October 8, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Retail Therapy

Chickadee and I have been talking about working on a jigsaw puzzle together as sort of our special girl time project. For whatever reason she doesn’t consider all of the things we do together on any given day to count as special time, things like cooking or doing laundry or discussing why none of her jeans fit her anymore on account of she grew three inches this summer or me yelling at her to pick her junk up off the floor. Go figure. So we decided to get a puzzle and set it up in the dining room and try to work on it a little bit every day.

The challenge, of course, will be that she wants it to be something for JUST US and I can already see how this is going to become An Issue because everything must be completely fair, and after Monkey finishes wailing and gnashing his teeth he’ll probably insist that I set up ANOTHER puzzle which is just for me and HIM, and then Chickie will complain that now HER puzzle is no longer SPECIAL and I will have to sell both of them (the kids, not the puzzles, because I rather enjoy puzzles) on eBay.

But in the meantime, because I am a glutton for punishment, I have agreed to this plan. (more…)

October 6, 2007 | The Year of Living Changerously

We have been taping Mythbusters every week and watching it as a family on Friday nights, but there hasn’t been a new episode in a while so we’ve had to come up with another activity to celebrate making it through the week. Thus began a brief period of trial and error, wherein we discovered that laundry is perhaps not quite celebratory enough, while body shots may be just a tad overdoing it.

So last night we decided to play Uno. Otto announced that it would be cutthroat Uno, meaning that everyone was expected to play to win, which the kids took to mean that the first time they each had to draw extra cards they should cry. After a quick pause to explain that anyone who couldn’t suck it up and draw cards without sobbing could go to bed early, instead, we then launched into a very merry round of cards indeed. (more…)

October 5, 2007 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

As long-time readers already know—mostly because I have yammered about it for months and will not SHUT UP ALREADY—one of the things that drew us to this house is the fact that it has an enormous deck complete with a gazebo. Now that it is no longer 110 degrees every day, we spend a lot of time out there. One of our first new-home purchases was a table that fits neatly inside the gazebo so that we can dine in the shade and look for geckos. Because we are a high class establishment.

A few weeks ago while we ate dinner out there, I noticed that one of the support posts was looking a little… ragged. “Hey,” I said to Otto, “what’s this? What happened here?” And he cracked a joke about how if he didn’t know better, he’d think the deer had been up on the deck, rubbing against the posts. (more…)

October 4, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony, What do I do all day?

I am already struck with a strong urge to crawl back into bed, which I’m taking as a very bad sign indeed, seeing as how that usually doesn’t happen until closer to lunch time. Not even a bowl of grits with bacon salt (bacon salt, oh how I love thee) has perked me up. This is not a good omen.

The children are having trouble getting up in the morning, and honestly, short of putting them to bed right after they get home from school, I am out of ideas. Their bedtime is plenty early. They SHOULD be getting plenty of sleep. Maybe they are, and it’s just their genetic bent towards morning surliness that is causing the problem. I just know that mornings are getting uglier and uglier around here and I hate it. Also, I am tired of the “Don’t YELL AT US!” whine reflexively answered with “Did you come when I DIDN’T yell??” rejoinder. That’s a crappy stalemate to be in, on either side. (more…)

October 3, 2007 | The Year of Living Changerously

It must be Fall because it’s dark when my alarm goes off and dark when I wake the kids up and dark while I pack lunches but almost sorta kinda getting light out when it’s time to leave for school.

It must be Fall because the yard is covered with fallen leaves. The fact that the trees are still covered in (green) leaves is a little confusing, sure, and I hear that a drought can make the leaves fall off, too, plus the fact that it is still hitting 85 every day is not feeling all that Fall-like, but—what was I talking about?—oh, right, the leaves on the grass mean it must be Fall.

It must be Fall because we crack the windows at night and let the cool air snake over the windowsills and down the wall, where it creeps along until it find my toes (which I am always surprised to discover are growing chilly). (more…)

October 2, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

The children, if you must know, are driving me slightly insane right now. Chickadee’s propensity for opposition borders on OCD, and I have resorted to all sorts of bizarre methods in last-ditch attempts to modify her behavior. (This is where the people who were JUST WAITING for evidence of my crappy mothering skills hit the jackpot.) In the last month, I have been: charging her a quarter for every time she tells me “okay” and doesn’t do what she just agreed to do, banning her from her brother’s room (due to her habit of running in there and making a huge mess), throwing away her dirty socks left in any location other than her room or the hamper (this would include but is not limited to: the shoe cubbies by the door, the kitchen table, the couch, MY BED, the stairs, and by the pool) and then making her purchase new ones with her own money, tasking her with cleaning the bathrooms pretty much any time she breaks a rule that doesn’t already have a set consequence.

And it’s not as though Monkey’s off the hook, either. (more…)

October 1, 2007 | It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

On Saturday, Monkey burst into our room bright and early to let us know that his tooth hadn’t yet fallen out—this being the one next to the one he lost last week, which was flopping all crooked and gross yet refusing to let go—and later we tromped off to the fields for a morning of soccer. Once again, it was gripping, cut-throat competition, with our team ultimately reigning triumphant. And by that I mean that the mom who brought snack had oranges AND Cheez-Its AND granola bars.

I think we won the game, too. I’m not sure. Monkey spent a lot of time acting surprised whenever he was called back into play. “I’m playing AGAIN?” he would ask, looking around as if to say, hey, I’m pulling up some important grass over here, you know, “ALREADY?”

When it was all over we piled back into the car and came home, only to discover that a house had landed on our resident witch.

Oh, wait. That’s not quite right. (more…)