Speed Blog FAIL

I tried so hard to whip out this post in less than 20 minutes, but do you know how impossible it is to get 20 uninterrupted minutes in my house? So this is more of a meandering, 5 minutes here, 12 minutes there, spread over 2 days kind of a non-speed blog. But it's still pretty incoherent and random, so mission accomplished!

• I'm very close to being finished with something I've been planning/thinking about/half-heartedly working on for over 3 years. I hope our All-New Family Chore Chart will be more successful than our First Family Chore Chart, on which I misspelled the word vacuum, and we never, ever used. Maybe because we realized we really don't like to do chores after all. Oh, crap.
• Today at the Dentist office, I found the "yes or no" response options to some of the health questions to be profoundly inadequate. As in, "Have you ever experienced exhaustion or tension? Yes or No." As a parent, I'd like to suggest that "HOLY CRAP, YES or I just come here for the Nitrous Oxide" would be much better answers. I choose all of the above.
• While signing Mia out of school today, should I have been alarmed that someone else signed their kid out and put "heaven" for the destination? Maybe they were going to the dentist, and were thinking of the nitrous too.
• Did I mention that I'm playing in a Women's 30+ Indoor Soccer League? I pretty much suck, but I did manage to knee another girl in the head a few weeks ago and still have a pretty big bruise. So, you know... cool.
• I won my first blog contest! And it was one I really, really actually wanted to win too! So I just have to put in a shameless plug for two wonderful people, Aimee and Scott of PopRocks Design, and their new line of retro/funky mormon decor. If the Deseret Books catalog makes you want to cry, and not in a good way, you are going to love their Etsy shop. And it's not just mormon stuff, so, seriously, check it out!
• Due to the disintegration of his sleeping habits, Nate has officially been stripped of the Favorite Child status. I'm currently accepting applications for a replacement in-house, but it looks like we're going to have to outsource. If you have a child who you think qualifies to be my favorite, feel free to submit their resume. All children who put themselves to bed, make their own meals, and who love chore charts will be considered.
• The other night at dinner, Sam posed an interesting question: "What would you rather be, a frozen pig, or a talking fish bone? You know, instead of being a mom." Tough question, but I'm going to have to go with talking fish bone. And you?

Rite of Passage

Recently, a situation in the locker room at the swim center led to a fun discussion about how sometimes in locker rooms we see some weird, and possibly naked, things and it's not a big deal. And that was when Mia interjected with: Well, congratulations to me on seeing my first old lady scrubbing her bum!

She just turned eight. I swear kids are growing up so much faster these days.

You remember your first old lady bum-scrubbing incident don't you?

Guest Post!

Has it been a while once again? To quell the insatiable public demand, I've brought in some temporary help. Enjoy this guest post by Mia. No, it's not a Christmas recap, but still a very pressing topic:

What Do Teacher's Do at Night and How Can You Tell What There Doing?
By Mia Bardsley

When all the students go home what do the teachers do? Do they have a party? Do they go to sleep? Or do they just eat all the left over candy from the Halloween Party? Does the principle come in and fire you? Well, I will find out. I am super detective M! Here is my plan. When it is time to go home I will hide behind my chair and I will watch what my teacher does. My teacher is writing on a piece of paper, now he is going to his computer. He is writing something on the computer, now the phone is ringing oh no! It's my mom, the teacher is going to look behind my chair. I have to go home now by!

(I take comfort that in her fictional world, her mom was alert enough to notice she didn't come home from school.)

Reason #117 to Shop Online for Christmas This Year

To avoid having your 5 year old brush against a display of snow-globes (the glass kind), and knock one to the floor. And then a few minutes later having your 2 year old drop another snow globe that you didn't know they had nabbed.

"That's funny, we just had another snow globe incident around the corner," says the employee who comes to clean up. "Oh, ha ha. That's so weird. What a coincidence..." you say while clamping your hand over the 5 year old's mouth to keep him from ratting you out.

Breaking $22 worth of snow globes at Target in 3 minutes. That's a great reason to shop online this year.

How's your Christmas shopping going?

A Tale of (the day after) Thanksgiving

So I happened to catch a commercial today for Black Friday. It depicted happy, well-rested couples leisurely strolling through a mostly empty store, all smiles and laughter, with dollar signs and rainbows and puppies all around. It was almost exactly like our First Ever Black Friday Shopping Experience last year. And by our, I really mean Mark's. Up until then, we'd never partaken in the joy of early morning shopping mobs. I've always theorized that there must be something about eating such large quantities of green bean casserole in one day that profoundly inhibits one's ability to think rationally, and therefore must be directly responsible for the tradition of Black Friday. Which, following any other normal food-intake day would just seem so obviously insane (you know that saying, what if they gave an amazing 4 AM sale and no one came?). Even after a year to reflect, I still don't know why we succumbed, only how. Here it is:

Around midnight of Thanksgiving last, I was looking at an ad for Target, and mentioned to Mark, "hey this is really good deal on Razor scooters. It would be a great present for Mia. Doors open at 5, who wants to wake up?" At this point we looked at each other and promptly fell on the floor in hysterical fits of laughter. Finally we sat up, wiped our eyes, and Mark said, "seriously, I'll go." And that was that.

