Project and kid stuff I found in my office September 20, 2008

I painted my office. Now, 5.5 years after moving in, I’m down to the master bedroom and the laundry room still in ugly old builder white (something that it gives me immense pleasure to cover with color!)

Anyway, of course, the ugly part of that job is the putting everything back. The reason I procrastinated it for so long is because there is one large wall that is covered 80% by hanging shelves. Onto these shelves have gone a) everything my husband has no need of but can’t bear to part with b) everything I plan to go through / do X with “someday” or when I have time (aka never) as well as anything else that seemed it should be kept but had no other place to go. And, of course, all your usual office stuff.

So, anyway. It’s a lot o’ crap. It had been living on the floor of the master bedroom all week (to the delight of my husband, no doubt. It wasn’t in the way as that room is a fine example of wasted space in a floorplan but unfinished projects (mine, in particular) make him a little twitchy. Yesterday was cleaning lady day so it was relocated into my office (seems like maybe it’d be easier to have just gotten it gone through last week rather than moving it 2 more times first…) Today, it all either going back onto the shelves in an orderly fashion or it is going to find a new home.

I just wanted to record 2 pics here because there’s a 50/50 chance I will lose the items I’ve scanned here. The first one is a pic of a stencil I had painted on the wall in my kitchen in Jamaica. This was one of my projects that I was most proud of. And which I would never, ever attempt again. I had found some way cool pepper fabric that I made the kitchen window treatments out of (and maybe some other stuff – I don’t remember). I took a blank piece of “make your own stencil” plastic stuff, lay it over the fabric and traced about a 24″ strip of the repeating pattern of peppers. Cut it out with an exacto knife and then stenciled it to approximate the colors of the peppers in the fabric. This required buying one bottle of stencil paint in approximately every shade of red, orange, yellow, and green known to man. (This is the sort of thing for which my husband has bestowed nicknames upon me which imply that I, perhaps, get carried away with an idea from time to time).

Anyway. I loved that fabric and that stencil. I just came across the photo of the stencil on the wall.

The other thing was from a day when DS1 was in first grade, I think. That’s my best guess based on how long it’s been in my office and based on the writing. I was sick one day on the weekend. He took it upon himself to go get the stuff he needed to make me this little card. Notice the Now and Later faces. I thought it was very sweet but also very funny, and clever.

Bad day for the itsy bitsy spider August 4, 2008

It’s summer in Florida which means plenty of rain and thunderstorms in between blazing hot and steamy weather.  it’s also the season when daddy-long-leg spiders tend to invade the bathtubs after said rain.

Today was the second and final day of the great toy purge (which was sold to the resident toy users as a toy “sorting and organizing” project) which I’ve been procrastinating, successfully, for quite some time now.   During the course of it, we came across some great little spinning tops and the launcher they work with (the ones you sent, Mom – they are still a big hit).  These had been long forgotten, no doubt buried at the bottom of a bin filled with toy and gamepiece shrapnel for who-knows-how-many months, so it was like a new toy again.  Sometime later, I was done enlisting their help with the sorting phase and off they went to play (thus enabling me to engage in the purging phase without the customary weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth).

Before long, I hear them in the bathroom that is just off the bedroom turned tv/playroom/toy warehouse where I’m restoring order.  Since eavesdropping on their play is some of the best entertainment available to me, I’m listening as I go about my wanton discarding of stuff.  I figure out from their chatter that they are launching the top into the bathtub.  I foolishly assume this is because they are heeding my 17 warnings (and that’s only today’s count) that they are all big enough to keep track of their own toys and put them back etc. and *I* won’t be doing this all-weekend job again (i.e. “you keep it sorted and put away because the next time I had to do it I’ll just be putting it all in the garbage”).  Obviously, they’ve taken my words to heart and so are launching the tops in tub where they can’t possibly get lost, right?

