And now for the real reason I had kids..

I just took this picture. At 7:15 a.m. Yesterday I cleaned the carpets. The furnature was still all moved around this morning, so I told Little Man to let me vacuum and then we'd put the dining room back together so he could have breaskfast.



He asked if he could vacuum instead. What am I gonna say to that, no? Ha! So then I thought, well shoot, he loves to vacuum and the rest of the house still needs a run through, so....



He vacuumed the whole house. Isn't he great? And wasn't I just the best mom ever for giving in to him and letting him have his way?



I thought so, too.





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Soccer

Last night Kelsey had a soccer game. This is the first year that they actually have positions, goalie included. It's the year that the coaches really try to teach the kids how to play as a team. Pass the ball, don't fight over it with your own team mate. We've always told both our kids that passing the ball to someone who scores a goal is just as good as scoring the goal yourself.

There's this one girl on Kelsey's team (actually there's two) that just won't pass the ball to save her life. It's really annoying. If three girls are on her and another player is wide open in the middle, she still won't pass it. Instead of passing it to Kelsey who was yelling "Pass, pass!", she kicked it out of bounds. Kelsey walked up to her and said "Didn't you hear me saying pass?" and the girl just said "No!". I kind of don't blame the girl for the attitude b/c Kelsey can get snarky when she puts her mind to it.

In the same quarter, Kelsey made two really good passes. Both times, the person she passed it to scored a goal. We were really proud of her. She was proud of herself, too. She walked up to the girl and pointed toward the goal and said "See, that is passing.".

My daughter is not afraid to speak her mind.

It's always funny when it doesn't happen to you

My sister sent me a text message on Saturday night and it still makes me laugh when I think about it. Jack and I were watching Life when I get a text message that begins like this:

your nephews and niece almost got us busted. they called 911 and hung up.

She goes on to tell me that when they called back, she didn't answer the phone until the 3rd call. Jack and I were laughing our bums off b/c, like the title says, it's always funny when it doesn't happen to you.

Last night I was telling my mom and dad about it (still laughing) when Will asked me if they got in trouble. Jenni, I don't know if they did, but I told him that they were grounded for a month. LOL

Oh and one more question...when 9-1-1 calls, does it say 9-1-1 on the caller id? Jack and I were discussing that and are really curious to know.

Conversations

This conversation took place about 15 minutes after this one. Cheeks Kelsey was talking about one of her friends. Kelsey and Bella act like sisters, which is not always a good thing. Bella is the only girl in her family (other than her mom). She has three brothers that are over the age of sixteen. So she is the princess of the family. That girl gets what she wants. So while her and Kelsey get along really well most of the time, they also butt heads when they don't agree. Bella b/c she is used to getting her way and Kelsey b/c she's a control freak strong willed like her mother. We were talking about what she should do when Bella tells her she can't play with her and [insert other kids names here]. This is the conversation that followed:

Me: If that happens, you need to go tell a teacher (this is at daycare after school).

Jack Jr Will: [aggravated] They don't go to a teacher, they come and complain to me. Kelsey, I am not a teacher. I do not.solve.problems. Do you understand?

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Kelsey was looking at me. We both immediately bursted out laughing b/c he sounded like such an old man when he said that. Those who actually know him won't be surprised, but it's always funny when you hear that tone coming out of any eight year old.

Homework Hell

I can't remember if I've talked about this before, but we have major issues with The Girl and homework. As in, she hates to do it and we have to make her. I know this probably doesn't sound unfamiliar to a lot of you, but trust me when I say our problem is a lot worse than most. A lot worse.

Let me give you a basic break down. The short version, if you will.

• This started in kindergarten. She'd bring her homework home and then offer it to the dog and/or cat.
• In first grade she told me she didn't have homework (and why would she in 1st grade?) and threw an entire years worth of homework out the bus window - without getting caught.
• In second grade she hid half her homework in her binder and only completed portions of it.
• In third grade she brought me all of her homework but would sit at the table until midnight and not complete any of it. She'd just turn stubborn and refuse.
• In fourth grade she got really creative and told her teacher it was against our religion to do homework. And was convincing enough that he believed her.
  
• In fifth grade we found her homework hidden under the couch, under her mattress, in between the counter and the refrigerator. I'd tell her, "TG, go get your homework right now and I'll pretend like I didn't see where you hid it" and she'd offer a long suffering sigh and move the plant away from the wall and there would be this massive pile of homework behind it.