Later I learned that he slept through the alarm and didn't get to Target until 6, at which point there was a big empty space where the Razors were supposed to be; it seemed the entire trip was a bust. Except miraculously, some mystical shopper fairy (Justin Beiber?) came to his aid, and pointed out the 2 remaining Razors on some display in the automotive section. While angelic choirs were singing (or at least that's what I imagine in my head), he secured the second to last Razor in the store, and possibly the entire state of Washington, all thank to the Benevolent Consumer Elf! Now he only had to get in line, complete the transaction, and get home with time to sleep in still. What he didn't realize was that all the hoards of people milling around everywhere was the line, wrapped around the store a couple of times. It was probably somewhere between 2 and 20 miles long. Eternities later, give or take a few millenia, he finds the end and, because it's the thing to do, stands there. It was a rough crowd of seasoned shoppers, and it didn't take long for the heckling to start:
Dude, are you really only getting one thing?
Umm, where's your shopping buddy?
You didn't even bring a Kindle/iPod/DS/Ridiculously Expensive Electronic Device?
You know it's over a 2 hour wait from this spot right?
Right?
Wait, are you a newbie? (astonished pause) OMG, it's a Black Friday Virgin!
No way, I heard about people like you but I didn't know you actually existed!
You seriously have no idea what you're doing!

Turns out, shopping on Black Friday is kind of an art form, and not just about disheveled parents in their pajamas fighting in the toy section. My brother and sister-in-law draw up maps of each store, plot out the coordinates of key items, create a detailed time-schedule, and take walkie-talkies and guns. (Just kidding about the walkie-talkies.) We just thought they were weird. We had no idea they were insane.

So back to Mark waiting in line at Target with our one item. For about an hour he endured the
(kind of) gentle ribbing of his fellow line-standers, most of whom were just holding a place while their spouse/friend/paid companion madly rushed about the store collecting stuff that would simply be crazy to calmly buy at regular price at a decent hour after having showered and eaten, of course. For quite a while he was blessed to listen to 2 large women describe their sexual exploits in detail. (Note to Black Friday shoppers: while compiling your shopping list this year, you might also want to compile a list of appropriate subjects to discuss in public.) Mostly he was bored out of his mind, really tired, and at the center of the Trifecta of Holiday Hell: crowds, canned Christmas music, and fluorescent lighting. Eventually, someone felt he had been sufficiently hazed and suggested he beg the obviously not busy employee at Customer Service to ring him up (not a euphemism). Well, that employee wasn't supposed to, but did take pity on my poor, ridiculously unprepared husband and saved him another hour in line and a whole $13 on a Razor scooter. Yep, just like the commercial.

This Thanksgiving, we're grateful for the return of our sanity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Are you shopping this year?)

Speaking Of

[This] is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, 8 of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75.

- Garrison Keeler

You can always count on Garrison Keeler for great quotes. I had no idea I was missing out on the big bucks! Can't wait to plaster my blog with flashing, spastic ads. I love being part of the future.

Speaking of quotes and random segues, Nate, our resident extrovert, says things at age 2 that I swear Mia and Sam never said at the same age. Things like, "hey, no fair!" and "I go to McDonalds?" and "ready to fight a you" (while wielding a paperclip/straw/popsicle stick gun, and complete with the classic high-pitched "pew pew pew" shooting sound effects). I think our absolute favorite though was the big "OH CRAP!" he yelled out in the car while we were driving on vacation this Summer. But it's followed pretty closely by his pronunciation of chocolate (ch sounds like f, and he drops the l). The kids have taught him to say "mwah ha ha," and it never fails to warm my heart when I hear that sweet maniacal laughter coming from his room when he's supposed to be taking a nap. Oh, and whenever we mention anything about rainbows, he always responds with "Double rainbow! All the way!" And if you have no idea what that is referring to, you seriously missed out on one of the best things on YouTube this Summer.

Most of the things Nate says are cute because of the way he says them, not so much because of what he's actually saying. Sam, on the other hand, is currently our nonstop source of awesome quotes. The tendency of 5 year olds to have no grasp of logic is maddening at times, but fortunately hysterical at other times, like when they say, "well, it looks like the dead people are still there," while driving past a cemetery. Or when you have this exchange with them:

Sam: When I get to be a dolt (an adult), will I just stay that way forever?

Me: Yep.

Sam: Oh, so I'll never be a giant?

Or like when I overheard Sam telling Mia he once got a bloody tooth "back in the old days." To which her reply was, "you've only been alive 5 years, you don't have any old days." He also told Mark that he liked being in the middle, such as "the middle of the couch, the middle of the line, the middle of the party..."

