WTF Friday - the third

or the fourth, but who really cares.

There's sort of an infamous story that all the siblings in my family know about...

I don't know how my mom did it with four kids, but she use to sew everything; like matching weird green pinstripe outfits for when we went to the airport (in case one of us got lost, she could point to one of the remaining there and say 'see, he/she looks exactly like this!').

Among all the stuff she sewed, she sewed swimming suits. I can't remember if this was either before kids, or we kids were young, but one day she picked out a pattern, some really beautiful yellow material and whipped herself up a yellow swimming suit.

She wore that suit to the pool and strutted around until she started feeling eyes look at her, approving nods from the guys around and jabs to their friends. So, she started to strut a little more, heck, who doesn't when your feeling hot.

That was until someone came up to her and whispered into her ear 'you know, your swim suit is see-through'. That's right, the itty bitty yellow thingy was like wearing nothing when wet.

Fast forward to me last night. I noticed that my suit was looking a little worn in the front, but I thought it wasn't a big deal, maybe it was just the light in the bathroom. So, I just threw a towel over my body and proceeded to the gym's pool.

When I got home, I was going to sling my wet suit over the bathroom shower door, when I decided I better reinspect my suit. The front panel had two layers, so it was fine, but the back...


and what are you looking at now, a picture of Wyatt's pumpkin girl... seen through the rear of my swimming suit.

Yep, I'm pretty sure there was a full moon at the pool last night, or a full pumpkin face, or something others might as well just call my ass.

I've never felt so much like my mother than I did last night.

Awesomeness.

fancy

I shouted to Wyatt from the bottom of the stairs 'you have mail!'. Of course, it was just some junk mail, but he didn't care; he did a little eye-squinting smile and grabbed the letter out of my hands. He looked like he was bouncing up the stairs like a jackrabbit until he turned the corner and disappeared out of my vision.

Then I heard him opening the silverware drawer. I turned the corner to see if my ears have deceived me or not.

But no, he's rummaged through the drawer to retrieve a knife. A make-shift letter opener.

Just like his dad does.

I remember once hearing that it's pretty much 50/50; either you rip open your letter with something, or you rip a corner off and drag your finger across the envelope to open it.

You probably guessed, I'm a ripper.

My husband, of course, he's a letter opener kind of a guy.

And here's Wyatt, grabbing a butter knife to open his junk mail envelope. I couldn't believe it.

He's so much like his father.

Until he gets frustrated that he can't stick the knife into the envelope that he tossed the knife on the table and impatiently started to rip the letter open as fast as his fingers would allow him.

Ah, I take that back,

he's much like someone who will remain nameless that might easily get frustrated, may be impatient and definitely doesn't care if her envelopes look like a shark attacked it.


Totally, not me.

And I should insert some sort of fancy poll seeing if you either rip or use a letter opener, but I'm just not that fancy (obviously I'm not fancy... I don't even use letter openers) and I'm lazy, but inquiring minds do want to know.

Wordful Wednesday and
More Wordful Wednesday

363 and counting

See, age does make you smarter.

It was my birthday on Saturday, and once again, I stopped hinting around that I wanted to be pampered for my birthday and just did it myself. My husband asked 'what do you want for your birthday?' and I easily answered, 'a day off."

And that's just what I did. I scheduled my facial and booked my hotel. I planned my shopping trip and bookmarked my favorite movie theaters.

Here's a few things I learned from my 35th birthday:

-Your kids will make you feel guilty and say things like: "Don't you want to spend your birthday with us?" "I wish we could be together on your birthday." "Don't you love us?" (Ok, they didn't say that last one, but it pretty much felt like it.) Just cover your ears, sing 'la-la-la', shut the door and drive away.

-Facial are nice. They are almost better than massages because you still get a little upper body massage and they pop your pimples for you (except they call it 'extracting areas on your face'.)

-The Mall of America isn't just for tourists, and when I say tourists, it's people that are wearing sweatshirts that say 'worlds best grandma' and are taking pictures of the Sears escalators. The Mall of America has two of my favorite stores in walking distance; hello H&M, hi there, Forever 21. Thank you for not making me feel too old to be shopping there.

