Quick Quips

Little O (to a man handing out popcorn at Home Depot): If you give me some popcorn I'll tell you a real good secret about my mom.

"What's with the smoke." 

Little O: I like holding hands with you, Mom.  Holding hands makes my feel feel better.


Little O was standing by the bathroom mirror, watching me get ready for church.
Me: What do you think?  How do I look?
Little O: I would totally take you to the ball.
(This is probably my favorite of any compliment I have ever received in my entire life.)

Me: Why do you squeeze your eyes shut when you smile sometimes?
Little O: I am just SO, SO happy and the happy might come out from my eyeballs!

Turnaround

Little O with me in Sunday School, taking refuge beneath the table at the front of the room.

For weeks and weeks Little O refused to go to his class at church.  He would wake up Sunday morning mourning his fate.  Is it Sunday?  I hate Sunday!  I don't like church.  I want to go to class with you.  I don't want to go to my class!  I want to stay with you at church, Mom!

And then, for his 5th birthday, he made one repeated request.  He never asked for anything else, just this one thing:  a church tie with a phone box Tardis on it.

Thanks to my brother-in-law, Lance, my kids are all well-versed in Doctor Who.  I have only watched one episode and it didn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me, but whatever.  The kids are obsessed.  Even if the littler ones sometimes can't shut their eyes at night just in case the Weeping Angels get closer.  (Thanks a lot for that, Lance.)

About 3 days before his birthday I realized that this really, truly was all that he wanted.  A church tie with a Tardis on it.  I searched everywhere for a kid-sized tie with a phone box.  I even looked for phone box fabric, thinking I could make him one.  No such luck!  The day before his birthday I had the idea to look for a Tardis tie tack and found one on Etsy.  You know it is fate when the person selling the exact thing you need by tomorrow lives only 20 minutes from you.  He hand delivered the tie tack, I found a snazzy tie to attach it to, and Little O was absolutely thrilled.

Little did I know that this gift would be a present for me as well!  The Sunday after his birthday he woke up excited for church!  His devastation turned to elation when he realized it was Sunday.  He babbled on all morning about how excited he was to go to church.  Is it Sunday?  I can't wait to go to church!  I love my teacher!  I want to show my teacher my tie!

His teacher reported to me after church that he came to class, kissed her on the cheek and showed her his new tie.  He then proceeded to try to kiss every girl in his class.  (sigh.)  When I asked him about that and told him it wasn't really appropriate behavior he responded, "I just don't know why I like girls SOOOO much!"

Looks like I have a new problem to deal with.

My Littlest Stinker

My Little X is such a rascal!  It's tough, because I love this age and I hate it.  I love how he is finding his words and will animatedly babble on and on about things that obviously make sense to him.  I love the big hugs and messy kisses and understanding just what Little X means when he says "Ahyahboo!"

The worst thing that every one of my kids do at this age is turn into escape artists.  They have found their independence and they want the freedom to roam the world!  The deadbolt on the front door is no match for them.  A simple right-hand turn to freedom?  Easy!  Because of this we installed what we called the Hubba Lock.  It's a second, much higher and harder to reach lock that can only be undone with a key.  (Hubba mastered that in about 3 days.  Little X is still frustrated by it.) 

The problem with the Hubba Lock is that when there are 11 people living in a house there is plenty of coming and going happening and sometimes that lock is forgotten.  Little X has radar sensors that tell him when this is the case and at any given moment he finds his way to freedom.  Luckily we have always found him within a couple of houses away from our home.  But it's always scary to know he's been out there without supervision for any amount of time.

The other thing that scares me at this age is quiet.  As in, I know he's downstairs - but it's so quiet down there.  It always means the same thing - something is happening that I don't want happening.  Like the time I found him yesterday happily splashing his feet in the bathroom sink (socks, shoes and pant legs included), forming an impressive puddle on the floor.  Or when I found him sitting in his diaper on top of a mountain of clothes in the little girls' room (that he had made with every item from their now-empty closet and dressers) drawing on himself with red marker.  "Ta-da!" he happily called to me when I found him, his arms open wide - obviously impressed with his creation.

