Ism of the Week

"Mom, why do you hide the candy?"

"Because if you know where it is, you and your brother get into it without permission."

"How come you don't need permission to eat peanut butter cups?"

"Because I'm a grown up.  When you're a grown up you can make your own decisions.  Plus, I know that I will eat lots of fruit and vegetables too, but I'm not so sure you will."

"Well then I guess you'd better find a better hiding spot."

"Why is that?"

"Graham just finished that bag of peanut butter cups.  Should I take him some green beans now?"

Ugh, Christmas Tree

I still maintain that there is no time of year more beautiful than Christmas, and I love the soft glow inside my home as the tree lights up the room and our faces.  But sometimes, in a house full of troublemakers, I do long for January.

I think they even wrote a song about this feeling...

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Thy leaves are plastic and scratchy; 

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Thy leaves are plastic and scratchy;

I find your needles everywhere,

All over my dog and in my hair.

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Thy leaves are plastic and scratchy.

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Graham's socks are not an ornament;

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Graham's socks are not an ornament;

Nor is a twenty from my purse,

A fifty would be even worse.

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Graham's socks are not an ornament.

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Why won't my cat stop climbing you?

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Why won't my cat stop climbing you?

Is it because of twinkling lights;

Or does he want to see the sights?

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Why won't my cat stop climbing you?

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Where did your sparkling balls go?

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Where did your sparkling balls go?

I think I see one by the chair;

Behind the toilet another's there.

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Where did your sparkling balls go?

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Just hang in for a few more weeks;

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Just hang in for a few more weeks;

Then Cael will rip you limb from limb,

Graham'll chuck your pieces in the bin.

O Christmas Tree!  O Christmas Tree!

Just hang in for a few more weeks.

Ism of the Week

While I am exceedingly grateful that my kids are generally healthy, and we don't have to worry about chronic problems of any kind, it does get frustrating that Graham's body reacts to every passing germ with an instantaneous fever.

But for as irritating as I find this response, Graham is good-natured about the whole thing.

"Mom, I feel hot."

"I know, Bubba.  I can give you some more Tylenol in a little bit and that should cool you down."

"No, that's okay.  It's cold outside but if I am hot, then it feels like summer.  Maybe I'll go swimming."

Hmm, delirious or just cute...

Pondering Brotherhood

As the kids adjust to the idea of a new baby on the way, Cael has responded with excitement while Graham has responded with questions.  Lots of questions.  Weird questions.

"If the baby is a girl, will I have to be a girl?"

"I don't want you to go to the hospital to have the baby.  Can't you just do it at Walmart?"

"How come you don't swallow and eat the baby if it is in your belly?  Will you poop it out?"


I was trying to think of ways to get him more involved, short of being present in the delivery room, because, NO, and I had the fabulous idea to let him start talking to the baby so it might recognize his voice.  The only problem with this theory is that, with my unusally close family around each other daily, this baby will develop while hearing twenty different voices on a regular basis and may just emerge with a seriously distorted sense of self or a tendency toward tawdry daytime talk show appearances.

"Graham, did you know that the baby can hear your voice?  You can talk to it if you want.  He or she won't talk back, but they can hear you."

"What do I say?"

"Whatever you want.  Tell the baby about your day, or what you like.  You could tell it all of the things you can do together when it is older."

"Okay.  Baby, today--"

"Um, Graham?"

"Yeah?"

"That's my foot.  No baby in there.  Aim for my tummy?"

"Oh, okay."

And then I realized just how confused the kid must really be.

"Hi baby!  I'm your brother and I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich today on a green plate.  I like the orange plate better but Cael had that and he always gets the good plate.  Maybe when Cael is in school I can have the orange plate and you can get stuck with the green plate.  Or maybe we'll have a purple plate.  

We could watch Curious George when you are out of my Mommy's belly.  Where is your Mommy?  My Mommy is nice but she won't let me have more than one piece of candy out of the Christmas train so then I think she's kinda mean.  Is your Mommy mean?  

I love you, baby!  I'm Graham, remember?  I'm going to stay a boy.  Please don't hurt me when you come out."

I'll just book our visit to the Jerry Springer show now.  Stay tuned for dates.

What You Might Have Seen

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving, full of family, friends and turkey.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the most important part for me is the stuffing, so despite the buzz about our new turkey fryer and the unsuspecting bird that we served up, I was happy to sample bits of the umpteen side dishes we crafted and dig into a vat of those tasty bread cubes.

I wish I'd taken a picture of that plate.  For that matter, I wish I had taken any photos at all to remember our meal together.  I suppose if I had, however, you wouldn't have seen the fifteen of us smiling calmly, poised with forks in hand.  Here's what you probably would have seen.

You would have seen me corralling all of my boys (Joel included) to the basement to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  You would have seen that not one of them cared, Cael and Graham happier to tackle one another and wrestle Daddy than watch the big balloons.  You would have seen me give up and head to the kitchen to start cooking, only to overhear Cael say, "Graham, you start walking and I'll yank you down SUPER hard like you're up in the air on strings!"  And you'd see me roll my eyes when Graham responded with, "Okay, Cael!  Pull me down!"