Um, no.  Turns out they’re shooting spiders, so to speak. Or a spider – I’m not sure.  This game went on for some time, though, with much discussion as to how each new launch should or should not be recalibrated to increase the probability of a hit.  Apparently, “aiming” a spinning top is more a matter of luck than skill.  Fortunately for them, a spider in a tub isn’t exactly going to make a getaway so they could take all the practice shots they needed.

A little later my presence was requested in the bathroom to “demonstrate our top secret mission”.  Who knew that spiders in tubs were such a security threat?  It’s a shame the spiders don’t have a better intelligence network – they could get the word out to the rest of the arachnid kingdom that the inside of my house is a combat zone and they’d be best to avoid it.  I’d be fine with them passing the word along to the whole of the insect world, actually.

If only it worked that way July 31, 2008

We have recently instituted a more defined set of chores the boys are responsible for.  This household re-engineering came with a totally awesome (if I do say so myself), custom chore chart they get to use dry-erase pens on (they have an inexplicable attraction to dry erase pens.  Come to think of it, so do I).  So, the chore chart worked fabulously to get the least motivated among my offpsring – that would be DS2 – on board.  Of course, predictably, even the novelty of the dry-erase pen wore off before long.

As it did, DS2 came up with the latest all-purpose excuse when he doesn’t want to do some little job he’s supposed to do.  “My feet don’t want to walk that way.”  I find this placing of blame on specific body parts quite amusing, actually.  DS1 used to place a lot of blame on his stomach – as though it were an entirely separate entity with a mind of its own over which he had no control.  With DS2 it is feet, though.  Convenient in its ability to be universally applied since pretty much anything requires moving from where you are to wherever you need to be / go to do whatever it is you’re attempting to avoid.

So, the other day I ask DS2 to take his dishes to the sink.  He is standing about 10 steps from the table.  Right on cue we get “But my feet don’t want to walk that way”.   DS1, who continues to operate intermittently under the impression that he is vice-parent in this house jumps in with a solution.  He promptly goes over and gets down by the renegade feet attached to DS2 and says which way do they need to go.  DS2 grins and points to the table.  DS1 starts “typing” on DS2’s toes and says in a measured pace as though he is typing it as he says it “turn around. walk to table, pick up dishes (presumably this was not intended to be done by his feet – perhaps this is the input center for the hands, also?) walk to sink”.  Then he pushes an imaginary button on one of DS2’s feet and voila – DS2’s feet are now on board with the requested task and off he goes.

Now there’s a programming language well worth learning.

What tickles their funny bones June 14, 2008

DS2 just comes into my office “mommy you have to come see something on the computer”.

So I go with him and DS3 is playing this game where there is a word with a missing letter and then a blank in a sentence that the word fits into. There are falling letters that you have to catch and put in the missing space to spell the word right.

Anyway… we go out and DS2 says to DS3 “OK, do it again, do it again”. Dutifully, DS3 clicks on something and the computer reads the sentence “Do you think mommy dinosaurs _____ (knit)__ baby brontosaurus booties”. Right on cue, all 3 of them collapse in loud, hysterical laughter. Then he clicks it again, and they do it again.

Like their mother, they are easily amused.

Amusing misheard kid stuff June 14, 2008

An old one I came across in cleaning up my gazillions of email folders which I am attempting to clean up… (from 05/05)

Driving home from preschool we drive past a park that, while it’s a perfectly lovely park, as far as I can tell it was designed by a planning committe which did not include any parents! It’s a very narrow park between two busy roads with no fences and walkways (or paved escape routes) from all the play areas.

So DS1 asks if we can please stop at the park. I say no, he cranks it up a notch to pestering so I explain that I just can’t go to that park by myself with the 3 of them because it’s not very safe for 2 year olds prone to bolting. I told him could go to *Kidscape* instead (which we also refer to as “the close park” since it’s by us.)

So he’s quiet for a bit and then he says, “You know what, Mommy?” (What?) I think they should call *this* park Kid Escape instead of the close park”. I just agreed and saved the explanation that it’s “Kidscape” not Kid *Escape* for another day.

