Story Problems are for Box Thinkers

Cameron's schooling is eating away huge quantities of my time, but he's getting steadily better at being independent and figuring out how to work the online system.  It won't be long before I won't have to be nearly as involved as I am now. And I keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter how difficult or time consuming it is, this online school is exactly what Cameron needs, so it's worth losing control of my laundry again.  The laundry can wait.  Who needs clean underwear anyway?  Not us.  My kids think going commando is hilarious fun.

People ask me all the time why we decided to do online school with Cameron, and I could answer with lots of reasons.  The most blatant would be because he didn't get into the stupid magnet school that he applied to, but another important reason is because in traditional schools he spends half his time daydreaming about natural disasters and how many ways a tornado might kill a person, and the other half of the time he's listening to the teacher but isn't learning anything because the teacher usually only teaches to the majority of the class that think alike and learn alike.  That doesn't work for Cameron.

For example, the other day Cam was taking a math test online and he started yelling at the computer for being stupid.  He was getting a little carried away in his annoyance, so I asked what was wrong.

It turns out that the computer had asked him which is the better deal: six hot dogs for $4 or two hot dogs for $3?  Cameron answered two hot dogs for three dollars and was told he had the wrong answer.  I asked him why he chose that answer and he said, "Because I can't eat six hot dogs, so that would be a waste of a dollar!"

So in the real world Cameron is absolutely correct - nothing is a deal if it's not something you can use.  But that doesn't matter in the standard school setting.  Here at home we can talk about that and learn that there are sometimes lots of right answers.  Then I can tell him the answer his teachers are looking for and we can move on with our day feeling all kinds of superior.  

So we'll keep chipping away at his curriculum and eventually this will feel normal instead of feeling like a colossal black hole sucking up all my time and shredding it to bits.  (Incidentally, Cameron learned about black holes today.  Pretty cool stuff.)

Password Protection

A week or so ago Andrew and I went to some friends' house for dinner and games.  Before we left I changed the password on my computer so that the kids wouldn't look at porn or play their Star Wars game while I was gone.  

When we got home that night Cameron asked me if I had changed the password, and I giggled a yes, knowing that the kids must have spent quite some time trying to figure out why they were being denied access.

"Well, can you please tell us what the new password is?", Cameron asked.

"No!", I laughed.

"What's the password?", shouted Cameron in desperation.  "Is it Bethany K?"

"No - it's a word you don't even know."

"Is it 'moot'?", he guessed.

(What??)

"No..."

And in pipes Drew.  "Is it the B word?"

Typical Drew.

Awesome Photos of the Week

I took some pretty sweet pictures this week that I figured you'd all want to see.  I chose four to share with you.  

Photo #1 is of a drawing Ethan did with a friend.  I gave them a white poster board and they proceeded to draw a war scene.  There were bombs and helicopters and soldiers and this:

In case you can't read that, it says, "You're not the only one with a gun bleeeep."  I think it's both awesome that he censored the swear word and awful that he felt the need to include it at all.  

Photo #2 is of the tie-dye shirts I did with the boys.  I helped them place the rubber bands where they wanted them to be, and the boys did the dye all by themselves, as is apparent by Trent's muddy colors.  He used almost an entire bottle of purple dye.  

Mine turned out pretty awesome, but you'll have to live without a picture of it for now.  And by the way - these were super easy and fun.  Good summer project.

Photos #3 and 4 are of a science experiment that Cameron did.  For his birthday, his Aunt Natalie and Uncle Kamaki gave him a kit with three science experiments.  I hid them in his closet knowing that it would be good to save them for summer.  Below are the results of experiment #1, which had to do with bacteria.

We made the agar in the petri dish and then swabbed the inside of the bathroom doorknob and smeared it on the agar.  Then on the right half of the agar we swabbed some antibacterial cream (Neosporin-type stuff).  As you can see, no bacteria grew where we used antibacterial creme, but on the side without creme there is nasty looking crud growing.  Orange, black, white - gross bacteria.  

But then we moved on to another experiment.  We divided another petri dish in half and two of my children swabbed the insides of their mouths, making sure to rub their Q-tip on their gums, teeth and tongues.  Then each child smeared their sample on their half of the agar.  (I'm not using names to protect the poor children here.)

As you can see, one child had a relatively clean mouth, while the other child grew all kinds of nasty looking white junk on their side.  Unfortunately, that nasty black spot is exactly on the equator of the dish, (though it looks otherwise in the picture), and there is no way to be sure who's mouth that bacteria came from.  But I think it's safe to assume that it was Child B.  Maybe someone forgot to brush their teeth?

