Monday, July 26, 2010

Get Your Wiggles Out

In case you’re wondering what we do with 2 energetic kids in a 400 square foot cabin when it rains:

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Random Little Things That Bug Me

You might want to just go ahead and skip this entry.  Seriously.

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Is anyone else bothered by the opening sequence of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?  I mean, even if you can get past the fact that you have 3 bears living in a cottage and eating porridge, and that Goldilocks is obviously the product of delinquent parents if she a) is allowed to go wandering through the woods by herself, and b) doesn’t have enough home training to know that you don’t just open the door and go wandering into some stranger’s house.

Even if you take all that at face value, there’s still the porridge issue, and I find myself unable to get past the porridge issue.

If you make hot porridge and pour it at the same time into 3 different sized bowls, the porridge will cool in direct proportion to the volume of the bowl.  In other words, IT IS THERMODYNAMICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR MAMA BEAR’S MEDIUM SIZED PORRIDGE TO COOL FASTER THAN BABY BEAR’S “WEE” PORRIDGE.

The only rational explanation for this is that even though Mama Bear’s bowl was bigger than Baby Bear’s bowl, Mama Bear is anorexic and poured herself the least amount of porridge because she’s afraid of getting fat.

The underlying themes of this story just get better and better.

Because you have to assume that there’s some reason that Mama and Papa bear don’t share a bed.  And don’t say it’s because Papa Bear snores.  They all sleep in the same room, so separate beds wouldn’t really make a difference there. 

Maybe Goldilocks isn’t the first blonde bombshell to sneak into the cottage and “rearrange” Papa Bear’s bed sheets.  Just saying.

And this is a story we tell our kids?

Thursday, June 03, 2010

First Day of School

In the past, the idea of having the kids home all day every day sent me into a mild panic attack.  I dreaded summer “vacation” when there was no dependable schedule and the kids had to rely on me for their entertainment day in and day out.

I realize that a lot of mothers enjoy summer vacation and relish the time they can spend with their children.  And don’t get me wrong, my kids are awesome.  But I simply do not possess the ability to play toddler games for hours on end, and I don’t have the mental capacity to read the same 10-word book 2,378 times in a row without going completely bats__t. 

Taking the kids to the mall play area wears me out and raises my blood pressure because they’re both running in opposite directions and weaving in and out of other people and Where’s Koren, he was just here, OMG SOMEBODY RAN OFF WITH MY BAAAAAAYBEEEEE OH WAIT THERE HE IS TRYING TO DO A BACK FLIP OFF THE TOP OF THE 5’ BUGS BUNNY. 

Besides the mall, the summer entertainment options in Texas are basically swimming or playing at an indoor facility (which, I might add, always costs money).  Both tend to get old after about the 15th time.

So with that in mind, I was equally dreading the waiting period after we moved here, knowing that the kids would have no friends, no school, no babysitters, and no schedule until we could work our way up the wait-list for the local early learning center.

...The kids started school yesterday.  And it totally snuck* up on me.

It seems that we’re just so busy here that I didn’t even notice the 2 months of No! Schedule! going by.  That, and the kids have gotten surprisingly good at entertaining themselves for longer stretches of time.  Kaelin is always coming up with some creative pretend game and Koren is all too happy to play along.  He’s also been taking really good naps - 2½ to 3-hour naps are pretty normal.

The kids loved school.  Koren clung to me for a few minutes until they gave him a carrot and told him he could feed the guinea pigs.  Then Mama was old news.  I didn’t even get a goodbye. 

Kaelin got to go down to the harbor on a field trip and tour a “big boat with a gun.”  Koren got to do some gardening, and earned himself the nickname “Mr. O.K.” (apparently he was very agreeable).  When I came to pick them up after lunch, Koren had the full attention of one of the teachers and was bringing her one book after another to read.  Kaelin was socializing with the other teachers and kids in the class.  She made two friends, named Hope and Elsa.  When they came home, both kids took really long naps.

I believe they are looking forward to going back tomorrow.

*Yes, I KNOW the grammatically correct term is “sneaked” but that sounds retarded and I refuse to use it.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The More The Merrier

One of the things I’m learning about parenthood is that it’s a continual lesson in humility.  As a parent, you think you’re smarter, wiser, more sophisticated than your kids.  And they constantly prove you wrong about that.

Remember how clever we were about Vitamin Kitty?  We did the whole “Bath Time” fast-swap thing for Kaelin’s benefit, because of course she would be devastated if anything ever happened to VK, or - worse - she ever found out that her current VK wasn’t the ORIGINAL Vitamin Kitty.

A few weeks ago, VK got left in the Target shopping cart.  Kaelin was heartbroken at the thought, but after a bit of stealthy searching, TA-DA!  Mama and Daddo managed to find him!  We were unconcerned about pulling another VK out of “the box” because we were pretty certain we would not be seeing the return of the lost stuffed animal.

Or so we thought.

A few days later, Kaelin came down to breakfast with an announcement:  “Look, Mama, there are TWO VITAMIN KITTIES!  How did I get TWO VITAMIN KITTIES?”

Sure enough, there she was, holding two of them.  I stood there, my brain racing, trying to come up with some way to explain this obvious faux pas without crushing her delicate sense of VK Reality.

“Maybe one of them is Vitamin Kitty’s brother that came to visit,” I managed to say before too much time had elapsed.

“No, they’re both Vitamin Kitty.  I found this other one in my stool.  I forgot I put him there the other day.  But why do I have TWO Vitamin Kitties?”

I had nothing.  Nada.  No more clever explanations to shield her from the truth.  How on earth was I going to explain this to her?

“I don’t know, Kaelin.  That’s a mystery.”

“Maybe you thought I lost him, so you got me another one.”

Dude.  Did I just get schooled by my 4-year-old? 

YES.  YES I DID.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

I watched her for a few seconds, trying to gauge her reaction to this unpleasant truth.  To see if it was going to affect her bond with her Special Friend.  I gave up when she stood in the middle of the kitchen, held out both stuffed kitties, and exclaimed, “I have TWO Vitamin Kitties.  THIS IS SO EXCELLENT!”