A more recent one…

We were in Toronto and finally made it up the CN Tower after having plans to do so be foiled by weather on two previous trips. Of course, the boys were suitably impressed with the spectacular view. On the way down, DS2 says “Mommy, I know why they call it the CN Tower”. Me: Really? Why? Because you are so high up you can see everything. It took me a minute to realize that he thinks it is the “Seeing Tower”. Again, he was feeling so clever I just let him continue to think that.

uh oh. The packrat gene has surfaced December 30, 2007

in my firstborn. Well, to be honest, I’ve known for some time that he’s “blessed” with this charming character trait. Like, since about the time he threw a hissy, as only a 3 year old can, when I (strongly) discouraged his plan to save all the junkmail in his own special junk mail stash bin. It’s been dormant for awhile now, though.

To be fair it’s not a mystery where he got it from. I am a carrier of this gene myself. I just actively resist letting it manifest itself in my life. To the point that I’m very anti-packrat because, well, I have a tendency to do things to one extreme or another. So, it was with cringing and gritted teeth (on the inside, anyway) that I just smiled and said “fine” when he announced that he’d like to keep all the cards that anyone in the family gets from now on. I asked what he was going to do with these cards and he just shrugged and said “keep them all in their own bin.”

Sigh. I might as well just start drawing up plans for the storage shed right now.

You know that stage December 9, 2007

where the parent knows, essentially, nothing. And then sometime later on in life the parent gradually gets pretty smart again. Typically sometime not long after the child is out on their own and having to actually fend for themselves. Doesn’t every parent / child pair goes through this to some degree for a number of the teen years – maybe even into the twenties?

Well, I suspect I might reach that “gawd, Mom. Don’t you know *anything*??” stage a little sooner than I might have expected with DS1 – my little brainiac. I actually first realized this the day he came home from first grade and gave me a pop quiz on the 5 types of vertebrates. I did not do so well on that. But I was reminded of this suspicion recently when we had this conversation. Again, driving home from school – usually the time of day when all his mental circuits are cookin’ with gas and mine are mostly just fried.

Him: Mom let’s play guess the animal.

Me: OK. you think of one and I’ll guess

Him: OK, I got one. (waits for me to guess)

Me: Well, you’re going to have to give me a hint to narrow it down a bit (thinking to myself “or this is going to be one loooong guessing game”)

Him: It’s microscopic.

At this point you could just go ahead and picture me with a blank look and a big cartoon-like question mark floating over my head. An orange one.
Me: well, how about an amoeba.

Him: Nope. Guess again.

Me: Well, actually, I can’t really think of anything else it could be that would be microscopic.

Him: (big sigh) OK, well, I’m not sure if it’s exactly microscopic. It was zooplankton.

I guess sticking to something one might find at a zoo or a farm or in the jungle or the forest would just be too easy.

A 7 year old learns about the need October 19, 2007

for redundancy.

DH’s job has been torturing us all lately – him because, well, they’re calling constantly all hours of day and night. He’s worked his 40 hours at least twice in the past week. Me, because I don’t especially enjoy single parenting. I’m starting to have violent physical reactions each time that #@$*ing phone goes off. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration but I certainly feel like having one. Like throwing it in a canal, for instance. And the boys because they’ve barely seen him for a week and most of when they have it’s been sitting at his computer sighing and cursing under his breath.

So, DS1 asks me the other day why Daddy has been working so much. I try to explain the scope of a global financial services company then explain to him that all these millions of transactions originate, or flow through in some way, this one fortress-like building that is supposed to never lose power. Except it did and the fallout continues still now – seven days later.

DS1 absorbs all this and being the little capitalist that he is and having me – who does not believe in cash – for his mother, knows all about how credit cards work. When I’m done explaining this he says “well maybe they should have, like, 3 or 5 different batteries or electricity lines hooked together so that if one goes out they’d still have power and this wouldn’t happen.

Yes, I was quite proud that when presented with the problem, my son figured out that redundancy is the answer.