You would have seen me in my glasses and pajamas running frantically around the kitchen until 5:15pm when I saw the first headlights turn into my driveway.  It was at that point that I finally got dressed for the day, hair and makeup done, and not one member of my family was rude enough to tell me that I had chunks of pecan pie goo stuck in my hair.

You would have seen us fanning ourselves and opening windows to counteract the lava-like heat of the oven, stovetop and toaster working in unison.  You might have also seen me at 2:30am, getting up to pee for the 67th time and wondering why the house was only 59 degrees, until I awoke from my stupor and shut the windows.

You would have seen the teenagers sigh after being caught texting in their laps during dinner, and you would have seen the adults, full and happy after supper, sitting in companionable silence as we all zoned into our phones.

You would have seen Cael gobbling up his plate of food in a spectacular fashion, as if his chance at pie was on the line, and Graham, alone at the table 55 minutes later pushing around the same six pieces of turkey that were placed on his plate at the beginning of the meal.

You would have seen me doing dishes and not paying attention while my dog devoured a turkey thigh and what looked like a wooden spoon.

You would have seen my sisters and I strategizing about Christmas gifts and how to best take advantage of the big sales without having to deal with the maniacal Black Friday shoppers.  You would have eventually seen the three of us in a line at Ulta anyway, buying things for ourselves and not feeling even a little bit guilty.  We earned it.  We had to deal with those people crazy enough to go out.  Oh, wait...

You would have seen Sarah and I laughing hard enough to wipe away tears while sorting through my Mom's old jewelry box filled with gaudy 80's necklaces and enough pins and brooches to stock a jewelry counter.  You would have seen us double over when we discovered that one of the drawers was filled with her children's pulled baby teeth.

If I'd remembered to take some pictures, you might have seen it.  But instead, I was too busy cooking and eating and laughing; making memories.

I hope you had a photo-free Thanksgiving yourself, and I hope you left some stuffing for me! 

Playing Games

When I was little, I always looked forward to power outages, because it was during that time that we would pull out the board games and candles and play as a family.  Sometimes Life, sometimes Scrabble but usually Monopoly, it was one of my favorite times because I have been cursed by being a "game person" born into a family of "non gamers". 

But last weekend, while Joel was out of town for a festival, I learned that I'm not as much of a game person as I'd originally thought.

I wanted to do something fun with my boys, who were bored, fighting a lot and frustrated because they couldn't play outside.  So I pulled out "Don't Spill the Beans" and smiled when I saw how excited they were.  But about three minutes into the game, I began to question my own sanity.

Playing a board game by candlelight with a few quiet, well-mannered girls in the late 1980's is one thing.  Playing a game with a hundred tiny plastic beans and two wired ankle-biters should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention. 

They spilled the beans, as outlined by the game.  But they ignored the rule and tried to knock the beans onto their own side.  They threw the beans.  I pulled one from Graham's ear.  I'm pretty sure Oscar ate several.  I used the bathroom and returned to find that the red bucket was now holding beans and a handful of dog food. 

When the beans would fall on the other's side, each of them would explode in a fit of frustration and angry bean-related banter that had me repeatedly questioning what I was thinking.  And when I finally announced that the game was done and packed away, they banded together against me, pelting me with beans that they seemingly produced from nowhere.  When I was finally able to put the boys to bed, I sighed with the same relief you'd feel after saying goodbye to house guests that have vastly overstayed their welcome.

And all to make them happy?  Perhaps games aren't the key to childhood happiness, but to adult-onset anxiety. 

Guess I'll leave Twister packed away a little longer.  I'm just not in the mood for a broken leg.

Happy Birthday, Joel

How come months can pass with nothing of importance happening, and then one week will come along that makes you long for those college days when you could sleep two or three hours a night and function normally?

This is one of those weeks, but mercifully each event is a happy one, like today: Joel's birthday.

We celebrated last night after my husband returned from a three-day Iowa All State trip, and although he had already received his main gift, we showered him with some Gander Mountain gift cards and a turkey frier.

But the real pièce de résistance of the night was the card that each of our sons lovingly prepared for their Dad.

Cael did a nice job of decorating his card with a cake on the front and inside, but the trouble started when he tried to mark a "31" near the lollipops balloons he'd drawn.  When he realized that his three was backward, he corrected it and created a pseudo-number that looked more like "81" than anything. 

On the back, he insisted on including what was supposed to say, "Ooh la la, Pizza Hut", something that he's picked up from school, but because he was in something of a backward mood, his "z" letters looked more like an "s", prompting Joel to wonder exactly where one could find the "Pissa Hut".

But Graham... Graham's was my favorite part.

He can write a few words here and there, so I had him write out "Dad" and his own name, which featured a big, backwards "G", although neither of the boys have had problems with inverting symbols before, and told him that I would write out whatever message he wanted in the card.

"Happy Birthday.  Dear Daddy!  I love you more than bad guys.  Crayons."

And if that doesn't soothe the sting of thirty-one, I don't know what would.