I Just Can't Catch A Break

Over the weekend I got a letter in the mail from the kids school. This always makes me nervous. Probably because whenever my parents got notes in the mail when I was growing up they contained bad news. "Your child has missed 72 days in her first period class." or "Your child was caught fighting on the playground today." "Your child got caught having sexy under the bleachers today." Ok, so that last one never happened, but still.. *shudder*

So of course my first thought was, "Cripes, what did you do now?" Er..actually I might not have just thought it. It's possible I actually said that out loud. Like..to him. But we don't need to bring up old shit, right? Anyway the note ended up being good. He's receiving an award next week for being the most improved student in the class. If you read my post about Homework Hell you understand what a great accomplishment this is for him. We still have to fight with him every night to get it done, but it is getting done. YAY!

I also got a letter about The Girl. It turns out she's been put in to be tested for..well, basically for honors. Hello awesome! And..shocking. Not that she isn't extremely intelligent, she absolutely is, but she's also absolutely lazy. Everything sounds great, right?

Yeah, until today. When The Girl brings home her weekly progress report and guess what? She didn't turn in two of her homework assignments last week. Which means...she's grounded. From life. Until she brings us a clean progress report.

How can a child that smart be that dumb?

I just really can't catch a break, can I?

Letters from Kelsey

This is a new one. Usually it's letters to Cheeks. Yesterday she got in trouble and didn't get to go on our walk. W and I went and Jack stayed home with Cheeks. She threw a huge fit, said she would be good, and generally cried like her heart was breaking. When we got home, we came in the door and there was a letter on the rug right inside the door. It's a piece of paper, folded in half.

Front:

To: Moma From Cheeks
:( :( :(

Inside:

Moma I nevr won't to go no a wock with you ene more in my life ef in your life so their now.

Translation:

Momma, I never want to go on a walk with you any more in my life if (or?) in your life so there now.

At first, I wasn't happy b/c it really is a rude note written in a fit of anger. At the same time, I'm happy that she's able to express herself like that. I guess it's better that way than her yelling it in my face.

The wrath of Jack

Don't bother him when he watches football. Even though Cheeks experienced what happens first hand, I'll have to remind her before the Super Bowl.

On Sunday, Jack was watching football and I was doing homework. Cheeks started crying from upstairs. Neither of us moved. I felt bad about that after the fact, but it's her own damn fault. We're so used to hearing her cry or throw fits that we don't react. This time, she was really hurt. She fell and hit her head. She had a huge goose egg. Touching it made my head hurt. When Jack went upstairs, I heard W saying "I didn't do it, I didn't do it!".

When Cheeks came down, I set her up with an icepack. W came downstairs right as I noticed some blood on her shirt. I asked what happened and W said he didn't do anything, he just "gave her a bloody nose by accident".

Huh.

Later that night, Jack was still watching football when we put the kids to bed. Cheeks has always been the child that puts off going to bed. She doesn't care what she has to do. She'll need five drinks of water, decide she needs to brush her teeth again, or she may need an icepack b/c something is itching. Regardless, we've gotten used to her excuses. Or I thought we had. She came down and started crying about how her head is going to hurt "tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and probably the day after that, too". Jack got mad at her. See, in his mind she was trying to make us feel guilty because she was hurt. She's six.

The lesson learned? Don't come between Jack Bauer and football playoffs.

Boys Are Strange

We have approximately 4 power outlets per room in our house. Some rooms have more and some rooms have less, but the average is 4. We have 9 rooms in our house, so that means we have approximately 36 power outlets in our house. I'd say of those, probably 4 are completely filled and and another 5 or so are covered by furniture. That leaves us with 27 open and available power outlets in our house. From where I'm sitting on the couch I can see 3 of them.

So why then I wonder did Little Man plug his Nintendo DS into the one in the dining room? I ask, because it seems odd to me that the child would choose the one outlet in the entire house that requires him to hide under the dining room table to use it.



Boys are so strange.

(The kids when to stay with their dad for a week after Christmas. When they came home, Little Man had a mohawk. Yes, a mohawk. This is an ongoing thing with us. If I don't get LM a haircut before he goes to his dad's he comes home with a mohawk. I have a feeling the RB (Aka: the Rat Bastard, their dad) does it on purpose just to piss me off. Isn't it awful?)

Why we call her Cheeks

I've been going through some old pictures on our computer and found this one a few weeks ago. It reminded me why she was given the nickname Cheeks (given by a very special friend).

She also wanted me to take a picture of her new haircut, front and back. I really wish I could pull this cut off.

Young Love

When I picked up the kids up on Monday night, W informed me that this girl named McKenzie wanted to be his "girlfriend". He was in her class last year and they are the only two members of the "Cafeteria Clean-Up Crew". So they've been friends for awhile. But now they're apparently boyfriend and girlfriend. Whatever that means in the 3rd grade. I asked him what he told her and he said that he hadn't answered her yet.

