People watching at Lakemont Park

Anytime we go to a public place I wonder if my children notice the interesting people. Especially a park like Lakemont. It's not big enough that you get lost in the crowd. The more eccentric definitely stand out and despite going on different rides, you will see the same faces again and again.

When a person is truly eccentric, opportunities for comments from the rugrats abound. Take for example, the cross dresser. I'm sure once I use that term, you have a vision in your head of pink lacyruffles on a ball gown with oversized pink pumps, lots of makeup and accessories. But no, this one was a bit more difficult to suss out.

He was wearing a pair of shorts that were not too feminine. Maybe like the gym shorts boys used to wear in the 70s. A yellow T-shirt that said something about Girl Scouts, and white sneakers with white socks. Not too much to work with there. It was the wig that was the first clue. Not only was it a bit askew, but it was also a really badly done wig. Just a hair too long and coiffed for a man unless he was still stuck in the 70s. He was walking with another man early in the day. So for a bit I thought he might be an older woman who just wasn't graced with very good looks.

Later, I saw sideburns peeking out the edges of the wig.

Then later, I noticed pink nail polish. So now I'm thinking... female. OK. My mind can get around this, but still, I'm a bit uneasy with that human need to classify and organized everyone and everything neatly into categories that make sense.

When my family stopped for a bathroom break, all questions were answered. He stepped into the men's room just before DH and the boys entered. The room was full, so DH waited outside with the boys for the crowd to clear a bit. Eccentric man exited the men's room Firstborn (yes, that's right, Firstborn this time) yells out, "A girl in the mens room?" Then he mutters under his breath, "That's just not right."

The funny part was that he did it in his best Boston accent. Guhhl. Of course, for Firstborn, this is no accent. He can't produce Rs. The difference is that in Boston, there are no finial Rs. In Firstborn land, there are no Rs at all.

The other funny part was that Firstborn thought this was really a girl. His level of disgust was totally on a 9year old, girls are gross sort of level.

Frankly, I thought we had grown out of this unedited commentary stage shortly after he turned 5 and shouted out in a McDonald's one day, "Mommy, that lady is fatter than you!" While pointing of course.

But no. The week was indeed graced with yet another unedited outburst from the firstborn child.

At another McDonald's on the trip back home (yes, I'm seeing a fast food pattern here), I brought the kids outside to run in a grassy area near the parking lot. At the end of running time, I gathered them together to help DH carry the food to the car, but I had to stop them at the curb and say, "Wait! This lady is trying to pull out." To which Firstborn responds loudly and with great expression, "That's a lady?"

His explanation later was that he didn't know that women drove SUVs. I know. Weak, but give him credit. He's only 9.

Lakemont Park and Pepinos

On Wednesday, we headed to Altoona to check out Lakemont Park. Lakemont is a small local amusement park like our own local Canobie Lake. Turns out Wednesday is dollar day! One dollar to get in and one to ride all rides for free! What a deal. This fact made Hershey Park at the end of the week a bit harder to take at $45/ticket.

The park was great with at least two wooden roller coasters and a real feel of the turn of the century. Lastborn proved to be a real trooper on all the rides. Nothing scared him. And firstborn is a veteran amusement park rider.

Mom did join the kids on the bumper cars. Too bad Lastborn is about 2 inches too short to reach the "gas pedal." We had to share the ride and there was little room for him to reach the steering wheel. So we ended up arguing about who was steering. He sort of gets the knack of steering. About half the time he bothers to direct the car. The other half of the time, he just lets it go where it will. It was an eerie premonition of teaching him how to drive.

Must not grab the steering wheel.
Must not hit the invisible break.

We might even survive those days.

We ended the day at the Island Water Park. The lines on the water slides and water rides were too long, so we headed to the wading pool. This pool is great with fountains and other squirting devices and a big pirate ship to climb on and slide down. Even 9 year old Firstborn found fun in this kiddie pool. The changing facilities and lockers were great too. Mom sat under a willow tree and chilled out a bit while the men hit the pool.

While there, I watched at least 4 paddleboats with riders of various ages, steer into the banks of the lake under the branches of the willow tree and then struggle to extricate themselves. That was entertaining in itself.

After the park, we joined our friends A and D in Altoona for a meal at Pepino's. MMMMMMMM.

Poor A hurt her foot in a freak wheel chair accident. It was sad to see her hobble around, but we were glad she was off work and could spend time with us.

We didn't get back to the camp site until 9PM. The rugrats were asleep in the car and had to be carried in.

Horseshoe Curve

On Thursday, we drove the half hour to Altoona for a day of Railroading.

First on the agenda was the horseshoe curve and the tunnels. We wanted to see them before the threatening skies turned black. We were at Horseshoe Curve when Firstborn was a baby, but of course, he doesn't remember. As we arrived at the park, a large train was rounding the curve. We drove through one of the tunnels under the railroad. They are hand crafted with hand cut stone and they are so perfect. The kids, of course, were not too thrilled as we adults were.

After eating a quick hamburg and watching more trains pass through the curve we rode the funicular up the hill to the elevation of the curve itself.

From up on that height, you can see out to the valley below and the Altoona reservoirs and canal. The system was built years ago to both carry water to the city and to filter the water through the rocky debris on the bottom of the aqueduct. The reservoir sits at an elevation above the city collecting runoff from the Alleghany mountains around it. Gravity feeds the water down the aqueduct (just like in roman times) into the city.

Now a system of pipes, plumbing and water treatment facilities provide water to the city, but the infrastructure for the aqueducts still seems to be functional.

The only problem was that the whole time we were up on the hill, no trains came through. So, after a half hour or so, when Lastborn was threatening to say something to embarrass us, we headed back down on the funicular. We sent DH and the boys down the stairs. As we got ready to leave, another large train came through and I was able to snap a picture of it.

my shot of the train on the curve from below in the parking lot

Then on to the Altoona Railroading Museum. This is a great museum for train buffs of any age. Exhibits on railroading, the Pennsylvania RR company (the Pensy), and the growth and lifestyle in Altoona during the heyday of railroading are all put together into interactive and interesting exhibits. The museum is full of quotes by locals who lived in the city at that time. A kids room includes a big track and trains for the kids to play with , art supplies, a conductor's uniform and other toys.

Outside the museum, real rail road cars sit ready for climbing around. These aren't just empty shells of cars. There's a dining car and a sleeper car and an engine. They are not so much a climbing structure as they are further exhibits. But the climbing wasn't lost on the boys either.

Though the day A was a great hostess and shared her enthusiasm for the museum and her town.

At the end of the day, we took a different back road to the camp, led by A and D. They drove past Amish farms and old churches. Our kids got to see an Amish farmer drive his rig past us. Then we stopped at his farm. They own a furniture factory and D was hoping we could see some of the furniture. But the store was closed for the day. The kids did get to see some Amish kids working at their chores in the field. Of course this was a great opportunity to show the kids how nice they have it.

Dinner was at Grubb's Diner in Huntingdon. Much better food than the name would imply. Once we convinced the kids that they didn't really serve grubs, their attitudes improved.

Chocolate's not so sweet

Friday. At last we get to Hershey. I'd been looking forward to this event on the trip all year. In fact, I had hoped to join my December Mom's friends for a trip to Hershey in August. But it just wasn't meant to be and I couldn't fit it in my summer schedule.

The trip would have taken 2.5 hours from Raystown lake had we not gotten lost in Harrisburg. Google was totally wrong on those directions. We had to stop to ask for directions at a gas station. Word to the wise traveler. Stopping for directions at a gas station is no longer the recommended solution to getting lost. When was the last time you were able to speak English with a gas station employee. This guy was clueless. When I asked him how to get to Hershey and he said he had never heard of it, I knew we were in trouble. How can you live in the US and not know Hershey? Better yet, How can you live less than 5 miles from Hershey Park and have never heard of it. Obviously, this man had not been in the country for a week yet. Either that or he was simply a very sick individual who doesn't like chocolate.

So I bought a map and we figured it out. The parking was the first surprise. We were arriving shortly after the park opened and yet, we had to park back in Harrisburg. Nice of mister Hershey to provide a tram though.

The chocolate tour at Chocolate World was wonderful. First you walk through halls with exhibits about how chocolate is farmed, harvested, dried and shipped. Then you walk onto a rotating floor to climb on board the Hershey kiss shaped cars (that's a rather loose interpretation of the shape of a kiss, but I think that's what they had in mind). The cars are on a conveyer belt and they travel around the "factory" while three singing cows deliver an R&B melody about how wonderful Hershey chocolate is. Through the exhibit you get to see some pretty convincing (though too clean) factory images of chocolate being ground and cooked and mashed and mixed. Then conveyer belts of different candy packages. Perfect to make you crave Hershey chocolates. The boys liked it. The parents liked it. Unfortunately, the picture of us in our Hershey kiss car was a bit too washed out. Don't know why, all the other digital photos that they took looked fine. Ours was not though, so we didn't buy it.

On to the amusement park. We had an $8 off coupon. Too bad because it only counts towards adults. A couple sold us two kids passes outside the park. They had extras and were charging us a few dollars less, so we saved on that. But the starting adult price is $45. After Lakemont and their $2 admission price, we were suffering sticker shock.