Disappointment

Back in January I went to a school district meeting about middle school options.  Cameron will be in middle school next year, and the district we're in has something like eight magnet schools for the kids to apply to.  

I've always been a little bit opposed to magnet schools and charter schools as a part of the public school system, simply because a very small percentage of the kids in the district get to go to those much better schools while everyone else is left back at the neighborhood schools with not great teachers and bad learning philosophies.  It just seems so unjust.

But when I heard about this environmental middle school that is available in our district I swooned over it.  The benefits of attending this particular school were numerous and impressive.  Plus, it was right up Cameron's alley with the science curriculum.  

I wanted Cameron to be one of those unjustly lucky kids who got to go to the really good school.  But only 64 kids could be accepted.  Two thirds would be chosen by lottery, the other third in a second consideration process.

We went to open houses, information nights, Cameron shadowed a student for half a day...  We did it all.  

And he didn't win the lottery.

So he wrote an essay and he went to an observation/interview - all in hopes that he'd get one of those last few open spots...

He did not.

And it honestly made me a little bitter.  I went back to feeling like the entire system is unfair.  I thought about my kids spending the entire month of February being tested over and over until they passed the state tests or failed them three times in a row.  I raged about how nonsensical that was and wondered what all the lucky magnet school kids had been doing in February...  I still feel a little bit sad about the whole thing.  Why do some kids get the obviously better education while the rest have to settle for what the school district calls our "best fit", when really it's just the "crappy leftovers"? 

I don't have the happy place answers yet.  I just know that disappointment is a huge part of life and we have to learn to take it in, refuse to let it poison us, and make the best of whatever we do have.

I also know that other kids being chosen doesn't mean that Cameron didn't deserve to be accepted.  It just means he had crappy luck.  And when we have crappy luck, we treat ourselves to ice cream.  (That's why we're chubby.  Lots of bad luck happens here.  We're used to it, and we'll feel better soon.)  More positive post coming later.  :)

Another Way In Which My Offspring Are Weird

No matter how many times it happens, I never get over the shock of walking into one of the bathrooms in my house and seeing this:

This is the handy work of my oldest son.  Every time he sits down on the toilet, he covers the seat with not one, but two layers of toilet paper.  The whole seat.

Because I'm super intelligent, I've deduced that Cameron either hates a cold toilet seat, or he suffers from selective germaphobia.  The kind that does not exist in his bedroom, but rages out of control in the bathroom. 

Honestly, the toilets might not be clean enough to eat off of, but it's not like we live at a truck stop.

Wonders of Garlic

Halloween is a great time of year, no?  So much weirdness going on.  It's my kind of party.

Speaking of weirdness...

Cameron and I watched a video online yesterday about how to peel a whole head of garlic in ten seconds.  When the video was over I looked at Cameron and said, "Well, that was pretty cool."  And his response was: 

"You could put that in your underpants and protect yourself from vampires."

I thought it was a good idea.  I often feel concern about how to keep the vampires out of my underpants.  Problem solved.

My real concern is about why my son is using the word "underpants".  He sure didn't learn that goofy word from me.  I'd prefer he call them something less nerdy.

Like knickers.

But anyway - there's one more use for garlic, ladies, because I bet if you put garlic in your knickers, it'll repel more than just vampires.  So grab a clove and take the night off!

image credit

Best Mom of the Year Award

When I was a kid my parents let me and my sisters watch all kinds of horror movies.  I've talked about this before, so I know it isn't news to you.  The two movies that scared me the most as a kid were The Shining, and IT.  

I was about eleven years old when I saw IT for the first time.  I was sitting about three feet from our TV in the dark living room with my parents and sisters, and I was totally into the movie.  I'm not sure if I understood it all back then, but I loved to be scared and that freaking clown was doing the trick.

In the middle of the movie my dad slipped out of the living room and into the garage where he found an orange, curly haired wig in the Halloween costumes box that had been used in an Annie costume at some point in the past.  He put the wig on, crept back into the house, crawled behind the couch and jumped out at us with an evil clown chuckle.  

We all screamed and peed a drop, and Dad was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe - he just wheezed while his shoulders shook.  Mom pretended to be mad at him, but she couldn't keep the amusement out of her voice.

Tonight, I'm pretty sure I achieved that same level of Master Child Terrorizer that my dad earned on that night watching IT all those years ago.

My kids are hard to scare.  They've seen more scary movies than I ever did as a kid, and not much gets to them.  

