece someone HAS to have. The other law is some weird mystery laundry mom law where no one but the mother is ultimately responsible for making sure their clothes get in the laundry to be washed!!!
8. People at your home probably don't hold you accountable for making sure all 479 articles of clothing (the kids said, "you counted them?" which I didn't but you get the idea) get in the correct pile. They will come all the way back with an article of clothing that isn't theirs demanding to know HOW in the WORLD I could think it belonged to them!!! And then they will be teenager huffy about having to put it in the proper person's drawer. Which is really kind of funny when you consider that they can walk all the way back with the one piece of clothing that isn't theirs but they can't get their own clothing in the dresser.
Ethan says "You're being rude" similar to his "Are you trying to be mean or does it just come natural?" comment from last week. Eva just walked out of the room, exasperated. So I guess my work here is finished.
For now.
But really. I have high hopes for this post. When I wrote the "What I Have Learned About Fairness" post I didn't hear "That's not fair!!" for at least three weeks. I'm thinking this post will buy me reasonable laundry loads for the next two weeks minimum. So I will have some relief from laundry conundrums.
Anyway. Back to the laundry. You may be wondering what is puzzling about laundry--this is probably because you don't:
1. Have a sock bag full of dozens of odd socks. Really. Where do they come from? I have given this serious thought over the last few months and I have decided there are really only two explanations. One: My kids randomly drop a sock in the trash every other day so the socks in the odd sock bag will not feel lonely. Of course, they deny this but they also deny every forgetting to flush the toilet and I have yet to meet a ghost that needs to remember to flush the toilet. Two: The companies who produce socks are brilliant because they make all different kinds of socks--each time I go to the store for socks I end up buying socks that don't match any other socks I already own. Job security for sock factory workers. It's a conspiracy.
2. Have to wash 3 DOZEN bath towels after just SEVEN days!!! This is a major puzzle since the children don't take as many baths/showers as they should. Except for one--she takes a shower every day. Last Monday I finished the laundry and today I have to wash THREE. DOZEN. BATH TOWELS. Possibly more--there is literally a mountain of bath towels sitting on my bedroom floor right now. Vince and I used one towel each--ALL WEEK. A concept I've been apparently failing to insert into my children's minds for the last several years. Which is why today everyone will get to choose ONE towel for the ENTIRE week which they are responsible for. The rest are going to disappear.
3. Have children who refuse to change their clothes every day. Don't judge me. I do what I can. I can hear you asking yourselves how this makes MORE laundry...wouldn't it make sense that if the children don't change their clothes every day there would be LESS laundry??? AHA--that's the PUZZLE! Which I dont' like. It's like those story problems in math where one train is traveling 35 mph going south and the other train.... After last week I am ready to postulate a theory on this puzzle. One of my children who I know wore the SAME outfit for THREE consecutive days had NO clothes in their dresser after the laundry sort. NOT A STITCH! Maybe that's why he wore the same outfit for three days... How does this happen?
4. I'm sure this doesn't happen to you but it may explain mystery #3--the kids don't like to use their dressers! I have different theories because the same theory won't work for each child. One idea is that the child is a daydreamer and somewhere between the table where I fold the laundry and their dresser they absolutely forget what it was they went to their bedroom for and set the laundry wherever it is convenient--which is not in their dresser--and this is a puzzle to me because wouldn't the fact that you are carrying a stack of clean folded clothes REMIND you why you were there in the first place?!? A second theory is that the child has seriously overestimated how much time it takes to put the laundry away and decides in their brain that they have no time for it and they put it someplace--not in their dresser. A third theory is that the child has no room in the dresser because they have filled an entire drawer with nut shells, pine cones, and old peach pits. Still don't judge me, OK? A fourth theory is that the child finds it way more entertaining to stuff the clean laundry under their bed, between the bed and the wall, under the dresser (and really if you are going to put it under the dresser then why not IN the dresser--wouldn't that be easier anyway?), under their pillow, wadded up with their blankets on the bed,... I think the reasoning behind this child's thought process is that it's a GAME! Every morning they can play hide and seek with their wardrobe!!
5. Run out of dish towels and dish rags 4 days after laundry day and wash an entire basket of said towels and rags on laundry day. Remember--I have a front loader washing machine so these are big loads. I CANNOT figure out why we run out of dishrags--it's not like the kitchen is super clean. I have two entire drawers full of them! I have even been known (don't judge) to walk through the kitchen, being very exasperated at all the dishrags all over the kitchen and evaluating which ones were still OK to put back in the drawer.
6. I'm sure at your house no one leaves a laundry trail. It's like mouse tracks only from kids--there is a stream of laundry all through the house. A little pile here, a bigger pile over there, a few socks under that sofa, a pair of dirty underwear in the entry way (still no judging--except maybe the kids--you can judge them because I see absolutely NO reason for dirty underwear to exist outside a laundry basket),..... Every Monday morning I get to go on a scavenger hunt. Except there is no pot of gold or treasure--just stinky laundry.
7. Probably at your house people don't blame you for their dirty clothes. (Ethan just gave a sigh of relief and said "Oh-I thought you were going to write about that other thing" I asked him about the other thing but he won't tell me.) Anyhow. I can spend two entire days doing laundry. I'll good naturedly (most of the time) do the scavenger hunt, the smelly laundry sort, and wash, dry, and fold everything and yet if I miss a single article of clothing THAT will be the ALL IMPORTANT piece that someone HAS to wear! It's Murphy's Law. At least the part about the ONE piece that gets missed is the ONE piece someone HAS to have. The other law is some weird mystery laundry mom law where no one but the mother is ultimately responsible for making sure their clothes get in the laundry to be washed!!!
8. People at your home probably don't hold you accountable for making sure all 479 articles of clothing (the kids said, "you counted them?" which I didn't but you get the idea) get in the correct pile. They will come all the way back with an article of clothing that isn't theirs demanding to know HOW in the WORLD I could think it belonged to them!!! And then they will be teenager huffy about having to put it in the proper person's drawer. Which is really kind of funny when you consider that they can walk all the way back with the one piece of clothing that isn't theirs but they can't get their own clothing in the dresser.
Ethan says "You're being rude" similar to his "Are you trying to be mean or does it just come natural?" comment from last week. Eva just walked out of the room, exasperated. So I guess my work here is finished.
For now.
But really. I have high hopes for this post. When I wrote the "What I Have Learned About Fairness" post I didn't hear "That's not fair!!" for at least three weeks. I'm thinking this post will buy me reasonable laundry loads for the next two weeks minimum. So I will have some relief from laundry conundrums.
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