(Turns out the large financial company that shall go unnamed had already thought of that. Too bad the switches that change the brains of the operation from one source to another when the first one fails were not made redundant.)

I guess twice in almost 8 years isn’t too bad October 6, 2007

That’s how many times I’ve seen a child of mine with blood running down their face. I’ve been a parent for almost 8 years (mind-boggling as that fact may be). Today was only the second time I’ve witnessed a child of mine come screaming through a doorway with blood pouring from their head / face. Horrifying as it is, I suppose with 3 boys I should feel fortunate that it hasn’t even been once per kid. Strangely enough, the one (DS2) that I’d think the most likely candidate for this sort of thing – given his general wildness and complete lack of caution, is the only one who’s never (yet) bled profusely.

This afternoon, I was summoned with “you have to come see our super-cool big weighing scale” one minute to “Moooooooom, <insert shrieking here> [DS2] hit me! <more shrieking>” 4 minutes later. Just long enough for me to get back into my bed and back to contemplating whether or not today might actually be the day I die – DH was kind enough to pass along whatever it was making him sick last week. So, I thought the complaint and shrieking was the usual sibling scrap variety of which I am disinclined to mediate – even when I’m feeling fine.

Then I hear DH mildly freaking out so I get up to go look. There is DS1 with him and DH holding their hands to DS1’s head and the blood is dripping and running down their hands and arms. Since DH has DS1 (and I don’t want to freak him out by me freaking out) I follow the trail of blood to find the perpetrator. Only he’d run away to hide on the backside of the house.

The trail of blood led to the site of the “cool weighing scale” which was a long board balancing on a toy garbage truck with just the right combination of broken pieces of concrete block on each end to make it balance with neither end touching the ground. I finally found DS2 and got the story. Apparently, despite having been told, collectively, at least 14,349 times not to throw rocks (etc.) at each other, DS2 had a moment where it seemed like a great idea to throw one of the concrete block pieces over the scale. The fact that his brother was sitting there in the line of fire, did not seem to have occurred to him. Ah, impulse control. One does not truly appreciate that quality until one deals with 4 year olds who do not possess it.

We finally got the bleeding to stop. It looked pretty bad – kinda like a hole in his head up on the “top corner” but he started to freak out in earnest when I suggested stitches so… I guess he’ll just have a scar. He seems fine now, after laying down for a couple hours. He practically passed out on me when I was getting him cleaned up. And I’m happy to report he had the good sense not to bleed on the living room rug. Also, happy to report that I have one more reason to love my Benjamin Moore Regal Matte paint. Dried blood just wipes right off it. Just like wiping it off the tile, and the tub and the counter and the laminate floor. I this we’ll need more rain to get it out of the driveway, though.

The Riding Bike on Two Wheels Fairy September 25, 2007

Yup, you read that correctly.  Apparently, the tooth fairy has a much less-well-known cousin.  This fairy, like the tooth fairy, leave money under pillows also when this important milestone is reached.   Interestingly, if two boys reach this milestone the same day but one does significantly better that the other, this fairy seems much more of the capitalist sort than it’s more  socialist cousin.   This fairy will leave 3 quarters for one boy and 1 quarter for his brother who gave up easily and went to watch tv rather than sticking with it till he could start by himself, ride the length of the drive, turn around by himself and ride back (“and I didn’t even have to put my feet down”).   The one quarter brother may then collapse in dramatic fashion while announcing the unfairness of being rewarded on the basis of what you actually do.  At least until he remembers he’s got a shiny new quarter and he should to seeing how far it will roll, how long he can make it spin, etc.

If anyone is wondering why they’ve never heard of this elusive fairy cousin, I have insider information that this fairy only makes it’s appearance in houses where there is a big brother who is entirely convinced of his role as third parent.  This, of course, leads me to believe that this said big brother knows exactly what the deal is with the tooth fairy.  Of course, being the capitalist that he is (just like the fairy that shows up where he is) he’d likely play along and great convincing fashion till he was 18 if there’s free money involved.