The list of my kids' conquered scary movies looks something like this:

I Am Legend

The Village

The Sixth Sense

The Birds

Rear Window

Signs

Sleepy Hollow

The Shining

The Others 

Alien vs. Predator

Tremors

...and surely some that I am forgetting.

And so far - not much hype in the nightmare department.  I feel something between awe and disappointment.

But tonight I let Cameron and Ethan watch Halloween with me.  Let me tell ya.  For some reason, this movie was a whole 'notha story.  I think the difference came in the thriller vs. slasher film factor.  

Halloween scared the crap out of them.  They were both sitting on my lap and covering their faces with pillows and plugging their ears.

It was super awesome.

So the movie ended and I am giddy with fright-power.  I told them it was time for bed, but neither of them would go up the stairs first.  So I went first.

But I didn't just go first up the stairs...I bolted up the stairs as fast as I could and turned off every light on my way.  They were left in pitch blackness downstairs while I covered my mouth with a cupped fist and breathed as loud as I could.  Sounded just like Michael Meyers.

Ethan was crying that whiny, panicked kind of cry that doesn't produce tears, but sweat and heart palpitations.  He kept saying, "Mooooom!  Stop it!"  

I couldn't help myself.  I laughed just like my dad did.  Wheezy, shoulder-shaking giddiness.

I turned on all the lights and told them to come upstairs.  

Both Cameron and Ethan ran straight to the bathroom when they passed me and locked themselves in.  I guess it's because I kept breathing like a psychopath.  So I decided to keep playing.  I shook the doorknob and scratched the door.  It was good fun.  They came out eventually, but I'm pretty sure I could have kept them in there all night if I'd wanted to. 

They're totally having nightmares tonight.  Good thing Andrew's not home so when they crawl into my bed later there will be room for everyone.  

So whoever passes out those "Best Mom of the Year" awards can just go ahead and mail it to my house.  Thanks.

(P.S. - Just in case you are an insane, knife-wielding wacko, I wrote this last weekend and posted it today...so Andrew is home now.  No need to come visit.)

The Final Countdown

One precious week of summer left.

No clue what we're going to do with it.  Seems a shame that we have not been to the beach all summer, and yet I can't seem to get myself to want pay the gas money to get out there when a camping trip is looming in the distance.  A camping trip with zip line expeditions to pay for.  

While summer is closing like a good book with not enough pages left, I can't help but feel excitement over the start of the school year.  It has, after all, been over a year since I had the joy of sending the kiddos off to be someone else's problem for several hours a day.  Homeschool sort of kicked my butt and sent me reeling head over feet for several months.  Remember how cool it was in the beginning?  (See this and this for examples.)  Then we moved twice and I had a stroke and everything became lame and not fun.  Just lots of boring spelling words and math worksheets.  It did not go how I wanted it to. 

I am a little concerned about the social status that my oldest son will earn on his first day of school.  He picked out pretty decent clothes, (seems to be going for the skater look), but I am going to have to ban him from wearing sandals because he still insists on wearing socks with them.  And in fact, he is in his bedroom playing Magic The Gathering with Ethan.  I'm not sure if that's nerdy or not, but it might be one of those things that's better not to mention, just in case.  

Positive improvements in the geek arena are:  Cameron no longer wears his shirts tucked in so tightly we can see his ribcage, and he has stopped adjusting his glasses by contorting his face in ways that imply he might have mental issues.  That's about it.  But I've decided a geeky son is about the best thing a person can hope for.  He might get teased, but he won't be one of the jerks doing the teasing.  I don't think.

So.  One more week of summer.  We really must send it off in style.  Time to put on my thinking cap I suppose.

A Lesson About Mammals

Both of my sisters recently told me that I need to watch a documentary called "Babies".  They made it sound awfully intriguing, so I decided to give it a whirl.  

It happens to be one of the movies you can stream from Netflix, so I was sitting at my computer completely dumbstruck by the way babies are raised in different cultures, when my seven year old son, Ethan, came into the room.

I hit the pause button on that movie so fast, it was like lightning.  Ninja skills with the mouse kind of speed.

Why?  Because I was watching a documentary that showed bare-chested African women, that's why.

My sons have never seen a bare-chested woman of any race, and I wasn't sure if this film was how I wanted them to first encounter that, or if they are even ready to encounter such realities.  I remember the first time I saw a National Geographic magazine, and I recall with perfect clarity the feeling of regret over the loss of my innocence.  So I shewed him away.

