"I would not interfere with any creed of yours,or want to appear that I have all the cures.There is so much to know... So many things are true...The way my feet must go may not be best for you.And so, I give this spark of what is light to me,to guide you through the dark, but not tell you what to see." -Author Unknown
The kids got some money from their Grandma recently and Grace (4) spent her money in the store of Emilee (16) & Meagan (13). Emilee & Meagan tend to set aside some trinkets and things they know the little kids will like and when the little kids get any money, the older girls will sell things to them.
I used to get so annoyed that they were taking advantage of the little ones. I recently came to my senses, though. If they’re happy with their purchase, what business is it of mine? As they get older they will understand the value of their money without my mistrust, and they will demand better “deals” and make smarter purchasing decisions. Or not. Either way, what business is it of mine to interfere?
Today Grace bought a little wooden box from Emilee. She wants to get a pet mouse to live in it. One of the first things she had to do , though, was to paint the box. She asked me if she could paint it and I really didn’t give it much thought,except to say “please clean up the paint when you’re done.” When she was done, it took me less than 5 minutes to wipe up the paint and make sure the lids were on tight.
She’s also what some might call a picky eater. Her eating schedule is just a little bit different than everyone else in our house. So she never seems to be hungry when we’re eating- she uses that time to make all kinds of art. Because of this, I save her a plate for when she’s hungry, otherwise she’d eat nothing but jelly sandwiches all day.
Grace is 4 and she loves Microsoft paint on the computer. She creates these little drawings and each has a name and a story. Sometimes it takes her a while to think of a name and when she does, they’re very very cute. Files we saved today were called “Sparkling love for Maddy,” “Colored mommy surprise,” and “Pancake man with a big happy smile.”
Today when I was cutting the crust from Grace’s sandwich, I realized that I’ve come a long way. I never cut off crusts for my older kids. I used to shy away from the idea that kids’ preferences mattered. It’s accepted, in our culture, to dismiss the wishes of children by placing ourselves upon a pedestal.
I grew up so often hearing things like “Yeah right, like I’m going to cut the crust off your sandwich? Do I look like a slave? When I was your age, we had to eat the crust or we’d starve. Cut off your own crust. Or better yet, learn to like the crust, otherwise I’m not making you sandwiches anymore.” Imagine how that would feel, though. Imagine if you were in a restaurant and the cook came out of the kitchen to tel you that. You’d be a bit offended. You certainly wouldn’t choose to dine there again, at least I wouldn’t.
I have to give a product recommendation here. We go through jelly because we have 6 kids, y’know. Plus, I like jelly, too. But we gave up on Smuckers and even generic brands because they all had high fructose corn syrup in them. I could find teeny jars of sugar-only or no-sweetener-added or (God forbid) artificially sweetened (which I never once did buy) but this Danish Farms makes the most delicious strawberry preserves. Basically, it’s nothing but the chunks. It comes in a little blue bucket.
With this stuff, you don’t make a sandwich, bite several bites and every now & then say “mmm, I just got a strawberry.” These guys put ginormous whole berries in every bite. So you know that they’re not physically over-processed, they’re intact, recognizable. It’s the absolute most delicious thing. And it’s only $1 or $2 more than the big jars with hfcs in it. I think this summer we’ll try mashing fresh strawberries for sandwiches
So anyway, I’m downstairs in the kitchen with Evelyn. We’re cleaning up the dinner mess and she wants a little more rice. I’m putting the leftovers in a divided plate for a midnight snack or Grace’s dinner. She hadn’t eaten yet. I got everything cleaned up and Grace came in. She was hungry, so she sat up at the table with Evelyn eating a late-night dinner. The two shared a plate and had a very sweet conversation. “You getting dat bite?” “Its yummy?” “You want my chicken?” “You yike yours rice?” I kept the dishwater running really low so I could hear their sweet little voices.
When I put away the hot sauce, I noticed the awesome jelly in the fridge and was so excited about how delicious it looked that I pointed it out to both girls and offered them a jelly sandwich. I wanted a pb& j but they prefer their peanut butter by the spoon, not on bread with jelly. It’s one of their favorite meals. A few years ago, I would have said “No way. You’re not eating a jelly sandwich. That’s not a meal.”
They each wanted half a sandwich. Grace, I noticed, used to insist upon two breads. She saw me making two-bread sandwiches for the older girls and felt ripped-off for a while. I think she’s noticed though, that she can’t ever really eat a two-bread sandwich. I’m glad I never told her “No, you can’t eat that much.” When she first asked for two-bread sandwiches, she got annoyed with me for offering her a choice. So I stopped offering her a choice. I made absolutely no issue about the size sandwich she was asking for, it was a completely struggle-less transition. I learned to wait until she was done and add some peanut butter to the leftover half for myself. Or just get over it and throw it away. Often, she’d want it wrapped up for later, until she discovered that jelly sandwiches aren’t that yummy leftover.