I think you might think I'm joking about this, but I'm not. I've tried everything to get this child to do her homework. I bribed her, I punished her, I grounded her, I spanked her, I yelled at her, I offered her candy and Disneyland and weekend trips to the beach. I sat with her at the table until midnight waiting for her to get it done. I took away choir and gave her the school play and took the t.v. and the computer and her stereo and birthday parties and visits to my mothers house. I've done it all. I really don't think there's anything you could suggest that I haven't done.

Last year we worked on a sliding scale. If she didn't do her homework Monday she was grounded Tuesday. If she didn't do it Tuesday she was grounded Wednesday and her stereo got taken away. If she didn't do it Wednesday she got her stereo taken for the entire weekend (as opposed to just Wednesday) and if she didn't do her work on Thursday she was grounded for the entire weekend. Then we started all over again.

This year we cut out the sliding scale and went hardcore. She didn't bring me a clean progress report on Monday? She was grounded until she did. So if she doesn't do her homework two weeks in a row, or she misses an assignment in class? She's grounded for two weeks. She gets weekly progress reports and she's grounded from everything until she brings us a clean one. What does "grounded from everything" mean? Music, t.v., computer, Wii, toys, going outside to play with the dogs, going to her friends houses, going to my mothers, basically she's grounded to her room. She's allowed to sit at the table to do homework and to eat meals. That's it.

Now, it seemed in the beginning that this was working. The first week she didn't bring me a clean progress report she cried in her room for two days and brought me a clean report the following Monday. But once again, we're back to her hiding her homework and lying about it. She brought me her progress report today (they didn't have school yesterday for a teacher in-service day) and she'd missed an assignment. She tried to tell me it was because they had a sub last week and the sub told her not to turn it in. I said, "Ok, let me just go ahead and call your teacher to double check that's the case then" (sadly, I have her teacher on speed dial) and she said, "Oh, uh. Well. Maybe you shouldn't do that." Jeez, ya think?

I don't know why she persists in thinking I'm stupid, but I've worked closely with all her teachers since kindergarten to make sure we stay on top of this. It's not like I'm new to this, k?

The big problem is that the girl is uber intelligent. I mean UBER intelligent. It's obvious she's intelligent. She talked at 3 months old. No joke, she actually said a 2 syllable word at 3 months old. She's just lazy. But her teachers can SEE she's smart, so they let her homework slide because she does well on tests and has a lot of potential. No matter that we're not doing her any favors by letting her slide on this. I mean, really, how is she going to make it in the real world if she doesn't have a sense of responsibility?

Now through all this, my saving grace has been Little Man. That child loves school and homework like it's nobody's business. Every day he comes home from school, sits down at the table without being asked and does his work. When we do Best/Worst at night, 95% of the time his "worst" is that he doesn't have anymore math homework or if it's a weekend, that he doesn't have school the next day.

I'm telling you, that child is a breath of fresh air in homework hell. Or..well, he was a breath of fresh air in homework hell. For some reason, Little Man has decided to follow in his sister's footsteps and stopped doing his homework as well.

I really don't know why. It started last year with him not turning his homework in. I'd check his homework every night and it would all be completed and ready to turn in. Then I'd get his weekly progress report and he'd be missing assignments. Assignments I know for a fact he did. When I asked him about it he just shrugged. So then I started watching him put the assignments in his backpack, thinking maybe he was leaving them at home. But nope, they still wouldn't get turned in. So then I thought maybe there was a bully on the bus or the playground stealing them. Why else would the child do the work and not turn it in? But nope, I had The Girl keep an extra close watch and talked to the bus driver and recess monitors and no one was bothering him. To this day I still have no idea what happened to those assignments. None at all. They just...disappeared.

So far this year we've had more problems with Little Man than we have with The Girl. Or maybe we haven't had more problems, but I think I'm taking it harder because he's always been so good about it in the past. Tonight he sat at the table until 10:30 working on his homework. Or not working, as the case may be. He actually sat there and either whined or full out cried because he was tired and thirsty and blah blah blah. For all the time he spent procrastinating, he could have done a full week worth of homework.

I'm telling y'all, I'm living in Homework Hell. I just can't take anymore. It was bad enough when it was one, but now that they're both acting crazy and not doing their stuff? I'm going stark raving mad.



MM and I have been talking about telling the kids Santa and the Easter Bunny don't really exist. I'm pretty sure The Girl knows about Santa (she told me last year she thinks maybe Santa isn't really a fat man in the North Pole, but really a "secret santa" type thing, where maybe people like your mom or grandparents give you presents (this is another story entirely..but stick with me for a minute, I have a point). We (MM and I) realize she's getting pretty old for the whole Santa business, but like with the Tooth Fairy, I'm not quite ready to give up their youth yet. OTOH, we don't want her getting made fun of at school for being the only person who still believes in Santa, so it's probably pretty close to being time.