The most recent shenanigan happened as I was typing up an agenda for a meeting and Thumbelina stood in the kitchen making cookies.  He was right behind me and right behind her, happily playing with his cars.

In the flour.  On the carpet.

I had a million things to do that day.  I had no time to be upset.  Instead, I took a picture.  Thumbelina asked, "Why are you taking his picture?  He'll think he's cute and do it again."  I told her that I take pictures of moments like these because eventually they'll be really funny.

(And also because he's cute.  Even when he's being naughty.)

Jokes For Kids

Except for the rare occasion when we give them money for school lunch I have always packed lunches for my kids.  I used to pack them in brown paper bags with their names written on the front.  It seemed like wasted space, so I started making decorating their names with various themes.  Sometimes I would even write a little note to each of them.

Eventually I decided to start adding a daily joke on each lunch bag with the question on the front and the answer on the bottom.  My kids really looked forward to the jokes every day.  They had classmates and teachers who would always ask what today's joke was.  I had found my niche.

When I switched over to lunchboxes to cut down on the expense of the paper bags my kids were concerned.  What about the jokes? they asked.  So I started writing them on index cards or scrap paper and tucking them in with their sandwiches and fruit.

After writing jokes and riddles down for 4 years I worried that the kids were getting sick of them.  Besides that, I was running out of material!  So I wrote them an uplifting or funny quote each day.  They liked that just fine but I never stopped hearing about how much they (and their friends) missed the jokes.  So the next year, I started up again - recycling some of my jokes from the first couple of years.

It's been somewhere around 7 or 8 years now that I've been doing this.  I've found jokes in books, online, heard them from friends and asked for ideas on Facebook and it's been a lot of fun.  Little X is only 2 now, so I figure I've got at least another 16 years of lunch jokes ahead of me.

Here are some of our favorites.


What is brown and sticky?
A stick.


What is green and has wheels?
Grass.  I lied about the wheels.


What do you call a pig with three eyes?
A piiig.


What do you call a deer with no eyes?
No eye deer.


What do you call a fish with no eyes?
A fsh.


What's the difference between a bagpipe and an onion?
Nobody cries when you chop up a bagpipe.


What did one snowman say to the other?
Do you smell carrots?


What do lawyers wear to court?
Lawsuits!


What has a bottom at the top?
Your legs!


Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?
To get to the bottom!


Why did the tree get in trouble?
It was being knotty.


What's the difference between a fly and a bird?
A bird can fly but a fly can't bird.


What do you call a piece of wood with nothing to do?
Board.


What do you call a cow with a twitch?
Beef jerky.


Why wouldn't the oyster give anyone its pearl?
It was shellfish.


What did one elevator say to the other?
I think I'm coming down with something!


What did the girl say to her math homework?
I'm not a therapist!  Solve your own problems!


What's blue and smells like red paint?
Blue paint!


Want to hear 2 short jokes and a long joke?
Joke.  Joke.  Jooooooooooooooooooooke.


Why did the wagon train stop?
It was having Injun trouble!


What do you call a bear with no teeth?
A gummy bear!


Why did Beethoven get rid of his chickens?
They kept saying, "Bach! Bach! Bach!"


What is Beethoven doing in his grave?
De-composing.


What's brown and sits on a piano bench?
Beethoven's last movement.


Why did the clock get in trouble at school?
It wouldn't stop tocking!


What did the cow say to the pig in its way?
Moooooooooooooooooooove!


Which of Tigger's friends weighs the least?
Skinny the Pooh.


Why was Tigger looking in the toilet?
He was trying to find Pooh.


Why should you never shower with a Pokemon in the room?
It might Pikachu.


Why did the whale cross the road?
To get to the other tide.


What has four wheels and flies?
A garbage truck.


Why did the banana go out with the prune?
Because it couldn't get a date.


How did Noah see the animals in the ark at night?
With flood lights.