Going to Hershey convinced me that I don't need to spend the money to go to Disney. Personally, I hate rides. Most of the rides at Hershey said, "This ride is not recommended for persons of a larger size." I am large, but do I fit the generality of "persons of a larger size?" I'm personally not going to test this theory. I rode one coaster that totally freaked me out. I had visions of my "larger size" causing the rollers holding the car on the track to fail and then the whole car would come flying off the track bringing the other 3 cars of innocent people flying with me. Oh the carnage! My white face and look of horror just terrified Firstborn who kept looking back at me saying "Mommy! Are you allright? None of the rides scared him, but the look on his mother's face when she rode one ride terrified him.

The one cute thing at the park was the way they classified the rides. Each height range was assigned a candy type. Lastborn was a reeces cup and Firstborn was a jolly rancher candy. We could then go on any ride that allowed their candy types. Lastborn was allowed on more rides than I would prefer he go on, but he set his sights for the roller soaker. We journeyed up to the water park and they got in line. Luckily, I insisted that the boys take off their shirts and shoes because just standing in line for the ride, you get soaked. DH chose to leave his shirt and shoes on but ended up taking them off and carrying them by the time he got on the ride. The silly man.

The line was 1.5 hours long when they started but it took a total of 2 hours to get to the ride. 1) they had mechanical difficulties with one of the cars. 2) they kept letting handicapped people into the line to ride. If you get a handicapped pass at these parks, you get to ride without waiting in line. It's a nice feature, but added a half hour to the wait for the rest of the people in line.

Thankfully, Lastborn loved the ride. He got squirted by people on the ground and the ride showered him with water. He got to dump water on the people below. All in all a great time.

It was almost 7 by the time they finished that ride and we had to find some dinner and get home. If the lines weren't so long and the park layout so confusing, it would have been a great time. But in 80 degrees with high humidity, it was too much walking and too much waiting in line. We were all in a bad mood by the end of the day. But not a bad enough mood to drop lots of money at the gift shop.

While waiting for Firstborn and DH to finish a ride that for which lastborn was too short, we played one of the midway games. Shoot a target with a water gun to push an object up a pole. You race with other park visitors. On the second round we won a stuffed animal. Lastborn chose the blue dolphin saying it would be his pokemon. Later that night, he and Firstborn decided it looks like Kyoger. So that became it's name.

On the way home, Lastborn was saying the dolphin's name was Kyoger John Scalzi. He thinks that everyone's middle name is John. But Lastborn, your middle name is Rudolph.
No it's not. It's John.
No. John is Firstborn's middle name.
Mine too.
No. Your middle name is Rudolph, like your grandfather's.
You mean Rudolph is a real name?
Yes. It's a real name and it's your Grandpa Scalzi's name.

He was silent for a while.

OK. So his name is Kyoger Rudolph Scalzi, but we'll call him Blue.

Our trip home

Saturday came and we packed up the cabin for the trip home. Although we slept until 7:30, we were still able to get ourselves on the road by 8:30.

We first stopped in Altoona to visit our friends. We sent the boys out to the back yard for some much-needed running time while we chatted and D cooked breakfast. Two Amish men showed up at their house because D was treating one for back problems. A and DH and I stayed in the kitchen out of their way. Unfortunately, the rugrats got bored and decided to join us in the house. We shooed them to the kitchen and asked them to behave while D worked with the Amish man. Lastborn being Lastborn, just couldn't do that though. He seems to have this need to blurt out nasty things when he is nervous. On noticing that there were two men, in strange clothing with strange haircuts, he stepped into the dining room and shouted into the living room, "Who are those guys?"

He's such a charmer.

We hit the road much later than we wanted to because it was so nice to spend time with A and D. The boys behaved very well for the most part. 10 hours is a gruelling drive for a 9 year old and a 6 year old. Firstborn told Lastborn Poke-mon stories and they watched a video of Pirates of the Caribbean. They played nicely with Lastborn's stuffed dolphin Kyoger. The funniest thing was when Lastborn announced to his dolphin. I'm your human Daddy, but you need a human mommy. I'll marry a supermodel. Seems he's noticed on TV that men dream of marrying a supermodel. It's amazing how early these messages are being instilled into their little brains. A little conversation after this led him to admit that Mommy must have been a supermodel when Daddy met her.

We made it home by 9PM put the rugrats to bed and started laundry.

The cat was very happy to make it home.

Floor potato

After running errands, I returned to the house to find Lastborn still sitting on the floor in his underwear watching TV. Dad was in charge.

You're such a couch potato, I declared.
I'm not a couch potato! He responded.
But you are. I reiterated.
I'm not even on the couch! And then laughing, I must be a floor potato

Argument over.

Little Dig Part II

Yesterday, along with cleaning up the tile mush that adorned my cubicle carpet, they also replaced the tile with the smaller water spot directly above my head. Nice of them. The left the mid-cubicle tile with the waterfall above it out, rightly thinking that a new one would simply self destruct if they tried to replace it anyway.

While I was apprehensive about returning to work yesterday fearing it would be hot as hell there, I had a new reason to fear returning today. Fear of falling objects can be a strong motivator.

There was a new stain on the new tile directly overhead. I greeted it with a chuckle. I can handle small stains now. It's the big ones with the cracks that worry me. A co-worker was a bit more worried. He climbed up on the desk in Ns cube to check out the status of the dripping roof only to find a bucket of water sitting on top of one of the other ceiling tiles directly over my head. I guess now we're testing the amount of water a dry pressed-paper acoustical tile can handle.

A bit more background information. When the AC in this building cycles on (as it does countless times during the day), one hears an enormous wooshing sound along with creaking banging and the sound of each ceiling tile being lifted out of its moorings. I'm not exaggerating. I fear if the ceiling tiles weren't there to protect us, we would all have very interesting hair-dos.

So right after my co-worker announces that there is a half-full bucket of water sitting precariously over my head (I prefer to think of it as half empty), the air conditioning turns on and the tiles all get sucked up into the ceiling for a minute and all I could think of was "how's that bucket of water doing now?"

But don't worry. Jose came by today to pronounce it safe. I'm feeling much better now.

The Little Dig

By now, I'm sure most of you have heard of the tragedy in the Big Dig project in Boston. Well, this week, I had my own minni Big Dig experience right in my own cubicle. There was a time when I promised I would never write about work, but this one just had to be told.

Tuesday, it was hot here. Apparently, So hot and humid, that the air conditioning unit overheated and the compressor froze. The fan unit still pumped and proceeded to pump hot air over our cubicles direct from the building roof. Normally, this building is so cold that we wear coats all summer. In the winter, I have often gone into the bathroom to wash my hands in warm water to get back the feeling so I can keep typing. The temperature climbed steadily over the afternoon. In exasperation, I sat back in my chair leaned my head back and wiped off the sweat only to see a big brown stain on the ceiling tile above my cube. These are those two-inch thick compressed paper acoustical ceiling tiles used in most big box office buildings.

Funny, I don't remember a stain above my head. Nor the little stain in the cubicle next to mine. I watched it through the afternoon and it did seem to creep further outward through the day, but noting remarkable. So I called the office manager and she called the building super and nothing happened. They were too worried about getting the AC working again. I can understand. They have a whole workforce dressed for Siberia here working in the serengetti.

The next morning I returned to my cube, relieved to see that the stain in my cube had not grown overnight. But the little stain in the cube next door was almost the size of the 2 foot by 4 foot tile and a crack was beginning to form over the length of the tile.

Now flash back to my childhood, if you will. The phrase my father always used when we tried to defy gravity was, "a good course in physics would have told you that wouldn't work." You know, place a stack of books too close to the edge of a table... "A good course in physics..." Placing way too much trash in too small a bag and then trying to tie it up. The bag breaks and dad says, "A good course in physics..."

I really looked forward to taking physics so I could figure out how it all worked. And now, looking at the crack in the ceiling tile, I'm calculating in my head, the force of gravity on that tile acting straight down added to the weight of water spread over the surface area of the tile compared to the tensile strength of that compressed paper acoustical tile that has now been degraded by the fact that it has absorbed about 3 gallons of water. And I'm thinking, "A good course in physics would tell you, she's gonna blow."

So I called the office manager who called the building manager. An hour later (the crack is getting bigger), the maintenance guy Jose, shows up and looks at the problem.

At this point, let me note, that the ceiling tile in question is not entirely in Ns cubicle. When the stain started, it was 99% over Ns cubicle. When I came in this morning, It had grown to 50% my cubicle and 50% Ns cubicle. Which means that when she blows, she will come straight down, hit the cubicle wall which will exert a force equal and opposite of the force of gravity on the water filled tile and further break into many tiny wet little pieces forming a trajectory in both directions away from the cubicle wall.

If I calculate correctly, estimating the amount of water in the tile and the distance between the ceiling and the top of the cubicle wall, I can estimate that the wet shards will travel to within inches of my shoulder. So I scurry around moving N's papers to the other side of his cube (he's in India) and moving my belongings to the other side of my cube. A co-worker moves Ns workstation out of the line of fire.

