Charlyn’s Web

Pixie came out of her bedroom, after being told way too many times to get dressed, and proclaimed:

“There is NOTHING to wear!”

Well, there’s the tan slacks and jeans.

Oh horrors, no.

There’s the tan skirt.

Eeeek!

See a trend here?

If you had put some of your dirty clothes in the wash then you’d have more choices. Oops, excuse me, I forgot- you’re five. Clothes are to be left on the floor and walked upon.

I found a black jumper dress with a black and white shirt in the dryer and that was acceptable.

I guess she just doesn’t have enough acceptable (i.e. non-tan) clothes to fill out her wardrobe. I don’t look forward to her teenage years. I don’t like to clothes shop and am very fashion challenged. I can see her dragging me around stores while I proclaim loudly “But it’s UGLY!”. Even when it’s not- payback time!

I know! Twice a year I will ship her off to visit Dear Friend Boo-Boo, who understands clothes and fashion, and they can have a grand time together! How in the world we will be able to afford that will be a mystery as we will be spending all our money on trying to keep her brother fed.

Since we went to the Gym today, I told her she could wear her nice black Mary Janes to town but must wear her “strap on shoes” (tennis shoes) while in the gym. That was ok with her and she changed when we got there. However, when it came time to leave she didn’t want to carry them out. She insisted that I do it. I refused and continued talking to the other Mothers. As we walked out someone asked if those were our shoes on the bleachers. Sure, enough there her shoes sat.

Now her favorite pink sparkly shoes were taken away from her because she took them off at the table and left them there- something that is becoming a habit. So they are in our closet until the time her Papa decides to give them back. Now there is a black pair beside them. I told her she would have to wear her strap on shoes to church and oh, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth!

Such hardships that child has to go through.

“Agony! Oh agony!” shouted The Boy. He wasn’t really in “agony” although he may have been uncomfortable as he was playing Spider Boy (climbing the walls) to get his “camera traps” down from the top of the closet. The camera traps were large Legos made into various forms and placed on top of the closet in the living room area to spy on people. They have been there for almost a year, I mentioned them here back in March and I was tired of their presence. So he was climbing up the closet opening to reach them all and having to stretch to get them therefor the “agony” part. A great exaggeration.

TG heard him and after a few times started saying it herself.

“Ago-him!”

“Ago-you!”

…blow your nose.

Take a tissue, more than one if you can manage it, hold it up to your nose. Sniff loudly. Repeat if necessary. Throw practically unused tissue in garbage. When Mama says “Blow!’ complain loudly that you are blowing and sniff again.

There was snow again yesterday (and more today) which is pretty unusual for this early in the season. But we take what we can get! The Col., who loves driving in this kind of weather, drove the van to work to see how it would handle in two inches of snow. At our dinner of turkey burritos, he told us that it didn’t do as well as he had hoped. He told us of turning into the road that leads to his work and sliding until his front wheels hit the curb. He drove on down to the parking lot and when he tried to make that turn he went into another slide which he couldn’t get out of until the front wheels were in the grass. He thinks it might be the tires.

Also, at dinner The Col. told me how he had not done well that day in sticking with his diet. It seems some of his office mates ordered in pizza. He was determined to behave and ate his salad (with turkey- notice the recurring eating theme here?) before the smells of pizza filled the office. He was strong until mid afternoon when he saw pieces lying around and he succumbed to their siren song. He commented how he had done so well over Thanksgiving but fell off the wagon today. This innocent piece of information put him in the frying pan.

“Yes, Thanksgiving, the meal I slaved over? The one you hardly ate any of?”

“Um yeah.”

“You couldn’t find it in your heart to succumb to the glories of that meal but you fell to a cold slab of greasy Dominoes pizza?!?!?!?”

“It wasn’t Dominoes, it was Pizza Hut.”

“Oh, like that makes it better.”

