Things I made for Christmas

Due to the economy I went all Little House on the Prairie this year for Christmas. I was pretty proud of some of my creations...so I thought I would brag. I am not sure about how the recipients felt...

There may have been a few that thought I was the crazy Aunt making bunny suits from A Christmas Story...but hey...when I start making sweaters with cats on them and a voice box that meows... then they can complain...until then, they are going to have to deal with my 1800's self!

The scarf was for a friends belated birthday. The girls together, show the dress (it has a big red bow in the back) for my eldest. But I cut myself out because Pie on Christmas morning is NOT PRETTY...the rest were dresses and sweaters made for my nieces....

So there you go...now I shall go churn butter and tend to my chickens....

Winter Fun

Here is my new thing to do with Henry. We built a skating rink this weekend. It is 20x30 feet, so I think it will be enough of a size that the kids can skate on it. It isn’t perfect, but it was a good solution to my boredom of playing cars…

So, there you go, that is the real reason I got into this project, (you knew if wasn’t from my stellar parenting skills!) I basically got tired of playing trucks with Henry. I never have been good at that. I used to have to play the same exact game with the girls, except they used Barbies and dolls as opposed to speaking vehicles. (Thank you Pixar...)There is something about playing these games with my little dictators that seems to go against the control freak in me.

When you play, you have to hold the car the way they tell you to, and they really aren’t about improv, they have the whole thing scripted in their head. They tell you what your car/doll is supposed to say, and do.

Yeah, I am not down with that. They get all mad at me because I purposely go rogue on them, and start doing my own thing with my character that clearly goes against what they have planned.

Sometimes I fear the future of small countries if my children ever set their sights on them… they will have a dictatorship for sure…and all of them will be going to dances, and having road races for sure!

Again?

OK so Caroline has a friend that she likes to have over. This would be the one that Henry likes to put underwear on his head in front of... Mind you her mother is who I coach with, and her dad is a teacher at Caroline's school...that Henry is slated to attend next year...

So her dad comes to pick her up and Henry is showing off in the hall way...this is what he says to his future teacher...

"I am the boss here...because I built this house and whoever builds the house gets to be the boss."

Caroline, who would like to think that she is the boss of the universe and has steep competition from her sister, was quick to say "you weren't even born when this house was built"

Henry thinks for a minute...and he says "You don't know Caroline...I came right out when I was borned with a hammer and nails and a chainsaw and builded the house."

I thought back to having him...I was pretty sure that there was no chainsaw, but you know? I was a little out of it I guess....

I am starting to wonder if the boy will have a reputation before he even gets to school!

Things That Make You Say....

AARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

So last night I had a meeting until 10:30. I worked two jobs yesterday, didn't eat dinner, and went straight to my meeting after job number 2... This is not to say "Oh poor Pie, pity, pity, pity," but rather to let you know my frame of mind when I dragged my oversized butt out of bed this morning to get my children off to school.

I am downstairs feeding the boy, because apparently I am obligated to do so as he lets me know every morning by demanding breakfast. (We have had many conversations about how starving because of rudeness is not a good option, but it seems to fall on deaf ears…He clearly understands the idol threat...)

So my cranky grumbling stumbling self is filling my coffee cup for the second time, and my lovely middle child comes down "ready" for school. I could tell she was sort of hiding herself a little, and I could hear a swishing sound when she walked. This was my warning…

As you may or may not recall, my middle daughter is, well, a little fashion challenged. I like to call it unique, which it is, and many days I am OK with her bag lady approach to dressing...but somehow this morning when I laid eyes on my pretty little girl with a pony tail directly in the center of her head falling into her eyes, a red, yellow and navy blue striped sweater, with a black watch plaid taffeta skirt with crinolines, multi colored tights and black shoes....something broke inside the "let her be her unique self" part of my brain.

A voice from the old crabby lady within came out of my mouth, saying: "NO, NO NO, Absolutely NOT, What in the world made you think THAT was OK????"

(Yes I know, it was harsh...that’s why I prefaced the story with the pity me party.)

I sent her up to change, she emerges from upstairs in her best nasty teenager interpretation...pouty lips, arms crossed...in....COMPLETE BLACK.

Black tights, black shoes, black skirt, black shirt, black headband.Granted this was better in some ways than the eye assaulting outfit of earlier in the day, but I was really hesitant about sending my angry child to school as an angsty mortician.

Silently I went up to her room retrieved a bright pink sweater, came downstairs and popped it over her head...we didn't say another word until the bus came...

"I love you, have a great day"

And I meant it...as much as I meant to go get another BIG cup of coffee!

Play-dates with boys

Ok so I am entering into a new world of boy play dates. With girls, you go to pick them up, they come home, are quiet, play Barbies, dress up, Legos, what ever. They pretend that they are in these imaginary forests, and worlds that are enchanted. (Granted there is usually some evil mother symbol, thanks to dear old Disney) but never the less, they are quiet, and creative.

