Questions I've Recently Woken Up To...

I'm a person who believes that the first five minutes of the morning can set the mood for the rest of your day. Given some of the questions my children have asked me during those early moments, it's little wonder that I've had a series of odd days lately.

1. How much blood does a person have to lose before the doctors need to put new blood into their body with a needle?

2. Does a fruit fly only eat fruit?

3. Can we go to the pool on the first day of July? Unless the first day of July is more than two days away because then, I want to go to the pool two days before the first day of July. Unless the first day of July is more than four days away because then, I want to go to the pool four days before July and two days before July and on the first day of July. So can we do that?

4. What does a cat whisker taste like?

5. I'm hungry for something I've never eaten before. What can I have?

6. I think if I move my body like a shark, I could swim faster. I think I need a fin. Can I get a fin?

7. Do you think we can teach Yellow Cat to read?

Dinosaur Footprints

We spend most of our vacations visiting with family or friends, which is nice because we have limited vacation time and far-flung relatives, so we enjoy seeing them as much as possible. But at some point last year, it occurred to me that the only trips we've ever taken by ourselves have been two overnight trips to the zoo and one weekend camping trip. And none of those seemed to really count as a vacation. For one thing, vacations should be longer than 48 hours, right? And for another, vacations should involve hotel pools and strange places and perhaps theme parks.

I started thinking about all the places we could go to and all the things we could see and after dreaming about the possibilities for a while, I found myself in the midst of a conversation with the children about how cool it would be to see real dinosaur footprints. Luke suggested that we go to some place in South America (as Luke is wont to do) and Weston suggested that perhaps we could go to Extra-Planet (as Weston is wont to do) and I got to work researching more practical places where we might encounter dinosaur footprints (as I am wont to do.) All that research turned up a place in Massachussetts that had a random trail of dinosaur footprints and since I have an odd obsession with New England, I was intrigued by the possibilities. Once I found out that some of the possibilities included a park with Dr. Seuss characters and hole-in-the-wall museums and a nearby Six Flags, I was sold.

So a couple of weeks ago, we loaded up the kids, the dog, and an unrealistic number of bags and headed north towards dino tracks. It was pretty much the perfect trip because the kids are old enough to not cry endlessly in the car, but not so old that they think everything is boring and trite. They thought the dinosaur footprints were amazing and the museum was amazing and Six Flags was really, really amazing. But most of all, they thought the unlimited access to TV at the hotel room was a-maz-ing! They even enjoyed the icy cold pool, despite the fact that they started shivering and turning blue about 45 seconds into our pool adventure.

I continued the trend of forgetting to take pictures by...forgetting to take pictures. But! I did remember to get some at the dinosaur footprint place, so at least there exists some evidence of this trip. Someday, when my children tell me we never took any vacations, I'll be able to point to the following:

What happens when you leave your sunglasses in the car at a rest stop? If you ask nicely enough, you get to borrow Mama's.

This is Weston's current favorite pose for pictures. I...don't understand.

Of course, it rained for most of our visit, so we ended up balancing precariously on a rocky, wet hill. Still, it was fun! Here, both kids have their hand in a footprint.

And here's Weston standing beside a footprint. He had to demonstrate just what the dinosaur might have looked (and sounded) like.

Can you see them?? We all had fun taking enormous, dino-sized steps in this line of footprints!

Weston quickly got bored and moved on to building "dams" and "islands" in the footprints.

Walking in dinosaur footprints!

Weston Says...

Weston enjoys quoting things very much. As a person who has absolutely no memory for things like that, it always amuses me when he does it.


McMoose: *tells me about a company that did idiotic things and in an attempt to avoid a mountain of lawsuits, is cutting its losses and pulling out of a major market.*
Me: Ugh, that's so disappointing.
McMoose: That's business.
Weston: Business is business and business must grow, you know. (Quoted from The Lorax)


Me: We should go fly our kite again sometime.
Weston: Our kite will give someone a fright! (Quoted from a Berenstein Bears book)



Me: Poor Yellow Cat. Another Baby has been going after him all day--I bet Yellow Cat wants a rest.
Weston: Well, you know, some days are like that, even in Australia (Quoted from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.)


Weston: When can we go to the strawberry farm to pick strawberries again?
Me: I think they're all done with strawberries for the season, but in a few weeks, we can go pick blueberries.
Weston: Yes! I will bring a bucket and I will drop the blueberries in, kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk, and a mama bear that is old enough to be shy of people will say, "That's not Little Bear! Where, oh, where is my child?" (paraphrased and quoted from Blueberries for Sal)

All The World's A Race

I've recently stumbled upon the holy grail of parenting--the secret to getting (my) kids to clean a room. I had been appealing to their sense of order and reason, when really, I should have been appealing to their sense of competition...