I know that it's the culture in many parts of the world to go without much clothing, and I know that breastfeeding is natural...  But we're talking about a seven year old boy and a whole bunch of boobies.

It took me about three days to finish watching this film, and during the last twenty minutes or so, both of my older boys came in to my room again, wanting to know what I was watching.  I gave it about twenty seconds of thought and decided that if I prepared them, they would be fine.

"Boys", I said, "this is a movie about four real life babies who are growing up in different countries around the world, and it shows naked women.   If that's something you're OK with seeing, then you can watch this with me.  If you don't want to see that, then you should go find something else to do."

They both said they didn't mind, (no shock there), so I hit the play button and away we went.

Not too far into it, the African woman is walking along a road with her small son, and he begins to cry, so she bends down and offers him her breast for a drink.  Ethan scrunched his eyebrows up and said, "Is that a bottle or something?"

How did my children get this far into life without knowing about breastfeeding?  I never imagined they were so sheltered.  They've seen people doing it, but I guess they didn't know exactly what was going on.

I explained what it was to Ethan and Cameron, and you would not believe the shock.  I asked them what they knew about mammals, and they told me all the basics - they give birth to live young, they have hair, etc...  I said, "Yes -- and they feed their young with milk they make from their bodies."  And then I uttered the words, "We are mammals."

Cameron immediately bolted from the room, and Ethan screamed and lifted up his shirt to inspect his chest.  "Are you telling me I'm going to grow those things??"

I was laughing so hard I had to end the lesson there.  Imagine their horror if they knew that they were both breast-fed for the first few weeks of their lives. 

T-E-N

Cameron turned ten years old on Easter Sunday.  Yeah, I'm behind on the posting.  I know.  Anyway, any kid who has had a birthday fall on a holiday knows that it stinks to have to share the spotlight.  So instead of celebrating his big day on the actual day of his birth, we spent the entire week leading up to it doing ten fun (and cheap) things in honor of his achievement.  (You know - not being so horrible over the last ten years that I had to kill him.)

I present to you the list.  Along with pictures where I remembered to take them.

#1

We went to a new park.

#2

We got Blizzards from one of the many, many Dairy Queens within a mile radius of our house.  The Dairy Queens here are an odd phenomenon.

#3

We went to the zoo.

#4

We went on a pic-nic with Dad.  Why do Subway sandwiches always taste better than any sandwich you can make yourself?

#5

Nerf gun war.

#6

Late night movie fest.

#7

Sleep-over with cousin, Aiden.  (And what sleepover is complete without a few tricks with matches that give you Mason jar hickies?)

#8

We made sugar cookies.  (And I took some to the neighbors, but that's another story entirely.)

#9

We decorated Easter eggs.  Yes, we would have done this anyway, birthday or no, but I'm counting it.

#10

We had a pizza and brownie sundae party complete with presents.  We sorta forgot to put candles on his brownie, (the kid hates cake, and I don't blame him), and we neglected to sing to him.  But someone brought it to my attention about the time he was half-way done eating, so we just did it midway through.  Better late than never applies here.

Happy Birthday to Cameron, who will not receive such good treatment for such an extended period of time next year.

A River Of Vomit

The hubs and I have never had a Thanksgiving dinner in our own home.  Having family around for the holidays is both a blessing and a curse.  I can't imagine not being with my loved ones for Thanksgiving, but going somewhere else for the feast means never having turkey and trimmings leftovers.

So every stinking year we have to cook our own Thanksgiving turkey, dressing, yams, etc, the day after Thanksgiving so that we can have a turkey sandwich and the very best of all - turkey soup.  The whole thing is a bit of a pain, and not much fun after the real deal has been done, but it's worth it.  

You may not know it, but there are many phases of leftover turkey.  Allow me to expound.

Phase 1 - Roasted turkey, of course. (As in, the whole bird taken in it's virgin form from the oven.)

Phase 2 - Plain old leftover turkey.

Phase 3 - Fried turkey.  Oh, yum.

Phase 4 - Mashed potatoes with turkey gravy.  Just like they used to make in the school cafeteria, minus stray hairs. 

Phase 5 - Turkey sandwiches.  (And for lunch for the next two days as well.)

Phase 6 - Turkey soup.

Phase 7 - Turkey soup with a block of cream cheese melted into it.  It's the culmunation of all things beautiful about Thanksgiving turkey.

So this year we cooked our turkey on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and then skipped phases three through six and went straight for the joyous and fattening cream cheese turkey soup.