She was experimenting with a different sandwich size and learned that it was too much for her. I never once said “Are you sure you can eat two” The only time I’d do that was if we were just about out of bread. She hates the crust, so I couldn’t even turn around the butt-end of the bread.
The girls enjoyed sharing a sandwich together, especially the tasty jelly chunks. I brought them milk in their favorite cups and Evelyn was the first to say “gankgoo mommy”
After they ate, Grace went upstairs to paint again while Evelyn wanted to drink some water. It took her a while to get the water bottle out of the case, it was the last one. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she stuck her arm in and out of it, pick it up & shook it, tried turning it over. She didn’t want help and I was cleaning anyway.
After she got the water bottle out, she danced a little dance of joy while I opened the lid and she took a few sips. She wanted me to put the lid on and take it off in between each sip. I only groaned a little bit. The sound of her voice and her happy little face when we’re communicating with each other is so very sweet and addictive. Dishes can wait.
After she takes her last sip (apparently she needed 4 of them) she sang and danced. She made up a little song on the spot about a ducky shhleepling (which means sleeping) I can’t even say it had a tune, but her voice was raised at a very high pitch and she stretched out certain random syllables of a few words. Every now and then she’d catch me looking at her and smiling and she’d blush a little and then sing louder.
After a while she stopped and said “Joo hear my song mommy? Joo hear me sing dat song mommy? I singed dddduuuuuucckkkkyyyyy song mommy. I singed ducky schleeeeepling, OK” Yes- I tell her. “I heard your little song about the ducky sleeping, that was cute. Did you have fun?”
It’s really cute when she says her name. “I Evie” or “I Evelyn” So today Meagan asked her “Who are you?” She got a sly look on her face and said “I Effalint” (which is actually elephant) I was surprised. “You don’t look like an elephant, you look like a little girl.” “No I just lying.” I was amused that she knew the word lying, we don’t use it much around here. I asked “You’re a lion?” “No, I lying. I sayed me EFFALINT.” She sure set me straight.
We’re interrupted. Gabriella comes in to tel us that Grace is so cute painting her little box upstairs.
Watching my kids learn has been the most fascinating aspect of not sending them to school. Partly, I’m sad for the children whose education isn’t self-driven, because the “love of learning” face that toddlers are known for grows more beautiful the older a child gets.
At 4, Grace is very helpful around the house. Recently, she wanted to help me fold laundry. She sat by my side, wadding things up into little blobs while I obsessively created perfect folded squares. She looked at her pile and said “Mommy, show me how you fold.” So I did, we started with long sleeve shirts and she mastered it after 2-3 of them. Madelyn (6) came in and Grace was beaming at her new “pile” of perfectly folded shirts.
At 6, Madelyn is enjoying writing notes. Of course it’s faster to speak out loud but she is enjoying writing notes. She’s been playing Farmville and Yoville and some other silly FaceBook games and she has friends who write her notes while she plays. She loves chatting online with her friends and has decided that she’d rather communicate with everyone in writing. I must have spelled “I love you” out loud for her a thousand times last week. She doesn’t want me to write it for her to copy, she just wants me to say the names of the letters, including spaces and punctuation, for her to transcribe. She runs into the room several times a day to ask “Mom, how do you spell “get your stinky feed off of my pillow or you can’t be on my bed anymore” or maybe “Please please please get out of the bathroom I need to pee.” If I don’t say “space” or comma” when it’s time, she gives me an odd look. If a word doesn’t look right to her, she says “Are you sure this is spelled right?” At the end of each note, she EXPECTS a period, a question mark or an exclamation mark.When I don’t tell her to write one, she asks “Is this a complete sentence?
The kids have set up a system of mailboxes at everyone’s door and spend all day long passing notes throughout the house. So they’re learning to write and read and use punctuation and capitalization through love, through the desire to communicate. At this point, I can’t even imagine another way anymore. Imagine being assigned “Write “I love you” fifty times today. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? It’s become increasingly ridiculous to me that kids are taught reading and writing OUTSIDE of the desire to communicate. THAT is what reading and writing are for. No wonder schools fail, when written communication is irrelevant.
