kids – Coffee and Inclusion

Elf Drama

Jingles and his hijinks might be a little too convincing.

Yesterday, Andrew stepped on his Flash action figure, breaking both legs off at the knees. Instead of being upset, though, he set the pieces in front of Jingles and asked that he take them back to Santa’s workshop for repair.

I smiled, arrogantly thinking I could fix Flash and have him back to Andrew in no time. I just needed to remember to collect the pieces after the kids went to bed, fix the toy, then stage him with Jingles to complete the illusion. Before I headed to bed, I actually remembered to grab the pieces, and initially thought I could just pop the knees back into place.

Oh, was I wrong.

Apparently, there are little pegs which hold the bottom parts of Flash’s legs in place…or, there were little pegs. They seem to have broken completely off. So, now I have to figure out how to repair Flash. Hopefully glue will work, but then Flash probably won’t have legs that bend at the “joint”.

Of course, Andrew noticed that his beloved super hero was missing today, and reassured me that Jingles would bring him back after he was fixed. “Maybe Santa will even put a button on his chest, so when I press it, Flash will run super fast around the house!”

Crap. That, I can’t do. I love that the kids still believe in the magic of the holiday. If I can replace this action figure, I think they will continue to believe. No pressure, right? 😉 Perhaps it’s time to take to the internet to search for a replacement.

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Seasons

All through the weekend, we heard about an impending snow storm, which we pretty much disregarded. It’s not unusual to hear about the possibility of severe weather around here, all through the year, but many times it just doesn’t happen. I do like to know what could be coming, so we can plan accordingly, but usually the storm misses us and then we move on.

Imagine my surprise to wake up this morning to find a bunch of snow on the ground, and to hear that the kids were out of school for a snow day. In November. Craziness.

Of course, the kids were elated to have a day off, and they almost immediately wanted to play in the snow. That’s when it began, the relentless chorus of “Mom, where’s my ______” that comes with each new season. Gloves, hats, snow pants, boots. They wanted it all, and couldn’t find any of it.

It quickly occurred to me that the four seasons have different meanings when you’re a kid. Winter is “Mom, where are my mittens?” Spring is “Mo-OM! I can’t find my jacket. I don’t need is anyway, it’s warm!” Summer, or “MOM! I can’t find my other croc!”, comes next, and is followed by Fall, or “Seriously, Mom, I don’t need a jacket. It’s still summer! Besides, I lost that jacket. Will you buy me a new hoodie?”

Seeing as we just entered “Mom, where are my mittens?”, or Winter, I wish all parents the patience to search the entire house, every day, for random gloves, scarves, and boots. May we all retire someplace warm, where we never have to worry about cold weather gear again.

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Things I Actually Said Today…

I have a headache. Could it be because I heard myself say some ridiculous things today? Here’s a sampling:

AlexANDer, the dog can NOT fold laundry.

And why would you leave the bathroom if you weren’t finished wiping?!?

Please get the underpants off of your head. Now.

Give me the snakes. I am so done with this.

It is not nice to call him an “hour hogger”. Please do not call him that again.

We do not chase each other with shoes.

Please do not write “butt”. Your sight word is “but”.

Ok, we are not going to race each other in the laundry baskets.

And perhaps the best of all (seeing as it’s not even Halloween yet):

Santa is watching.

I think I can make it to bedtime. I wonder how many more lovely phrases I can add to this before then?

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Bedtime Blues

I remember thinking, when the kids were toddlers, that once they got older their bedtime rituals would be simpler.

I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Bedtime is hairy. We are all exhausted by the time 8pm rolls around, and some evenings we don’t get home until after 9pm.

Let’s all just cross our fingers that this situation improves soon. This mama is tired.

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Life

“Hey, when you’re out, pick up a new board game that we can all play later!”

These were the words from my husband this afternoon, and I agreed; it sounded like fun. Before my daughter and I left Target today, we stopped by the toy department and selected The Game of Life. My sister and I used to play this all the time when we were kids. We loved it! I was excited to share the game with my kids.

