We had a guy here to fix our cable this afternoon. My son took one look at him and said, "You look like Santa!"

The unsuspecting man, who doesn't know my shockingly honest sweet child, replied, "Why? Is it because of my beard?"

My son answered, "No. It's your big, round belly".

Labels: Family Life, Kids, Shameless Statements

Labels: Kids, Pop Quiz

My son has been having some issues at preschool. Today, when I picked him up, I noticed the teacher trying to help him put on his jacket. He didn't see me standing in the hall, but I saw him take his coat from his teacher's hands, then throw it on the floor. When she tried to hand it to him a second time, he took the coat and threw it AT her.

Needless to say, he's being punished today. Unfortunately, the only punishment that does any good is to take away his favorite toys and TV shows. I say unfortunately, because when I take away those things, he doesn't know what to do with himself. He will inevitably follow me around the house turning everything I do, into something a five year old WANTS to do. If I change the toilet paper or empty the trash, he'll say, "I can do that".

If I load the dishwasher, "I can do that".

Fold the laundry, "I can do that".

You name it, he can do it. And, usually he can. But, for certain it will take a thousand times as long.

Please don't think I don't want to engage my son. I adore him. We play a lot of games and have been working on a big jigsaw puzzle together. We do speech therapy, work on fine motor skills, and I read to him.

Nor is he a TV junkie. At the most, he'll watch an hour of Little Einsteins each day. But that hour, that precious hour...it's GONE.

Once in awhile, Mom needs a break. Or, at least a chance to steal away and do some laundry without it becoming The Laundry Game. I would like to change the bedding, and leave out the part where I have to construct a fort out of the flat sheet.

Labels: Family Life, Kids

My daughter was reading a book and asked, "Mom, what does the word er mean? This character says it all the time."

I replied, "Well, it's not really a word, but it's used as a pause in conversation. Like, uh."

"Oh. So should I replace all the er's with uh's?"

"No, they mean the same thing."

"But, you said that er isn't a word?"

"Neither is uh."

Nothing like trying to explain the idiosyncrasies of the English language to your daughter, only to have her look at you like you're speaking Greek.

Labels: Kids, Shameless Statements

Don't ever... take the seeds out of a chipotle pepper, add the skin of the pepper to your pot of chili, then rub your eyes before you've had a chance to wash your hands.

Don't ever...feed your baby an ENTIRE jar of bananas for his first taste of baby food, unless you feel like cleaning up banana vomit. Maybe pick up a book and READ about what you're supposed to do and don't just say, "Wow. He really likes bananas", and keep feeding them to him until he explodes.

Don't ever...shovel your entire driveway without considering that maybe you need to wipe your nose. You may just find yourself looking up to see your neighbors, with a three-inch long glob of snot hanging out of your nostril.

Don't ever...tell your boss she'd have to be pretty stupid to pack her plane tickets in her suitcase, until you were sure she didn't already do that once.

Don't ever...claim to know the words to a 50-Cent song. Your cool, hip friend might just call you on it.

I don't own this last one. It belongs to a friend, but it would win the, "Learn from my mistakes" award, if there was such a thing.

Don't ever...report your car stolen, unless you can actually remember which level of the garage you parked on. You may have the police looking for it, and suddenly stumble across it a few days later. And, you might just have friends who will never let you forget it.

Labels: Ramblings

My eight year old daughter has been a crazy little writer lately. She has some 50 journals that she writes in constantly. Every day, every thing that happens to her gets put down in writing. I think she wants to grow up to be a blogger.

Since this is the week of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share something special from her. Here is a letter that my daughter wrote to God this morning.

Dear God,

Thank you so much for my wonderful family. Thanks for all my friends. Thanks for helping me live my life happily. Thank you for all my surroundings. Please help the sick heal. Please give the homeless people a home. Please give the hungry some food. Please help all the people in Iraq. Please help all the people in the book of intentions. Please let my family live a long healthy life. Help me be able to help people in need of my help. Please give me courage to help people at all times.

Love,

A

P.S. My Mom would like to thank you for letting the Buckeyes beat Michigan.

(Okay...she didn't really write a P.S. But, I would've told her to, had I known she was writing God a letter.)

Labels: Family Life, Kids

Labels: Ohio State Buckeyes

I often find myself telling stories to my kids about my childhood, which always end with the saying, "But, don't you ever do that." Looking back, I don't know how I made it to adulthood relatively unscathed.

Back in the day, we sure had a lot of fun. It seems to me, way more fun than our kids have these days. But, truth be known, I'm lucky to be alive.

There were the climbing races to the top of my neighbor's maple tree...a good two-and-a-half-stories high. The perilous jump between a 2nd story roof to a bedroom window, which had nothing below it but ground. And, the one time in early Spring when my cousin and I tried to stand on floating blocks of ice that were breaking apart on the river. We were holding onto a railing near a boat pier, but the freezing water was deep enough to go over our heads. Brilliant.