Within minutes, Jose pronounces that those tiles can take a lot of water. "EEts fine. He says. I'll go get another tile. The water has stopped leaking." Then he explains why on a hot sunny day, we have suddenly developed a leak in the ceiling. It seems that when the AC turned off yesterday, they ran some garden hoses up to the roof to cool it off. Why do garden hoses full of water cause leaks when the spring rains we have suffered here in Boston, cause no problem at all? Well, it seems that in running around the roof to hose off the compressor, the workers might have poked a couple of holes in the roof. Why anyone would build a building with a flat roof in NE is beyond me anyway. But that's another post.

Jose leaves my cube to "go get another tile." Within 5 minutes (note that I have already settled back down to work and I'm wrapping my mind around routing and translation of voice traffic over the Internet) when CRASH. Said tile does what anyone who has taken a good course in physics would guess. It comes down, full of water, hits the cubicle wall, breaks into further shards and changes trajectory towards the middle of my cube and the middle of Ns cube. At the same time that parts of the tile hit the top edge of the cubicle wall, other parts hit the now empty suspended metal standard-issue cubicle shelf in N's cube, reverberating through my head.

Now granted, this is no 3,000 lb cement tile, like in the big dig. But given the distance I jumped from my chair, it might as well have been.

One would think, that when a compressed paper acoustical ceiling tile comes crashing down on a cubicle wall, the remaining space would be empty. One would be wrong. Because, you see, Jose had seen the leak early that morning. Knowing there was still water draining into our ceiling, he had placed a couple of other acoustical tiles up into the opening to help absorb the water. "These tiles can take a lot of water, you know."

So now, I can spend the afternoon looking forward to another layer of soggy acoustical tile crashing down, hitting the cubicle wall and bouncing in little soggy bits all over my.

I think I'll go home.

Extraordinary Machine

Dear Lastborn,

I see the struggle of the youngest child in you. I know that you will spend many years thinking everyone else is smarter, stronger, and faster than you. I know how frustrating it can be when people don’t see the extraordinary machine that you are. Eventually, you will come to believe what the chaperones in sheep’s clothes say. I certainly hope that doesn’t last long for you.

I’m looking forward to the day you figure it out; the day you see that they are not faster, stronger or smarter than you, just older.


I am the baby of the family
It happens so
Everybody cares and wears the sheep’s clothes
While they chaperone
Curious you’re looking down your nose at me
While you appease
Courteous to try and help, but
let me set your mind at ease.

Chorus:

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can’t help it the road just rolls out behind me.
Be kind to me, or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it
I’m an extraordinary machine.



Do I so worry you
You to hurry to my side
That’s very kind
But it’s to no avail
And I don’t want that
I promise that everything will be just fine

Chorus

Fiona Apple, From Extraordinary Machine

Glad to know I'm not phlegmatic

And wondering if I even spelled that right. I also wonder how this test would come out if someone else answered the questions for me.

thanks remcat

Sanguine Choleric 50 Sanguine, 14 Melancholy, 50 Choleric, 21 Phlegmatic

Hail to you who is Sanguine Choleric! The enthusiastic inspiration to act! The gift of humor when we're heavy hearted. The firm control when others ar losing theirs. The grip of leadership to head us to the positive. The confidence & energy to bring an idea to fruition. The creativity and charm and make things happen. The willingness to take a chance in a doubtful situation. The enthusiasm and energy to start over and over again. The urge to "take arms against a sea of troubles by opposing them." So, hmm, are you by any chance outgoing, optimistic & outspoken? Talk much? Yeah, you are awesome. Your two personality types balance the extremes of work and play. You are adept at directing others and making them enjoy their work. Will you be my new boss? How cool is it that you are goal oriented and fun loving (what a cool goal!). Okay, so let's look at these two temperments seperately: Here is what is totally awesome about Sanguines: You are enthusiastic, excitable, the life of the party, talkative, a story teller, cheerful, sincere, wide eyed & innocent, curious, emotional, demonstrative, and fun. You are adaptable, you live in the present, and you have a good sense of humor. In your workplace, you think up new activities,volunteer for jobs, start in a flashy way, inspire others to join, charm others to work, look great on the surface, have boundless energy, and you are creative and colorful. As a friend you make friends easily, love people, turn disaster into humor, thrive on compliments, seem exciting, are envied by others, don't hold grudges, apologize quickly, prevent dull moments & like spontaneous activities. Let's add to that the Choleric strengths: You are a born leader, strong willed, active, dynamic, decisive, not easily discouraged, unemotional, independent, self-sufficent, confident, with a compulsive need for change & to correct wrongs, and you can run anything. At work you are goal oriented, you see the whole picture, seek practical solutions, quickly move into action, delegate, organize well, insist on production, stimulate activity and thrive on opposition. As a friend, you have less need for friends than other temperments. You'll work for group activity, lead, organize, and you excell in emergencies. You are usually right. And on that note though, let's look at your weaknesses. Yes, let's: Cholerics have standard and well known weaknesses: First of all you don't think there is anything wrong with you. You think you are always right, so you can't be wrong. You'll probably think the following aren't even weaknesses. You are impatient, impetuous, inflexible, unsympathetic, bossy, quick tempered, dominating, and too busy. You can't relax, you won't let others relax, you like to argue, you won't give up when you are losing, you won't admit you are wrong, and basically you come on too strong. In the workplace, you have little tolerance for mistakes, you don't compliment others instead you are rude and tactless, you make rash decisions by glossing over details (unless you have a melancholly edge to you), you are manipulative & demanding. As a friend you tend to use people, dominate, decide for others, know everything, think you can do everything better than everyone else, be unapologetic, and be too independent. Add to that your Sanguine excesses: You are a compulsive talker who exaggerates, elaborates, dwells on trivia, gets lost in tangents, and can't remember names. You scare others off, has too much energy for some, you have a loud voice, a loud laugh, and you seem phony to some. You are egotistical, naive, easily angered, immature, frenetic, restless, and disorganized. At work you are forgetful, don't follow through, undisciplined, your priorities are out of order, you would rather talk than work, you decide by feelings, easily distracted, and your confidence fades fast. As a friend you hate to be alone, need to be center stage, want credit, want to be liked and wants to be popular. You dominate conversations, interrupts and don't listen, you answer for others, repeat stories, make excuses and your are fickle. Okay, so try your best not to be an impatient bossy person who doesn't know what they're talking about, interrupting others & monopolizing conversations. You have the capacity to be great and awesome, and usually you are. People love to get involved in your plans. You are adventure, you are interesting, you make everything HAPPEN! Without you everyone just sits around and plans what to do, but never does it. Learn how to accept the even-keeled input of melancholy's and sanguines and you can go anywhere. Curious about the 4 temperment types? here are links to the 4 basic results you can get. Phlegmatic Choleric Melancholy Sanguine

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 75% on Sanguine You scored higher than 11% on Melancholy You scored higher than 83% on Choleric You scored higher than 3% on Phlegmatic

Link: The Personality Plus Profiler Test written by mahdroo on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Which European city

Charmaine, Shall we go together?

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

Test answers that should get full credit

But don't...

The question:
Is the story "Sunken Treasure" a fiction or nonfiction story? Explain how you know.
Answer:
Nonfiction. Because we saw a movie about it, so there's proof.

At 9 years the line between fact and fiction is still every so faint. It has taken us the last 4 years to convince him that cartoons are fictional. We have succeeded there. But movies with actors are fact in his world.

And to make matters worse, he has found the book Dragonology. This is a wonderful imaginative "reference" book on all things dragon. Because of the writing style, I can't convince him that it is all made up. He is convinced that it is fact.

Further proof that he will grow up to be a republican.

Ooh. Did I really say that?

Things I never thought I'd hear myself say

Again. That's two in one week.

"Pay attention and stop eating the grass!"

At a baseball game in which Lastborn thought it would be fun to eat large quantities of grass instead of play in the outfield as assigned.

I know that it won't make him throw up like it will the cat and I fondly remember chewing on a blade of tall grass as a child, but handfuls?

This is not OK.

Things I never thought I'd hear myself say

Lastborn! Come down off that stop sign!

My husband wears pink underwear

Imagine the hit's I'll get from that title!

There is a story behind that though. Isn't there always?

My husband is the big Italian macho type. So imagine how hard I laughed when he admitted to me that he had washed the kid's red velvet magician's cape with the whites.

We won't even mention the number of times that I have tried to explain to him the reason for washing whites, lights and darks separately. Some people must learn things for themselves. I wonder if he envisions himself in his flashy new pink underwear everytime he's sorting the laundry.

He's laughing about it now. He feels he's man enough to pull of the pink underwear thing. My son's on the other hand are having a harder time with it.

At first I found a few pairs of carefully folded socks on the floor. Never worn. Simply pulled out of the drawer and tossed aside in disgust.

DH and I were looking forward to the day Firstborn would confront us about the pink underwear, but surprisingly, it was Lastborn who seemed to have the bigger problem with the feminine article.

WHY did you put Pink socks in my drawer!

Talk to Daddy about that.

WHY did Daddy put pink socks in my drawer. I mean, why would he THINK I would WANT to wear pink socks. What! Is he Crazy?

No. He just has a problem sorting laundry. Besides, even his underwear is pink. He's still wearing it.

Daddy wears pink underwear? I've gotta see that. Wait! I don't have any pink underwear do I?

Yes, you have at least one pair of pink underwear.