Speaking of parties... I missed Sam's birthday post, but his birthday wish list is worth sharing:

3 pirate boats

1 old camera

a GPS

a real phone, to call everyone

the cranky that hooks onto the train (I have no idea)

a pirate jail

the dinosaur movie

allowance dollars

He did start getting an allowance when he turned 5, but unfortunately owed the first 2 months worth to our new "Mom and Dad's Vacation Fund" jar, which gets .25 for every name the kids call each other. So far Sam has contributed $5 of the $6.25 that's in there, mostly the consequence of the "stinky poopy dirky oodle noonie head" variety of insults. We're banking on a nice vacation next year. Keep it up Sam!

Sam's been honing his literary skills lately too. He'll spend a good 30 seconds scribbling on a bunch of pages, and then proceed to "dictate" the story to me. Here's my favorite:

Once upon a time there was a girl name Mia and a boy named Sam.

Mia and Sam said, "let's get our bikes and ride in a tunnel."

So they decided to walk instead.

"Let's go the end," said Sam.

"Hey look! A bridge!"

They went over the bridge to the end of the cave.

And then Mia's eyeball was lost.

The end.

He's really got that surprise ending thing down. As you can imagine, this story did not go over well with Mia. Not many things go over well with Mia these days though, especially when it comes to Sam. But speaking of Mia, she's moved out of the funny quotes phase and into the stage of saying perfectly normal things but with a whole lot of attitude and usually accompanied with an eye roll. She's also added some fun words to her vocabulary, such as: freakin', dude, and sheesh mageesh.

Mia's also entered an endearing phase of demanding exactness in all things. So when I say something like, "Mia, it's 10:30, you should be asleep," I get this response: "No, it's not. It's 10:28. Sheesh mageesh." Or when Sam declares that he figured something out because he's a "scientist," Mia quickly observes, "you're not a scientist. Where's your white coat dude?" Or when Sam is getting creative on the piano and asks me if I liked his "song," and I respond with an "absolutely." Mia usually chimes in with, "she's just saying that because she's your mom you know!" Thanks Mia!

Speaking of pianos, that brings me to the point of this post: the piano I recently acquired from my parents.

(You're welcome for the awesome camera phone quality and amazing lighting.)

It's not going to win any piano beauty pageants, that's for sure. Probably not any piano personality contests either. But it is the piano that I learned to play on (and by that I mean the piano that I spent hours pounding on as an escape from my crazy household), the piano of my grandmother's dreams, the piano that my brother took a hammer to as a young child, and the piano that my parents didn't tune for over 30 years. Well, it's mine now, and though isn't nearly worth the cash crop this blog could potentially bring in ($1.75), if there is one thing I've learned from my mother, it's that when sentimentality is involved, or even a vague inclination, you keep it forever. And ever. Preferably in some sort of shadow box. And if there is one thing I've learned from reading random craft blogs, it's that anything can be covered with paint, especially Robin's Egg Blue. And if there is one thing that I've learned from myself, it's certainly not that I should probably back down from ambitious paint projects. Which is why I vowed to paint this piano some shade of something crazy before the end of Summer, (and now am revising that to sometime during my lifetime) and I'm turning to my readers, all 14 of you, to help me decide on the perfect funky splash of color that boldly declares yep, somebody had a mid-life crisis! Speak up now and reserve the right to complain loudly when I ignore your advice and paint it whatever color I want. And then repaint it another color when I don't like the first one. And then have my husband move it to three different locations in our house, and then finally give it away for free on Craigslist.

And you can quote me on that.

Harvest 2010 (or Oh Crap, Is Summer Over?)

Obviously, while I wasn't blogging all Summer I also wasn't doing much in our garden either. What's that about the Law of the Harvest? Well, now my kids think that when you plant a seed and do absolutely nothing for 3 months, what you get is the world's most adorable pumpkin. Yet another teaching moment lost forever.

Some other things I wasn't doing much of this Summer: taking pictures, exercising, reading, and supervising my children (though that last one's entirely normal). Mostly I was eating a lot of Nutella, and thinking about rearranging my furniture. It actually takes a lot energy to rearrange your furniture in your mind, hence the calorie-dense Nutella diet.

So more or less, days and weeks turned into months, October rolled around, my Costco stash of that deliciously creamy hazelnut spread finally ran out, and I rearranged my living room. I am born anew, and can blog once again. Psychoanalyze how you may. Please do in fact, I could use some free therapy.

Fall is about new beginnings right? Oh wait, no. It's about letting go. (Though we all know it's really about sweaters. Wait, did I say sweaters? I meant Sweaters!). So I'm going to let go right now of my guilt over being the ONLY MOTHER ON THE PLANET who didn't post pictures of the first day of school on her blog (or take any for that matter). I'm letting go of my disappointment that we did not, in fact, move to Mexico (or anywhere else) this Summer. And considering the headlines lately, that's probably a good thing. I'm also going to let go of that "hey, it's been a while/you look like you've been eating a lot of Nutella" awkwardness of getting reacquainted, and just dive back in like I never had that 4 month hiatus. And I'll try to find my camera (and the battery charger) just so I can take and post pictures of us carving that tiny pumpkin, while wearing our Fall sweaters(!).

It's good to let go. And rearrange furniture. And begin again.