At 12, Meagan spent many years as a victim of our aggressive work schedules. There just wasn’t much time or money to do the things she wanted to do. She always wanted to do Soccer but I could never find the sign-up information and Saturday 7am practices and games were NOT something we wanted to participate in. Actually- here, they practice like 3 days a week and play games on Saturdays at the crack of Dawn. So this year she decided she wants to take tapdancing. It works for us. We signed her up for a class for her age group and all of the girls in the class have been dancing since they were toddlers. The teacher showed them the dance really quickly. Meagan felt a bit lost, like she was in over her head. She set up the laptop in the kitchen and watched youtube to learn the beginner’s moves. She practiced tapping in the kitchen for hours and hours and hours. She didn’t even consider giving up. At class yesterday, she remembered the entire routine. She practices at home all the time. It’s noisy, but beautiful. She’s taking jazz, too and her smile is just phenomenal when she dances.
Learning is beautiful, when it’s rooted in love. Sometimes it’s my 6 yr old pleased to present us with personalized love notes or surprising us with notes she’s spelled on her own. Sometimes it’s my 4 yr old screaming at anyone who tries to fold a long-sleeve shirt because that’s her responsibility and sometimes it’s my 12 yr old tapdancing in the kitchen at 2am.
Or maybe kids who text are smarter. Either way, apparently we can all relax when it comes to teens who communicate with messages like this:
hey
hey
wat r u up to?
nada, u?
gr8 day 2day. pizza 4 brkfst
cool
yeah
u goin 2 the dance?
no
why
idk- ru?
yeah
why
idk looks like fun
ok- g2g, cul8r
bye
Apparently- all that was a stimulating mental experience, like a critical thinking exercise. Connie Varnhagen, a researcher, discovered that whether a teen texts or not has absolutely NO bearing upon their reading, writing or spelling abilities. Actually, a bunch of researchers are discovering that not only is it “not a bad thing” but it might actually be “a good thing” because in some ways, the texting teens were smarter.
I haven’t read the studies, I tried to get to the source of one and realized that this is a blog not a research paper, so I don’t really have to find the real source, I can just make stuff up speculate and that’s OK.
I don’t know if the study took into consideration that the teens who can afford to text all day possibly come from homes with higher incomes, who tend to score better anyway (except my teen perhaps)
I could speculate that schools make the written language REEALLYY boring, but humans have a deep primal need to communicate with one another, so teens text (when I was a teen, we passed notes) and because it’s more interesting than schoolwork it stimulates their brains more, and is pleasurable because of the interaction. The decoding of cryptic acronyms is like a word puzzle. Stumping a friend with an acronym they haven’t heard yet probably gives teens an ego boost, inspiring both parties to continue.
In the spirit of TV shows like Overhaulin’ and Pimp my Ride, these two artsy mamas have gone wacky with the spray paint and turned their kids’ faded old plastic yard cars into some seriously jammin rides. One kid claims that his even goes faster now.
Before
And After
Have I mentioned lately that I love Spray paint? It’s hereditary, I heard that for several years, my Grandma spray-painted everything Gold. I would SO do that. I’m not kidding.
Wow- can this have been the best day in our family’s life so far? We arrived at the loading dock for the ferry on time, since I misread the itinerary and didn’t realize that our crossing was figured into the time line. There’s nothing like thinking you’ll be driving for 2 hours and only ending up driving for an hour. Anyways, the hotel breakfast wasn’t much to speak of. I always realize what a picky eater I am at hotel breakfasts. Thank goodness it’s complimentary, and that my kids aren’t nearly as picky as I am. Give them some mini boxes of cereal, juice they can dispense themselves, individually wrapped tablespoons of cream cheese on cold bagels and my girls are in heaven. And coffee, with flavored creamers. Isn’t vacation fun? Crabby old me wants to wake up with PROTEIN- so I get a cold, hard-boiled egg. At least there’s that, though. Some places don’t even have that.
The ferry ride to the island was an adventure. Madelyn, always cautious, wanted to understand how all these heavy cars could possibly stay afloat. Gabriella was fascinated by the nesting birds at the dock- swooping down into the water to bring seaweed and small fish to their babies in the nests. We all wondered how the baby birds would be affected by nesting over water. (If their first flying lessons go awry, do they swim back to the pole and – then what?) We also wondered if Octopus Giganticus ate birds. We all got to play titanic, closing our eyes against the wind at the front of the boat, like flying.
Landing in Friday harbor was fun, it’s absolutely adorable. It’s so clean, there’s a fine of over $1000 for littering, which includes cigarette butts. The weather was perfect, and I mean P to the E to the R – you know what I mean, sunny but not too hot, slight breeze of fresh, clean ocean air with occasional whiffs of lavendar from the lavender farm store, absolutely beautiful.