Me: Someone needs to pick up all the Legos in this room.
Luke: Not me!
Weston: Not me!
Me: Yes, one of you.
Luke: Weston, you do it.
Weston: No, you do it.
Luke: No, YOU!
Weston: No, YOU!!
Me: Hey! Stop yelling. You can each pick up 20 pieces. Ready? Set? Go!
[1 minute later]
Me: I'm so glad to see all the Legos back in the bucket!
Luke: I picked up 57 Legos. 57! By myself!
Me: Wow!
Weston: Hey, no fair! I only got 4. I need to clean more!
Me: Um...not a problem. Let's clean up the stuffed animals!
Weston: I'm going to get them ALLLLLL!
Luke: No, I am!
Me: [grin]

4 Out Of 5 Experts Say...

I have spent a lot of time reading articles about parenting over the past six years. They've been hugely informative. So I decided to compile some of the wisdom contained in those articles. If I could just manage to follow all of these rules, I would totally have the hang of this parenting gig:

Always put your children first--they should be your number one priority every moment of every day. But you should never love your children more than your spouse--and you should certainly never let your children KNOW that they're your number one priority. In fact, the problem with American parenting is that we're raising a bunch of entitled, self-centered brats because we always put them first. Most American parents don't spend enough time with their children. Almost all parents spend way too much time with their children and should instead employ benign neglect. Benign neglect is neglectful and should never be used. Me-time is hugely important and every parent should carve out time to do something for themselves. Parents who spend time pursuing their own interests shouldn't have had kids in the first place.

Every child is unique. Your child is just the same as everyone else's child, so quit treating him like a special snowflakes. It is of utmost importance to let your child know all the ways in which he is special. You must never praise your child as it removes intrinsic motivation. You must praise your child for every single thing he does, even when he does it wrong, because at least he tried. If you praise your child too much, they become entitled brats who turn into drug addicts. If you praise your child too little, they have low self-esteem, which leads them to be drug addicts.

Children should have a stay-at-home parent. Stay-at-home parents are lazy and probably lack intelligence. Working mothers don't spend enough time with their children and are probably ruining their lives. Having a stay-at-home mother decreases a daughter's future earning potential and leads to less egalitarian ideas about gender role in her sons, so stay-at-home mothers are probably ruining their children's lives, as well.

If you don't want your children to end up in prison, you should discipline them harshly at every misstep. If you discipline your children harshly, they are more likely to end up in prison. You should talk to your children about how they feel. If you talk to your children about how they feel, you will raise entitled brats who thinks that everything hinges on their feelings. If you don't talk to your children about how they feel, they will never develop empathy.

You should send your children to public school because it is the only place where they will get a reliably good education. Public schools are also the only good choice for someone who supports an egalitarian society. Public schools are factories intended to turn out barely-literate worker bees who are trained only to follow orders--so definitely choose private schools. Private schools are elitist, separatist, and several other -ists. Also expensive. And they frequently provide a worse education than public schools. All group education is unnatural and everyone should homeschool their children. Homeschooling is evil and nothing more than a cover for abusive parenting. It should therefore be illegal. Parents should get to choose whatever they want for their children's education. Parents should have no choice in their children's education. Parents should send their children to military academy starting in preschool. Parents should never teach their children to read because reading was invented by the government in order to control our thoughts.

You should set your child up for success and never frustrate him. You should frustrate your children often to give them a chance to learn how to deal with frustration. You should set your child up for failure so that when he fails, you can correct the behavior. You should never correct a child's behavior as it will harm his developing psyche. If you don't correct your child, he will be an entitled brat, which will damage his psyche.

You should keep your child in a carseat until they reach the age of 18 because it's safest. You should take your child out of their carseat at the age of 4 because otherwise, their friends will make fun of them. Your child should never wear a coat in a carseat because coats can compress and cause them to be ejected from the car in case of an accident. Your child should always wear a coat in the car because the heater will fail in case of accident and then, they might die of hypothermia. You should just never put your child in a car because auto accidents are the leading cause of death in children. You should never put your child on public transportation because a stranger with ebola might cough on them and give them ebola, which could quickly become the leading cause of death in children.

The world is more dangerous than when we were children, so parents must always know where their children are. The world is safer than it has ever been before, so parents should loosen up and let their children roam freely. Parents who let their children roam freely are neglectful and should have their children removed from their care. Children have too much free time, which they use to play video games and watch tv. Children are over-scheduled, so they never have time to play in the woods. The woods are filled with snakes, bears, poison ivy, and kidnappers, so children should never play in the woods. Instead, they should watch a documentary about the woods. Children should never be exposed to television because it gives them adhd, autism, and probably other things that we don't know about yet.

Yeah, I should be receiving my "Expert Parent" certificate any day now.

Sensationally Six!

Luke turned six two weeks ago and he's quite proud of the fact! Especially exciting to him are the newfound responsibilities that come with being six. Last year, when he turned five, he took on the chore of folding all his own laundry and being paid to do so; this year, after considering a list of chores, he rejected all of my (relatively simple) suggestions and chose the cumbersome chore of mopping the floors. He's very pleased with himself and as an added bonus, the floors are somewhat cleaner--I'll take it!