Why did the picture go to jail?
It was framed!


What do you call someone who doesn't fart in public?
A private tooter.


What kind of music do aliens like?
Nep-tunes.


How do you get a baby alien to sleep?
You rock-et.


Why don't witches wear flat hats?
Because there's no point!


What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?
Anyone can roast beef.


If a fire hydrant has H2O on the inside, what does it have on the outside?
K9P


What's mean and round?
A vicious circle.


Why are pirates great singers?
They can hit the high Cs.


How much did the pirate pay to have his ears pierced?
A buck an ear.


Why couldn't the pirates play cards?
Because the captain was standing on the deck!


Why do seagulls live by the sea?
Because if they lived by the bay they'd be bay gulls.


Why did the tomato blush?
Because it saw the salad dressing.


Why did the car blush?
It saw the light changing.


When does a doctor get mad?
When he runs out of patients.


What does a triceratops sit on?
Its tricera-bottom!


What did the horse say when it fell?
I've fallen and I can't giddy-up!


What does a nosy pepper do?
It gets jalapeno face!  (say it a few times, it will make sense)


What do you call a short psychic who escapes from jail?
A small medium at large.


What did Lincoln say when he went to court?
I'm in-a-cent!  (Thumbelina made that one up.)

Awful Waffles and Taco Bloop

One time when I was gone and Allen was tasked with making dinner for the kids, he decided to make waffles.  Instead of baking powder he used baking soda and instead of teaspoons he used tablespoons and apparently they turned out pretty gross.  The kids still talk about the time they ate 'Awful Waffles' for dinner.

I never had this kind of story until last Halloween.  I made a pot of Taco Soup and told the kids they had to eat some before they could go Trick-or-Treating.  A couple of them mentioned that it tasted different but I thought that they were making excuses.  I had used a different brand of beans and added green peppers to it, so I thought that was the 'it-tastes-different' culprit.  They all ate every last bite then headed out to collect their loot.  Once things slowed down a bit I sat down to have a bowl of soup for myself.  I about gagged with the first bite.  It was so salty!  And then I realized my mistake.  Instead of Taco Seasoning I had used Seasoned Salt.  A heaping 1/4 cup worth.  I felt terrible for making each of the kids eat a whole bowl of it.

A few months later, I made Taco Soup with seasoning salt again.  It got nicknamed Taco Bloop.

A few weeks ago I almost made the same mistake a third time.  I caught myself after pouring just a bit of salt into the pot and was able to salvage it by scooping out most of the salt.

In my defense, the containers for Taco Seasoning and Seasoning Salt look almost exactly the same.  And the contents look pretty similar, too.

Thumbelina decided that she had seen enough salty soup and made me a new label for the Seasoning Salt.

 

 

 Problem solved.

   

Random Thoughts

I thought I was just getting old because I don't understand why people like to hashtag everything.  Then this happened:

and I realized that people who use hashtags don't even know what they are doing!  Apparently it's like a way to say things that you could have just said without the hashtag, but more hip.  Who writes out a hashtag in chalk on a driveway?  And who decided to call it a hashtag?  It's a dang number sign, people!  I don't get it. I mean, it's been explained to me, so I get it that way.  But I don't get it.

I don't 'get' a lot of things anymore, actually.  I am reminded every day that I am getting old.

I have come to the conclusion that my kids are a huge part of my identity.  I am a mother and it is the thing I am most comfortable owning about myself.  So much of who my kids are is what I've invested the last (almost) 20 years of my life to and I love that each of them is a huge part of who I've become.  I feel the joy and pain of their accomplishments and heartaches as if they are my own.

But I still like having time to myself, too.  Grocery shopping or running errands is a welcome break from some of the tediousness of the home routine: breakfast,clean,lunch,clean,dinner,clean.  Errands are my vacation time.