Funny thing- we took a little stroll downtown, husband was hungry. They have a bunch of little shops and art galleries. We just kept walking past them. I was getting annoyed, so I said “Honey. maybe it’s a girl thing, but every time we walk past a store or gallery, we want to go inside. Some look less interesting than others, and we don’t have a schedule, but we can’t just keep walking past everything.” WHEW- he got it, and we all scattered into three different groups, to see the most recent place-that-was-calling-us-in. We LOVED the lavender store, but chose not to visit the farm. The homemade ice cream- well, after owning a gelato shop for several years, can I say I was totally NOT impressed with the homemade ice cream, but the man who owned the place was very nice. The art gallery was lovely- I’m not sure which one we went into, but my older girls learned of a shwimaanakku (spelling murder, sorry) legend, that they had to write down to look up, it involves a stone monument that they liked. We also saw a few souvenir shops, My oldest daughter spent her allowance on the coolest heart key chain thing, with beads- it’s called a “forever heart” I think and you can put different beads in it. I tried to convince her to get the “I love my mom” bead, but she insisted she’d rather have something red.
We got into the car and drove to the other side of the island for lunch. OMG- no mini marts, no corner stores, no nothing. It’s pristine and absolutely amazing, we were in heaven. We stopped our car in the middle of the forest to look at a very young deer, who just looked back at us while he chewed. I snapped a picture, but he’s kind of hard to see. The whole island is a preserve, no hunting. The deer wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of us.
On the other side of the island, in Roche Harbor, we ate lunch at the marina, tasting life on the “other side” of financial freedom. One day, when I grow up, I wanna sail the world in my Yacht. If you promise not to steal the name, I’ll tell you. It’s called “Nauta Yittle” And it’s bad ass, too. I’m sure I’ll post pictures when I buy it.
Unschooling at Roche Harbor
The kids were eager to show us the marine life that had built its home under the dock. Funny- I brought all these books about exploring tidepools, field guides to insects, trees, birds and wildlife. I tried getting the kids interested in the books on the way there “Here- check out all the cool stuff we’re going to see” and not a single one of them took a bite. After we laid on the dock watching these things, they had to look up the names, and make sure I was right about anenomes (whew- I read the books, OK) I don’t think we figured out the name of the “palm tree worms” yet.
Anyways, I have to get dressed & ready now for today’s adventure- Port Townsend. Here’s a picture of the 5 oldest girls, Gabriella just HAD to go down to the water’s edge “Mom- I NEED to turn rocks over and touch things.” Who can say no to that? When she emerged from underneath, a family, just stepping off of their yacht, was quite surprised to see this heathen child, filthy from some muck. We groaned “OMG Bubba- look at you” She was thrilled with whatever treasure she had in her hands (a giant clam, I think- alive) and the 20something young man in the crowd thought she was just the coolest kid ever, she loved it. We rinsed her feet off with the hose at a pristine little garden, Gabriella was proud when I asked for the hose. “We have a future scientist here, researching…. muck. Can I please use your hose?”
Future scientist explores roche harbor hands on
Anyways, I gotta go, I will have to write more in the car, it was an amazing day. Our family needed this, thank heaven for digital photography. I think the picture that captures the feeling of bliss the best may just be the one one I put first here- of seeing my kids & my husband lying on the dock, getting an up-close look at the sea life. Hmmm- later I’ll add the lighthouse pictures. What a perfect day.
Last weekend was a busy weekend on stage for the Russell girls. On the Friday before Mother’s Day, Emilee played Sleeping Beauty in a local production of Cinderella (Or how a guy named Pauly turned out to be a fairly good fairy godmother) She’s in the big pink froofy bridesmaid dress, centerstage. The show is interactive, and with an audience of children they tend to get, um, noisy. My hats off to the cast who was able to integrate the audience into the show, it was great, from what I saw. Evelyn was running circles trying to escape, she loves the playground, and the show was in an elementary school auditorium. She was running around like crazy.
I’m so glad she was able to participate in this production, she had so much fun. She actually pulled a few all-nighters and painted all of the backdrops for the set, too. I was proud of how she managed her time and made conscious, planned-out decisions about how to execute the task.
melody lane singers yakima
On the same exact day, Meagan was 3 hours away in Seattle. She was on the Melody lane Spring singing tour. They visited Safeco Field, saw a show at the Seattle Children’s Theatre, and did lots of other stuff. I’m sorry, all I really know is the drop off time, the pickup time and the shirts were bright gold. She performed- somewhere. She had fun. She took a thousand pictures.