To appease me he tried the candy I had made; it’s an Aplets type candy with apples and nuts. He said it was good but I am beginning to doubt his palette.

About this time a little voice popped up from the other side of the table.

“Papa, if you had gone slower you wouldn’t have slid.” Said KJ seriously. She had been thinking the whole thing through.

“Yes,” said her Papa sarcastically, “I shouldn’t go 60 miles an hour through there.”

She seriously nodded her head and said; “You should drive slow on that road like Mama does.”

She looks at me and I nod, trying to hide my smirk.

She proceeded to lecture her father, the man who has a CDL, who drove over the road trucks for awhile, who can drive anything out there, who has driven on more snowy, icy roads than she has ever been on in her whole life, the one person I want to be riding with in bad weather, on how to drive.

This morning he wondered if he should drive the van or dig the 4 wheel drive Suburban out of the shop. I told him that now that he has been told how to drive in the snow, he could probably take the van. KJ heard this and continued on with her lecture about driving slow while we shared a laugh.

You gotta be careful what you say around these here women folk, you never know what will land you in a whole heap of trouble and a lecture or two.

As we ate our volumous feast at Thanksgiving, the one I had spent many hours cooking, my son smiled at me and said the meal was “awesome”. He thanked me when he went to bed for the “awesome” food! I felt warm with pride that I had provided my loved one with such a high rated meal (he often doesn’t feel that way about my dinners).

On Sunday we made turkey sandwiches (what took us so long, you ask? I don’t know is my honest answer). HP watched me make one up for the kids. I was putting cranberry sauce on it because they all love it when he asked: “Can us kids have just cheese sandwiches?” No said I. When it was all together I cut it up as HP mused farther about how he wasn’t going to like it and could he have just a quarter of the sandwich? He took one bite and said “Hmm! This is good!” With much restraint, I kept my mouth shut.

Last night I wasn’t feeling to hot due to a cold coming on so I decided to go easy and fix Polish Sausage, mac and cheese (from a box- cringe) and flavored beans. I figured that everyone was getting tired of having turkey, no matter how many different ways I have been fixing it. The Col. was working late so it was just the kids and I eating it up. After a large serving of sausage, two servings of mac and cheese and two servings of beans (and still wanting more) my Son grinned at me and said…

you know what is coming….

“This is awesome!”

I am completely deflated.

I awoke to hear footsteps coming down the hall. It wasn’t terrible early but it’s a day when The Col. leaves early and I like to lounge in bed for a bit. It wasn’t the usual footsteps that I hear early in the morning. The Otter had already been up surveying the situation and had quietly gone back to bed. These footsteps were bigger, louder so I knew it was The Boy. He paused inside the door. I contemplated not opening my eyes but he lingered long enough I thought I’d take a peek. He saw the eyes.

“Moooooommmm!”

Sigh. What?

“K dropped gum in my bed and it’s all over me! And the bed!”

Groan. Al l right I’ll be there in a minute.

As I got up and dressed I heard him jumping around in his room. I finally figured out it was to try and stay warm. I was actually feeling a wee bit sorry for him.

I headed back and first tried rubbing it off with my fingers. The Boy doesn’t have a high tolerance for pain and he is not quiet about expressing himself. After a few shrieks in my ear I decided that wasn’t working and we went to the bathroom to use a washcloth. I tried a warm washcloth because the poor skinny thing was pretty cold but that tended to soften it and cause it to get gummy again so it was taking quite a bit of rubbing. I’d work on one area, the inside of his leg, and then another, one of his arms, so that one area wouldn’t get too tender. All the while listening to the shrieks coming from his poor tortured mouth. I was hoping to get his leg cleaned off so he could get pants on to help him warm up. I was cursing K and contemplating a gum ban for her and possibly the world when she wandered in.

The Boy yelled at her that it was all her fault. She confessed that it had fallen out of her mouth when they were wrestling and that they had looked for it but couldn’t find it.

