Do You See What I See?!

I walked by one of our nativity sets today and had to do a double take.


















Let's take a look from the front, shall we?



















Before you judge, I have to ask: What wiseman wouldn't want to try on such a fabulous wig?


Exactly.


Happy New Year, everyone!

Caught in the Act

I cannot say enough good things about the NeilMed Sinus Rinse. And no, the company is not paying me to say this. If you don't know what I'm referring to, check it out here. Or just buy one at your local drug store. Here's what it looks like:

So up until a few nights ago, I've managed to do my "rinsing" without the girls seeing me. The whole process is kinda' disturbing, and I don't want to traumatize them in any way, so I've just done it when they've been in bed.

The other night I was mid-rinse when I felt a presence. I looked over, saline pouring out my nose, and saw Megan's horrified face. I quickly finished and grabbed a tissue.

Me: Uh, hey there.

Megan: WHAT are you DOING?!

Me: Rinsing my sinuses. You've never seen me do this before, have you?

Megan: No! Why do you have to rinse them?

Me: Well, it's to keep out ...

Megan: ... the boogers?

Me: I was actually gonna' say infection, but I suppose it helps with those too.

Good times.

Bedtime Breath

Tonight after praying with Megan at bedtime ...

Megan: Mom?

Me: Yeah?

Megan: While you were talking, your breath smelled like carrots.

Me: Carrots, really? Okaaay.

Megan: Love you, see you in the morning, good night.

Me: Good night.

Carrot breath ... could be worse.

Shepherding 101

Megan was a shepherd in last night's Christmas Eve program at our church. Amanda was a Wiseman's attendant (or as she calls it, a Wiseguy's attendant.)

After the second performance, I asked Megan how it went with the goat on stage ...

Megan: I stepped in goat poop!!

This is particularly gross when you're barefoot, which she was!

Me: No way! What did you do? Did you scream?!

Megan (looking at me like I was a total amateur): Uh, no. I wiped it off.

Brilliant.

Apron Honesty

Last week I spent an afternoon making homemade maple-oat-nut scones. It's a recipe by Ina Garten that my mom found on Martha Stewart's website, so you know they're good! (My mom and I add chopped pecans to ours though, which makes them even better!)

Amanda wanted to help, and I have to say that she's at the age now where she actually is helpful, which is nice.

So we were in the scone zone when she decided that I was missing something.

Amanda: Mom, you should be wearing an apron.

Me: No, I'm fine.

Amanda: I'm going to get you an apron.

Me: No, thank you.

She returned with a darling apron that she had made for me last year in 3rd grade, with her handprints on it.

Amanda: Here. Put this on.

Me: Amanda, I don't want to wear one.

Amanda: Why not? You should wear an apron so your clothes don't get messy. Put it on!

How many times to I have to tell this kid I DON'T WANT TO WEAR A STINKIN' APRON?! At this point I'm just fed up. Which, by the way, is not a good place to be, because you start spoutin' off what you really think. And that usually gets people's feelers all hurt and stuff.

Me: Amanda, for the last time, I'm NOT going to wear an apron. I don't like aprons. I never will like aprons. The one you have on right now was given to me 16 years ago when I got married, and I've worn it once. If THAT!

Yeah. Never a good idea to be honest with a 9 year old.

Amanda: So you don't like the apron I made for you in 3rd grade?

Me: Of course I like the apron you made me! I just don't want to wear it!

Cue depressing Charlie Brown music as Amanda hangs her head and walks slowly to her bedroom and shuts the door. Fantastic. Way to go, mom.

I suppose I should have just explained to her why aprons bug me so much. It's something I've always known, but had never heard anyone else verbalize until last year when I was visiting with my cousin-in-law Rochelle (see cute photo below):

She pointed out that aprons always seem to shift a little up top, if you know what I mean. And if you don't know what I mean, here's a visual for ya:

I swear, every time I've worn an apron, this happens. It shifts over, hugging one "side", and leaving the other all open and vulnerable. I can't think of anything more annoying while you're trying to cook. Well, cooking is actually pretty annoying in and of itself. But add a shifty apron to the mix, and this gal's got a one way ticket to the funny farm. Only no one's laughing.