Cameron is a huge fan of Phase 7 Turkey.  He drooled all afternoon while smelling the soup simmering on the stove.  And when dinner hit the table he attacked the soup with a vigor usually reserved for delicacies like baskets full of fresh summer strawberries and banana splits (hold the banana).

Not long after dinner Cameron complained of a stomach ache.  I told him he'd probably eaten too much too fast and to just take it easy until he felt better.  About an hour after that I heard him call me from the bathroom.  I was in the middle of a very important task and couldn't personally attend to him.  I figured he needed a toilet paper refill or something.  So I sent Ethan to find out what he wanted.  

The next thing I hear is Ethan screaming, "MOM!!!!" and retreating back down the hallway.

Jumping from my computer chair, I bolted to the hallway and found a river of turkey soup vomit flowing out from under the bathroom door and oozing slowly toward me.  I straddled the river and flung open the bathroom door.  There stood Cameron looking somewhat relieved, but mostly afraid.  As well he should have.

Who stands in a bathroom and pukes on the door instead of in the toilet?  My kid, apparently.

There was so much vomit I honestly couldn't believe Cameron's stomach had held that much liquid.  There were unchewed baby carrots floating on the bathroom floor, and some of the bow-tie noodles I had put in the soup had miraculously gotten underneath the bathroom door and were drifting down the hall - also unchewed.  Good hell, that kid must have really wolfed that soup down.

Andrew and I stood there and tried to figure out how to clean up a mess that size.  We considered the shop vac, but opted for bath towels that we could just toss into the trash afterward.  Two bath towels, six rags, half a roll of paper towels, and one bottle of Lysol later, the bathroom still smelled like Lake Vomit.  

I tried sprinkling baking soda on the floor and all down the hallway to get rid of the smell, but that didn't work either.  The problem is, we have a tile floor in our bathroom, and the bozo who laid it didn't bother to seal the grout, so the vomit just kinda soaked in and set up camp.  

I finally had to call my mom for suggestions, and she said I should try vinegar.  I basically just dumped an entire bottle of the stuff on the floor, and that worked in the end.

I am happy to say that the experience did not kill my love for Cream Cheese Turkey Soup.  I had some for lunch the next day, and it tasted just as divine as it did before I associated it with barf.

Re-Vamping: Brotherly Love

I'm going to be on a bit of a blogging hiatus for a few days, so I decided to do a little re-vamping of some old posts and plaster them up here for your discovery.  They are all older ones that most of you are unlikey to have read.  


Enjoy, and I'll see you all soon!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brothers are a wondrous thing. Quarrels between them never last, wounds of both the physical and emotional kind heal with lightening speed, and there is always someone who will laugh rather than scowl when you fart.

For brothers, tattling seems to come with unspoken guidelines. It's perfectly acceptable to tell on your brother when he does something to harm or annoy you, but to rat on your bro for jumping on his bed after "lights out" will bring you no satisfaction, but rather shame and dishonor. 

Unfortunately, boys are rough, and most of the tattling in our home comes from a wrestling match getting out of hand. One child will cross the line between playful jabs and malicious wallops, and then everything is fair game, including intentional knees to the groin or running to mom and crying foul.

I once got tired of hearing the complaints of who smacked who first and whether someone hit on purpose or too hard, so I removed myself from the equation with the regrettable words, "I don't want to hear it. You two deal with it yourselves." Cameron and Ethan were six and four at the time and "dealing with it themselves" was wholly beyond their capabilities, and I would surely pay for suggesting it. 

Five minutes later, I heard a ruckus from upstairs followed by crying, then a shrill scream, and then more crying. My reward for excellent parenting had arrived sooner than I'd anticipated. I called the boys back downstairs.

"What is going on?" I demanded in my most exasperated mother voice.

Cameron whined, "Ethan hit me in the face with a baseball bat!"

There was only a plastic bat upstairs so, in spite of the blood slowly running from his nose, I wasn't overly alarmed. "And so what did you do to him?" I asked.

"I threw a hanger at him."

I looked at Ethan's face, and sure enough, there was a small scratch on the surface of a bruise that was already forming under his left eye.

Tattling then became the mom-endorsed form of retaliation.

Blunt honesty is also a trademark of brotherhood. A boy can tell his brother anything and know that he cannot be demoted to the status of a mere friend or acquaintance. Brothers they will remain. I have noticed that in our house, the boys tend to listen to each other's words of advice more than they will mine or Andrew's. They have an ability to reason with one another that we, their parents, will always be left to envy.