So tonight MM and I lecture the kids - again - about their homework and MM tells them they have to sit at the table until their homework is finished, then he goes to bed (nice of him, isn't it?). He calls me on my cell phone from the bedroom and says, "I'm a really bad parent" and I said, "Ok, roll with it. What's up?"

He said, "I really just want to be an asshole and come tell the kids, you don't want to do your homework? That's fine, because SANTA DOESN'T MOTHER EFFING EXIST AND I'M IN CHARGE OF YOUR PRESENTS!!!!!" And then, "And I KILLED THE EASTER BUNNY, TOO!!!"

That's good parenting right there. If I do say so myself.

Gotta love MM.

Eavesdropping

I'm always amused by what I hear when we're in the car. Today Jack Jr had his eight year well child visit. He got his flu vaccination and a chicken pox booster. Cheeks also got her flu vaccination and chicken pox booster. This is the conversation that took place on the way home.

Jack Jr: Where did you get your chicken pox shot?

Cheeks: I got it in this arm. [points to right arm]

JJ: I got it in that arm, too. I didn't even cry.

C: I didn't cry either. I screamed.

That was an understatement actually. The flu vaccination was the nose mist. She took taht fine. When she saw the needle? Good God. You would have thought that her finger was cut off slowly. And she was sitting on my lap.

My girl has a set of lungs.

Trick-or-Treat

There was no school last Friday, which meant that I was frantically trying to figure out a way not to take a day off work. Thankfully my mom was able to have the kids over. Jack Jr and Cheeks love going to my mom's house for several reasons. One of those reasons are the kids that live across the street. There's a 4 y/o girl, a 7 y/o boy, and a 9 y/o boy. The five of them always have a great time.

On Friday, the mom (Christie) of the three kids was getting her Halloween decorations out. So she gave Cheeks and her 4 y/o the trick-or-treat pumpkins to play with. They went back across the street and went to my dad to "trick-or-treat". My dad always has candy at hand, which is another reason the kids love going there. So after they got their booty from my dad, they went back across the street and trick-or-treated to Christie. By this time, the three boys got in on the action.

My mom's kitchen window looks out onto the street. (She's telling me this story laughing her ass off, btw.) So she looks out her window and what does she see? Five kids going up the street ringing doorbells, trick-or-treating. This was on Friday afternoon at 2pm.

Anything for candy, right?

Use "Contradict" In A Sentence

The Girl was given the above for her spelling homework. Her sentence?

"Never ever contradict my mom, or else she'll smack you."

Wow, thanks a lot, kid.

Telephone

My mom has The Girl tonight. Earlier today we (my mom and I) had lunch together, then walked around home depot looking at different gardening stuff and lusting over the custom kitchens and appliances (I soooo want new appliances!).

After that we went over to check out the flooring (I know I'm kind of a loser, but I love looking at stuff at Home Depot) and it turns out the hardwood we want for ou house is on clearance for a ridiculously low price.

I really wanted to buy it, but needed to talk to MM first. We're trying to be conservative right now since I'm not working, and even though we'll never find it at that price again, I'm not sure it's a good idea to spend the money on it.

Anyway, I couldn't remember how much the boxes were (I remembered how much they were per sq ft, but not per box) and wanted to do the math to see how many we'd have to purchase, so I called DW to see if she remembered. She was driving so The Girl answered. I said, "Ask GG (that's what the kids call her) if she remembers how much the boxes of wood flooring were."

From there the conversation went something like this:

The Girl: What? Flooding?
Me: No, wood flooring.
TG: Wind flying?
Me: No, TG, wood.flooring. The boxes of it.
TG: Uh, ok.
*in the background* Uh, GG, Mom wants to know if you remember how much the boxes wood flying was today *lots of laughing* Ok, hold on.
TG: Mom, GG said maybe I should ask you again.
Me: *snickering* Wood flooring, TG, wood flooring. You know, like what we walk on, like carpet? Flooring.
TG: Ooohhh. *giggles*

It was like playing telephone in grade school. Remember that game, where you'd whisper a secret in someone's ear and they'd whisper it to the person next to them and so on and so forth until the messages was related to the last person in line and it was all garbled? Yeah, like that. Well, sort of. You get the idea.

Silly girl.