WHY did you buy me Pink UNderwear?

I didn't! Daddy dyed them. He made a mistake. You'll live. Besides who's going to see your underwear? I hope no one's going to see your underwear. You don't go around kindergarten showing the kids your underwear do you?

No! What are you silly?

He was silent then.

But the next morning, I found a carefully folded pair of pink unworn socks in the hamper. We've made some progress. He's not just tossing them on the floor. Now, he's putting them in the hamper as fast as he can find them. Somehow, I don't think Lastborn feels he's man enough to pull off pink underwear.

spam title

I always like to share the hilarious subject lines from spam that I receive in my older email account. Usually, they are veiled references to erotica or random word strings. This one, however showed just how much the spammer knew about his client.

Subj: Casey, Clean freak -- this is for you

I just had to laugh.

Vacation Finds

A couple of weeks ago, I joined my friends from Mothers & More for a quiet kidless weekend away in Kittery Maine. Of course, what is there to do in Kittery Maine but shop. A couple of stores were rather entertaining. I wish I had gotten pictures.

First funny. A store with upscale decorating and art pieces. In one corner, stainless steel rods bent into inspirational words. Including love, laugh, create, inspire, floss.

Yes, that's right. Floss. It's a new inspirational saying. Imagine what you can do in this world if you just floss!

In another store, they must have heard that they had to carry toys. Because along a 5 foot stretch of wall they had some neatly arranged packages of figurines. Only two or three to choose from. The wall looked rather bare; like they searched and searched for appropriate toys, but could only find:
A figurine of Darth Vader
A figurine of the riddler
A figurine of Moses

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what message they are trying to convey with those three choices.

Deep thoughts

My peers in the mothering world are beginning to navigate the world of orthodontics. And it brings the question to mind for me:

Why is it that we Americans feel we have the right to criticize the ancient Chinese right of binding a woman's feet but we feel no similar outrage at the practice of widening a child's bite or palette to make room for more teeth. In the end, aren't both practices for appearances?

One could argue that the act of binding a woman's feet is also crippling whereas the act of placing hardware in a child's mouth to widen the set of the jaw is to improve the fit and therefore efficiency of the jaw. But something about the practice brings the same horror to my mind.

We'll see how I feel when presented with these same dental problems in my own kids. . .

Our retirement is assured...

The other day, I heard a strange rattling from Firstborn as he left the bathroom.

Mother: Firstborn? Do you have marbles in your pockets?
Firstborn: Yes.

Mother: Take them out. You can't take marbles to school.

He pulls handful after handful out of his pocket. Now the other side of his pants seems to be hanging low.

Mother: Do you have marbles in the other pocket?
Firstborn: No!

But there is a look in his eyes and the corners of his mouth are turning up. So I reach into the other pocket, and pull handfull after handful of marbles out of that one too. While pulling the last marble out of that pocket, I notice that I can still feel marbles but not in the pocket. These are cargo pants and they have pockets on top of pockets. So I go through the same process in both outer pockets.

I must have collected about 100 marbles from his pockets. No wonder he had asked for a belt earlier that morning.

Mother: Why do you feel you need to bring so many marbles to school?
Firstborn: I was going to sell them.
Mother: You can't sell marbles at school. You'll get in trouble.

You know how you get your best ideas on the toilet? Well, I do at least. So, I was sitting on the toilet a little later when the thought occurred to me. So I called out to him.

Mother: Hey firstborn! How much were you going to sell them for?
Firstborn: 25 cents each!
Mother: 25 cents! You can't sell them for a quarter, they cost less than a cent a piece? Who would buy them for a quarter each?
Firstborn: Lots of kids. I was giving them out yesterday and D and A and J all loved them and said they would even pay a quarter for them.

He's totally got the idea of loss leaders. 250% markup! It's a good thing he's generous because I'm going to retire in comfort.

Valentine Thoughts

This is my dear husbands idea of romantic email for Valentine's day.

THESE ARE ENTRIES TO A WASHINGTON POST COMPETITION
ASKING FOR A RHYME WITH THE MOST ROMANTIC FIRST LINE, BUT THE LEAST ROMANTIC SECOND LINE:

Note: in searching the Washington Post, I could find no reference to this contest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss
But I only slept with you, because I was pissed.
*************************
I thought that I could love no other
Until, that is, I met your brother.
**************************
Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.

**************************
Of loving beauty you float with grace,
If only you could hide your face.

****************************
Kind, intelligent, loving and hot,
This describes everything you are not.

******************************
I want to feel your sweet embrace,
But don't take that paper bag off of your face.

*******************************
I love your smile, your face, and your eyes
-- Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

************************************
My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife --
Marrying you screwed up my life.

************************************
I see your face when I am dreaming,
That's why I always wake up screaming.

*************************************
My love, you take my breath away --
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

*************************************
My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe "Go To Hell."

*************************************
What inspired this amorous rhyme?
-- Two parts vodka, one part lime!

*************************************

Snow Days

Snow days are such an important event in a child’s life. In the past 3 years, I have had fun enjoying them through Firstborn’s eyes. I don’t remember much the details of my own snow days. I vaguely remember listening to the radio to hear the school district listed on the school closings and getting really angry if someone would happen to talk as the announcer was reading the Ss. Of course then I would have to wait all the way through the alphabet for the Ss to come back around again. Sometimes it would be a 10 minute wait between readings. It seemed like an hour.

So, when Firstborn started first grade, we began a new tradition. He would come into the bedroom with me and we would watch the school closings together. In first grade I would read them important ones to him. Teaching him what our bordering town names were so that he could learn when to get excited. Ooh! Billerica is closed, that means we might be too! He often lost interest and I would have to shout out, Firstborn, they’re up to the Ss. You had better get in here so you don’t miss it! And then when our town was called, we’d cheer and do a happy dance. Big plans would be made for the day off and the TV in the living room would be switched on for a marathon viewing session.

Now that he is in 3rd grade and his reading is quite good, Firstborn likes to read the school closings himself. Only, he does them out loud. And he tries to read every school district listed. Those readers out there who are locals know that being a good reader does not necessarily mean you can read the names of Massachusetts towns. Phonics does not help.

First you have your old English names. Worchester, Leominster, etc.

Then you have your 20 syllable Native American Names, Tantasqua, Quinsigamond, Mattapoisett, etc

And then you have the law of conservation of Rs. You know, for every syllable from which you drop an R, you must randomly stick another R at the end of a word that ends in a vowel. Leaving the above mentioned Billerica to be pronounced Bill-ricker, not the pretty Bil-air-ic-a I had mistakenly called it 20 years ago when I first settled here.

Add to these perverse pronunciations, Firstborns remaining speech anomaly, the audible breath, and you can imagine how I just want to muzzle him on these mornings.

He has learned that Leominster is pronounced leminster. We don’t teach the alternative leminstah in our house. He seems unable to get over the Mattapoisett (think French). Thankfully, Quinsigamond comes after the Ts, so we don’t struggle through that one. Tantasqua seems to be the real difficulty to him. It always comes out as Taaaannnntaaaaa… Oh well. Tewksbury!!! Yay Tewksbury!!!! We’re closed! Then he does his happy dance and runs through the house letting Lastborn and his dad know of the good news. Frankly, I’m not even sure how Tantasqua is pronounced.

Invariably, Lastborn will come into my room at this point and ask, “Mom? Do I have school today?” I figure that by the time Lastborn figures out that they go to the same school and therefore have the same snow days, Firstborn will have moved on to the upper elementary and the rules won’t always apply.

Of course, today had to throw him yet another curve. We were 90 minutes delayed. Firstborn didn’t look that closely though. He only noticed that Tewksbury was on the list. But instead of watching through the whole list again (it was very long today), he went downstairs and checked out whdh.com.


Ahh, the new millennium. What a great time in which to live.

David Hasselhoff

I'm home today with Lastborn who has contracted not only strep, but also conjunctivitis.

So if the high levels of bacteria in my home were not enough to make me sick, I just followed this link from beancounter's blog.

Why, oh why did I follow this link?

Feeling a bit sick now.

PS. Do any other blogger.com users find it disturbing that blog is not recognized by the spell checker they include with their own product?

Funny Spam

I have an old email address that I have stopped using because the spam to real mail ratio just got to be too poor. I still check the address occasionally to make sure I didn't forget to update anyone on my new address.

Sometimes, when culling through the spam on this account an email header makes me laugh. This weeks winner:

loincloth petrification

And it wasn't for a sexual enhancement drug. Go figure!

Logic

Here's the math problem.

Kate is stringing a necklace with 9 beads. She wants to string the same color for the first and 9th bead. Another color for the 2nd and 8th bead and so on. Will there ever be 2 beads of the same color next to each other on the necklace? How did you figure this out?
I believe the exercise was to discover that 9 is not a multiple of 2 and therefore there could be no beads next to each other.

However firstborn looks at things a little deeper.

He kept telling me that there would be two together. So I asked him which two.

His response, beads 1 and 9.

It took me a minute to figure out that he had already tied the necklace ends together in his mind. I mean after all, it's a necklace. You will tie it together in the end, right? And when you do, there will be bead 1 and bead 9 right next to each other. She didn't say anything about the knot in the middle.

I told him to put down both answers.