It was a few years ago that I was in my bathroom getting ready to go shopping with my mom and I heard the following exchange between Cameron and Ethan, who were bickering loudly over something completely ridiculous, I'm sure:

Ethan: Just relax, Dude! (He was three at the time.)

Cameron: What?!?!?

Ethan: It means, Don't be grumpy.

Cameron: (telling Ethan off for being bossy, which lasted long enough for me to remove 8 curlers from my hair...and was finally interrupted by Ethan shouting...)

Ethan: Don't be an ASS!

Cameron immediately stopped being an ass. Problem solved. Ethan's vocabulary, however, has been undergoing constant therapy ever since.

Ethan was able to enjoy four years of being the youngest of just two children before he became a big brother himself.  When Drew came along Ethan was immediately smitten and became the best older brother in the history of siblings.  That lasted about a year, and then Drew learned to walk.  Overnight Drew became the biggest pain in the butt that Ethan had ever encountered. 


That feeling is one that largely remains present in our home today.

I have never understood it, but Ethan's favored form of entertainment is to put on a movie, grab an action figure that somehow goes along with that movie, and then skip, hop, and run back and forth from one corner of the living room to another acting out the scenes in the movie and making one kind of bizarre sound effect after another; an ability which seems to be coded in the male DNA.

About two months ago, and much to Ethan's horror, Drew began to mimic Ethan. He would find an action figure of his own and follow the odd room-crossing procession right on Ethan's heels. Ethan has been very distressed by this new development in Drew's interests, and told me one day that I needed to make Drew stop following him.

"Why do you care if he follows you?", I asked. "What's the big deal?"

"He's making me feel like an idiot!" came Ethan's frantic reply.

I just laughed and told Ethan that Drew follows him and copies him because he loves him and wants to be like him. Ethan was neither flattered nor gracious about my explanation, but now stops his scene reenacting whenever Drew joins ranks. Too bad, really, because Ethan did look a bit like an idiot when he did it, and I really enjoyed watching him.

I think that I am not alone in looking forward to the day when Trent becomes a viable playmate for Drew and the older boys can occasionally be left in peace. In a house filled to the brim with active, boisterous male-type children, I fancy myself an expert in the field of brotherly love, but I know that they have more tricks up their sleeves, and I will continually be taught by them. Like it, or not.

(Originally published October, 2009.)

The Truth About The Tooth Fairy

"Mom, don't forget I put my tooth under my pillow."

"Why would I need to know that?"

"You know, just in case the tooth fairy doesn't exist."

Well, it happened.  Cameron is beginning to figure things out.  I felt kinda sad about this exchange we had, but I've known this was coming, and was even a little worried that he was catching on too slowly.

I sent him off to bed for one more night of believing, and tomorrow, I'll have the unfortunate task of taking the magic out of every holiday he's ever lost sleep over.

Because I can't tell the truth about the tooth fairy and expect that Santa will remain unscathed.

But if he knows the truth about the Tooth Fairy, do I still have to fork out a dollar every time he loses a molar?

Hints Of Puberty

My kids spent about a week watching nothing but iCarly last month. I was completely weirded out by it at first because that show deals with things like crushes and kissing...not topics my older boys have been interested in before.

About two weeks after that started, it seemed that the boys had drifted back into Cartoon Land, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Until I heard a conversation they had last night when they were watching Scooby-Doo. Cameron and Ethan were talking about which girls on the show were hot. Ethan seemed to think that one of the Hex Girls was hot, while Cameron insisted that Daphne was the hottie.

These are cartoons.

So, with Cameron at nine and Ethan at seven, I'm taking bets as to how much longer I can get away with postponing the sex talk. I'm thinking it could be a matter of days.

And for the record, Daphne is a twit. Brains are sexy, so Velma has my vote for hottie. Plus, the mini-skirt? She's got a naughty librarian thing going on.

Week In Review 8/29/10

Boy have we had a week.  It's been a long time since I've had a fatigue-induced mental breakdown, but I suppose I was due.

Monday we took the kids to the park for one last summer picnic.  We were sick of sandwiches, so we brought Dominos pizza.  That stuff is good.

We played at the park and had a good ol' time.  Then it was home and bed, and our first day of homeschool.

It was hard, people.  Hard.  So much time, so little cooperation from the littles who were not used to being ignored for so long...  Cameron and Ethan were amazing though.  They did beautifully.  

We did our basics; math, reading, (both individual and group), language arts, spelling, penmanship, ...uh...did I get it all?  I don't know.  And then there was our science unit for the week:  insects.  