Boys? The way they interact is … well, interesting anyway.We go to pick up Henrys friend from his house, and immediately the boy showed Henry his "burp on demand" skills.

Henry giggling, says "That is very interesting" then continues the rest of the ride home to try to burp on demand...which he cannot seem to master, much to my pleasure. But this was the beginning of...well, BOY mode.They proceeded to scream from the moment they entered the house, running up the stairs as fast as they could to start an activity I like to call “shake the house down”

I cannot figure out what exactly they were doing, they were jumping, tumbling…or taking off drywall, I am not sure, but the entire house was shaking.

Thankfully, 4 year old boys seem to have the attention span of a gnat so that only lasted for a few minutes (before I had to go up and crack some skulls) and they were onto something new.

Did I say that I was thankful for the short attention span? OK so THAT was delusional. This short attention span turned into a continuous path of running from my sons room upstairs to the basement downstairs, with 1000 things in between… after they had played with every toy in the entire house for the allotted 10 seconds, they were bored.

Bored? Seriously??

I finally sent them down to play…I did not, however, for the benefit of my sons social future, give the “back in my day” speech about no such thing as play dates, and any mention of boredom led to more chores. The speech that always elicits the rolling of the eyes, and large sighs response. Secretly I don’t blame them, I got the same speech, as did my folks, and If I was a betting woman, I’d bet none of us appreciated the sentiment!

I have been checking on them periodically to make sure that they aren’t building bombs in the basement or somewhere they aren’t supposed to be (the girls rooms) and my son, who on a regular basis, just looks at me with love in his eyes, and says "I love you mom"... Now is in the basement and when I come down stairs he says: "WHAT? What do you want?"

I said nothing, and then he says "What? Why are you looking at me?"

(we will have a politeness discussion later and I doubt I will be polite about it!)

Somehow the extra Y chromosome in the room transformed his eyes from looking at me as lovable cool mom to “Persona non grata.”

He is worse than a teenager...is this a sign of things to come? I hope not. But Some where deep in the recesses of my heart, I am fairly sure that he is going to make me drop him off a block from school so he can walk in.

So I have just given in, I will listen carefully from afar and check on them periodically, and hope all gets calmer. Somehow when they see me they seem to think I am Julie McCoy cruise director, and am going to do something fun…I keep reminding them…”I am not that Mom”

So I am hoping if I stay hidden all will be ok.

Super Eyes

Henry has a new trick, he has informed me that he has "Super Eyes"

He screws them on, with a wonderful "shhhwooot, shhhwooot" sound and then I know that he has them on. He says that he can see North Carolina with them.

So North Carolina ought to be scared, my son is watching you...and if big brother is reading this, I am sure to expect strange unmarked vehicles following my four year old to preschool...

I suppose that this is in response to missing his grandparents. One set is in NC and the other is in VA. He has really enjoyed seeing his NC grandparents a great deal this month between an extended Christmas visit and a "pick up gran" trip.

I have had to answer endless questions about why we don't live in NC, or VA...when CAN we live in NC and VA... when I explained that we used to live in VA, but we moved away to Maine his response was:

"Well that was stupid"

Nothing like feeling judged by your 4 year old. And I am sure that as my mother-in-law is reading this she is thinking "YEAH my super secret mission to get them back here is working!"

This all is kind of sweet that he misses and loves his grandparents so much that he wants to see what they are doing...but it is worrying me a tad that he is giving me descriptions of what he is seeing...

"Hey there is a brown horse"

"Where Henry, I don't see a horse."

"No Mooooom, in North Carolina, can't you see I have my super eyes on?"

must have not heard them being screwed in...never a dull moment.

There are Days I Wonder....

…If Henry is operating with all 6 cylinders....

Because I don’t feel I have enough to make me insane, I took on coaching my middle daughters D.I. team. (Destination Imagination) The other coach and I being crazy busy decided to have a meeting so that we could get organized.

She has a daughter one year older than Caroline and one that is one year older than Henry. So I thought to myself…hey they can play!

My eldest was on the computer playing SimCity, the others were playing, and we got our work done…all was nice and normal…

I went to the bottom of the stairs with the other coach to call for her daughters as it was time to head home…Henry comes to the top of the stairs with his light saber, leap pad back pack on and a pair of underwear on his head…

To make matters worse when I laughed trying to make it all sound silly and said “Oh did you get those out of your clean laundry basket?” Kind of giving the reassuring look to the woman standing next to me who was sporting a very “unsure about the cleanliness of your house" look He yells…

“No I got them off Marshall’s floor!” Yeah, not really what I wanted to hear…especially when he had them pulled so far down on his head he was peaking through the leg holes…

Marshall came bolting around the corner and ran up the stairs taking them by 4’s, grabbed the underwear off his head and yelled…”That is so gross Henry that’s my dirty underwear…” and stomped off to her room muttering about her privacy...

So who wants to bet how long it will be before we have a meeting at my house again?