Tales from the mini-van

It seems like we will go for weeks without a funny story. Then all of a sudden, there's material everywhere. The mini-van commute from place to place seems to be the most fertile ground. Of course, I seem to get the best quotes out of Lastborn when he is alone with me. That doesn't happen often now that he is in full time school.

So, today on the trek from his karate class to the church to pick up firstborn for CCD, we had occasion to discuss the reason why he had been dismissed early from Karate. It seems he and T had decided not to wait for their turn to spar and instead to just form a "ring" on the sidelines and begin their own match. Knowing this is not the greatest idea, I called his name. Now earlier that day, I had asked his teacher to please dismiss him if he misbehaved in any way because we are somewhat sick of paying big money to watch our child lie down on the floor or run around the room screaming. On hearing me call his name, she dismissed Lastborn and T. I felt a bit bad for Lastborn as it had been all T's idea. This time. And they had never been told clearly that they couldn't start their own match.

So I was explaining to Lastborn why it was not a good idea to spar when it wasn't his turn. I was also explaining that it didn't matter if the whole thing was T's idea. He had to think before he did what other kids suggested.

"I guess I'm just gullible," he said.

I couldn't help but laugh. He really knows what that word means. He got it from the Amanda show. Most of his good lines are quotes from TV shows. That still doesn't diminish their humor. It's all in the timing and this kid has timing of the Swiss variety.

Later, he was telling Firstborn about the experience.

"I don't know," he said. "It just came out of my head like a giant monster!"
"What came out of your head like a giant monster?" I asked.
"The idea of fighting with T."

I'm sure he got that from a TV show somewhere too, but to apply it to the idea of sparring with T. That's just too much.

Early fashion sense

Went to the mall with firstborn today. As we walked past the maternity shop, I noticed he was paying a lot of attention to the mannequins who were all sporting maternity T-shirts saying SALE in big red letters. Obviously the neatness of it all intrigued him. I wondered if he noticed the little bellies on the headless mannequins, until he said:
"Boy, those shirts sure make them look fat!"

"They're supposed to be pregnant," I replied.

"Oh!" Silence.

I guess he did notice.

Opinions needed

I'm having an issue with my son's teacher. I need your opinions.

My son has a learning disability. He does not understand verbal directions. Additionally, he has some issues with executive function. It is very difficult for him to remain organized. His desk is messy, he doesn't write reminders, he forgets things that need to be done. This is not a recognized diagnosis to the school even though we had a full review by professionals who wrote up a very good diagnosis and explanation.

Here's the problem. She has them write their assignments in a homework log. However, there are two spots on the board where she writes assignments. One area is for the night's assignments, spelling, grammar, math, etc and another spot is where she warns them of upcoming tests, long term assignments (LTAs), etc.

Each day about 1/2 hour before class lets out she tells them to get out their assignment books and write down the night's assignments. She assumes the kids will figure out to look at the long term section of the board and write those down too, but no directions are given to that effect at the time they are given to update the homework log.

So, he never writes down the long-term assignments. As a result, he often loses points on LTAs or does very badly on tests f0r which he did not study.

I met with her in November to explain the problem and to stress how important it was for Firstborn to learn to use his planner. I see the planner as a linchpin to his success in the future. I asked her in writing to please check his assignment book every day and insist that he take the time to correct it before he left for home.

For two days, she wrote the assignment for him. Then she would occasionally check to see that the entries were written neatly (also an issue).

One assignment in his planner for November was to complete a "states project." The date came and he insisted it was not due. I wrote her a note and she told me that it was indeed not due then. No notes to that affect in the book? For weeks, I looked for the "states project" to show up again in the book. Nada.

A week ago, he came home with a note saying that the states project was "missing." He should turn it in on Jan 12th. OK. So we work on the project and he brings it in on the 12th. To be told that he had missed a step and should turn it in the next day when he completed. He turned it in today. It was sent back to us. On the back in red pen was written 100 - 20 for being 20 days late = 80.

I've looked through that planner to find the "States Project" and it does not exist except for that date months ago that turned out to be a fake.

Now I know that missing 20 points for being so late is not a big deal. I know that a B is nothing to complain about. But a B because this teacher is too lazy to teach him a skill his future will depend on is just infuriating to me. It's like refusing to teach a blind child Braille.

And by the way, he does not know that I'm planning on raking her over the coals for this. He never will.

So the questions are:

Do you think I'm being overprotective?
Do you see some other way for him to learn to rely on his planner and develop the skills he needs to organize his life?
Do you see this as a typical developmental stage for a 3rd grade boy and he'll work through it?
How nasty do you think I should be with her?

Thinking outside of the box

remcat, meet Charmaine. Charmaine, meet remcat.

Both good friends of mine who have children who would rather sleep in a box than in a nice soft bed. Seems this affliction cannot be linked to either sex or type of box.

Charmaine, the good news is that remcat's son did grow out of his box sleeping habit. I believe it was sometime after he grew out of the box, but at least his wife won't have to kiss him goodnight just before shutting the lid.

I hope you both have pictures.

Budinskette

Lastborn has an understanding of English that I didn't expect from a 5 year old. Maybe because Firstborn has developed a much stronger understanding of math and engineering and much less of English and conversation.

At 5, as is expected, Lastborn has an understanding of knock-knock jokes and makes up his own. Although his attempts do not result in particularly funny jokes, it is fun to watch him make the attempt. He has already surpassed Firstborn in his ability to create jokes. Perhaps that's the literal bent that Firstborn takes on his world. Being literal can make wordplay difficult. It does make creation of the next supercomputer easy though. So we are not complaining. Suffice it to say that they are very different children and that makes them more surprising and fun to be around. Raising Lastborn is truly a new experience, not a repeat of what we have already done.

All this to say, I was quite surprised by his ability to twist the language yesterday morn. Coming downstairs after my shower, I greeted him with a "hey there, Budinski." Just a nick-name we use around the house when we are joking around. His response??

"Hey there Budinskette!"

Then he went on to tell me that -ette is the ending for a girl, and since I'm a girl, I'm a Budinskette.

Later that day, he chanted the spelling of Mississippi. Remember that 6 months ago, he still couldn't sing his ABCs. He felt that Q-Z were overkill and would jump right from P to Now I know my ABCs. Now he can recognize every letter in a word and his dictionary of readable words is growing every day.

Explotation

Yes, that is the correct spelling.

The other day, Lastborn was playing with his new Lego ExoForce set. He had taken all the robot characters apart and they lay in a pile on the toybox.

"They exploded," he exclaimed! They exploded and they are laying in a pile of explotation.

"Explotation?" I replied. "What's explotation?"

"It's when something explodes and then makes a mess."

"You mean like the toys on the livingroom floor? Is that explotation?"

"No, mom! That's not explotation. Explotation has to be with robots, not toys."

"I don't know, it certainly looks like explotation around here."

"It's not explotation mom. It's just toys all over the floor."

"OK. How about cleaning them up? What would that be called."

"Boring."

George

At this time, it is important that we leave our current narrative to talk about George.

George is a stuffed spider, about 6 inches across, black and furry. Not furry in the traditional sense of furry, but in a nubbly, somewhat realistic black widow sense. He's a very disturbing combination of cute and too realistic and he's Firstborn's favorite pet.

I purchased George along with 23 other Georges from Oriental Trading Co because I was holding our babysitting cooperative's annual Halloween party and I like to have something for the kids to take home. What better than a spider?

I also passed one on to Firstborns favorite classmate as part of a birthday gift at the end of September. The friend loved the spider and named him Fred. So, therefore, Firstborn must like his spider too. He carried him to school and the two boys played with their spiders at recess. Until one day, George fell from Firstborn's pocket.

Now George has a new home or was run over so many times by suburban mini-vans that he is an unrecognizable mass of black fabric on the school playground. We may never know.

Firstborn was heartbroken. He often talked of how much he missed George. One day, while driving home from school with both boys, Firstborn was lamenting the loss of his arachnid friend when Lastborn offered to give up his spider. After all, it was just sitting in the bottom of the toy box. Firstborn sensed a trick and began the questioning process that would uncover the ill will. But there was none. In fact, Lastborn offered to draw Firstborn a new spider if said spider couldn't be found in the bottom of the toybox.

Yes, my heart swelled with pride over the selfless act. And Firstborn was almost pacified.

He named his new friend George too. Not George Two. Just George. No differentiation in the names, but let's be clear, it's not the same George and Firstborn hopes to be reunited with the original George in the future.

This George would have a better life. He would be better cared for and he wasn't going to accompany Firstborn to school. Instead, he would live a protected life that no other stuffed spider had ever lived.

To begin with, Firstborn set up a bed, a ceramic dish he had painted over the summer to hold some of his precious gems. No longer a tray for gems, it would now be George's bed. Along with the bed a soft pencil grip as a pillow, and firstborn's very own blanket. Well, what 's left of it.

You see, Firstborn developed an odd attachment to a certain cotton jersey receiving blanket handed down by his Aunt to him when he was a baby. The white blanket sported a butterfly of flowered material appliqued onto the corner of the blanket.

Once Firstborn was beyond the need of a comforting object, the blanket became a superhero cape, worn around the neck at all times. The blanket/cape gave him the power to fly especially when the breeze in the yard was just right. It gave him the power to leap off of furniture in a single bound. It gave him the power to finish his chicken nuggets.