I jest not - my kids are now bug experts.  We watched DVDs on bugs, or arthropods if you will, we built a bug trap (as depicted below), made construction paper insects and labeled all their parts, sculpted models of insects and spiders out of salt dough and then baked and painted them...  The kids rocked it out.  And when they took their final tests on the unit, they each scored 100% without any help from me.  I was so proud.  

They both know that spiders are not insects, but are members of the arachnid family which is a sub-group of the arthropod species.  They also know that pill bugs and crabs are both crustaceans.  (Hello!  I didn't know that!  Well, I knew that about crabs, but not pill bugs.)  

If you asked them what three characteristics are true of all insects, they could tell you that they are all invertebrates, they all have six legs, and all true insects will have a head, thorax, and abdomen.  Then they could point out those parts to you and tell you how to spell them.

I have no idea how long it will take them to forget all this stuff, but who cares?  We had success on our first week!  Of course, there are a lot of things we need to tweak and perfect, but we'll get there.

Here's the kids' trap.  They dug a hole, and placed four flat-ish rocks around it.  (Flat-ish is a word.)

Then they put a large yogurt tub in the hole, and filled dirt around it to make the top of the cup flush with the earth.

 

Then they put a box on top to keep water out of it, and waited over night.

The next morning, they found that they had captured at least three spiders, eight beetles, several potato bugs (pill bugs to some of you), and one earwig, which was evidently killed by one of its cup mates.  It was hard to document all of this because all the insects and spiders were racing around the cup like crazy trying to stay away from each other and find a way out.  We took video of it, but I hate loading video on this thing, so you're out of luck.  (Or maybe count your blessings cause this post is already really long.)

The boys documented their findings...

...and sketched pictures of all the different kinds of insects they found.

And there you have it - a taste of our first week.  

And finally, Cameron's sunflowers are really super tall now.  He's an excellent gardener, and he didn't get that from me.

Have a happy week, everyone!

This Is My Life

I had to make a really early run to the bank yesterday morning, (one of those times where you're trying to make a deposit before a check clears and ends up costing you an arm and a leg in fees...). So I had to rouse my kids from bed before they were ready to be awake and herd them into the car.

There were a lot of complaints about it being five in the morning, (it was actually 8:30), and how I wouldn't let them bring pillows. (See? I totally know what it's like to have girls sometimes.)

So we drove to the bank and I pulled into a teller line, filled out my slip, and sent it through the magic chute.

And then I looked in my rear view mirror and saw my nine year old standing up in the back of the van, peeing into a Mt. Dew bottle.

Guess I should have made him go to the bathroom before we left.

Hope the bank teller enjoyed the view.

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A Role Model

My lil' bro, Joel, is just a great big kid. Big as in, 6' 7" or something like that.

And 110 pounds.

He could poke your eyeballs out with his elbows for sure.

It's that big kid factor that makes him such a wicked awesome uncle. My boys adore him. They absorb everything from his vocabulary to his facial expressions.

I love that Joel loves my kids so much, and that they have such a great pal in him, but honestly, there was a time not too far back when I thought I might have to schedule supervised visits because I was worried about what kind of stuff he might teach my kids next.

Like how to build a flame thrower.

So far, though, there have been no flame throwers. Only a mace, a battle axe, and some kind of sword with horns; all made out of foam and PVC pipe. They all beat the crap out of each other with them.

I just know that one day soon I'm going to find all of them at the park, dressed in medieval garb, having pretend battles with their Dungeons and Dragons buddies while their slutty wenches cheer them on from the sidelines. I will deal with that by pretending I don't know any of them.

The upside to all of this is that my kids can take a hit like a man. (Parenting tip: If you have a pansy for a son, just make a foam weapon and hit him with it until he stops crying.)

Joel has other areas of expertise, too, though. For example, my seven and nine year olds went to a water park with him recently and came home saying things like, "Bow-chick-a-bow-wow", and "Foxy Lay-day!", while curving their hands around in the shape of an hour-glass. They do not say this about ugly girls, so Joel must have taught them how to spot the hotties.

You can be sure I thanked him for that.

So imagine my elation when Joel taught my boys something that didn't involve violence or pre-pubescent lust! He taught them how to ride his new long board.

The kicker is that he made them wear a helmet!

So maybe there's nothing to worry about, after all.

How Parenthood Can Be Detrimental To Your Sleep

Our family has been very busy making memories this summer, and today Cameron got to make some without us. He went to Boy Scout day camp. It was about 90 minutes away from our house, and he was to meet with the other scouts and leaders at our church at 6:00 this morning to carpool.