As with most things, we should have waited a bit longer before trying this.

Nobody could keep track of their paydays, there were cards scattered everywhere, everyone was talking over everyone else. Ugh. Not fun at all.

There were a couple of funny parts, but the game became exhausting and grew old. Appropriate, I suppose: life is tiring, stressful, and if you’re lucky, kind of funny sometimes.

After the kids cleaned up the game, I slyly slid it under a cabinet with my foot. I hope they forget we own it, at least for a few days. I need time to recover.

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Lessons from Andrew

This just happened:

Andrew came skipping into the kitchen. “Mommy, can I have a grape juice?”

“You already had one,” I answered as I sorted through all the papers that came home from school.

“What?!? That does not answer my question, Mommy.”

“NO, Andrew, you may not have a juice because you already had one,” I replied, with perhaps just a smidge of exasperation.

“There you go, Mommy. Now that’s an answer. You just had to be more pacific.”

“Well, ok then, buddy. Go play.”

Then he went skipping back out of the kitchen, en route to the next bout of mischief.

Happy weekend!

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It Really Does Rock

We’ve been listening to Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks! a lot lately. I loved this cd when it was released, and now my kids love it too. So, we rock out in the car to the likes of I’m Just a Bill and My Hero, Zero.

Perhaps my favorite on this cd, though, is Better Than Ezra’s presentation of Conjunction Junction. It makes me quite happy.

Find the cd. Rock out in the car. You won’t be disappointed.

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Torture – Otherwise Known as Homework

Here we are, trying to get through another night of homework.

Part of tonight’s assignments: a subtraction worksheet. We’ve been arguing over the first problem for the last ten minutes.

“Al, what’s 15 – 11?”

“Six.”

“No, Buddy. MINUS.”

“Six. Five plus one is SIX!”

“Well, yes, but this is subtraction, dude.”

“But it is six.”

Ugh. We’ve got eight more problems to argue over before we move on to spelling words.

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Monday, Monday

Hey! It’s a rare morning post!

That’s how bad our morning was. I felt it important to sit down and blog it right away. Actually, it wasn’t the worst morning we’ve had around here, but I doubt I’ll have time tonight to sit down and write, so here we are.

I committed a horrible act against Alex: I allowed us to run completely out of chocolate milk. That is bad news, you guys, as chocolate milk is to him as coffee is to me. I naively offered him juice or water, and that’s when the morning took an ugly turn. Tears and snot were flying, and Alex was pretty upset too (just joking…only Al was crying…but that is a funny visual, no?).

Seriously, though, Alex was a mess and then he and Andrew started battling and Andrew ended up wearing his cereal. Good times.

And of course, the bus was actually on time today, when I could have used the extra ten minutes that we’ve had since school started. Figures. Alex did perk up a bit, though, when he saw his violin waiting for him with his backpack, and he waved at me from the bus, so maybe he’ll shake his Monday blues by the time the bus arrives. I’ll spend the day in a cloud of anxiety, mentally calculating how many gallons of chocolate milk I can fit in the fridge.

So, if you wouldn’t mind crossing your fingers that the kiddos have a good day at school, that would be appreciated.

Happy (freaking) Monday.

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Nerd

Tonight, I was folding laundry while Andrew practiced writing letter As. We were chatting about this and that, and I will admit that I was just half listening and trying to push through until all three kids were tucked in and I could have a moment’s peace.

“What do you think I am, Mommy, a nerd?”

I instantly perked up, glancing up from the laundry to size up this question.

“Where did you hear that word, Andrew? What do you mean by ‘nerd'”? I was reluctant to just leave that one alone. With the kids back in school, I am always looking out to make sure they aren’t being pushed around, or being the one to give another a hard time.

“You know, Mommy. Nerds. They build really cool stuff, like robots. Nerds are awesome,” he explained as he finished his page of As.

Big sigh of relief. While I still am not entirely thrilled about the labeling of others (even though in this case, ‘nerd’ is being used in a complimentary fashion), I was happy to hear that he wasn’t being a big meanie.

Tag: kids