P.S. Rochelle gave me permission to mention her name in this blog. She did NOT give me permission, however, to swipe one of her facebook photos for this post, which I totally did. What I really wanted, was a photo of the two of us sporting shifty aprons, but she lives an hour away (Waaaa!) So, that's why the facebook photo had to be swiped. As for the pic of yours truly, I got Megan to take that one. Not the most flattering, I know, but I felt it was necessary for the integrity of this post. (Integrity? Ha! That's kinda' funny.)

Bon appetit!

Nativity Nonsense

It's that time of year when our church puts on a Christmas production. My girls absolutely love to be involved. Not so much because they love being on stage, but more because if they're chosen to be shepherds, they'll get to hold baby goats and/or lambs!!

After tonight's rehearsal, I overheard this conversation ...

Megan: What do I do if my lamb starts bleeding in the middle of the show?

Amanda: Bleating, not bleeding.

Megan: Okay that.

Amanda: Take it off stage.

Megan: Hmmm. I hope mine doesn't bleed a lot.

Amanda: Bleat, Megan. BLEAT.

Megan: Whatever!

Amanda: That would be weird to have a bunch of bleeding goats on stage.

Uh, yeah. Pretty much.

May I Take Your Order?

Today is the first day of Christmas vacation. For my girls, apparently, that means setting up a pretend restaurant.

Megan came in to the kitchen wanting help making toast for Amanda who was waiting in the "restaurant".

After she had served her sister the toast, she changed into a very fancy dress.

Megan: Mom! I changed into this dress in less than 1 minute!

Me: Wow. And why did you change into such a fancy dress?

Megan: Because of my WEDDING!

Me: Wedding? You're getting married, now? I thought you were a waitress for Amanda?

Megan: Oh right! Waitress ... wedding ... I get those two mixed up.

Me: Who doesn't?

Bloody Stitches

In my bedtime prayer with Megan tonight, I included a Thank You for helping Grandma Charlie's knee surgery go well. After the amen ...

Megan: Mom, you know Grandma Charlie's knee surgery?

Me: Yeah, what about it?

Megan: Did she have to have stitches in her blood?

Me: Uh, I don't think so. Well, hmmm, maybe a little.

Megan: I hope not, because if she did I would be grossed out, and have nightmares, and get the chills. Probably.

Me: Well we can't have that, can we?

Megan: No. Good night, Mom. See you in the morning. Good night.

Me: Good night.

Great. Now I'm gonna' be grossed out, and have nightmares and get the chills. Probably.

Santa has Left the Building

I had to stop at Walgreens on the way home for a prescription. Worse than that was the fact that I had to go IN to Walgreens. I so much prefer the drive-thru. Even if there's a line up of cars, at least I can sit there all comfy like while I wait. That was not the case tonight, however, because I had to pick up something else in addition to the prescription. Oh well.

On the way out, the girls were stopping every 2 feet to call me over ... "Mom, look at this!" "Mom, I want this." "Mom, can I have this?"

After I while, I just started tuning them out and continued to make my way to the glorious exit. I was almost there when I heard Megan call me something other than "Mom" ...

Megan: Oh Santa ...

Me: Pardon me?

Megan: Oh Santa ... you should buy this for yourself.

I walked over to see what she was pointing at. Yeah, a Santa suit.

Me: Funny, Meg. Reeeeal funny.

Guess that jig is completely up.

The Rolling Ixthus

Tonight was the girl's school Christmas program. I may blog more about that another day (Specifically on what a joy it was to try and find shoes that my 4th grade daughter would accept as worthy to wear with her dress!)

Anyway, as we were driving to the concert, I saw a car that struck me as odd. Not the car so much as the bumper stickers that were placed on either side of the license plate:

I don't know. It just struck me funny.