So guess what I did all night last night? I lay awake in my bed playing out horrific scenes of rollover car crashes with my 9 year old being smeared all over the highway. Honestly, it was four AM, and I was trying to force images of Cameron's funeral out of my head.

I really, really don't like to let other people drive my kids anywhere. Especially at six AM when the drivers might be tired and doze off while going 65 MPH down the freeway. Or what if the tires on someone's minivan are bald and there's a blow-out? All kinds of horrors passed through my mind.

Consequently, I was dead tired today. I dragged myself through my daily chores, and finally, at 4:30, my son came back in the front door, all in one piece.

Hallelujah! I am gonna sleep good tonight!

Being a parent is exhausting.

Or maybe it's just being crazy that makes it so rough.

Summer Fun

Our summer rocks! Just sayin'.

Mom decided to go to the drive-in for her birthday and see Karate Kid. (Way more awesome than the original, by the way.) The drive-in is one of my favorite places ever. It's just cool.




My mom's a pretty hot 52 year old, huh? And speaking of hot...






Payback. You know what they say.




This is after four sodas, popcorn, licorice, blow pops, skittles and strawberry shortcake. Sugar is bad. But it's fun!




We've spent many a day at Lagoon, too. Buying those season passes was a really, really good idea. Whenever we're bored we just load up the car, drive for five minutes, and ride roller coasters until we puke.

I love Andrew's face in this one.


I love the names of these rides. I wish that was my job - Amusement Park Ride Namer. I would rock it! However, someone is doing a fairly decent job. Above, we have The OdySea, then below are the Jumping Dragon, Turn of the Century, and Tidal Wave - my favorite from my childhood. Hope you and yours are making some awesome memories this summer, too!

Picture Party!

In attempt to keep family updated on our goings-on, and so they don't forget what our kids look like, here are some pictures of what we've been up to...

We skipped church a couple weeks ago because half of us had snot hanging from our noses clear down to our socks. (Not me.) So Ethan went out to play soccer with his dad. He was having a great time until...


...he caught the ball with his stomach. Looks painful, no?


Cameron is almost done with his baseball season. His poor team didn't win a single game because none of them had ever played in the player pitch league before, while the teams they played against had plenty of experience in their pitchers who were two years older than them. I know that life isn't fair, but Cameron's love of baseball was killed, squashed, mutilated and left in the sun to rot when his team was mercilessly beaten over and over. That makes me pretty sad. At least he looks cute though, huh?


Another horrible part of the baseball season was Trent. We couldn't set him down for a second or he would take off for the road or the parking lot, giggling like a maniac the entire way. He loves to do whatever it is he knows he is not supposed to do, and it makes us nuts. Andrew shouldered Trent for several innings every game to keep him from being squashed by a car, but now that I think about it - that would have taught him a lesson.


We went to a park for a barbecue with my parents for Memorial Day, and Andrew wore this hat. He was relentlessly teased by my dad, and rightly so. That was also the last time we saw the sun. My fingers have been numb since May.


Andrew decided that it stinks to do yard work, and while we can't afford to pay a teenager to mow our lawn, (the little punks want $40 just for our backyard!), we can employ our own home-grown slaves and make them tend to the yard for a fraction of the cost of having a larger person do it. Ethan likes to think that he is a world-class weed puller now, but he needs some more practice. Still, nice to have some help.


Cameron, being taller and older, landed the job of mower. Now he knows what hard work is, because we have a rather large yard and our mower is not self-propelled. Total cost for two hours of hard labor? $5 per kid.


Andrew went paintballing. This is one of his trophies. Can't show you the other ones because they are too near the groin. Dangerously near.


At Grandpa's birthday party, Drew jumped on the trampoline. So did I. It was fun! I hadn't been on one of those in years. And I won't be doing it again anytime soon, because I peed a little bit with every bounce. My bladder control is not what it was before children.


Trent fell asleep well before nap time one morning because how could he resist cuddling up with his favorite blankey after a hard morning of rough-housing?


He likes ice-cream, too. I love summer. You can let the kids make total messes of themselves and then just hose them off before letting them back in the house!


Summer is also good for thunder storms. The kids were all lined up watching this one the other evening. The lightening was hitting pretty close, so the thunder was loud. Drew kept running to hide behind the recliner. Good stuff.


Alright - my fingers are going to crack in this cold, so I have to sign off. Have a fabulous weekend, all!