-When you check in to a hotel as a single, they will look at you funny, like you are having an affair or something... just go with it, consider it flattery. Take the two cookies and pretend that it's for the 'someone' you will be not meeting up with later.

-Movies are nice too. Especially when you don't have to miss the second half of it when your toddler can't stand sitting in the seats anymore. And did you know that rated R movies sometime swear? Mind blower.

-Four feather pillows on one bed is not at all excessive.

-Waking up and not having to make breakfast for a single soul is near Heaven.

-Did I miss anything... oh yea, you will kinda miss those darn kids until they start screaming at you about not knowing 'where they put their homework' and you can feel guilt-free to start counting down to next year's birthday break.

flu shots remind me of college

Somehow the kids figured out that they are getting flu shots tonight. It probably has something to do with me spelling it out within earshot and darn it, Henry getting better at sounding that kind of stuff out.

Anyways, I usually try to keep it a secret, like we are going someplace fabulous, like Disney World, and then bait-and-switch them at the doors of the clinic... 'You guys totally weren't listening to me, I said flu shot, not fun spot.'

So, I've been fending off questions all day long.

The boys: Is it going to hurt?
Me: Just for a second, then it's fine.

The boys: Show us how it feels.
Me: (I grab a pen and poke it into their skin a little.)
The boys: THAT HURTS!! Why would you hurt us like that? And a flu shot is going to be worse than that?

(Henry, the oldest, starts to tear up. Wyatt declares that he 'will run out of the room!'.)

Wyatt thinks about it for a little bit longer, 'I will run out of the room, grab a flu shot needle and get you instead!', Wyatt proclaims this with his best take that face.

I told him that I was going to get my flu shot too, so there was no need to 'get me' with a needle.

Them: Do you cry when you get shots?
Me: No, but one time I nearly passed out from getting shots. I was 18 and getting a ton of shots at the same time. My ears started ringing, I couldn't see very well, the nurse had me lay down on the couch in the office.

The boys are now sitting on the edge of their seats.

Them: Wow! What other times have you passed out?

(silence)

Me: Umm, oh ... never mind...

Now, who wants to get treats after shots?

free style

I'm not in charge of putting the boys to bed. This lovely duty has be delegated to my husband and I think he likes doing it (for the most part). That said, they have been watching a lot of YouTube videos lately during story time. My husband claims it's for ideas, their inventions...

::

So I noticed that Wyatt has been kicking his feet up on the walls a lot lately. He'd put one foot up on the wall and spin around on the other foot. Honestly, I thought 'that's a little weird', but I let it go, because I pick my battles with this child.

Fast forward with us going into the gym. Wyatt's literally stepped up his game. He's putting one foot on the wall, spinning around, running over to the chair and kicking off from there. I grab him before he makes his next move to the side table, 'What are you doing, Wyatt? You can't step on people's furniture,' I scold him.

He shrugs his shoulders and mumbles something.

"Well, you can't do that anymore!" I whisper-yell at him.

Wyatt goes on "but it's called freestyle walking, Mom... and I like doing it".

Freestyle walking?

(now imagine a four year old doing this... yes, adults (apparently) think this is fun too)

Ah, yes, freestyle walking, thank you YouTube.

Or 'Gobber Jiggerty' when Wyatt wants to call it some made up name.

But I'm having a ridiculous time trying to explain why there are shoe marks on people's walls from my four year old and it's not that he has horrible manners,

it's that he's freestyle walking.

WTF Friday (again)

I feel a little foolish, a little, well... asinine for buying RunTone shoes.


But isn't it part of the American dream to want a house, kids and a nice butt?

Can you blame me for wanting to believe that shoes are going to make my rear 28% better than my regular gym shoes would?

The worst part, I fell for it (and that I have witnesses).

I told my sister that I thought I was running faster. I asked my husband to 'feel my butt, it feels smaller, right?' (Yes, I realize this was a loaded question and there was only one correct answer if he wanted me to ever talk to him again... and of course, he wants me to nag him talk to him.)

Now Reebok is issuing refunds for those that are fools like me.

WTF?

Honestly, I feel a little better knowing that I didn't buy clothing that I thought would tone my body though (because that would just be crazy).

Am I asinine for wanting a nice ass?