Broken Vessels

Megan pinched her thumb on something. I don't remember what she pinched it on, but the result was a broken blood vessel.

Megan: Amanda, look at my thumb!

Amanda: Yeah, so?

Megan: Mom said it's a broken brain vessel.

Amanda: A broken brain vessel? No it's not. It's a bruise.

Megan: No, it's a broken brain vessel.

Me: BLOOD vessel. It's a broken blood vessel.

Megan: Oh. Blood vessel. Right.

Tomato, tomahto. Brain vessel, blood vessel ...

Delightful

My girls are in the kids choir at church. The director, Susan, is a longtime friend who knew me before kids. You know, back when I was fun.

When I picked the girls up after their last rehearsal, Susan pulled me aside to share a little conversation that she'd had with Megan that evening ...

Susan: So Megan, would you say that you're a "delight"?

Megan: Huh? What's that?

Susan: You know, like nice to be around?

Megan: Uh, NO!!











Alrighty then. Any more questions?

Fairy Time

Megan has been workin' on a loose tooth for weeks now. I don't know if it's been harder on her or us. Yesterday it got to the point where it would lay flat against her lip like a draw bridge whenever she'd open her mouth. Lovely. It was high time to get that sucker out, but she wouldn't let any of us near it, so she went to sleep last night with it hanging by a thread. I thought she'd swallow it for sure, but she woke up this morning with it still hanging on. I guess that was a good thing.

Finally this afternoon it came out. Hallelujah!

Now most kids would be very excited when a tooth comes out. Not just because the irritation is gone, but because the Tooth Fairy would be coming for a visit that night. Well, not so much in our house.

It was a year ago or more that I slipped about the Tooth Fairy not being real. I know. I KNOW! But hear me out.

Have you ever had your kids ask you non-stop questions for like an hour? Well, it was one of those evenings, and I was paying bills and trying to concentrate, and the girls just kept peppering me with questions about every stinkin' thing under the sun. And I'll admit that I was not exactly engaged in the conversation. So when one of them asked if the Tooth Fairy was real, I kinda' laughed a bit and said, "No." Oh boy. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I was immediately engaged in the dialogue. What had I just done?!

I looked up to see my girls staring at me with wide eyes. Dang it. Amanda made some comment like she already suspected it. Megan didn't say much. On one hand I wished I could take it back. On the other hand, it was a relief to get it out in the open.

Okay, so now we're back to present day. Megan puts her tooth in an envelope for the fake Tooth Fairy, and as I'm tucking her into bed, the conversation went like this ...

Megan: Okay, Mom, here's my tooth.

Me: Yep, there it is.

Megan: I'm going to put it under my pillow now.

Me: Why don't you just set it up here (motioning to her headboard.)

Megan: Why, Mom? Is it too hard for you to get it from under my pillow? Hmmm?

Me: (Laughing) Yes, actually.

Megan: Well too bad. I'm putting it under my pillow.

Me: Fine.

During her bedtime prayer, she prayed that she'd get "at least two dollars for her tooth, but whatever amount would be fine."

After saying "Amen." She asked, "Mom, when can we go look at all my other teeth you've been keeping?"

She's never gonna' let me live this one down, I can tell.

Learning to Read

Hearing your kids learn new words in the early reading years can be a lot of fun. And as long as you don't laugh at them (or should I say, as long as they don't see you laugh at them), they'll continue to read aloud and keep you entertained for hours.

Yesterday Megan was reading aloud from her latest Junie B. Jones book ...

Megan: Mom, what does ass-l mean?

Me: Ass-l ?! Uh, could you spell it please?

Megan: A-I-S-L-E.

Me: OH, aisle. Whew.

For the love of God, FOCUS!!

Welcome to math homework with Megan:



After 3 math problems, she gets up to get a snack.


After 2 more math problems, she decides she wants to weigh herself to see if the 8 crackers she's eaten will show up on the scale (she has a goal weight of 60 pounds so that she can ditch the booster car seat. She has 9 pounds to go.)