But it was a hard life for a blanket and eventually, it developed a run in the fabric near the butterfly. The fabric began to disintegrate. I sewed the butterfly back into what was left of the blanket a few times until there just wasn't any blanket left. Firstborn was so heartbroken that we made a deal to keep the butterfly in case we could sew it onto another blanket some day.

That butterfly is now the blanket that Firstborn places on George every night when he puts him to bed in his ceramic dish, with his spider head resting on the pencil grip pillow.

Do you think we have to put a stocking up on the mantel for George?

User manuals have come a long way

Now that I'm back to work as a technical writer, I hope I can do better than this.

the funny thing is that you could probably give that game to a kid and they would have no problem understanding the directions.

100 Points

Firstborn has a project at school. They each have to find $1.00 words. Each letter in the alphabet is assigned a value. In this case, it is their place in the alphabet. They then add up the values of all the letters in a word trying to find one that adds up to exactly 100. Firstborn has been working on this all week. Last night he finally explained the process enough to me that I understood and I explained to DH who immediately caught the fever. Last night at 10:00 as I passed him on my way to bed, he was sitting in front of the TV with a pad on his lap calculating the value of various words. But, of course, he had to come up with an algorithm.

I just asked him if he came up with any. His answer. Yes, but they were not the kind of words he could use. Of course my mind is going in an obvious direction. Is yours?

No. He made up words. His algorithm was to come up with the cumulative cost of common endings like ing, ed, er, and erly. Then he could add up common words and know which ending to put on them to come up with 100 points. His $1.00 words were: mouther -- Which by the way is a word, but I don't think firstborn will be able to bring it in, elementish, customed, and fingerism

Can you find a word worth exactly 100 points. And no, elementish doesn't count.

The assignment

To disguise a picture of a turkey so that he won't be eaten for thanksgiving.

The solution:
The turkey will be disguised as "The Pile of Toys on Lastborn's Floor."

The implementation:
We took a leftover wood tile from the bedroom floor, attached the picture of the turkey, cut out by Lastborn. Attached a base row of Lego plates, and then built up the layers of Lego plates until he had a 3 dimensional pile of Lego attached to the floorboard. The only part of the turkey picture showing is the turkey's eyes.

Quite a successful family project.

I'd take a picture, but the 2 dimensional aspect of the camera would make the effect less impressive.

Unfortunately, Lastborn has a cold today. So he wants me to carry in his artwork.

Happy Halloween

Now this is a scary looking bunch.

They are off trick-or-treating. Two little ninjas and a samurai. It's so warm here I was able to sit on the porch for a while. Unfortunately, brick steps make for cold buts and I had to come back in. The slew of beggars has already started to wane at 7pm. We've already had more than we had all last year. I still have a bag of candy that I haven't even opened. No wonder I have time to blog.

I'll report on the take tomorrow.

Note: It's pretty bad when even the Blogger.com spell checker doesn't know that blog is a real word.

Crown Jewels

Firstborn participated in a pumpkin decorating contest for third graders. His contribution, the St Edward crown was inspired by his love of all things that glitter and shine and can be traded for large sums of money.

The model was this.


Not a bad rendition.

Rare talents

Friday night at our dinner table.

Lastborn is going on about a Spongebob Squarepants episode.
Daddy: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea
Firstborn, Mommy, Daddy:Spongebob Squarepants!
Daddy: Whose porous and yellow... and porous....
Mommy: absorbent and yellow and porous is he
Daddy, Mommy, Firstborn: Spongebob Squarepants.
Pause while Daddy realizes he doesn't know all the words.
Mommy: If nautical nonsense is something you wish
Mommy, Daddy, Firstborn: Spongebob Squarepants!
Mommy: Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish!
Mommy, Daddy, Firstborn: Spongebob Squarepants!
Spongebob Squarepants! Spongebob Squarepants! Spongeboooooob Squarepannnnts!!!!

Can I put this on my resume?

Lastborn was not participating because he thought it was all very weird.

Kindergarten Bully

Yesterday, I picked the boys up after school. There they sat in the gymnasium with their matching lime green backpacks and their tired slumped over posture. But lastborn was sporting a black eye.

I wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not. I wasn't sure whether to assume he had started the fight or had been on the receiving end of the fight either, but I was really curious as to how it had gone down.

Mommy: So how did you get the black eye?
Last born (with a big smile): I don't know
Mommy: You don't know? How could you get a black eye and not know how?
Lastborn: I don't know! My teacher asked me how I got the black eye too, but I don't know.
Mommy: Well you must have done something that hurt. That's quite the black eye.

We walk across the parking lot to the car.

Lastborn: Do you have a mirror? I want to see my black eye.

He climbs into the car and I strap him in. As I do, I notice his hands are covered with black magic marker. You know how kids hands get dirty because they rest them on the paper before the marker dries. My eyes travel up to his face and the thought occurs to me that maybe that's not a black eye after all.

A little spit on the finger and a wipe proves that the black eye was actually marker rubbed from hand to eye. The black marker had mixed with his sweat to form a perfect smudged black to purple to blue. A little on the cheek bone below the eye. A little on the outer lid and a lot on the brow bone above the eye. A practiced stage makeup artist couldn't have done better.

Imagine his teachers surprise at his quick recovery today.

I had been thinking of taking a picture of his first black eye and now I wish I had before I wiped it off. It would have been fun to have a picture of the black eye that wasn't.

Feedback

It seems remcat might have been a bit miffed by my post on Information. She has linked to the post and asked for feedback from her readers. No one is commenting though. So if you have a comment, please feel free to jump over to her blog and discuss.

Sorry if I offended, remcat. It was just information. :-)

Thanks for the link remcat and thanks for reading my posts.

What makes a good blog

If you are not already a dooce reader, check her out. While I usually laugh uproariously at her wacky descriptions of her daughter's behavior or her bathroom humor, it's really the writer that brings me and thousands of readers to her page.

Well today she has done it again and proven she can write on a very serious note. Dooce, you have expressed my feelings so well. While I do have some faith in a higher power, mine was never as strong as my mothers. And this post hits the nail right on the head. Thanks for saying what I hadn't the words to say.

Speaking of High Finance...

I had to share this one.

Tonight DH came home to explain to me why my ATM card had been rejected by two bank machines the previous week. And no, he did not empty out the bank account to get a condo for his mistress. Far less exciting than that, but wait till you hear this...

Apparently, the bank has decided that having every customer carry a check card, an ATM card and a credit card might be a bit of overkill and let's get with the new millennium and make one card do it all! What a concept! So now, they will only let me use my check card to get money from the ATM machines.

How will I cope. My ATM card clearly said ATM on it! I needed this clue to know which of the multitude of cards, all sporting the same emaciated looking soldier (known to the locals as a minute man) to use. Now I will be lost. Is it the blue one or the Burgundy one?

Anyway, they decided to make this change without telling their customers. I wonder how much interest they were able to make on my money that week. Hmmm.

So, to make my check card a fully functioning ATM card, they will be sending out our passwords this week. We have separate passwords you know. Same account, different passwords.

I let DH know in no uncertain terms that I will not be sharing my password with him. No sir! He will not be getting access to my money. I will carry that secret to my grave.

High Finance

On my way to Karate class today, a little voice from the back seat says:
"I'm controlling you so you don't go back to work."
I responded, "You don't want me to go back to work? Why? We would have so much more money if I go back to work." This being reasoning that would work wonders on money obsessed Firstborn.
"Well, you could just go to the bank and get money."
"No I can't. We have to have money in the bank before I can go to the bank and get money."
"Oh. Well then you can go to work for McDonald's." (I'm sure he thinks that would mean that we could eat there every day)
"McDonald's doesn't pay very well though. It wouldn't make us much money."
"Well then work at Burger King!"

Yeah. That'll work.

I'm a chump

Yesterday, after school, I drove the kids past my new place of business. I wanted them to see how close it was to their school as I will be picking them up every day instead of having them take the bus and I want them to realize that this is a logical move not just some arbitrary mean mommy thing.

After we drove past, this conversation ensued:
Mommy: That's where I will be working next month. Isn't it close to school?
Lastborn: You're going to work?
Mommy: Ya. Won't that be fun?
Lastborn: Work is for chumps!

OK. I knew immediately that this must be from a Spongebob episode though I don't remember offhand which one. But still, there was a shock factor having it come from Lastborn's mouth. And somehow, it seems fitting that Lastborn would remember and repeat this phrase. Let's hope this isn't some foreshadowing of his life.

Giving away the ending

So, at this point it is time to admit that I let the kids watch way too much TV to earn me a place in the mommy hall-of-fame. Here's my reasoning:

• Everyone else does it...
• It's DHs fault!
• DH has always watched hours and hours of TV and he's a Genius, I tell you!
• If you ever heard my children talking you would understand why a few hours of silence in this household while they rot their brains away is worth the resultant loss of IQ.
• Only the little on is pudgy. The older one is skinny. So statistically, TV doesn't cause obesity. I know, small sample size, but I'm trying to justify here, not give real data.

So all this is background to the story. Yesterday, I had much to do. So did DH. Children are not too conducive to getting things done. Luckily, Firstborn was off playing with next-door-neighbor-boy. So we just had to account for Lastborn.