On Mothers Day, Emilee sang at church. It was the Beatles Song “Maybe I’m amazed” but they changed some of the words around to include the word “mother.” Once again, Evelyn was being wild in the pews, so I missed a lot from the wiggling, but that’s OK I would have just cried anyways.
Weekends like this make me long for the city even more. The girls are so “in their element” on stage. Being that I didn’t witness Meagan’s show, I could be wrong. Meagan’s in her element whenever there are several giggling girls and a few cute boys around. Still, once we get to the coast, I know the girls will enjoy that there are more opportunities to perform there. Until then, we’ll continue working the local scene. See you at the show, I’ll be the one chasing the baby in the back.
Emilee and Meagan take ten thousand pictures of themselves and of each other all the time, but I thought I’d share these because they’re particularly fantastic. Somehow- the stormy weather, the outfit and makeup, with the black-and-white seemed to make each of these shots just beautiful. Meagan is modeling and Emilee is the photographer, I think they made a great team. My mom took a few to work and someone said “This one looks like the cover for a movie I’d want to see” which I thought was a cute compliment. I’d wanna see the movie, too:) I hope you enjoy the pictures.
Sisters competing to see which party-planner will make the cut. I guess in my mind it sounds like a reality show. I guess everything does, though. Strange for someone who doesn’t watch a lot of TV. I guess I can just relate way too much to the “life; edited” concept. Because my life this week has really been edited a lot. See, and you never would have known (except I haven’t been blogging- for me, that’s edited)
Anyways- so Madelyn turns six today. It’s a big day here. We’re having company here at Amityville for the first time EVER- yeah. We’ve got two different kinds of finger sandwiches going and some homemade chocolate covered buttercream eggs.
Two sisters made homemade birthday party invitations for the party (Gabriella won)
Two sisters designed pinatas (Meagan won because Gabriella didn’t know how to make a Pinata, but she watched Meagan and now she knows)
FOUR sisters worked their little buns off removing some crap the homeowners had left in the yard that I declared “No one will ever be allowed to have guests until that pile of crap is cleaned up”
FIVE sisters cut and looped together a bazillionty pieces of construction paper for streamers that now cover my living room like a canopy
Two sisters designed and painted a sandwich-board sign to go out on the curb because our house is kind of hard to find
Two sisters fought about what kind of cake to bake from scratch. The winner was the one who decided we’d get a boxed mix (that might have been me)
So it’s a princess birthday party and all the kids have to come in their princess dresses. We have little gift-bags for the guests. I couldn’t get special plates or napkins and the 3 little girls she invited happen to be daughters of some of my favorite ladies on the planet.
The fighting I’ve heard this week has been hilarious “If you don’t help me clean the bedroom then you are fired” and “You can’t fire me from party planning or I will rip up the dragon I made” (There’s a reason I didn’t mention the fire-breathing dragon, he’s a casualty of the royal army)
All-in-all, the teamwork and combined effort to create a complicated party has probably fueled Madelyn’s inner-diva but it’s been really cute to watch.
They have games planned- a teddy-bear walk (which is like a cake walk, but with stuffed animals because I can’t bake cupcakes in my toaster oven)
They made the pinata and decorated it on their own
The decorations, party hats, party bags and invitations were all construction paper- this party has taken DAYS to plan. And they didn’t ask for much help, I’m really impressed. So I don’t know how it will turn out, but I was hired to be a photographer. I hope I do a good job, I hear the boss is a real meanie. Or maybe it was doody-head. Either way, I better go. I have batteries to charge.
And before I go, I just wanna direct you to another Maddy, Madeline Spohr, who passed away yesterday at the age of 17mos. She was due to be born about a month after Evelyn, but ended up being born about a month BEFORE Evelyn. The family is taking donations for her burial, and giving the rest to March of Dimes. They help preemies.
I’m going to have to use that line one day with Gabriella.
When I was first married, my mom carried a ginormous dishwasher box up the stairs into my upstairs apartment and delivered every report card, stick figure drawing, notes from teachers and class pictures of my whole previous 19 years. In one box. In my apartment.
Deep inside that box was a lock of my baby hair, and all my baby teeth.
At the time, I asked myself “What on earth am I going to do with this?”
Well, last week, I put the baby teeth to good use. Gabriella entered a project in the homeschool support group’s project fair. She soaked teeth in various beverages in order to see how they were affected.
Unfortunately coffee was the worst.
My girls didn’t win any prizes at project fair. At least none of my girls misplaced an apostrophe in their display name. Meagan’s display was an analysis of kids websites. There was a cash prize that my kids didn’t know about. I think that if they did they might have been more interested in meeting the requirements (3-4 page written report, etc)
All in all, project fair was a good experience for the kids.