Another thing that will always be ingrained in me is music.  I maybe talk about music too much, but it is a higher plane of communication that I feel so connected to.  I had someone ask me the other day to sign a song that we were singing with the young women at church and I just kind of smiled it off.  Because when I think of putting the words to a song which is meaningful to me into sign language, it brings me to tears. When those two methods of communication are combined I am transported to a place where things have deeper meaning.  It is otherworldly and seems almost too intimate to share.  I used to love singing and signing simultaneously but over the past few years I can not do it without bringing myself to tears. Which doesn't work so well when you're singing.

Deaf and Death are two very different things.  I wish people would learn this.  My parents are not Death.  In fact, I do not know anyone who is Death.  Deaf people = pretty cool.  Death people = sounds pretty scary.

The English language can be confusing.  Two of my least favorite heteronyms lately are the words read (pronounced reed) and read (pronounced red).  Whose idea was that?

I disabled my Facebook account about a week ago.  It was kind of feeling like high school (not in a good way) and I was spending more time than I needed to on there so I decided to take a break for a while.  I didn't want to make some announcement that I was doing it or anything.  I just did it.  I had one friend call and ask if I cancelled my account and another email and ask why I blocked them.  Perspective is a funny thing.  And being off of Facebook has been the best thing for me.


I've been helping the boys in our scout troop here complete their Citizenship in the Community merit badge (I'm a counselor for it) and I've really, really enjoyed the community service part of it.  I take boys in groups of three to the local food bank where we sort cans and stock the pantry shelves for a couple of hours at a time.  There is a feel-good switch that triggers inside of me when I'm doing things like this.  If I could, I'd go every day - with or without scouts.

I love this warmer weather that's slowly creeping in.  I love sending my kids outside to bask in it and hearing the happy sounds of their backyard play through our open windows.  I love breathing in the fresh air.

I have been so introspective over the last several months.  Sometimes I wish I wasn't.

One thing I've been thinking about is how much of an influence I am on my kids.  The person I am most comfortable being is one who wears a t-shirt and jeans and doesn't put much effort into hair or makeup.  But I notice my girls being that person sometimes and I wish they would be more feminine.  I hate myself in a swimsuit and didn't own one for years.  Then I noticed that my older girls refused to wear swimsuits, too.  So I bought one.  But I am very uncomfortable in it.  I could go on and on.  The point is, I need to work on how I portray myself to my kids.

I just found out yesterday that Josh Groban came out with a new album.  (Are they still called albums?)  I can't wait to see what I think of it.

I love reading and hearing stories about heroes, especially true stories.  I'm discovering that everyone is a hero in some way, I just need to find their story.

I re-discovered my love for jello today.  Specifically whipped, layered jello.  With bananas.  Or finger jello!  I need to make me some finger jello.  ElemenoB had her wisdom teeth removed yesterday and I've been thinking up soft foods for her to eat.  This is how jello has returned to my life.  Hello, jello!


I need to find a good hair stylist.

I need to overcome my fear of trying a new hair stylist.

I need a haircut.

I need to log off and get kids ready for bed.

Pictures I Took

I was transferring a whole load of pictures from my camera to my computer this morning and I realized that I take pictures of pretty much everything I find even slightly interesting.  Here are a few gems that I decided to post.  

Allen and I were driving somewhere and I noticed something on the back bumper of the car ahead of us.  As we got closer we saw this:

Genius!  Who wants to have to buy one of those fancy trucks to use a trailer hitch when you can just shove one up through the back of your car bumper?  Well played, car-with-a-hitch owner!

We like to say we live on the other side of the tracks.  (Because we actually do.)  This means that if we don't time things right we spend a significant amount of time waiting for trains to pass.  When I was waiting the other day I noticed this strange message printed on the side of multiple train cars:

So I put my hammer away.  Foiled again! 


Allen and I were attending a class where one day the teacher asked us to each draw a pig then trade pictures with someone else at our table.  The lady sitting across from me handed me this.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't find the pig anywhere in her picture.  I wondered when she had last seen a pig or maybe if this was some strange breed I've never seen before.  Then I just laughed.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of her drawing.  It's like an eternal I Spy game.  I'm still trying to find the pig.