Perfect! DH had rented Mega Blocks Dragons Fire & Ice, the movie from Blockbuster. A perfect day all around. We heard not a word from him as he watched the movie over and over again.

Later that evening, we enticed Firstborn through his dinner and bath with a promise of watching the movie. The plan was that Lastborn would be able to take a bath and then join the rest of us for the remainder of the movie, since Lastborn had already watched it a few times.

As soon as Lastborn entered the room, he started talking about what would happen next in the movie. A very annoying habit both boys have. They tend to watch just about everything multiple times. And they want to let the world know how much they know about each show they have watched. We are constantly on Firstborn's case about not doing this and now Lastborn finally had a chance to participate in spoiling the ending.

Firstborn: Stop telling me what's going to happen!

Lastborn: I'm just giving you some information!

Ah! They are both born engineers. Information. That rules all. If you're giving information, it does not matter how annoying you are. It's information!

I understand that in the deep south, as long as you bless someone or invoke the name of Jesus, you can get away with some of the most horrible insults. For example:

"She is an ugly little girl, bless her soul."

"Why bless you, you don't think you will actually find a husband do you?"

"In Jesus' name, I hope she dies an ugly death."

These are all considered quite mannerly in the deep south. Well up here in MIT country, information will save. If you have just insulted someone and need to save face, just claim information. As in:

My, You're looking fat today.

When the person responds with a look of shock and revulsion, simply reply:

Hey, It's just information. Do with it what you will.

He is Redeemed!

Lastborn announced that he has been invited to lunch with the principal at school. This, not for the expected Lastborn behavior, but for reading more books than most of the kids in his K class this summer (Which I find hard to believe as we lost steam halfway through).

So, if we can get good behavior from him through the entire lunch, maybe the principal will forget the previous introduction to Lastborn and somehow begin to think that this precious blue-eyed boy is pure goodness and light.

It's tough work being a marked man in Kindergarten.

Flattery will get you everywhere II

Lastborn: Daddy! Your wife is a great cook!
Daddy: Lastborn! Your Mommy is a great cook!
Lastborn: Daddy! Your wife *is* my Mommy.

What an illuminating bit of information.

And all this was over a couple of pieces of toast. Too bad my more intricate cooking efforts are always greeted with a long drawn out YUUUUK!

First Impressions

Lastborn had a Kindergarten open house today at school. They marched all the kids and parents into the cafeteria to welcome us. The principal stood up first to talk and began her speech.

Sitting in the front of the room, Lastborn decides to shout, "Who are *you*?" as if to say "why are you wasting my time?"

It's not that he is terribly disrespectful or that he meant to be a smart alec, he just has a tendency to put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble.

The principal smiled and responded well to his comment, but I know he's a marked man.

A great first day.

Top 10 list

Paperback Writer often provides top 10 lists on her blog. Never have any of them been as entertaining as this one though.

10 great ways to waste time from bashing haggis, to making paper airplanes to an electronic kaleidoscope.

Lost a tooth

Firstborn lost a tooth last night at the bible school closing ceremony. I thought he was all done losing teeth. God knows when he will really be done.

So this brought back one of the funny stories from the days when I didn't have a blog to share.

When Firstborn was losing his first teeth, he was very impressed with the idea of the tooth fairy and the fact that no one had ever seen her. Firstborn decided that if he could catch the tooth fairy, he would become famous and be the richest boy in the world, and since Firstborn is very interested in being the richest person in the world, this seemed like a very good idea.

So, on a night where he had just lost a tooth, he sat at the dining room table covering a piece of paper with green marker. The entire piece was green. I asked him what he was making, and the flood gates opened.

He said, "I'm making a trap for the tooth fairy. I'm going to cover this with glue stick and then put my tooth on it and then the tooth fairy is going to come to get my tooth and she will get stuck to the pillow and not be able to fly away and I will wake up and she will be there and I will catch her and I will become rich and famous!"

Understand that in those days, Firstborn had the ability to talk while breathing in. So, all of this was said at a very rapid pace with no pause for us to set him straight.

Oh what the heck. We allowed him to carry the sticky sheet of green-colored paper up to his bed, place the tooth on it and then place his pillow over the fairy trap. The glue stick glue is completely washable after all.

The next morning, Firstborn was somewhat disappointed to find 3 foreign coins under his pillow. Knowing that Firstborn was a collector of coins, the tooth fairy liked to bring them for him instead of the traditional American ones.

When I asked Firstborn how his plot unfolded, he had totally moved on. He told me that the glue must have dried before she got there, but he had a better plan for next time he lost a tooth.

Next time, he was going to get a bottle, fill the bottom with glue that doesn't dry and then drop the tooth in. She would have to go into the bottle to get the tooth, but she would never be able to come out. Later in the day, he had even devised some trip wire corking system in his mind so that if the glue didn't work, he would have a back up plan.

At this point, I felt it was important to remind him that the tooth fairy doesn't bring money to little boys who scheme.

Baby's got Blue Eyes

Yesterday, someone asked Lastborn where he got those beautiful blue eyes.

He responded with some disgust "I've always had them."

I need to teach him to say "Walmart!"

California Barking Spiders

On the way home from Bible School today, I mentioned to the kids that Daddy would be back from California tomorrow.

Firstborn: Yay! Do you think he will bring any barking spiders home with him?

Mom: Something tells me he will

Lastborn: Barking Spiders!!! Will we get to look at them?

Mom: I think he'll keep them hidden but I'm sure you will be able to hear them bark quite often.

By now, both boys are laughing so hard that it's a good thing they have seat belts to hold them in.

Hooray for the fart joke. At least it keeps them from fighting for a few minutes.

PS. My spell check does not like the word Fart. Excuse me while I check my Merrium Webster. I was under the distinct impression that fart is indeed a word that one can use in Scrabble. So why does this spell check not accept it? Hmmmmm.

Learn to last 5 to 10 minutes longer in bed

This was the title of a junk mail I received this afternoon and it made me laugh a bit. First of all, I don't think they planned on sending it to a woman, because frankly, we don't often have that problem.

Secondly, it struck me how that presents a totally different picture to me now that I have kids than it would have pre-kids. Just how are they proposing I last 5 to 10 minutes longer in bed? Isn't that something I do every day when awakened by the childish voice saying "Can I get up now, Mommy?" Just 10 more minutes. Puleeeese.

Something tells me that if I were to click on that link I would not end up finding solutions to get my kids to sleep longer.

Tee Hee.

Yee Haw!!!

36 days till school starts!!!!!

Too much TV

Recently on Nick, there has been a commercial wherein a young teen with great bravado and a bright pink shirt announces, "Pink! It's the new black." Lastborn has always liked that commercial. I never thought he really understood the message of don't follow what everyone else tells you is cool. But yesterday, he surprised me.

Lastborn has earned his camouflage belt in Tae Kwon Do. This is the 4th level of belt in the system we are following and it brings him to the intermediate level. He never talks about how far he wants to go in Tae Kwon Do. He never talks about wanting to be a black belt, but he has been impressed with the fact that he is at the intermediate level now and he has always been impressed with the camo color.

So in class (there were only 4 kids there) he holds the ends of his belt and announces,
"Camo! It's the new black."

The instructors were all shocked as was I. But even more so when he started to boss the kids around in class as if he were the black belt teaching the class. He obviously completely gets the message of the commercial as well as the structure of the do jong.

As I say in so many of these posts, should I be scared?

Bugs!!!

Lastborn: Mommy, there's a bug in the house!
Mom: Ok, I'll get it.
Lastborn: Maybe it's an earpig.
Mom: An earpig? You mean an earwig?
Lastborn: yah. An earwig.
Firstborn: What's an earwig?
Mom: come look at it before I pick it up.
She turns over the partially squished bug that's still wiggling it's legs.
Mom: See? It has pinchers on one end. It moves really fast.
Lastborn: And it never dies!

Inventive spelling

Driving firstborn to school. There's only 2.5 days left!!!

He's quizzing me on mineral facts. A very rude habbit. I've tried to explain to him that not everybody knows the painful details of minerals, crystals and other forms of compacted dirt, but he persists in asking me questions and then laughing because I don't know the answer. So I decided to make my point by turning the tables.

Mom: So Firstborn. How do you spell Mississippi?

Firstborn: M-i-s-s-i ....
No! It's M-R-S-dot um.



I couldn't figure out where he thought the R came from until he stuck that dot in. Being from MA we often get misled as to whether there is an R in a word or not. But Mrs.-ippi! Perfect!

Air conditioners and cold spells

So this past week, we had a heat wave. Not just any heat wave. This one came complete with 99.9999999% humidity. I ran my mother's group annual yard sale fundraiser this weekend and we all almost died. No one has peed in the northeast in days because we are all sweating too much.

So when I got home after said yard sale on Saturday, I begged and pleaded with DH to install the air conditioner. Frankly, I don't think anyone wants to be around either me or my children in this type of weather. So that was probably incentive enough.

DH warned me that if he put in the air conditioners we would get a cool spell. After 7 days of heat and humidity in mid June, it's hard to imagine what cold would be.

But now I know. Because today, it got up to 75! I need to run upstairs and put on some long pants now....