Apparently so.

::

Please feel free to assume I would like comments on my cleverness in using the word 'ass'.

(wink)

blind man driving

I hate molars. I don't mean that I don't like the function of them chomping chicken or munching manwhiches, but I hate them in my one year old.

I hate that her mood swings like a drunken sailor. One second she's fine, the next she screaming, throwing her body around, begging to be held, only to push me away because she doesn't want to be held.

Please pop already, because I'm about to burst.

::

Driving my own little personal carpool this morning, from one school to the next, a white van blew by me. It was some sort of custom blinds company, you know, the kind that sells those fancy wood blinds.

I sort of gave him a 'what in the he$$' look out of my window, that he didn't notice... or that I didn't really make tough enough.

Then I pulled up to a stoplight behind him, and saw this:
The sticker says: Caution this vehicle driven by a blind man

I love it when I can at least laugh at a bad driver.

I still hate molars though.

a page ripped from my parenting manual

Wyatt can be gross. He's pretty compulsive in his booger picking. He tries to be slick and just do a little slide action from his nose to his mouth, but fails, most of the time, to fool anyone into thinking that he's not picking his nose.

Last night, we were sitting at the table eating dinner, well... most of us were eating. I caught Wyatt picking his nose for the 20 billionth time that day and teased him about 'liking to eat boogers more than my dinner'.

He laughed with his dimples and started eating his rice instead.

I turned to Edy and started cutting up more chicken because this girl is a meatitarian, 'go meat or go home' she says... whatever, you get it, she likes chicken and needed more before she started her high pitch shrill she has to let people know of her existence (at least in a 5 mile radius of our house).

I turned back to look at Wyatt and he had his finger back in his nose.

'Wyatt!' I screamed, 'Stop it!'.

He screamed back at me 'I can't, I've got lots of boogers in my nose!'

I tried to explain to him, 'that's because you don't know how to blow your nose'. (Somehow that page must have been ripped out of my parenting manual about how to teach your child how to blow their nose, because none of my kids know how to do it. They sit there, me holding the Kleenex, demanding them to shut their mouth and blowing like an elephant... but I digress.)

So Wyatt continues to pick his nose while I grab my paper towel.

'Blow!' I tell him.

Which of course, doesn't work.

I tell him 'just let me look, let me see how many boogers you have.'

That's when I see that the kid's managed to shove several pieces of rice up into his nose.

'How did those get up there?' I asked as I pulled the grains out of his nose.

He shrugged his shoulders, kind of saying: big deal, I pull weird stuff out of his nose all the time and he continued eating his rice.

Thank God, at least the kid knows how to use a fork.

I'm holding onto that parenting success tightly.


And I can't believe I linked two other posts talking about Wyatt eating boogers. Is there some sort of 12 step process I should be starting him on?

grandmas

I remember having breakfast at her house. Sitting in those chairs that you could spin around, the kind that you could race across the kitchen floor, except they didn't go very fast because Grandma had carpet in her kitchen. 'Who does that?' I think now, except that I remember it's my grandmother and damn it; she doesn't like cold feet, so she's going to have carpet in her kitchen.

She'd have some sort of waltz, organ, churchish music playing in the background, coming from her clock radio. It was the 1980's, there were things like boom boxes; things that played music better, better acoustics. The music sounded horrible. I remember I changed the channel one day thinking I would trick her, she didn't say anything though, she just switched it back to her station without a mention.

And it was always Kellogg's Corn Flakes for breakfast. I couldn't think of anything more boring for breakfast than corn flakes. I asked if she 'would ever get anything other than corn flakes?', I don't remember her response, but I remember there being a box of Frosted (corn) Flakes the next time I stayed over.

Because that's what grandmas do. They spoil you. They answer your requests. They do anything for you.

::

My boys rummaged through my mom's sewing closet full of remnants of material. They each made their own cape; one plaid and one plain red. They wore them the entire weekend they were at my parent's house.

And this weekend, there were real capes waiting for them in their bedroom at my parent's house, sewn by my mom.


My grandmother passed away on Friday. There are little things that stick with me, that will always stick with me about her, like corn flakes and AM radio stations.

I hope one day, for my boys, one of those little things will be superhero capes.