Gabriella has said several times that she wants to be a dentist when she grows up. When she was about a year old, I noticed that one of her teeth had a little hole in it. A cavity on a tooth that was only a few months old. As her molars began coming in, I noticed that they SUCKED.
When she was about 3 I took her into Creekside Dental to see about getting them filled. I was mortified when they said they’d have to put her under general anesthesia in order to fill them. They insisted that I’d have to leave the room while my baby was drugged out for dental work. They said it was because she was too little to understand. I knew better, we’d been discussing it for months because I knew she’d need work done. She was ready and excited.
I tried calling to make an appointment for standard filling, but they actually fired me as a client because I refused to allow them to knock her out.
You know me- I wrote them a nasty letter. What does it teach children when we say that the way to handle our problems is with drugs. And I found a new dentist. Dr Victoria Miller was like Gabriella’s superstar. She loved Dr Miller. She sat still for four appointments, eager to jump up in the chair and get her teeth filled, WIDE AWAKE.
I think kids are capable of way more than they get credit for and I’m glad we found Dr. Miller. Gabriella has wanted to be a dentist for a long time, so one day when she’s complaining about the rigors of dental school, i can say “DUDE- I gave you my baby teeth.”
I’m having a party and you’re invited. last year I participated in the 5 minutes for Mom Ultimate Blog party and this year, I’m doing it again. Only way better.
Because my husband conveniently missed his vasectomy appointment. So instead of playing games and fighting with him about it, I’m just doing it myself.
No- not the vasectomy, that would be horrible. I’m getting fixed on the 19th.
So to celebrate, my party theme for March 20-27th is NO MORE BABIES. I’ll dress up the blog here with a special new masthead image and prizes- every day I will be giving away FIVE prizes- themed prizes. All of the prizes will be either pregnancy and baby related. I applied for a program to give away sex toys because I thought that would be appropriate for my theme, too. Let’s hope I get approved.
To prepare for this party- you need to subscribe to my blog via email, so you can be notified as soon as I announce the giveaway.
Also- share the info with your pregnant friends, because surely they MUST want some of these really cool pregnancy things, that have yet to be announced. Have them subscribe.
and Finally- follow me on twitter because somehow the Twitter note goes out before the email does, I’m not sure why.
If you get a chance, head over to the 5 minutes for mom blog party during the week of May 20-27 because we’re giving away a bottle of our Good Stuff seasoning blend to one lucky winner.
Have you ever wanted to do something you’ve never done before, but in a really strong way, like you’re CRAVING it?
When I was pregnant with Meagan I had this absolute CRAVING to go bowling and play Bingo. I had never played Bingo in my whole life, but I simply HAD to go play Bingo. it was so weird, just walking into this ramshackle Bingo hall I’d driven past for years. It was full of old ladies, none of whom gave me a second look, walking in with my ginormous belly, asking them the rules. I didn’t win anything. I had to borrow a stamping-pen thing from the lady next to me (she must have had like 12 of them all laid out in different colors) and I only bought one card because… well, I didn’t know you could buy more than one. I played one game, and the craving was satisfied, I never had an urge to go back.
Bowling was a bit trickier. no one wants to go bowling with someone who is 8 months pregnant. I think people were afraid I’d hurt myself. So I went alone, again. Just me & the belly. I don’t even know what my score was. I had done it, and I stopped having this nagging feeling that I needed to do it.
People who believe in reincarnation would say that my baby’s soul had come to earth with a checklist of “things to do again.” I don’t know if I believe that, but if any of my kids were to pressure me into things I wouldn’t normally do, it would be Meagan.
I recently overheard a very religious woman saying that her firstborn sent her to church. “Before he was even born he was spreading Jesus’ love.” If I hadn’t had the bowling alley and Bingo experience, I would have thought this just another ranting of a lunatic. I’m not disputing that she’s a lunatic, who am I to make psychological analysis like that? I do think, though that we’re to learn from our kids just as much as they learn from us.
Which is why I am taking time off of writing (except for the sites I am obligated to write for) to work on altered books, fabric art, painting and crocheting. My kids are begging to get into the art supplies that have been packed up for months and my hands are CRAVING it. Not that I’m pregnant or anything. This thirsting and lust of patterns and colors and textures, though isn’t being soothed online. I need to make stuff. Pretty stuff. Maybe I’ll set up an etsy shop.
Oh man- I’m sure that I blog about Meagan more often than my other children. I’m not sure why. Oh yeah, it’s because she’s super cool and hilarious. Now, expect me, in the near future, to come up with some super cool and hilarious things about my other kids so they don’t get all jealous that I’m writing about her yet again. So.. here goes.
