Because I Said So

Sometimes, I say things like:

"Because I'm the Mom" and 

"Because I Said So" and 

"Because I Feel Like It",

because, you know, it's my right as a parent. 

I just hate giving lengthy explanations to people who are going to argue with me no matter what, because, after all, they are much smarter than me and a 5 year old playing in the woods at night by themselves is a good idea. 

Please enjoy this perfectly sarcastic parenting mantra from yours truly: 

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The Professionals

After school today, we went to get flu shots.

This was an adventure, because we had to drive across town to the minute clinic at CVS pharmacy.

We had to drive across town because it’s the only place where they A) take our insurance and B) give flu shots to people under 18.

My husband asked why we didn’t just go to the pediatrician…. The pediatrician would cost us $25 per person. And at CVS, flu shots are FREE. Which is a difference of $100.

At any rate, while we were in the room at the minute clinic, the kids were asking all sorts of questions about the needle the nurse was going to use.

And then they pulled up their sleeves, and alcohol swabbed their own arms, and told the nurse she has to wait a minute until it dries.

The nurse was very impressed.

She was even more impressed when nobody even flinched during their injections.

CONCLUSION: We have become shot professionals.

How To Play Ninja

Sometimes my boys play ninja.

It sounds like this: "kkkeeeeiiiii" and "hoooaaahhh" and "tttsssss" and "UGH"

And sometimes the line between a friendly fight between Ninja's and Mortal Enemies is blurred.

That sounds like this: "AAGGHH!!" and "WAAAAHHHH" and "ATTACK!" and "OHMYEYE" and "MOMMY!"

Which is invariably followed by a muffled apology.

And a valuable life lesson.

And that is how you play Ninja.

Reason #19 that kids are awesome*

  

 

*this story is real. let’s talk about the crush I had on on the oldest boy in 3 ninjas, 20 years ago.

Lessons in Parenting

Tonight at dinner, Blayne told me she didn’t like tomatoes.

I told her that, that was fine, and that she no longer gets to eat: pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, ketchup, salsa, or anything else that has tomatoes in it.

Then she ate her soup. 

The Butterfly Hunter

We were discussing chores the other day.

You see, after living in this house for two-ish years or so, I think I finally have a handle on how to clean the house the quickest, with the least amount of work.

I know that things like that are terribly boring to some people, but I think that those people probably don't have sneaky children that are artistic, which is really code for: my kids color on stuff. Which, incidentally, does not help in the cleaning arena, because the children have colored on builder grade FLAT paint, which, as any mom will attest to, is of the devil.

At any rate, we were talking about chores, and how we should divide things up.

And dear, sweet Taylor offered to do the "most hardest job in the world."

Killing all the butterflies.

You see, this is the hardest job in the world, because FIRST, she would have to FIND THE BUTTERFLIES. And since I'm fairly certain that there are currently no butterflies living in the house, I can only assume that the finding of the butterflies would take a very long time.

SECONDLY, when she DOES find a butterfly, she would have to catch it. Which would be highly amusing because she is rather short, and butterflies are rather tricky. I imagine that a lot of stacking and climbing would be involved.

THEN she would have to catch the butterfly. Except that I was informed that she would need special purple butterfly "glubs" to catch it. Because butterflies only like purple. Not even pink. If you have pink gloves, the butterfly will BITE YOU with their TINY CHOMPY TEETH.

So, after putting on her special purple gloves, and climbing to the tippy top of whatever, then you have to sing a special butterfly catching song. It goes like this: "Butterfly! Fly Fly Fly! Butterfly! Me is your friend! Butterfly! I love you!"

This song is EXTRA silly because you are REALLY tricking the butterfly.

And when that butterfly is good and tricked, then it will land in the palms of your hands. And after you finish singing your sweet, sweet lullaby of death, you would squash it with a hammer. But not daddy's hammer, just a toy hammer, so that it would only hurt a little bit.

And then, if the butterfly was really pretty, then we could put it in a frame on the wall by Mommy's other bug. (Because yes, I do have an insect pinned and framed on the wall.)

Needless to say, the discussion about the divvying of the chores did not go as planned.

But I do have an official butterfly killer now, and that has got to count for something.

Motherhood Never Stops Being Exhausting

We have had an interesting day at our house.

And by interesting, I mean terrible.