We climbed high upon the steel beams at a construction site, and rode all over town--without helmets--on the handlebars of each other's bikes. All while someone else was hitching a ride on the back of the "banana seat".

We swung across a ravine on the end of a warped vine, and spent afternoons walking across the moss-covered tops of low-level dams. We dove into a quarry, rode our bikes on very busy streets, and never wore seat belts.

But, my personal favorite has to be our creation of "storm forts", where we would sit outside with golf umbrellas fashioned into a stronghold against the wind and rain. I'm not sure where our parents were, as we sat there just asking for a bolt of lightening to hit us and our AM/FM radios.

I can not believe how downright stupid we were. Completely oblivious to the chances we were taking, and abundantly lucky that we weren't hurt beyond a few scratches and dents. So, I tell those tales to my children with caution...and I TRY not to make it sound like it was a TON of fun.

Labels: Family Life, Getting Old, Kids

My Mother-in-Law was here for a visit yesterday.

She was working on a crossword puzzle in the other room, when my daughter ran into the kitchen and asked me, "Mom, do you know an eight-letter word for 'Driving up the wall'? I told Grandma you would know, because you always say we're driving you up the wall."

Labels: Family Life, Kids, Shameless Statements

As my son was scraping a dismantled high-chair across the floor, I said, "Stop that! Dad told you not to do that. It's scratching the floor".

He stopped and looked at me for a second, then moved it forward a little.

I raised my voice and said, "Hey! Stop doing that! Didn't you hear me? Dad told you this morning not to do that anymore!"

He stopped again and said, "I CAN do it."

I said, "Uh...no, you can't. You're not allowed. Dad said so."

Then, with an irritated look and annoyance in his voice, he turned to me and said, "But Mom... Dad's at work".

Labels: Family Life, Kids, Shameless Statements

My five year old son went through a lot as an infant. He has a very rare heart defect, which the local cardiologists had only seen in a textbook. As you can imagine, they developed quite a fascination with my kid. He was constantly poked and prodded, and may as well have had an echocardiogram wand permanently affixed to his chest. At the same time, he had severe reflux, a kidney problem, and several other conditions which had him in and out of the hospital quite frequently.

During his tumultuous infancy, we noticed he had an aversion to being held or touched. It was (correctly) assumed by us, that he didn't like the feel of human hands because they mostly caused him pain and trauma. After most of his health issues were either stable or under medicinal-control, roundabout his first birthday, we realized it was time to do something about his sensory problems. At that time, he began 18 months of occupational therapy to get him where he needed to be. He had frequent appointments with a specialist to help him realize that touch can be soothing and comforting.

Only nothing is that simple with this boy of mine. He took to the therapy so well, that he went to the other end of the spectrum, and now he won't keep his hands off people. Mostly, he likes women's arms....and the older the skin, the better. It is not unusual to find him sticking his hand up the sleeve of any AARP-card-carrying, female he can find.

My Mother and my husband's Mother have both referred to this portion of their body as their "flab", which has caused me much grief. On more than one occasion, my son has rubbed someone's arm and uttered, "This is your flab", as I quickly looked for a rock to crawl under.

So, now we are trying to reach some kind of middle-ground. We are attempting to bring balance into the life of a kid who has dealt with a lot of extremes. We don't want him to stop touching the flab, we just don't want him to call it that.

Labels: Kids, Shameless Statements

Labels: Family Life, Kids

This morning the homepage on my computer had a survey asking who is the least-attractive, female star in Hollywood. I suppose the brilliant mind behind this survey took their lead from Maxim magazine's recent list, which has received quite a bit of publicity. Though, not the uproarious publicity it deserves. It seems there are actually sad, little, shallow-minded individuals who care about some sexist fool's "bottom-five".

I don't know who compiled the list for Maxim. I don't know if it was a man or a woman. I'm not giving their web-site the traffic to check it out. Either way, I'm guessing the guilty party has some female relatives. A sister, an aunt, a niece...a daughter. At the very least, they have a Mother who carried them and bore them. She probably didn't look too attractive squeezing their block-headed-numbskull out of her either.

In fairness, I can't just point the finger at Maxim or my cable company. There are lists like these all over the place. I have a daughter who isn't aware of them yet, and I wish I could shield her from the ignorance and emptiness of that portion of our society forever, but unfortunately I can't.

At this point, I can only hope that she will grow up to be well-adjusted and know that she is exquisite, no matter what anyone ever says. I want her to know that being humble equals refinement. That kindness equals beauty. And, above all...that people deserve respect.

Labels: Ramblings