How much is that Rooster in the window?

Last week the kids and I went to D.I. to find a costume for Julian. Of course, we found what we needed.

At that point I was ready to leave, but, against my instincts, I let the kids peruse the toy isle all the while knowing I'd say no to anything they may want. (My kids could double the content of that toy isle if they'd clean out their rooms!)

I kept to that self-made promise...with one exception.

Behind the toy isle there are shelves of plush toys. Julian found a cute, little rooster she thought Rascal would love.

Well, I thought, as long as it's not in our house. And who could go wrong spending two bits on a doggie toy?

So, we brought the toy home and Rascal was as pleased as could be that we'd brought a toy for him.

As soon as our big (and I do mean BIG- he's doubled his size in 2 months!) sweet puppy bit into that rooster, we were all startled by a loud "Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!"

With trepidation Rascal jumped back while we caught our breath and laughed a good, long laugh.

Even now, a week later, we'll look outside to see him bravely pouncing on that 50 cent treasure, then jumping back as it calls out a warning cry. Once he barked for 5 minutes while it sat a few yards away on the grass in the shade of our plum tree and relentlessly teased him.

Now, where else but D. I. can you buy such entertainment for only 50 cents?

Excerpt from Logan's Prayer

...And I quote,

"Bless mommy not to get hitted by dodgeballs. Bless daddy not to get shooted by bullets or beated up."

Listening to my kids pray is a daily gift.

.

Killing Me Softly

What is it? It's FOOD! That's right. Right now I hate it. Really hate it! I wish I never had to eat another bite again.

I've been up in the night for almost 3 hours now thinking about it. The discomfort in my stomach is dominating my body. And, ohhhhhh, the queeziness! Aghhhhh!

What's worse is that I can't even blame it on being sick. I think I just ate too much. Which isn't really all that much, considering what I used to eat.

AND, it was 8 whole hours ago!!! What is going on???

Even now, as I resolve not to eat even a morsel of food tomorrow, I know deep inside I won't do it. It's torture, this love-hate relationship I have with food!

Gripe, gripe, gripe...I know.

What up?

PSYCH!!! I have nothing to write...or maybe I'm just too tired to think of something great.
At least I bothered to post. Aren't you glad you checked in?

P.S. I did, however, enjoy reading all YOUR latest posts!

Pros and Cons

Cons

No sleeping through the night
No sleeping in, in the morning
No taking naps after school
No kids in the kitchen without an adult
No alone time
Constant vigilance
Holes in our pants
Pee on the tile
No easy vacation get-away
Less money


Pros
More time with the kids
More practicing patience
More challenging tasks
A tidy kitchen
No cat poop in our yard
A soft, cuddly pet
A future jogging partner
A grateful husband
A playmate for the kids
A happy daughter

Check You Child's Homework Before You Send it to School :)

(Here's the reply the teacher received the following day)

Dear Mrs. Jones,
I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer.
I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.
From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith

TO THE SPOILED, UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill...barefoot...BOTH ways...

Yadda, yadda, yadda...

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in heck I was going to lay a bunch of garbage like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it SO easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a darn Utopia!
And I hate to say it, but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid, we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the darn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the darn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and messed it all up!

There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone...cause that's how we rolled, dig?

We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were messed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled brats.

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove ... Imagine that!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

Thanks to Tammy and Stone Sour...

I'm not a huge fan of thinking up answers to questions about myself. But this tag is different. It's called "Four Squared" and you're supposed to look in your fourth picture file, go to the fourth picture and post about it.

I'm on my Mac and it doesn't have many pictures, but I went to the 4th date listed and this was the 4th photo. It's not a great picture by ANY stretch of the imagination, so you'll know I didn't cheat. :-)


The shot was taken at probably 85 or so miles per hour on our way to Disneyland this fall. It's the name of one of the songs on a CD we've listened to over and over while riding together in dad's truck and mom's car.

When I listen to it now, it takes me back to both good times and hard times. It represents hours and hours of time together driving up to Primary Children's Medical Center or to do fun things with family. It brings to mind drives long enough for the kids to fall asleep and for Jarid and I to have some really great conversations. (I love those!) When I hear it I remember times when the kids have giggled in the back seat until they couldn't breath and times when mom or dad have made rulings for 'silent time.'

The song titled after the name of the road on this sign is a song that will linger in my mind for a long time. Thanks Stone Sour!

What am I Gonna Do with My Husband?!

STORY #1

Recently, Jarid shared a portion of the book he was reading called On Combat by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. Entertaining as it was for the kids, I thought I'd share.

"I was monitoring her class," the principal said, "as she stood up in front teaching her kindergartners. All of a sudden a mouse came running across the floor, hit the inside of her shoe, and ran up the inside of her slacks. When it reached her upper thigh area, she latched onto it with her hand over her slacks and started rolling around on the ground, screaming, 'Help me! Help me!'
The principal asked, "What was I supposed to do?! Was I supposed to pull her pants down in front of all those kids to get that mouse? All I knew was we had us one of those 'critical incidents' Colonel Grossman's talking about. So I got all the kids and we got the heck out of there. I sent some female teachers in to help her out, and then later on that afternoon we had one of those critical incident debriefings.
'You've got to do it,' the principal continued. 'It was nothing fancy. We just brought the counselor in, sat all the little Bubbas and Bubbalinas down, and said to the kids, 'Ya'll are fine. Here's the teacher, and she's fine. We sat there and talked our way through what happened. It was all going well until this one little Bubba stood up and said, with wide-eyed kindergarten innocence, 'Yah know, the most amazin' thang of all ta me, was how much water came out of that little mouse, when she squarshed it."
The moral of the story is that to wet your pants in a situation like this is a perfectly natural human response.

STORY #2

A few nights ago I'd cooked some whole green beans in chicken broth. YUM!
The following conversation ensued.
Julian asked me, "Mom, what's chicken broth?"
Dad quickly replied, "When chickens get boobies., they get chicken bras." (It's censored, for the pure. If you aren't, highlight it with your cursor and peer closely, cuz I couldn't change the background color. :)
Disapprovingly, I cried out, "JA-RID!"
He came back with "Okay. When chickens get older and more mature..."
Both Julian and Jarid started laughing hard. Apparently, we need to focus on enunciation.

The finished product...for now.

Yesterday a crew of kids came over to help us finish the igloo. With production at such fast rates, we failed to fix the angle of the blocks in time to avoid this strange shape. But, I think it lends the structure a special personality! Plus, the kids will be able to stand up inside.

We worked for over 3 hours. It was hard work, but fun, and we let the little ones take an extra break now and then. I'm sad they had to go before I could get a picture of them all. Maybe we'll have a crew party when the weather warms up a bit again. :-)