It all started last night, when a certain short person in the house snuck out of bed. When we finally noticed her hiding behind the couch, it was a full two hours PAST bedtime.

Then at about 1am, when we were all in our correct night time places, a different short someone came crawling into my bed because he was cold. And I thought to myself, “Of course you are cold. You took off all of your pajama’s when I was tucking you in because you were hot.”

But I was too tired to really care, so I let him snuggle by me, until I decided that his head was too heavy and I didn’t like how my pinned arm was starting to go numb.

So I made a “nest” at the end of our bed, and kicked him into it.

Then at about 5 this morning, the other boy in the house woke up ready for the day.

Naturally, he needed someone to play with so he woke up EVERYONE. By turning on the lights, and pulling back the covers. And turning on the radio.

And then nobody could go back to sleep.

By 8am, we were all breakfasted, laundered, showered, and every thing else that was on the “list” for the day.

Let’s just say that everything after 8am was downhill.

And at 5 o’clock, I had HAD it.

So I made everyone get ready for bed. Showers, pajama’s, teeth brushed, the whole deal.

Then they started whining about how hungry they were.

And my initial reaction was to let them be hungry, so they could see what it feels like, because, as my children told me, I’m a horrible mommy and they no like me.

(Motherhood is so rewarding.)

But instead, I decided that I would let them eat, when their rooms were spotless and they had apologized to me.

Of course, apologizing is a learned art, because a blanket, “I’m sorry” just doesn’t cut it.

Which means that yes, I make them practice apologizing.

It goes like this: 

"YOU OWE ME AN APOLOGY."

"sorry mom."

"SORRY MOM WHAT."

"sorry that i acted like a wild monkey."

"NO. THAT DOES NOT COUNT. YOU NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR YOU ACTIONS."

"sorry for.... uh.... yelling?"

"AND?"

"and for hitting people..."

"AND WHAT ELSE"

"And, umm.... for, uh... for having a fit about video games.... BUT THEY WOULDN'T LET ME HAVE A TURN! IT WASN'T FAIR! THEY KEPT TAKING THE CONTROLLER AND PUSHING BUTTONS! SO I HAD TO HIT THEM OR ELSE THEY WOULDN'T STOP."

"STOP YELLING. I DON'T CARE ABOUT STUPID VIDEO GAMES. GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM UNTIL YOU CAN APOLOGIZE TO ME FOR REALS."

"But!"

"I SAID GO!"

Rinse, repeat, four times over.

And THEN at dinner, I didn’t let them talk unless their father or I had spoken directly to them.

And I made them use forks.

And chew with their mouths closed.

And I made them eat spinach.

And then I thought to myself, people wonder why moms just want a nap.

IT’S BECAUSE LIFE IS EXHAUSTING.

Those Darn Kids

My children have started a blog.

It’s the cutest thing ever, and is also slightly incriminating.

I know understand why my mom sometimes asks me,

“Are you going to blog about this?”

Because I am suddenly way more paranoid than usual.

Danged kids, they know just how to keep me on my toes.

Dinner in a Jam

I made strawberry jam yesterday and it turned out delicious. I know it did because we just had jam sandwiches for dinner. I know what you’re thinking. Do people really have just jam on a sandwich? And I was thinking that too. I was thinking that right up until I took a bite, and then I decided that jam sandwiches are going to be my new favorite non-dinner dinner.

Everyone has a non-dinner dinner up their sleeve. It just comes with the territory of life…. besides, people that say they ALWAYS eat a “good healthy dinner” are liars.

So, here are some of my favorite non-dinner dinners that we eat, you know, when the need arises.