She wanted one of those teeny little dogs a few years ago but Dad was concerned that she wasn’t responsible enough, so in order to prove it to him, she started a dog-sitting business in order to simultaneously raise money to buy herself a little dog. She had a few clients. The one that’s kept her the busiest, however, is the mom of an adorable little yorkie and a shih tzu. Actually, the shih tzu died in a de-chicken-boning surgery a few months ago, but that’s not the point. Meagan has been dog-sitting for this lady for years and getting paid in scarves, costume jewelry, purses and other things girls like. And she was never upset or ungrateful, she loves the dog and the gifts really are fantastic. It hasn’t helped her save for her own dog but it has helped prove that she’s responsible. She’s taken them to the groomer’s, she walks them and cares for them. The very super cool moral of this story is that little Oliver, the Yorkie is a stud and his owner gets to choose whether she wants a puppy from the litter or cash and she’s choosing to get Meagan a puppy next time they breed him. Isn’t that sweet. How many 12 year old girls can say that they worked for years to reach a goal and will actually get a cool little doggy out of the deal? I’m proud of her. She wants to show it in 4H. I hope they potty train it.
And another funny thing about Meagan (because a second post might make me a bad mom)
She wants a Bat Mitzvah (Jewish coming of age ceremony.) I shouldn’t be surprised; the party planner that she is. She wants to learn Hebrew and read the Torah and fulfill all the requirements of a Bat Mitzvah. As soon as possible. She hasn’t settled on a theme yet, but she’s got a few ideas. She hasn’t settled on a location yet, but West Valley Nazarene is her first choice and she’s willing to overlook the fact that having a Bat Mitzvah at a church would be weird. She’s researched the requirements and there’s nothing in the rules against having it at a church.
She also wants a Quincenera. Nevermind the fact that we don’t have an ounce of hispanic blood in our veins. I went to Catholic school as a child, does that count?
I’m sure she’ll also want a sweet sixteen. I sure hope she’s just “getting it all out of her system” and that none of this really means she’s going to expect me to pay for some ginormous wedding when she grows up. I hope she marries a man who likes entertaining. I can tell you right now where our family get-togethers will be when I’m old.
So Meagan spent the weekend with a friend. Friend has a sister who is grown with kids of her own. A newlywed, but not for the first time. She’s known her husband for just a few months and they’ve been married for just a few weeks. Each brought kids into the marriage. At the wedding, the bridesmaids wore purple camouflage dresses. You know, so they’d blend in with the flowerbeds at the reception or something. I’m sure it was for their own protection. The groom wore a T-shirt that said “I hate my wife†so maybe the camo was to protect the girls from his redneck friends or something. Anyhow. So Meagan’s spending the weekend with her friend and they spend the night with this big sister. In the car, when the happy couple is on their way home with MY KID and her friend, they begin to talk about how they’re going to get drunk. My daughter starts to get a little nervous, but she thinks they’re kidding. They’re not. Not only do they get drunk, but redneck bride starts talking about masturbation tools and sex toys and vaginal itching and secretions (in a totally non-medical way) and dumb groom removes his socks and stinks up the room. Several times, this man threw the 6 week old kitten like a baseball out into the snow to see how fast it could run. Meagan is an animal rights activist, she’s freaking out in tears when she tells me this, so she’s like calling the ASPCA to report them and repeating all sorts of colorful language so I can explain what it means and all I can say is “OMG_ she said that?†Sleezy and slutty are our newest vocabulary words. Who says homeschoolers aren’t socialized? My poor sweet baby. Thank God I have children who are shocked and disgusted by all the right things. And I guess I need to start saving up for a wedding because she’s clearly NOT impressed by the redneck wedding concept.<
My Meagan donated some of her Christmas money last year to PETA. It was that commercial with the Sara McLaughlin song in the background. Dad & Vickie sent her and Emilee a $50 VISA card for a Christmas present, and she decided to use some of it as a donation. Ironically, I remember my Dad grumbling through the grocery store when I was a kid “A whole friggin’ aisle of goddamm dog food. They eat garbage. Goddamn kids starving in Africa and here we are with a whole goddamm tenth of the A&P dedicated to somebody’s frigging slobbery hairy mutt.” So here’s my daughter spending his gift money on a PETA donation. When he reads this he will vomit (Sorry, Daddy)
Anyhow- she ended up on a mailing list and every week she gets some dire message from PETA about animal experimentation and other atrocities. They always urge her to send letters to congressmen and things like that. Well, today she received yet another set of free address labels. What is it with free address labels? Anyhow- she wrote them a letter. I could describe it but I’ll just paste it here. If you can’t read it here I think you can just click on it to make it more readable. It’s cute. Enjoy.