I was reading the Fablehaven series of books back when Hostess went out of business.  I forgot that I had taken a picture of this passage that I happened upon a few days after our local Hostess bread store closed its doors:

Sorry, Doren.  Maybe you could try eBay.

A friend brought me this drink.  It's a drink I've never had before, and I'm a label reader, so I read the label and noticed this bit of good advice:

As in life, chill for best results.

Spring Break In Photos

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funny Bunny

I didn't have my camera at Christmas when he dressed like an elf.


I didn't have my camera on St. Patrick's Day when he dressed like a leprechaun.

But I had it this morning.
 

This is the crossing guard at my kids' elementary school.  Also known as the Easter Bunny. (Well, today.)

He always has kind and encouraging words for the kids each day and it is obvious that they love him as much as he loves them.

Best crossing guard EVER.

The (insert your name here) Show

photo here

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be the star of your own T.V. show?  The thought came to mind recently out of the blue.  Imagine what it would be like for even just a day to have every moment of your life captured on video and broadcast for anyone that would like to watch. 

Would you do anything differently?

I'm pretty sure that I would.

I would spend less time getting frustrated over the things I can't control and more time laughing.

I would smile more.

I would cook from scratch more.

I would spend less time trying to pluck out my gray hairs and trust my kids when they say they aren't very obvious.

I know we're not supposed to care what others think, but I do.  And I think most people do.  And because of this, I would spend less time in my pajamas all day.

I would spend less time on the computer and more time on the floor, playing with my kids.

I would take more time to tuck each of my kids in at night, to read them stories and sing them songs and look them in the eyes and tell them that I love them.  Even the teenagers.

I would make time to visit the hairdresser more often (more than once every year or so).

I would actually buy clothes for myself when I go shopping.

I would speak more positively of myself around my kids and less negatively about others.

I would be more insistent that my teenage daughters wear their bike helmets even if it means they will "look like crap" at school.

I would be a better wife, mother, sister, aunt, cousin, leader, friend.

I would still sing at the top of my lungs whenever I wanted.

And I would still bust out my crazy I-can't-dance-moves like no one was watching.

Because not even being on national television would stop that.

(Sorry kids.)

We Have A Winner!

 

Curly helped me choose the winner of the book set this morning.  I was excited to see her choose my friend Lena! 

And just to prove it was a legit drawing, I videotaped it.  (Watch for the cutest photobomber, ever.)

Your books will be in the mail this week!

Books I Read: How To Behave And Why (Plus a Giveaway!)

One of my favorite things to do is find treasures at my local thrift store, D.I.  I try to avoid the book section when I go because our bookshelves already look like this:
 

But those rows and rows of shelves lined with gently loved books call to me and I can never resist seeing what I can find.  The last time I went, I found a great pile of books, including these four:

and I was ecstatic - only $1 apiece!  However, Allen does not appreciate this kind of humor or the conversations that inevitably spark up as a result of them, so I really need to find them a new home.  If you're interested leave a comment telling me so and I'll do a drawing for them by the end of the week.

Among the pile of books I bought was this find:

How to Behave and Why by Munro Leaf.  I had never heard of it before but the simple illustrations and colors and the retro-ish lettering of the title drew me in.  I leafed through the pages and decided it was worth the $2 tag.  Once I got home and read through the whole book I pretty much fell in love with it.

This book is filled with all of those important things that moms tell their kids all the time - be nice, don't cheat, listen to your elders, don't whine, smile... and so on.  It was written in 1946 but every word still applies to us today.  This would make a great gift for anyone of any age.  It's like a little instruction manual for life.  Check out a few of the pages:

Right?

Yes!

Please!

See what I'm saying?  I love it.  The book is only 60 pages long and you will finish it in 10 minutes or less but it's totally worth having in your library no matter your age.

Don't be surprised if I give you a copy for your birthday.



**Just to be clear - the giveaway is only for the set of 4 books in the second picture.  Leave me a comment telling me you want them and I'll do a drawing at the end of the week.**