• Cold Cereal. Like fruit loops and cheerios and stuff. Pour it in a bowl with milk, and you’re set. If people tell me they’re still hungry, I give them another bowl.
• Jam Sandwiches. We had them tonight, because I read a book where the little girl always eats jam sandwiches (Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos) and we didn’t get HOME until we were actually supposed to be in bed, and I had jam and leftover biscuits. So we had jam sandwiches. AND THEY WERE DELICIOUS. And no, I have never included Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches to my non-dinner list, because I’m sorry, but those sandwiches are a mess, and if I’m not up to making a real dinner, I’m not up for doing dishes and wiping counters and floors and sticky tables either. I HAVE MY LIMITS PEOPLE.
• Cheese Crisps. Except that they’re not actually crispy, because I make them in the microwave.  You know, tortilla, cheese, heat for 30 seconds. If you serve them with salsa, they’re practically a salad.
• Ramen Noodle. My kids love ramen noodle to death. And half of my kids want just broth, and half of them want just noodles, so it works out perfectly. Plus, sometimes I even get “fancy” and put in a half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables which basically makes it vegetable noodle soup. I know, it’s super clever.
• Crackers and Cheese. I figure, if there can be a whole deli section dedicated to this, it totally counts. Besides, anyone that knows me knows I only buy Triscuits, and have you see the nutrition information on the side of that thing? No? Me neither. I only buy them because I think they taste good. Sometimes, I even remember to buy lunch meat, and we’ll include that in our non-dinner as well.
• Fruit/Vegetable. It was really hot the other day, so for dinner, we  had watermelon. And that’s it. I was home and had groceries, and could have made dinner, but I decided not to. BECAUSE IT WAS HOT. And you know what? Nobody even cared. If we went completely vegetarian over here, nobody would care and it would probably take two weeks for my husband to notice. What can I say, we’re low maintenance. (Once, we had tomato night, and I have to tell you, it was magnificent.)

And I think I should probably clarify that for ME, a non-dinner dinner involves little to no cooking AND takes less than 5 minutes total, including the prep time and clean up.  Which is why things like macaroni and cheese (who has time to wait for water to boil?) and the drive thru (seriously? the fastest fast food takes too long. plus it’s kinda gross) don’t make the list.

SO. What do you have on non-dinner nights?

How To Confuse Your Children Without Really Trying

Today we started a new cleaning method.

It’s been highly confusing to my children because it involves no sorting whatsoever.

This is a dilemma, because my children sometimes like to take 7 and a half hours to “clean up” their bedroom.

But THEN, today, I decided that I just don’t care anymore.

I don’t care which toy goes where, I don’t care what belongs to who…. I only care about whether or not I am going to step on said toy, and whether or not it will hurt ME when I do.

So today, I purchased great, big, sturdy storage bucket things (Is it a tote? A bucket? A bin? A box? I just don’t care) and have placed them on each floor of my house.

At dinner, I told the kids that the buckets are not to move floors. There are not “girl” or “boy” buckets. They are not “car” or “doll” or “book” buckets. I told them that sometimes their buckets would have girl AND boy toys in them, and that IT WOULD ALL BE OKAY.

Of course, my children, having lived with me for their entire lives, looked at me in horror and said, “But what if it’s a upstairs toy? Or a library book? OR A BALL?”

And I repeated that I. Don’t. Care.

I just want, to not step, on a tiny pokey toy, going up the stairs, with my full weight, in the middle of the night.

Acceptable Risk

I took the kids swimming today.

I forgot how exhausting being in a pool, making sure people don’t drown, is.

Let me rephrase, it’s HARD when you’re “swimming” with people that don’t know how to swim, but that you refuse to put any kind of floating device on, because then they will flat out refuse to swim without said floating devices for the remainder of the summer, who also are falsely confident in their nonexistent ability TO swim.

What I’m saying is that Daniel and Taylor CAN’T SWIM.

Daniel can almost swim. He has a mean doggy paddle, but every now and then (3 feet), he forgets to kick and paddle and promptly sinks to the bottom, because we have also not mastered FLOATING.

Taylor is the worst though. Because she dances around the edge of the pool paying no attention to anyone or anything.  I should also probably tell you that Taylor doesn’t WALK…. she PRANCES. Or skips. Or hops. Or my personal favorite, takes a lot of teeny tiny steps on her tippy toes, giving her the appearance of running, but she’s not. It’s just the way she gets from point A to point B. This also means that the lifeguard is constantly blowing his whistle at her and shouting “WALK!” and she looks them dead in the face and says, “Me not running. I just doing this.” and then she starts her not-running run and they tell her to walk. Times eleventy billion.

The pool is hard. Finding the perfect balance of acceptable risk, which changes depending on the mood of the child, is difficult. On the one hand, I want my kids to be safe. On the other hand, I want them to learn to swim dangit.

All I know, is that the pool (A) exhausts us (B) gets us outside and (C) makes my kids feel like they did something. And really, that’s all you can hope for on a Saturday.

Blayne, happily swimming, taken @ Grammy’s house, April 2011