Little blue men

Well I think we officially have "glory in excesses" this Christmas. The tree is up, and you can barely see it anymore after Jonathan and I wrapped all the presents last night. This may, in part, be because we have 19 people we're buying presents for this Christmas. But mostly it's because we brought back an extra suitcase or two with us from Florida. (and left the kids pillows in the hotel room, to make more space)

The kids don't care, really. At the moment they're pushing each other around the house in the car seat, after whacking each other over the head repeatedly with cardboard wrapping tubes I decorated. Ben had an aha moment when we were experimenting with the different sounds the tubes make when you hit different things with them.

Ben - "Mommy your head sounds lower than mine"

Me - "you're right!"

Ben - "Why does it sound lower?"

Me - "Maybe because my head is bigger"

We hit a few different things around the house, and he was able to tell me which sounds were lower, which were higher, and what the difference was. I'm so proud. I may just have the beginnings of the new member for Blue Man Group !!!

Baking art and body parts

I've had waaaay too many cups of coffee today, and have been feeling really ambitious, so we made cookies this afternoon. Well, when I say "we" I mean "I" because, being the control freak that I am, I measured the ingredients, dumped them in the bowl, mixed them, and then gave the batter to the kids and told them to "make cookies". This exercise consisted in a lot of licking, munching, and eating dough, and almost no cookies on the sheet. So, of course, I then "made the cookies" and the kids ate them. So much for open-ended child-directed age-appropriate expectation-free activities at our house.

Ok here's a game for everyone to play.. no cheating by reading ahead either. I gave the kids a bath tonight. I like to try and put away a couple loads of laundry at the same time. So, the kids are fighting in the tub, and I'm putting away laundry in the hall, and I hear them fighting, but keep putting the towels away because this is a pretty typical bath, see if you can guess the ending here.

Ben - "SAM IT'S MINE!"

Sam - "No... MINE!"

Ben - "SAAAAAMMMMM MINE!"



Me: "You guys need to play nice and share your toys or you're coming out of the bathtub. If you're going to fight over toys, it's time to come out."

Ben: "But mommy, it's MY FOOT! I HAD IT FIRST!"

Sam: "NO! MY foot!"

(yes, they're fighting over Ben's foot)

Me: "Sam you leave Ben's foot alone, you have your own foot!"

(yes I really said that)

Sam: "foot?"

Curiosity killed the Mommy

Sleeping children are the most beautiful children in the whole world.
Sick sleeping children are still beautiful.
Sick, barfing, coughing, phlegmy children are not so beautiful, but they still pull your heartstrings when you hold a bucket under their chins while they sit on the toilet.

Yes, you got it, the flu is back visiting at our house again! Whee!

So far, Ben has a fever of 102, tummy ache and sore throat. Sam, I think, has a tummy ache. I can only judge by the fact that he looks a little more stressed than usual when, AFTER he poops, says "poop in toiet!" He does this every time he poops, but not usually with such vigor and insistence. Last night saw me waking up every half hour or so to feel foreheads and dole out Gravol and Tylenol to Ben.

The funny thing about Ben being sick this time, is that it has created a fantastic amount of questions I can't really answer.

"Mommy, how do we talk?"

"Um, well, we have air in our lungs and when we talk it moves past our vocal chords and vibrates them to make sounds"

"what's a vocal chord?"

"Um, it's right there (points)"

"But what is it?"

"Uhm, part of your body"

"So why does my throat hurt when I talk?"

"Because the skin in your throat is swollen from your germs"

(By now the limits of my knowledge are showing their colors, aren't they?)

"But why do we have germs?"

"Because they get in your body sometimes, from other people, and make you sick"

"But who put them in my body?"

"I dunno Ben"

"So will my germs die?"

"Ummm... yes when you get better"

"But where will they go?"

"To someone else"

"Oh"

YAAAY! Conversation over!!! (whew) I love how curious he is... yes, I do... I'll just have to keep telling myself that... yes indeedy.

Of Cars and Men

I want to set such a good language example for my kids. I try and always say please and thank you. The word "stupid" is officially outlawed in our house, and expletives are limited to "oh shoot" "oh my goodness" and "crud". (although the occasional "crap" or "frik(ken)" can be heard when I hurt myself.) But sometimes, I just can't contain myself, and I watch myself in horror from outside my body when, after some ***hole not ONLY decides to drive 20kph in front of me, he takes up BOTH lanes of traffic! I lay on my horn and shout "YOU MORON!" in front of Ben, who watches in silence from the back seat. I hope in vain that he hasn't been watching the whole thing with a keen sense of interest, and I continue home, pumped full of righteous indignation.

About 5 minutes later, we're driving down the main street and I figure my lapse of sanity has come back to kick me in the ass when Ben says to me.

"Mommy look at that BIG TOOL right beside you"

My eyes momentarily bug out of my head, and I ask

"Big tool?"

"Yeah see that really really BIG TOOL?"

I look over and see, at a construction site, a massive piece of machinery that looks like it might be used as some kind of drilling attachment, and reply;

"You're right honey, that's a really big tool"

"I KNOW!"

Green plastic flowers

So, you know how it goes. Your husband gets home after a long hard day's work and starts tackling the kids in the living room, and while wrestling and tickling, grabs a bag of sanitary (ahem) napkins that your 2 year old pulled out from under the sink in the bathroom, and then said husband teaches your four year old how to throw them like throwing stars...

or maybe you don't know how it goes...

...and the pads are flying, here there and everywhere, tossed, chucked, sailing high over everyone's heads in a flurry of green plastic wrappers... and these same pads have been scattered so far and so fast that the next morning, as you're pulling one out from the plant pot, dear, dear Ben has triumphantly hunted down a fistful of his own, clutched like a green bouquet in his hand, and the following conversation ensues;

"Mommy, do you need any of these pads here?"

"No, honey, but thanks for offering" (with a smirk)

"Well what are these pads for anyways?"


-----------------------large pause---------------------


"They're for when I have my period..."

And now i'm thinking fast, trying to figure out the most appropriate information to dole out, how much do I say? I've always wanted to be honest and straightforward, and thought to myself that any questions they could come up with would be answered in the most sincere, simple and direct way, so as not to confuse them at a later date, or mislead them into thinking, like I did at one point, that a "rubber" my friend had told me about was something cut from a car tire. On the other hand, how young is too young? How much information is too much? I don't want to get one of those phone calls when Ben is in Kindergarden informing me that he was trying to tell little Suzy that when she's older she'll start to bleed from her you-know-what (oh goodness). A thousand possible scenarios come to mind, and as I sort through them all in about a millisecond, I hear from the living room, Ben's voice...


"Oh, ok."

'Nuff said I guess...

Ode to Sam

Ode to Sam

You come to me

scabby face

dirty knees

marker rubbed in creases here and there

a bit of nose runnings upon your pale powdery cream skin

You touch my leg

arch your back

grunt in low raspy syllables

"I'un food"

then, turning,

bark three times

and retreat to the cat's water dish to get a drink

You smile at me

slyly

knowing

knowing I will most likely shout

"get out of the cat water!"

you run back to me

frantic

flailing arms and legs

and slip your slimy face under my arm

rubbing shiny oozings on my skin

and

bark

once

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