Meagan planned a slumber party to earn a Girl Scout badge. They had to plan a restaurant, set the menu, the prices, and everything. There were nutritional requirements, the meals had to be balanced. They added a lot of creativity; I’m thinking I should scan the menu and post it. They looked up the words ‘bold girls” in French and named their restaurant whatever that ended up being. They did the cooking & preparing of foods, setup the house with 4 tables and when their families came to pick up the girls, they got to sit down & dine in my house. The girls took turns being waitresses, too. Here are pictures of the action
I think I posted here about how much my girls love stardoll. If you’re not familiar with these sites, then here’s a primer. Little girls like to play dress-up this is the modern version of paper dolls. It’s like virtual Barbies; only instead of cramming their sticky legs into the tight pants and trying to seal them in without ripping off the little velcro thing users simply drag and drop. There are hundreds of celebrities to choose from on stardoll, each with its own wardrobe featuring clothes they’ve been spotted wearing in real life and costumes from their movies / concerts, etc. These websites are free to join, and if your mommy and daddy really love you they’ll let you use their credit card to upgrade your membership giving you access to several exciting features, like extra rooms in your suite (yeah- you get to decorate your own little apartment, too. And you can have a little dog.)
My girls are periodically whining that I don’t love them enough because they’re not superstars.
To make up for it, they have opened several accounts and send themselves stardollars (yeah, you don’t just dress up celebrities, you have to buy the clothes for your own personal stardoll, too. You earn stardollars by dressing up the celebrities and visiting other users’ suites.)
One of Meagan’s accounts has the username and password of a popular kids TV show. I’m going to call it spongebob just because it’s random and not true at all. OK so username sponge-bob and password spongebob. See the hyphen there, that’s the key to HER identity.
Apparently some little girl’s mommy really loves her because she has a one-year superstar subscription that’s just about to expire but she hasn’t logged on in months. She has millions of stardollars accumulated. Her username is sponge_bob and her password is spongebob.
See what happened here. So Meagan is looking confused, and I’m right there asking “what’s up?” because I do monitor their time online until the dress up makes my head hurt. She realizes what happened, and debates internally whether or not she should send all the gal’s stardollars into her own account.
She makes a wise decision, and logs off. Logs back in as herself, and sends the girl an email saying something like “Hey dummy- your username and password shouldn’t be the same because I just hacked into your account and you should change it because if someone else figures it out they might take all your stuff or something.”
The day the gal’s account was set to expire, she logged on just once to see if the girl got the message. She didn’t, and all those privileges are about to disappear.
It was hard, and I didn’t even have to talk to her about it. WHEW- my baby made an honest decision of somewhat huge proportions, all by herself. I don’t even think she seriously considered it, she knew it was wrong and wouldn’t do it.
The scary thing is, I would have let her. Like an hour before it was set to expire. Why let it go to waste? It’s just star dollars for heaven’s sake. It’s not like it’s real or something. And the gal was warned, Clearly she’s not coming back.
from my “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” Pregnancy Journal 4-1-1996
Positive pregnancy test. I was afraid my first daughter “broke something” because she is 2 years and 5 months old and I have been expecting to get pregnant again for the past year. Last period was 2-1-96 and I’ve been sick since 3-29-96 I just keep peeing and fried greasy foods gross me out. It was an Albertson’s brand test, it turned pink instantly. I didn’t believe it, though so I went to the Women’s Clinic for their free test, it was ultrasound and she saw the amniotic sac right away.
From my Pregnancy Journal;
Your reaction: Finally, I’ve been trying for so long I thought I was going insane
Spouse’s Reaction Relieved, he thought (we thought) there was a problem. He’s very excited, though and very supportive.
Reactions of other children, if any E doesn’t quite understand.
Reactions of Grandparents No one believed us, it is April fool’s day
How you Celebrated celebrated? Don’t let me forget to do that
Initial Concerns I stand all day at work and I don’t want vericose veins
Sisters competing to see which party-planner will make the cut. I guess in my mind it sounds like a reality show. I guess everything does, though. Strange for someone who doesn’t watch a lot of TV. I guess I can just relate way too much to the “life; edited” concept. Because my life this week has really been edited a lot. See, and you never would have known (except I haven’t been blogging- for me, that’s edited)
I’m going to have to use that line one day with Gabriella. 
I’m having a party and you’re invited. last year I participated in the 5 minutes for Mom Ultimate Blog party and this year, I’m doing it again. Only way better.
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