Knock, Knock

Firstborn: Mommy! Knock, Knock (he's already giggling)
Mom: Who's there (clutching her coffee).
Firstborn: Lapis!
Mom: Lapis who? (not that I don't know)
Firstborn: Lapis Lazuli! It's a rock that I heard about last year when I was first learning about gems alksdjf lkj fl ;adjf al ljdf kj lj asjf lfj a;jf ; ;jf lkdfj a;hooij l;ajdf ;how lkdjf;j ...

The rest is just a blur. I was holding my first cup of coffee. I'm not sure an entire summer of trivial facts on rocks, gems, minerals, crystals, stalactites and stalagmites, coal, jet, amber and other formations of dirt is bearable.

An imitation of what they see

Lastborn: "If I was my Star Wars book, where would I be?"

This is the acceptable replacement for

"Mommy, Where is my Star Wars book?"

To which, he would hear,

"I don't know. I'm not responsible for your Stars Wars Book."

It's amazing how the things we say seem so trivial until we hear them out of the mouths of our kids, over and over again.

10 things to do this summer

Stolen from Charmaine with her permission of course.

1. Spend time at the sprinkler park.

2. Take a family vacation.

4. Read with the kids every day.

5. Find some rocks!

6. Teach Lastborn how to write his name.

7. Call friends I haven't been in touch with.

9. Do science experiments with Firstborn.

10. Get the kids to take more responsibility around the house.

Flattery will get you everywhere

Sitting in the car waiting for Firstborn to be released from school. I was eating an apple. Lastborn sat next to me watching the apple as it went into my mouth. I took a bite and moved the apple away and his eyes followed it.

Lastborn: "I'm still hungry,"
Mom: "You just had Burger King. How can you be hungry?"
Lastborn: "But I am. Give me some apple."

Mom: "Oh, but I can't. You see, this apple has poison in it. Anyone under 18 who eats this apple will go to sleep for a million years."
Lastborn: "No they won't! You're just joking."
Mom: "Yes. Yes they will."
Lastborn: "But I'm 4."
Mom: "Yes, and 4 is less than 18. So you will go to sleep for a million years and only a kiss from a beautiful princess will wake you up once you go to sleep."


Lastborn: "You mean like you?"

Here. Have a bite of my apple. Anything you want, kid. It's yours.

Kitty Fun

Love it. Stolen from Gemmak who stole it from someone else.

Cat catching.

Give them an audience

Firstborn and I stopped by an educational bookstore the other day. He had received a coupon to select two free items from their treasure chest and I figured what a great place to get a teacher gift.

As I wandered around the store familiarizing myself with what they carried (for future reference), he babbled away in my ear. I can't even remember what the topic was. Gems and minerals no doubt since that is his topic of the month.

I made eye contact with one of the store owners and she smiled supportively.

So now, it's time to retrieve said gifts from the treasure box. Firstborn must first supply some information because they are going to put his name in a drawing. He dutifully spells our last name (he'll be doing that for the rest of his life). Then she asks him if he knows his phone number.

"Well I don't have a phone yet, but my Mommy's is..."
The store owners were taken with this response and so struck up a conversation with him.

He touched on, how much he hates school but he is learning grammar though it isn't very hard, he didn't know any of it when he started school but he gets good grades because mommy says he has a good memory, but the math and spelling are really easy and he loves to read.

I don't think he had taken a breath at all at this point.

So then he has to show them his muscles. The whole time they are having a great laugh at his effervescence. His rate of speech is sometimes amazing.

So then he tells them about his exercise routine and how Daddy taught him these exercises and he does a hundred a day and his daddy does two hundred every day. With full demonstrations of the above exercises.

Then we move on to his Tae Kwon Do school how it is called ATA and they have an association in Europe called UTA and another school system somewhere else in the world called WTF. But Daddy takes Krav Maga which isn't Tae Kwon Do and isn't part of ATA but he goes to the ATA school to learn Krav Maga. The whole time these women are getting quite the kick out of his performance.

So I have to finally wrap him up, but he's still talking on the way out of the store. The ladies say goodbye to him and tell him to come back soon and he responds,

"My mother says she's going to make me a T-shirt that says don't ask me a question unless you have time to listen to my answer."

Maybe I should get going on that T-shirt.

Star Wars Returns

The parents at Tae Kwon Do are already amused with Lastborn's antics. Many is the time I have wanted to crawl under my chair and hide so they wouldn't all look at me laughing when he is putting on a performance. So this Wednesday, was not as bad as it could have been had I not been so conditioned to his behavior.

The object of the game:

• One child was the tagger.
• The game progresses like tag, but when a child is tagged, they are supposed to jump into a fighting stance and count to ten.
• Once they complete their count, they go back to the game.
• The teacher lets each tagger go for a few minutes and then picks another tagger.

Probably a bit much for the 3, 4 and 5 year olds in the class.

So she picks a tagger and they all start running. Eddie begins to sing the Darth Vader's theme at the top of his lungs while weilding an imaginary light sabre. At one point, he even stops running in front of a heavy bag and begins to slash it fiercly with said imaginary light sabre. The whole time doot-doot-doing the Darth Vader theme.

When purple belt boy completes his turn, teacher asks him to pick the next tagger and of course, he picks Lastborn. The kids start running. Eddie starts running still humming the Darth Vader theme. The imaginary light sabre is still in his hand. He finally figures out (due to much shouting and coaching) that he is the tagger and begins to chase his first victim. But he doesn't tag in a conventional way, because Lastborn is not a conventional child. No. Instead, he strikes the child with his imaginary light sabre. In the hustle, the child tips over and falls on he floor. Then Lastborn stands over him delivering repeated strokes with the imaginary light sabre while the parents in the parent's room are damaging their ribs laughing.

It was a sight. The whole thing had a rather maniacle tone.

Now, flash back to many months ago when this same teacher was lecturing the class on the life skill of the month, discipline. She figured that instead of defining the word for them, she would interact with the group of 3, 4, and 5 year olds and give them a chance to shine. So she asked the group of 15 preschoolers, "Do any of you know what the word discipline means?" There were many answers, none quite on the mark, like being nice to my sister, helping my mother. The teacher was able to redirect them into something useful like being nice to my sister even when she isn't very nice to me or helping my mother with chores even when I would rather watch TV. But Lastborn (remember unconventional) stumped her. His response?

"I won't kill anyone?"

Is there anywhere I can hide?

So all this is rushing back to me as my child stands over this poor 4 year old boy singing doot-doot-do, doot-do-do, doot-do-do.

Drama

I picked up Lastborn from school at lunchtime today and asked him my daily question.

Mom: So, did you have fun today?
Lastborn: No. It was a day of humiliation.
Mom: Really?
Lastborn: yah.
So we got into the car and I began to question just what he meant by that, considering that I was surprised that he could even say the word.

Mom: So what happened that was so humiliating?
Lastborn: My teacher pasted my picture on a flower and showed it to everybody. It was so humiliating.
Mom: Was it? So did you tell your teacher that this bothered you?
Lastborn: No. But I told her to turn the flower over so that no one could see it.

Next, I explained the difference between humiliation and embarrassment to him.

Mom: So. Do you think maybe you were embarrassed instead of humiliated?
Lastborn: No. I was humiliated.

Wow. So I wonder how much therapy for this will be.

Na na na na na

A conversation recently in our home.

Mother: Firstborn! I did 75 front kicks in one minute in Karate today!

Firstborn: Ya? But I bet they were amateur kicks.

Mother: Amature kicks? Of course they were not amateur kicks. They were beautiful, perfect kicks.

Father: Laughing

Firtborn: No they weren't. They were amateur kicks.

Father: Lastborn was there. What do you think, Lastborn? Were they amateur kicks?

Lastborn: Ya. They were really amateur kicks.

All the boys in the family laugh.

I bet I can kick their butts!

Up all night?

On Tuesday, we celebrated Lastborn's birthday by giving him two little star wars action figures. He was in heaven. In fact, the euphoria of receiving these coveted toys was enough to keep him up all night.

At 4 am, I awoke to hear him humming this tune: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/recs/radio/krex/-/track/B0002YCVJC002010/ref=pd_krex_dp_t/102-1719494-7492148#

Sibling Rivalry

This weekend we visited G'Pa in NY state. We were out at a diner for lunch. Firstborn had just finished a tall stack of pancakes and the waitress was giving him kudos for the great job. G'Pa responded that Firstborn was quite a fine young man.

Never letting big brother be the center of attention, Lastborn responded,

"He's not young and he's not a man either!"

Be careful what you ask them.

Shopping with Lastborn today. In our 3 hours of shopping, he kept rearranging himself for some reason. I kept asking him if he had to go potty and he kept saying no.

So finally, as we left Bed Bath & Beyond, I asked him, then why do you keep touching your penis?

You may guess his response:

1) Because I really do have to go potty.
2) Because secretly, I want to be a woman, and this thing is just bothering me.
3) Because I like to, in a sweet babyish voice.

As he finished this declaration, I looked up to see a young guy sitting on a park bench outside the store. He was grinning ear to ear and his shoulders were shaking convulsively.

Things I never expected to say to my kids

No. You can't take a gun to church!


and


Please take your head out of the mailbox!