Wait a minute! THEY looked for it? Did H know it was there? Why yes, the (I really want to put “idiot” here but we don’t allow name calling in our house) precious child did know it was there. They looked for it in their childish way, exactly where they thought it landed and couldn’t see it so they promptly stopped looking. Nor did they tell a Parental Unit about said lost gum.

I promptly stopped feeling even the teeniest amount of sympathy and rubbed to my hearts content.

The gum is off The Boy but is still on the sheets. I’ll have to figure out how to get it off of there next.

What a way to start the day.

“It’s a girl!”

What am I going to do with a girl?

After five years, I still wonder that.

She was beautiful.

She still is.

She had large almost black eyes. They are chocolate brown now with long lashes

Her hair was kinky at first. I thought What genetic throw back is this? But it washed out and she had curly hair for awhile. It still has body and curls easy.

She is girl to the core. Pink and lace and frills. But she will also wrestle with her brother, sister and father.

She has always known what she wants. No waffling for this girl. It’s another genetic throw back.

I remember being huge and exhausted while pregnant with T, so K was less than 18 months old and I was  saying something along the lines of “I suppose I should change your diaper.” Not really meaning it because then I would have to get up. Quite a daunting thought. She would head down the hall and if I didn’t follow fast enough come back looking for me, wondering what was taking me so long. We have learned to really mean it when we say something.

She is helpful, kind, energetic, decisive, funny. She is my middle child, my first girl, joy of my heart.

Happy Birthday KJ!

We went for a walk/bike ride down to get the mail yesterday. The kids all on their bikes and The. Col. and I walking- the dog was along too. It was a sunny day and a very nice day for a stroll.

We got down to the pavement and decided to go to the neighbor’s driveway a bit farther down the road. We often do this as a way to extend the walk and give the kids a chance to ride on the pavement for a bit.

I was walking along when TG, on her trike, slowly cut over in front of me. I thought “that’s good! She is getting to the edge of the road.”

But she didn’t stop. About the time I yelled “What are you doing!?!?” She had driven right into the ditch! And toppled over. She looked a little dazed as we helped her up and straightened the trike. But she just brushed herself off and as she got back on the trike commented:

“I must have been sleeping.”

I am sad to report that no one in our house calls our Church’s Harvest Festival “Harvest Vegetable” anymore. It has been out grown by the Boy Who Doesn’t Like to Be Posted About. When he was about 2 1/2, that is what he called it and it took a few times before it dawned on me what he was talking about. I thought he was talking about harvesting vegetables. He has a favorite stuffed toy from that year. He always has a great time.

This year was no exception. We ate hot dogs and chips. Yum! Then the kids get free tickets and get to pick which games they want to play. There are about 10 games varying in difficulty. TG liked the duck pond where a magnet is attached to a fishing pole and it is used to pick up a little duck. There are numbers on the duck and the child gets to pick a prize based on the number (one to three). Number One is most often candy with the prizes getting better with the higher numbers. Some of the games a ring or ball has to fall in the right place, in line or on the same color, to get the higher prizes. Another game that TG liked was the golf putting one. She was determined to get the ball in the hole but her putting skills left much to be desired. I think she got one in out of pure luck. KJ liked the duck one and the throw the ball/ring ones. HP liked a ball game. They ended up with a bag full of treats, a bag full of candy and a stuffed animal each.

At the end of it all, TG looked at me and asked when the Harvest Party was? I said we just did it! Later, as she hugged her Papa goodnight, she asked again about the Harvest Party and was told we just got home from it. She then asked about the food. We had hot dogs and chips, wasn’t that yummy? She still wasn’t satisfied and inquired again about the food. After thinking for a bit, her Papa realized she thought that at a “party” there should be cake and ice cream! Ah! We explained that this “party” didn’t have a cake but it was sure fun anyway!

It was a child’s Hog Heaven!

Stuff you drink in the autumn.