A couple of weeks before his birthday, we walked into a pet store to pick up some cat food and Luke spent some time scrutinizing the animals there. After being informed that no, he could not have a rabbit, a ferret, or a snake, he decided that perhaps he should have a hermit crab instead. After talking it over, McMoose and I decided that he could probably handle feeding and watering a couple of crabs, so on his birthday, we went and he very excitedly picked out "his very own pets." As it turns out, hermit crabs are the most boring pets imaginable. One has burrowed into the sand and only comes out in the middle of the night and the other one sits in one spot and sometimes watches us walking around. Luke has named them Six Legs and Crawly--ironically, Crawly is the one who remains buried all day and since crabs have ten legs, Six Legs does not, in fact, have six legs.

His obsession at the moment is violin. He started taking lessons about a month ago--we all did, actually, since it was Weston who initially wanted the lessons and then Luke decided that he wanted to join in and our teacher requires the parents to learn with the children, at least during the first few months. At first, I thought he only wanted to take lessons because Weston was doing it, but he has completely immersed himself in all things violin. Soon after his birthday, he graduated from a cardboard violin to a real violin and he tells me at least once a day that the best thing that has happened to him as a six-year-old is that he now has a real instrument. Every evening, he makes sure to remind us that we have to practice before bed and a few times, I've caught him staring up at the violin box in his closet during the day. He has participated in a couple of recitals organized by the music school that our teacher is involved with and he absolutely loved it. He is already planning out what he might do for the next recital.

He played T-ball for the first time this spring and he had moments of loving it and moments of being thoroughly annoyed by it. In the end, he got to run around with other kids, throw a ball around, and wants to do it again next year, so I'll chalk that up as a success. We also all participated in a homeschool co-op and he had moments of loving and hating that, as well. He did make some friends and it kept him in touch with how to sit still and pay attention in a classroom, so I'll call that a success, too.

He is turning into a truly generous child. Last week, when his grandparents were visiting, the rest of the family went to a museum. I wasn't able to join them because I had to be somewhere else, but when they got home, both kids were excited about the fact that their grandparents had given each of them $10 to spend at the museum gift shop. After showing me his new toy frog and dinosaur, Luke proceeded to give me a little bottle of crystals that he had bought for me because I didn't get to go with them. He makes little gifts for his friends--leaves with notes written on them, robots made out of paper clips, pictures cut out of magazines.

I can see the clownish part of his personality reappearing and he spends a lot of time making jokes, making funny faces, and attempting to entertain those around him. Of course, as far as he's concerned, the funniest thing in the world is to annoy his brother, so there's a fair bit of that going on, too. He is adorably sweet with Another Baby and constantly asks to hold him, help feed him, and play with him. He knows a truly mind-blowing amount of information and finds it unfathomable that not everyone can easily remember things such as the adult size of a bulldog ant (1.6 inches, if you're curious.) His best friend got him an animal trivia game for his birthday and he asks to play it every day. He was also endlessly quizzing me about obscure animal facts until I made the rule that on any given day, I would be willing to answer no more than 5 animal trivia questions. Since I made the rule, we've used that quota up by 10 am every single day. The other day, I found him attempting to educate Yellow Cat about cat facts.

Six is going to be a good age. I can tell already.

There's a Hole in the Ceiling (Dear Liza, Dear Liza)

A week ago, I looked up at the ceiling in the living room and thought, Hmm, there seem to be two light circles up here. How strange. But as with most thoughts that occur to me during the day, this particular thought wandered right on out of my mind almost as quickly as it came and I didn't think about those circles again all weekend. Plus, most of the time, when strange things happen, I tend to ignore them and hope that they go away on their own. (This has proved, in the past, to be Not A Good Plan. Case in point: the time my old, old car started making an odd noise and instead of pulling over, I turned the radio up and kept driving? 30 seconds later, the engine caught on fire. You would think that I would have learned my lesson, but alas, you would be wrong. I still turn up the radio when I think I hear weird noises in the car.)

And then, on Monday, I happened to look up again and thought, Oh. Oh, no. The circles are darker. This can't be good. So I snapped a picture and sent it to McMoose. Luckily, McMoose is not a turn-the-radio-up-and-ignore-it kind of guy, so he got on with the job of figuring out what to do about the spots on the ceiling. Good thing too, because they grew...and grew...and then, water spots appeared on the walls...and just when I began to fear that the ceiling might actually collapse, McMoose decided to put screws in the ceiling to allow the water to drain out.

Surprisingly, it worked. (This might not be surprising to people who know anything about pipes or leaks or ceilings or, really, gravity, but it surprised the heck out of me. Because screws in ceilings really shouldn't be the answer to any of life's problems, and yet.) Now, although McMoose doesn't turn up the radio and ignore things, he does seem to feel that bigger is better. So later that night, while I was putting Luke to bed, McMoose and Weston got to work cutting a hole in the ceiling. A hole. In my ceiling. A stocking-shaped hole. In. My. Ceiling.

I came downstairs to find McMoose perched on top of a ladder, grinning widely, with a cavernous hole above his head and at that moment, I decided that I am not cut out for home ownership. (McMoose, on the other hand, is quite proud of himself and his ceiling hole. Of course he is.)