Last night, we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Did you decide if McKenzie was going to be your girlfriend?

W: I told her yes, but then this morning I broke up with her. I got back together with her at the end of the day, though.

Me: Why did you break up with her?

W: Because she started telling people.

Jack: [Laughing so hard he can't really even say anything]

I was laughing at that point, too. It was just the way he said it that really set me off. I have never heard an eight year old that speaks as proper as this one does. He manages to get the exact right tone. So Jack and I talked to him about how he couldn't break up w/ a girl and get back together (I can't believe I just actually typed that about my 8 year old).

Then the conversation continued:

Me: So what happened? Did you just tell her you wanted to be her boyfriend again?

W: No, I passed her a note.

Jack: [horrified] In class?

Me: They're not in the same class.

W: No, in the hallway after school.

Me: Well, what did it say.

W: It said "I'll be your boyfriend again if you don't tell anyone".

And the laughter started all over followed by another talk about how fragile the feeling of an 8 year old girl could be. Now if this girl was anything like Cheeks, she would have taken the note and shoved it down his throat.

Dinner at our House

Lori often talks about her dinner conversation with her boys on her blog. If you haven't already, you should go check it out because she's hilarious! I love her and her boys.

We also have odd dinnertime interactions - but ours are more of the interactive variety. At least lately they are. A couple months ago we were having some conversation at dinner when MM made the girl laugh so hard she shot water out of her nose. Since then it's become a game for them to see what else she can shoot out her nose.

So far she's done:

• Water
• Juice
• Milk
• Apricots (sadly this happened at school and MM didn't get to see)

MM calls this game, "What Can The Girl Shoot Out Her Nose?". He also plays, "What Will Fat Boy Eat?" with our chubby dog, Chewy. You know, in case you were wondering.

The other night at the dinner table we started talking about something and TG snorted. This apparently reminded MM of his game. He waited until we were almost finished with dinner, then caught TG just as she took a drink. Then he whipped around in his chair (he sits at the head of the table and she sits on his left) and looked at her with this really creepy face he has (I made him recreate it for me so I could so you..creepy, isn't it?) with his fingers steeped - Mr. Burns style.

As soon as she saw him The Girl snorted and a stream of Egg Nog shot out her nose. A stream, people. This is what I have to deal with. Welcome to my own personal form of hell.

Although..It was pretty funny. Afterward she laughed so hard she cried while I took pictures and Little Man and MM made jokes. MM is still really pleased with himself. Last night we had pasta for dinner and he tried to talk her into seeing if she could shoot a pasta noodle out her nose. She refused, thank goodness. I kind of have to wonder how long it'll be before it happens, though.

Could You Survive?

I've been dealing with a disc related back injury since the beginning of September. I've been in physical therapy for four months. Part of the PT is walking (brisk walking). He had me start doing that when the weather was really crappy and there was no way it could be done outside. So Jack and I would load the kids up and go to the gym. Since the weather has been much nicer the last week or so, I've been walking outside. Because they're not old enough to stay home alone, they have to come with me. They can walk, ride their scooters, or ride their bikes. We go about 1.6 miles around our subdivision which takes 25-30 minutes.

Yesterday afternoon, we set off with me walking and both W and Cheeks on their bikes. We got about half a mile (most of this is downhill) and they started complaining that their legs hurt. I rolled my eyes at this point. The really bad part came at the end of the loop when we had to go back up the hill. It's not a very steep incline, more of a gradual hill. W hasn't quite gotten the fact that you shouldn't stop halfway up to "rest". So they're both huffing and puffing, complaining about their legs being tired, that they're tired and are we almost done? I just wanted to knock their heads together, I was so annoyed.

Recently, they've been watching this show on the Discovery channel called "Could You Survive?". It's basically overweight, out of shape people that get put in a situation where they have to depend on physical strength for survival. I've watched the show with them, it really is a good show. So they've been watching recorded episodes of it for the last week or so.

This morning when I came downstairs to make coffee, they were watching the last episode. It was called "Wildfire". These two couples have to run 1.25 miles, climb a hill and run to the "helipad" all under a certain amount of time. So I'm making the coffee and W asks me (completely serious by the way) "Do you think I could run 1.25 miles?"

I laughed. I laughed and laughed. I felt kind of bad for laughing so hard, but I was just remembering the day before he couldn't even ride his bike for 1.25 miles without stopping and complaining. So after I stopped laughing, I explained that no, I didn't think he could run 1.25 miles.

Both him and Cheeks are determined to try it. Apparently, when we go on our walk today, the two of them are going to "run". I'm thinking about trying to take the video camera. It's bound to be good entertainment.

How a kid sleeps

really tells you how they live their life. This picture of Cheeks sleeping really says everything about her than needs to be said.