After 1 more math problem, she decides she needs to burn the calories she's just consumed so she hops on the elliptical for a few minutes.


After 2 more math problems, she decides it's time to make a fort with the kitchen chairs and some blankets.


After 1 more math problem, she realizes she's overheated from making the fort (as opposed to ripping through her math homework), and needs to remove her shirt, which she does.


Yeah. Math homework. Shoot me now.

The Upside to Family Fevers

Amanda came down with a fever yesterday afternoon. She was laying around more than usual, but I still hadn't clued in. Of course once it was time to head out the door to a singing commitment, she started crying uncontrollably saying she'd been cold all afternoon, and that her head was hurting. I immediately knew what was wrong, and the thermometer only confirmed it. She had a fever.

Later that evening, Megan came over to me. She said she had a secret to tell me (since she prefaced it as a "secret", please keep this between you, the reader, and me, the blabber-mouth.)

Megan: You know what's good about Amanda having a fever?

Me: Um, no?

Megan: Well, don't tell my teacher this, but I'm probably going to catch her fever, and then I'll get to stay home!!

Me: Right.

If there's one thing I've learned in my 10 years of parenting, it's this ... cold and flu bugs are the only things siblings share.

This morning the doctor diagnosed Amanda with strep throat. Yay! (And by "yay" I mean that I'm happy she has a reason to take antibiotics and get on with life! There's way too much to do in these last 2 weeks before Christmas vacation for any of my family members to be sick!)

Okay, so Megan shared her upside to fevers. Now I will share my upside to them ...

When one of my chickadee's is under the weather, I actually get to be the kind of mom I'd like to be 24/7. (Okay, 14/7.) You see, when one is sick, they are in too much discomfort to give me any attitude, which means I don't give them any attitude. They welcome my babying of them. They suddenly think I'm God's gift to their life (which I really am, but they won't realize that until they have children of their own.) Another perk is that I get to spend some one-on-one time with them (even if that means at the doctor's office.) And one-on-one time means NO SIBLING RIVALRY!! It's like a tiny taste of heaven.

The only thing that would make this time even better, is if there was no make-up work from school to be done while ill. Yeah, someone has got to figure that out. Perhaps a pill could be taken along with the antibiotic which would impart all things missed in school, and then any homework could be dismissed because it's already right up there in their little noggin. Maybe they could even come up with a head scanning device to insure that the academic facts have been retained while home sick. It's almost 2011 people, I don't think I'm asking too much.

Piercings

This family moment was something I shared on Facebook almost a year ago before I was blogging ...

The girls had just gotten their ears pierced at Claire's, and now we were all in the car driving somewhere. Probably to Costco. Here's the conversation that took place:

Amanda: Did you know that people get other body parts pierced besides their ears?

Me: You mean like eyebrows and lips?

Amanda: Yeah.

Me: Yes, some people do that.

Amanda: At Claire's they have weiner earrings.

Henry and I jerked to look at eachother, eyes popping out of our heads. Are we really about to have this conversation with our 9 year old?! Lord, help me.

Me: They do NOT !!

Amanda: Yeah they do. They have weiner earrings, and milk shake earrings and french fry earrings.

Me: OH, those. Right.

I'm sorry, but could she not have said hot dog earrings instead?!

Megan's Type

Megan: Mom, how did you find Dad?

Me: I didn't find him. Grandma Judi found him for me.

Megan: Huh?

Henry: Yep, sometimes it happens that way.

Megan: Hmmm.

Henry: Maybe someday YOUR Mom will find YOUR husband for YOU.

Megan: No way!

Me: You never know.

Megan: Well my husband's not going to have a beard OR a mustache.

Henry: How 'bout a soul patch?

Megan: Huh? You mean a goatee?

Henry: No, a goatee covers more of your chin. A soul patch is just a little hair right under the lip. Uncle Roger used to have one.

Megan: No. No hair ANYWHERE. But he can shave if he wants too.

Looks like I'm the future mother-in-law to Ziggy: