Mom v. Kitchen

Dear friends, I cannot manage to do anything. I try to be a good parent. I do try. But half the time, my "parenting" consists of putting out fires and dealing with a hundred "Nathan's not sharing." "Cody pushed me." "Nathan has my ball." "I had it first!" "Cody's touching me." "Nathan won't help me!" "I need a drink." "I'm hungwy." "Can we go outside?" "Will you fill up the pool?" "But the pool is dirty, can you clean it out first?" etc etc etc etc. Is that what parenting is? Dealing with a series of small fires that occasionally flare up into big crying fires and in all of the small moments in between trying to cope with the messes of the house?

Let's talk about the messes of the house. I can't manage to keep this house clean. And it bothers me that everywhere I look, I see visual evidence of my failures. (My real failures this time, not the fact that I can't hula hoop or yo-yo. :) Here's my thing: I can't stay on top of it. So I try to catch up whenever I can. But inevitably when I go to catch up, I find myself fixing the messes that are occurring right at that moment and I can't seem to manage to get to the old messes. Case in point, and the impetus for writing this post: my kitchen is a wreck. Like a 3-days-of-dishes, groceries-that-haven't-been-put-away, recycling-that-hasn't-made-it-out-to-the-recycling-bin mess. I wanted to take a picture and post it, but your opinion of me would drastically change if you saw the horrendous filthy mess. Well, I mean, I don't know what your opinion of me is now, but I assure you it would get worse if you saw what I'm talking about. I'm not just talking clutter here. I'm talking an honest to goodness STY. Ok, so after my great little visiting teachers left today, I got the baby changed, fed and down for a sleep. "Buckle up, kitchen," I think to myself. "I'm coming after you." I head to the kitchen to tackle the mess that a weekend of games and meetings and I can't even remember what else produced. But, before I make it to the kitchen, I step on and over 5 different toys that magically appeared in the past 10 minutes. And then Cody taps me insistently.

(Side note: You know that "kid tap"? That kid tap that involves a sharp little finger poking poking poking poking poking. They poke 5-8 times in a row, somehow always targeting a tender spot on your arm, without ever pausing-not even giving you a chance to respond to whatever they so desperately need. And that's the thing, isn't it? It never IS a desperate NEED. It's always like, poke poke poke poke poke poke, "Do you know where my train is?" Anyway.)

So Cody poke poke poke poke pokes me and says he's hungry, he needs some food. Ok, fine. "Kitchen, you bought yourself a little more time, but I'm still coming for you. Quake, kitchen, quake." The kitchen snorted in cocky derision. Cody found a package of Pringles. He wants those for lunch. Well, I'm losing (or I never had) all my skills at parenting, but I'm not that far gone. Yet. No, Cody, we at least need to have a peanut butter sandwich with your chips. (oh yeah, no, I'm not going to tell him NO to the chips because I just can't stomach all the whining and crying right now. But I'll just add a semi-healthy something TO the terrible chips that I'm going to let him have. Okay.) So I go to make the sandwich. BUT, of course the KITCHEN is so FILTHY that I can't find SPACE to MAKE the dang thing. So I grab a plate (yup, I even was able to find a clean one-there are miracles, ladies and gentlemen) and head for the table, which I cleaned off this morning since I knew that the visiting teachers were coming and the table would be in their direct line of view. I had cleaned up the table and also-amazingly enough, the floor space under the table, which, with one certain Cody eating at the table, is no small feat. Kid eats like Cookie Monster.

Anyway, So I took my clean plate to the clean table to make a pbj. I put a few chips on the plate and headed back to the kitchen to get the pbj stuff. While I'm gone, Cody, who is obviously about to PERISH for want of food, has to reach up and grab the plate and what happens when he does so? The Pringles all go slipping off the plate and shattering on the floor. Think about Pringles. They are fragile chips. They shatter. So now I'm standing on a floor of Pringle shards, which, 2 seconds ago, was not even on my list of "to clean up." But now it has made it's way to the top of the list and the kitchen is outright laughing at me. I squeeze my eyes shut with the frustration of the ever mounting "to clean" list that is just burying me. While I have my eyes closed, I can hear the laundry going. The laundry? Yep, in the time before the visiting teachers got here, when I was trying to make my darn house more presentable, I was derailed by poop. Everywhere. The crib sheets, the blankets, the onesie she wore to bed, the changing pad cover-poo everywhere. So another bath for the baby and laundry became the top priority on the "to clean" list.

When I went to fill that load of laundry, I started with the poop stuff then headed to the kids' hamper to fill in the rest of the load. What do I find crumpled on top? Oh, all of Nathan's church stuff (that he was asked to put away yesterday), including his tie. I don't know about you, but a tie and a church vest that was worn over a shirt and church pants that were only worn for 3 hours don't get cleaned every week for me. So, I now find a whole pile of church clothes that in my book, could have gone another week without washing, but now have to get cleaned. (Do you think I'm sick now? As soon as we get home, I have them take their clothes right off, then-in theory anyway-we hang them up, and I feel like they can wear them for another week before I wash them. Anyway. You may think we're gross if you need to, but that's just how I roll with church clothes.)

So while I'm standing there with my eyes closed, flashbacks of the poop packed morning fill my head. I'm standing in the chip mess, listening to the taunts that the kitchen is hurling at me while it flexes it's muscles menacingly. When I open my eyes, I find new messes swimming before them. The games that Nathan got out a day or so ago and never put away. The cereal that Nathan helped himself to, the dirty bowl that he tried to wash out but didn't dry it so he poured cereal in it while it still had water in it and made a soggy mess, the crumb encrusted area under Cody's chair that didn't get cleaned, the train tracks, the mail, the bib on the floor, the window sill that hasn't been wiped down in far too long, the kitchen and... the Pringle shards. I try to remain calm, but I am, in fact, losing it. "Cody," I say through gritted teeth. "I want you to clean up every single chip on the floor and put it back on the plate." He gets to work. While he does that, I start enumerating all of the things that I would like Nathan to put away. Cody gets all the big chip pieces cleaned up and put back on the plate. The shards, of course, are waiting for me. And the kitchen is still mocking me in the background. Cody goes to put the plate back up on the table and in the process, tips it again and every single chip falls to the floor again and breaks into a hundred thousand more chip shards.

The barely contained screech made it out of me and I ran back into my bathroom, locked myself in and cried and cried. The chip shard that broke the mother's back.

And now, I've gotten the chips cleaned up, Cody finally finished eating and down for his nap (when it got right down to it, would he eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? No. No he wouldn't.) But now baby is awake. Which means more diaper changes, hopefully no more blow outs, a 30 minute (at the minimum) feeding, and by the time I'm done taking care of her, I'll need to get Nathan some lunch, and maybe get myself lunch? And by the time I'm done with those things, it'll probably be time to rock baby and put her down again, and by the time I finish that, yeah, you guessed it, I'm sure Cody will be awake. And making new messes.

"Score-board!" the kitchen yells. I'm too beaten to even sigh. Fine, kitchen. I give in. I know when I'm licked. You win.

"Here's Why I Think You Don't Know Anything."

Yeah, lest you think I'm exaggerating or being facetious, that's exactly what he said. I love conversations with my 5 year old that begin that way. "Here is my well reasoned argument for why I believe that you don't know anything." He ticked his reasons off on his fingers as follows:

Reason 1: "You don't know how to yo-yo." (Ok, true story. I don't know how to yo-yo. Wasn't an important part of my childhood.)

Reason 2: "You don't know how to hula hoop." (Ok, fine. So I don't know how to hula hoop. So sue me.)

Reason 3: "You don't even know how to make cereal." (He said this after we ran out of his favorite kind of cereal. Not that we don't have other cereal in our house, which, frankly, I would like to be congratulated for, because that, in and of itself, is an accomplishment for me. But no, strangely enough, I don't know how to produce, process and manufacture cereal in my own house.)

And that is why my five year old has labeled me a complete dunce. A failure. The village idiot.


Good thing he hasn't discovered that I can't roller skate either. I'd be doomed.

Biggest Fans

What do you call people who are willing to leave the comforts of air conditioning for an hour in 100 degree heat to cheer for a T-Ball game? Biggest fans, indeed. Here are Nathan's biggest fans.


Daddy and Leah. And Cody, of course.



Before I pulled out the camera, Cody was all about the cheering, "Bat the ball, Nasan!" And, "Good job, Nasan!" And, "Yay, Nasan!" Would he do it for the camera? Not so much. But did you hear what Cody said at the end of that video? "I want to see a picture of Cody!" Uh, yeah. I guess he's also his own biggest fan. :)

Remember When?

Nate to Mom:


"Remember when Jesus rang our doorbell?"


...



...



...


"Jesus, like... Jesus?"


"Yeah, last summer. In our old apartment. He brought his beach stuff. He had all the beach stuff. Remember?"


...


...


...


"Ummmmmm, no. Oddly enough, I don't remember that."

"Yeah. I hope he comes again this year. And brings his beach stuff again."






"Uhhhh, me too, son. Me too."

This Is The Night We've Waited For

Every Monday night, we get together as a family to study the scriptures, teach values that are important to us and play together. This song is how it begins every single time.



Happy Family Night, everyone!

Lottery Winner = Me.

I've won the lottery so many times. Specifically, though, today I'm thinking of all the fabulous fathers I've gotten *lucky* enough to have in my life. Let's talk about it.

Let's start with The Donald. One time when I won the lottery, my mom married Don. After my dad passed away and my mom started dating, I was a little freaked. I mean, okay, it's weird enough to have your mom "dating," but then, the fellas she was dating? A little fruity, if you ask me. (And no one did ask me, but that's what I thought.) So finally, I told her, "Look, I don't care who you marry, all I ask is that he not be a sex offender who's going to offend on my kids." No, literally that's what I said. Well, we got SO much more when she married The Donald. (Though, to be sure, I checked his name out in the Washington State Sex Offender Registry when they started dating-what? I used to work with sex offenders-so call me a little paranoid if you must.) But The Donald is great. He is SO nice. So nice. He's easy going and easy to get along with. He's gentle and mild-don't let the following picture of him choking out a baby alligator fool you. He's incredibly generous with both his time and his means. He's a wonderful spiritual patriarch in his home and has raised an amazing family that we get to be associated with. He is the definition of meek and kind. (Again, ignore the visual evidence to the contrary below.) He'd be amazing even if my expectations hadn't been so low to begin with!

And, far from being a sex offender, he's been a great Grandpa Don to my kids.

Thanks, Don.

(PS-I'm lame. I mean, I think we all know that, but here's the most recent example of how I'm lame. Nathan made Father's Day cards for the grandpas. Did I manage to get them sent off in time? Noooooooooo. So, I told him we'd put them up on the blog. Poor subsititue, I know, but it's the best you can do when dealing with lameness such as mine. So, in this one, Nathan has drawn Grandpa Don, Grandma Meyers, then Nathan, Leah (in the lovely dress), Cody and a store.)

Another time I won the lottery when I married into the Weed family. Yeah. And there was fierce competition for one of the three slots that I nabbed. Why? Because Weed Boys are good. Weed Boys are faithful, conscientious and kind. Weed Boys are responsible and reliable. They're smart and good lookin'. They are good husbands and fathers. And where did they learn all of these great qualities? They absolutely learned them from their dad, Steve. Steve is the epitome of all of those things. Steve is a rock of a man. He's steady and real. He's loving and exceedingly hard working. And at the same time, he manages to be a fun-loving fella, who you might catch playing ridiculous games for hours on end with my kids or laughing at 3 Amigos or Nacho Libre. He showed Ryan the example for how to be the committed, faithful, BYU-lovin' guy that he is. He's so great that he used to be intimidating. I mean, really, how do you cozy up to a guy who's got it all figured out and who's so dang near perfect on every end of the scale? I don't know. Eventually, you just do, I guess, and then you're lucky enough to have this guy-not only as a father in law-but as a friend.



(I know. You are now no longer wondering how I have managed to produce such stinking beautiful babies. Because these are good. looking. people.)

Thanks, Steve.
(By way of interpretation-here we have the sun, then Nathan, then a very long necked (better than being stiff necked) Grandpa Weed, then Leah, Cody, a flower and our old apartment.)

And then, dear blog world, meet my dad. I way won the lottery when I was born as his daughter. No girl ever had a funkier, cooler, more fun and loving dad than I did. He was my absolute hero. He was completely non judgemental of anybody, which made him a favorite with everybody.
I just typed out a paragraph where I listed a bunch of his qualities and things that he loved, but as I re-read it, it sounded flat. So I deleted it. I can't explain all the things I love and loved about him, but he is what I want to be when I grow up.


One of my great sadnesses is that my kids don't get to know my dad here on this earth. He died when Nathan was 9 months old, so these are some of the only (treasured) pictures I have with him and Nathan.

I love this picture. This actually captures quite a bit about my dad in its simplicity.

Please note the matching pair of left cheek dimples.

Thanks for everything, Dad.

And now, on to the biggest pay-out of lottery wins in my life-Ryan. Yeah, I knew what an amazing guy he was when I married him. I knew that. But I couldn't have known what an absolutely, utterly amazing father he would be. He is the best, most interactive, most loving, most involved, most capable and competent Daddy I have ever seen. He can do everything I can do as a mom, but usually he does it better. I wish I was joking. Seriously, if our kids have a prayer or turning out nice and normal and healthy and well adjusted (geddit???!?), it's because of him. We are so lucky to have him as the Daddy in our house.

We love you, Daddy. Thank you for everything!
(And Nathan labeled this one himself for you.)

Happy Father's Day, all!

Perfect

Soul Sister

Frida Kahlo is my soul sister. Not our shared Mexican heritage, nor the fact that we both feel like we have a few monkeys on our back (except, I think that hers may be figurative monkeys and mine are literal monkeys named Nathan, Cody and Leah, but whatever). No no, none of that. We're soul sisters now because of our eyebrows. Yeah. I cannot manage to pluck anymore. No time, someone starts crying and then I forget to look at myself carefully before exiting the bathroom. (Somehow the majority of child-related dilemmas occur while I'm sequestered-or, trying to be sequestered-in the bathroom.) Well, today I took the time to look. Yikes. I bolted myself in the bathroom and I refused all requests until I had plucked and plucked. And I mean all requests. You need a drink? Too bad. You're stinky? Who isn't? You're fighting? Just don't kill each other. You're crying? I'll help you when I'm done plucking. This was a serious plucking emergency. And I knew that if I exited that bathroom before the job was done, it wouldn't be completed for another week or so, at which time, my eyebrows might have overgrown my actual eyes, which would make it fairly difficult to see in order to pluck. So I stayed locked in and finished the job. (PS-does everyone else sneeze when they pluck? Or am I just weirdly wired?)

But then I found this picture of my soul sister below. She's kind of workin' it. So I'm thinking maybe it's not so bad if I don't get around to plucking... I just have to learn how to work the uni.

My Friendship Can Be Bought

Yep. Any of these little items will do the trick. We'll be BFFs for life. (I'll go ahead and put a link below the picture to make it easier for you.) (But beware-if you actually click on any of those links and go etsying, you may lose your mind...)

Look at these! JUST LOOK HOW SWEET!

Um? Are you kidding me?

What.EVER! That is DEVASTATING!

Look me in the eye. LOOK ME IN THE EYE and tell me you don't love these.

Have you perished yet?

Oh ow. Ow. Ow. I like this so much it hurts.



This is the reason people want to have baby girls. These little clips. I don't know how much longer I can stand it. Seriously. These clips are haunting me in my sleep. "Can't... hold... on... much... longer!" (A point to anyone who can name that PBS show.)(And another couple of points to anyone who actually does purchase one of these clips for me. :)

Asleep on the Job

Nathan loves to help. Loves loves loves to help. One of his favorite things to help with is feeding the baby (one of the joys of bottle feeding-other humans can do it!) He coos and sings to her while he does it-he's really quite maternal. Today, his cooing slowed... and then I heard snoring. "Wow! Not only did he feed her, but he put her to sleep...!" Um, nope. Someone fell asleep on the job.

But sweet Baby Leah didn't seem to mind.

PS-This extreme tiredness might be due to the fact that he and Cody came into our room 5 times last night! 5 times to tell on each other... "Cody talked." "Nathan talked." "Cody tried to climb into my bed." "I need a dwink!" All kinds of stuff. We are fairly sure that neither one of them got one single wink between the hours of 3 and 5. And those are important hours! (For both parents and kids.) To be fair, most of it was Cody's fault. Baby Leah has taken her rightful bed (I'll post more on that later), and Cody has been bumped to the other bed in Nathan's room. And he is certainly tasting the sweetness of his freedom. Half the time, we go past the door to find that Cody has turned on the light and when we open the door, we find him guiltily standing next to a soundly sleeping Nathan, trying to poke and tickle him. (We are so lucky that Nathan is a sound sleeper, otherwise our experience last night might very well be every night.)
Any tips? What happened when you moved your little guy into a big guy bed? Lots of parents have kids that are 2 years apart-how do you do it? When Cody bumped Nathan out of the crib, Nate was a full year older than Cody is now. Plus, being inherently mature, he could handle it. But we're kind of at a loss as to what to do with our (aforementioned) mischevious Cody fella. Help...?

Button, Button

Today, Cody started picking his nose. Like really picking his nose. I was feeding the baby, and didn't exactly have a hand free to be swatting at him (and he was out of reach for me to kick him. Hey. I do what I have to do. Kicking kids, whatever.) Anyway, so I'm trying to talk him out of picking his nose, "Cody, stop! Cody, quit! Cody, get your fingers out of your nose!!" No avail. Short of cutting off the feed, putting baby down, chasing Cody and forcibly removing his fingers from his nose, I was not going to get him to stop. So I watched in disgust and frustration as he removed a HUGE... button? Yup, button. Don't ask me how, but he had a button up his nose.

I hope this child makes it to age 3.

He's lucky he's cute.

You can see it in his eyes, can't you? You know what I'm talking about. That little gleam. That gleam that says, "I'm two and I am going to get into SO much trouble, make SO many messes, cause SO many problems and there's not a dang thing you can do about it because I'm So Cute."

Oh, why? You ask. What could a roundy little sparkly eyed dough ball like that possibly do that is so wrong?

Well, let's back the train up a bit. Let's back it up to early March, when, after having the exact same pair of contacts and glasses for 7 years, I finally decided I really truly needed to be able to see stuff. I know. Seeing stuff! Kind of amazing! Yup, it was worth spending the money on. So, after 3 different visits with various optometrists, we finally got my prescription right. (Oh, have I ever mentioned that I wear hard contacts? Yeah, so it's different than just the general soft contact procedure.) So I finally received these optical devices a few weeks after Leah was born. I proceeded to enjoy the gift of sight for a few more weeks.

And then, this:


Boy, you sure keep your contact case dirty!

It's finger paint.

Now why would you keep your contacts in finger paint?

Now you're just being funny. Look closely... what's missing from that picture?

Huh, the water's murky, but I don't think I'm seeing a contact.

Nope, you're sure not. Flip the lid and what do we find?


A finger print. A guilty 2 year old fingerprint. Oh yeah, my contact that I waited many years to replace is now washed irretrievably down the drain (yes, we unscrewed the pipes, pulled out all the plumbing-no contact). The contact that I used for one month-gone. Now, why couldn't he have done this with my old contacts? Then I would have had an excuse to get new ones. But no, I just got new ones and now I have to go buy another pair! I think it's quite possible that I got blessed with my fabulous Old Navy coupon so that I wouldn't be tempted to sell my offspring to pay for all of his misdeeds.

Remember this little fiasco? Click on this cartoon to enlarge it. I think that says it all.


Then, I was loading up my personal family circus to go on a trip. "Boys, go get in the van and get buckled in your seats while I get baby Leah."
When I get out to the van 2 seconds later, where is Cody? In the driver's seat. Naturally. So I shoo him back to his seat where I asked him to be in the first place, buckle him in, buckle Leah in, start the car... and what to my wondering eyes should appear? No turn signal, no air conditioning, no radio display, no window or lock control. The car starts, but he has somehow managed to disable every other system in the car. How? Who knows. Luckily, we managed to fix that one on our own.


Then a little bit later, Cody got into a big mess that I had asked him not to get into. It was all over his face and hands, hair and clothes. When I discovered him, I said,
"What am I going to do with you?"
With a happy little grin, he replied, "Take me to the bathtub?"
With a not so happy grimace, I answered, "And should I spank your bottom on the way?"
He seriously considered it for a moment and then responded, "Ummmmmm, no thank you! But thank you for asking!"

Yeah. He's lucky he's cute.

Try Something New Every Day...

Isn't that what they say? You should try something new everyday? Well, over the past day, I've way overdone my quota thanks to the stormy weather.

Go out to grocery shop in the middle of a hu-monstrous storm? Check. (Ok, I didn't so much do that on purpose. I just am not in the habit of checking the weather before I leave the house. I suppose that after 3 years here, I ought to be, but I'm not. Where I'm from, yeah, so what, it rains. Big deal. You get a little wet. You dry. Here? The rain is like big gobs of yogurt. And thunder storms? Something we don't really deal with in the Northwest. Anyway.)

Decide not to go into Tom Thumb when I see the power go out and the entire grocery store go dark. So I sat in the parking lot for a second, trying to weigh my options-race through the pelting, blinding rain and wind, illuminated with lightning to the powerless store or stay dry in my car in the parking lot, but risk getting flash flooded or blown away or crushed by a falling tree? Huh. Never had to consider that before. Check.

Watch a huge tree crack and fall on a car about 3 down the row from me. Feel bad for the guy, but feel even better that I didn't happen to park under that tree. Check.

Call Ryan and sit there paralyzed for a few minutes while the storm whips around me. Check.

Watch the cart holder thingie (where, if you're a responsible citizen, you place your cart at the end of your shopping trip) flip and flop and bounce in the wind. Check.

Eventually get home and give baby a bath by candlelight. Check. (Ok, Ryan actually did that, but it was a new experience to add to this checklist.)

Let's move on to the next morning-decide to head out to the YMCA (not the first time for that, you smart alecs) and drive around upturned playgrounds and downed trees on a number of streets. Check.

Work out without power. Check. (Actually kind of fun because there weren't very many people there and it was nice and quiet. If you can get by without air conditioning-well, you went there to sweat anyway, right?-then it was quite pleasant.)

Decide to pop back into Tom Thumb to complete that elusive shopping trip. I got there only to discover no power, but at least they're open. So I piled 3 kids into a dark store and browsed the aisles by the light of my cell phone. Check. (Again, kind of cool-the store was lit at the front, absolutely pitch black at the back-like, where the refrigerated stuff should be. And the aisles were gradually darker as you went further back. As another added bonus, the mood lighting was not what my boys were expecting, so they were silent-possibly even scared?-which made for a very enjoyable trip. Also, not very many people in the store. Like, 5 customers and 20 or so employees. Eventually, instead of using the light of my cell, they sent an employee with a big flashlight to escort me through the aisles. A personal shopper! Who knew where everything in the store was located! Awesome!)



I mean, other than the obvious danger of 1,600 lightning strikes in an hour, flash floods, trees breaking, crashing and toppling, and stuff blowing away in 60 mph winds, this has been great! Let's do this more often!

Oh no.

It couldn't be. It just couldn't be.

A girl. A girl called Nathan on the phone today.

He was thrilled. TH-rilled.

They discussed their cars, their siblings, Scooby Doo, pets, and she asked him if he could come play at her pool... okay... and then... she asked him if he could sleep over? Uh? What? He's 5! Plus, you're a girl! He's a boy! Have you no shame, you 5 year old hussy?

When they got off the phone, he started dancing around and saying, "That was so exciting!"

Oh why? Oh how can this be?

It's the dimple, isn't it? A complete lady killer.

I thought he was still supposed to be mine until he's like 12 or 13... 14 if I'm lucky...15 or 16 if I lock him away...

Summer Learning List

Now that school is out, I thought I'd make Nathan a summer learning list, based on the things I've heard him say lately.

Nathan needs to learn the reality of economics.
"I want to make a dollar machine. One that will make dollars. Or when you put in one dollar, it will come out two."

Nathan needs to learn a little more vocab. Like, the meaning of the phrase, "conked out."
To a wide awake baby: "Are you conked out? Are you conked out?" Then, "Mom, I think this baby is conked out."

Nathan needs to learn a bit about context.
To a baby quietly playing on the floor, "2 ounces? 2 ounces? Is that all you can drink? Just 2 ounces?"

Nathan needs to learn more about emotions.
To a quietly cooing baby: "Are you terrified? Are you terrified?"

Nathan needs to learn what constitutes good manners.
To a weeping Cody who has just been wounded, "Cody, stop crying. That is a rude thing."

Nathan needs to learn that you can't use computer buttons in real life.
To a mom who isn't doing what he wants, "I'm going to cancel you!"

Precursor To A Laugh

She so wants to laugh and she's almost there. She's just got to figure out how to turn that sound into an actual laugh. And, of course, Daddy is the best at getting her "laughing." She smiles at me a lot, but is always trying to laugh at him. Isn't that always the way? :)


(Please ignore the crying child in the background. We did.)

The Triumph

Alright, are you ready-are you EVEN READY-for the conclusion to my triumph of Sunday evening? No, I submit that you probably are not, so sit down, buckle up and revel with me. I'll just tell you straight up, I AM A GEEK. And I'm okay with it. And you must be pretty okay with it too, otherwise you wouldn't be here. Ok, so here it is:



What? WHAT? Are you telling me you don't know what that is???

THAT, my friend, is possibly THE MOST COVETED piece of paper on the PLANET. At least, in couponing circles. Yes. Couponing. "When 'coupon' becomes a verb." (My own personal catch phrase.) 'Coupon' has become a verb in my household. And, I mean, hello, we make NO MONEY, so couponing is a relatively useful hobby to have right now, but I get so excited about a great deal that I think it is quite possible that I might still have this hobby even if we did have gobs of money. (I keep telling Ryan that someday he'll appreciate my love of a fabulous deal, because that just means that I'll be spending less of the money he'll be earning. But right now, he gives me a semi-eye roll and says, "Small victories." THIS one, however, is WAY better than a small victory. It's a major victory. Even he was excited about it.)

What sort of small victories? Well, I have thus far avoided posting them on the blog. Not because I mind when other people do it-in fact, I quite like it-but I just haven't felt the need yet. (Obviously now I am feeling the need. :) Well, my small victories have included... let's see, paying 9 cents for an 8 ounce bottle of Purell hand sanitizer... paying 12 cents for the deodorant that Ryan likes... getting paid $3 to take home 6 bottles of barbecue sauce... getting paid 50 cents to take home Country Time lemonade and getting paid $3 to take home 6 of my preferred brand of deodorant. Just to name a few. Yes, I know. You can't believe that Ryan gives me the "small victories" speech after those things, can you? Me neither. He's crazy. And I'm crazy too. I admit it. I am completely high after finding my little deals.

Now on to the deal at hand. Well. Old Navy has been doing this weekly coupon hunt. Once a week, they put out a page that has coupons hidden on it and you have to click around until you find one. Sometimes they are super tricky to find... like, you have to pet the dog 10 times until a coconut falls from a tree, then you have to catch the coconut before it bounces out of the frame-which is hard to do. Yeah. Tricky weird things. Like, take the sand pail out of the kid's hand, dunk it in the water and pour it over the modelquins wearing goggles. (You don't know what 'modelquins' are? I've included a picture.) Weird bizarre stuff. And people are rabid for these coupons. They stay up ALL night waiting for them. Like, usually they are up at midnight on a given night, so people wait up. One night, the coupons didn't come up until 4:30 am, and people waited up for it. It's insane! Thus far, my participation has just been that I'll pop in on the day that it's supposed to refresh and see what I can find. Once I found a 30% off my entire purchase. I was pleased with this find... but it wasn't the granddaddy of all Old Navy coupon finds. That distinction belongs to the $75 off of $100 purchase coupon. That's right. You heard me.

So. The coupon was loading last Sunday, but no one knew when. As I walked by my computer at various times during the day, I'd reload the page. Just to check. Nada. But I was pretty okay with that, since your chances are so slim anyway. So, right before we were headed to bed, Ryan randomly clicked on the site and VIOLA! It was up! Awesome! So I started clicking around, trying to find a coupon. Ryan said, "Hey, see the palm tree? It's moving..." So I clicked on it and OUT flew a parrot! Having had experience trying to catch that bouncing coconut, I tried to click on him and catch him, and I DID IT! Not only were my fine motor skills fine enough to CATCH that little devil, but I HAPPENED to be able to do it in the 5 (or less) minute window that the coupon was available. Yeah, the 75 off 100 goes like LIGHTNING. Every crazy coupon woman in the entire NATION was after that thing! So once the site goes live, it's mad chaos. And I got one. Not only did Ryan HAPPEN to catch the site right as it uploaded coupons, but then we HAPPENED to find that particular coupon, and then I HAPPENED to be able to catch the thing and and I HAPPENED to be able to get it before they were all taken. Unbelievable. (Here, you wanna try? Click this link -no, seriously, click it-and see what coupons YOU find-and I've obviously already told you where the biggie was-so click on the palm tree and see how successful YOU are at catching that darn parrot! After you do, maybe you'll more fully appreciate the miraculousness of this event.) (Want a 10% off coupon for yourself? Take the black and white tube top dress and put it on the blond modelquin. 10 % off is no 75 bucks off, but if you were headed there anyway. Oh, and that one will expire on the 6th. Got to check back in on Sunday to get next week's coupons. Anyway...)

You know, there are times when I just think, "Man, Heavenly Father must like me better than a lot of people." Not you, necessarily. I mean, I'm sure He likes you pretty well also, but sometimes I think I might be a special favorite. This is one of those times.

So, you wanna see the haul? Here it is.

That would be:

6 pairs of pants/shorts...

6 shirts/sweaters...

4 dresses (complete with little bloomers)...

1 fleece hoodie with matching cap, and one pair of sneaks.

Regular retail price for my haul?


$292.82



I paid?


Wait for it.........


$33.08

Great big huge contented sigh.

So there it is. Now you won't be surprised when you see that Leah's entire wardrobe until she's 7 is comprised of Old Navy finds! :)

"I have a funny joke"

That's how it always starts. And it's a good thing that it starts that way because otherwise, I might not know that it's supposed to be funny. Oh yes, the knock knock joke has hit our house like a plague.

Nathan: "I have a funny joke"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
(whatever he's looking at) "Car."
"Car who?"
"Car flower sign!"
"ha ha. tee hee."


Cody: "I have a funny joke"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Duck."
"Duck who?"
"Duck quack!"
"he he. tee hee hee."

Nathan: "I have a funny joke"
"Knock, knock"
"Who's there?"
"House."
"House who?"
"House beezlenut oil!"
"ha. he. ha."

Cody: "I have a funny joke"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Duck."
"Duck who?"
"Duck quack!"
"he he. ha ha."

Nathan: "I have a funny joke"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Book binkie."
"Book tree who?"
"Book binkie zipper!"
"oh. ha. ha."

Cody: "I have a funny joke"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Donkey." (this is his only variation.)
"Donkey who?"
"Donkey horse!"
"ha. he. ha ha." ............... (losing.......... the will ..............to survive........... gasp...... gasp...........)



Are you laughing yet? If not, stick around for a few more seconds. When these two get started, they don't stop. Ever. And sadly, it only takes a few seconds to get a "Knock, knock" joke out, so you can squeeze like... 25 of 'em into a minute. Now there's a good time. Who invented "Knock, knock" jokes anyway? I wish they hadn't done that. The knock knock joke is the most painful joke because it requires your unwilling input 3 times (the third, of course, being the requisite forced laugh.) Eventually, when I can't stand the hilarity any longer, I turn them on each other. "Why don't you tell each other your funny jokes?"

My two little comedians.
Good thing they can laugh at each other.

The End of the Beginning

Nathan's last day of Pre-K today. The end of the beginning of his school career. Wow. He has so far to go, poor kid.

But he loves it, of course. It's right up his alley. So, to commemorate this occasion, I interviewed him about his school experience.




I don't know if you can tell in the video (or if you even bothered to watch it-I understand if you didn't. It is kind of long), but he was a little tender when he got home. I asked him if he was sad and he said he didn't want to talk about it.
"Oh, why not?"
"It's just... it's just... too big a hassle!" he says through thinly veiled tears. Poor cute kid. Eventually, he said he was sad about his friends and that he would miss them. Awwwww.
I'll miss his school, too. They feed him lunch, you know. Sure, it's at 10:30, but that's one more attempt (that I don't have to make) at getting calories into the child's body. (Yes. Are you aware that 3 out of the 5 people in my family can't be bothered to keep themselves alive by consuming food? That places quite a bit of responsibility on me, because if I stop feeding them, Ryan, Nathan and Leah will all just waste away. True.)
I'll miss watching him build relationships with his little friends.
I'll miss the silly little songs he learned each week.
I'll miss helping him figure out what he's going to bring to school for his letter bag.
And I'll miss how cute and excited and proud he was when he came home to show me his work for the day. That really is special to me, because I know how quickly that excitement to show me what he's been doing will fade.


His first little report card. CUTE! Apparently they don't do checks, pluses and minuses any more, hm? What, too negative for fragile little egos? I don't know. But 1 means "not yet developed," 2 means "progressing," and 3 means "mastered."
And then someone sent him home with these pictures, which show him in Pre-K action.

Both of the above are "manipulatives," he tells me.

Centers-this one is apparently the "cooking center."

Must have been during Texas week, right?

And on the playground.

Bye, bye Pre-K. We had a great time.