Don't Hit Someone on the Head with Your Happy Place

My kids can get wound up. Like spinning top of death wound up. And when they get wound up, there is likely to be a cacophony of screeching, laughter, squeals and the occasional outburst of righteous indignation.

Just a few days ago the screeching, squealing chaos was in full force. There was racing, tagging, throwing and dodging involved in some strange game that used a combination of balls, Legos and Play-Doh. I have no idea what the object of the game was, how it was played or who made it up, but I do know that it was an intense competition. Finally, the noise level hit whatever decibel triggers the parent twitch reflex and Major Dad put a stop to the game. Or so he thought.

He separated the kids and banished them each to their own bean bag. They ended up sitting directly across from each other, each one planted on a bean bag and giving the other a Clint Eastwood showdown stare. Which led to giggles. Which led to snickers. Which led to Jack giving in to his inner warrior, letting loose with a blood curdling mix of medieval war cry and five year old laughter, grabbing his bean bag and running straight for Ella.

Major Dad, using some quick military take down honed by years of combat training, intercepted Jack and the bean bag and said (with a completely straight face) "Jack! You don't hit someone with your happy place."

Then he paused, looked at me with a slightly befuddled expression and said, "did I actually just say that?"

Me: "Welcome to my world. Want some chocolate?"

The Second Cold Shower Story (We Really Do Own a Hot Water Heater)

Now you can feel sorry for Jack.

A few nights ago, Jack ran out of hot water in the shower. I don't think it was Ella's fault this time since we had the dishwasher running, but the poor little guy got all soapy and then ran out of hot water. And left with the choice to jump out of the shower all covered with soap bubbles or to take a deep breathe and rinse off in the cold water, Jack chose...well, his first choice was to made a mad, soap covered dash for warmth and freedom. But Major Dad stopped him and made him rinse off in the cold water.

I'm pretty sure I could hear Jack's teeth chattering from a room away. Major Dad, cleaning him off as fast as humanly possible, was trying to be encouraging.

Major Dad: I know it's cold. Think warm thoughts.

Jack: B-b-b-b-ut, I'm-m-m-m-m c-c-c-c-old.

Major Dad: I know, I'm sorry. What's the warmest thing you can think of?

Jack: M-m-m-mommy.

Me: Awwwwwww.

So as soon as Jack got out of the shower, Major Dad dried him off, bundled him up and sent him to me. The little guy promptly climbed in my lap and snuggled as close as he could get. I was suddenly cold, but my heart was warm. Ahhhhhh. Mommy bliss.

Then the cold, wet towel started to seep into my clothes. My heart was still warm and toasty like a Pop-Tart, but the rest of me needed an electric blanket. And slippers. And maybe some hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows. Not the dehydrated micro-mallows that come in the cocoa packet...real mini-marshmallows. That's the stuff.

Oh, and Jack was warmed up too.

An Upside to a Cold Shower

I have not one, but two cold shower stories for you. First, the good news...I was not the one in either cold shower. Second, the less than good news...my kids were. Third, I will not admit that I find the thought of my children getting stuck with no hot water mildly amusing.

So here's the first story. Ella likes really hot, really long showers. The kind of showers that have set off our smoke detectors...twice. After one of her marathon Turkish sauna style showers we finally sat down to have a water conservation discussion with her. We explained to her, in what I thought was very clear language, that she couldn't use all of the hot water. We explained, again in clear language, that she had to leave hot water for everyone else to use. Clear? Yes, absolutely. If I heard that language I would think "oh, I need to take shorter showers so I don't use up all the hot water."

What did Ella hear? Ella heard, "don't use hot water." Guess how I found that out...one night as Major Dad and I told her to go get in the shower I happened to mention that Jack wouldn't be taking a shower that night. I think I actually said, "it's getting late, I guess Jack will just have to stink." (To which Jack replied, "yes! I'm a stinker!")

Anyway, after my oh-so casual announcement that Jack would not be needing the shower Ella threw both her hands in the air and exclaimed, "woohoo! I can use the hot water!" And promptly scampered off.

Me: blink, blink. Did she just say she hasn't been using hot water?

Major Dad: I think so.

Me: Has she been taking cold showers?

Major Dad: It seems so.

Me: Poor Ella!

Major Dad: (with an oddly proud lilt to his voice) Dude, that girl is tough.

So we called Ella back and asked her if she had been taking cold showers. Yep, that's what she'd been doing. Ever since we told her not to use all the hot water...and that was about a month ago. On the one hand, I'm completely mortified and feel so bad for my little girl. On the other hand, I'm really humbled that she was willing to be so obedient without complaining or muttering or second guessing us at all. Even if meant taking cold showers for a month.

Seriously, that girl IS tough.

PS. Tune in tomorrow for the second cold shower story. :)

I'm Not Actually a Cartoon Character

So in an attempt to make my blog more personal (as if the details of my husband's dirty laundry...literally...see here...aren't personal enough) I decided to add a profile photo to the blog page. Ugh.

It's not that I'm hiding anything from you, my dear and faithful readers. But I am not a camera person. I don't like having my picture taken. Actually, despise, loathe, dread, run screaming in a zig-zag pattern from anyone holding a camera would be more apt. I never take a good picture. Ever. And whenever someone manages to talk (bribe, threaten or beat) me into posing for a picture, I end up looking like a squinty-eyed munchkin. Oh, I'm also short...there's more personal info for you.

Anyway, so perhaps you can imagine the hours of angst that my simple, "gee, I should have a picture on the blog" resulted in. I have been through years of stored digital photos, watched my kids grow up in slideshow format and still couldn't find a picture I wouldn't mind sharing. True of the thousands of photos I looked at I was only in about ten of them, but still there wasn't a good one in any of those lonely ten. I was pretty much left with the "just had a baby" pictures (no one should see that), the tear streaked "my husband just returned from war" and a few scary red-eyed "who is going to clean up this mess" holiday pictures.

What's a shy, camera-phobic blogger to do? Fortunately there's an app for that. Well, not an app. Clip art. Click, click, click and voila...there's me up in the corner. Me if I were blonde, skinny and animated. The chocolate cake is about right though.

So there you go, now you can put a face to the funny. Unless it's not funny in which case I'm glad it isn't a real picture because if you actually knew me and didn't like me I'd probably cry.

Teacher Hooky

When kids are homeschooled, it's kinda hard to play hooky. I mean seriously, where are they going to go? "I'm not going to school today...I'm...uh...staying home." Haha...gotcha!

What's even worse is when homeschooling parents want to call in sick and go play hooky. How many other teachers have to actually take their students with them when they want to ditch school?

That's me today. I feel like playing hooky. And I'm not talking, "hey, let's take a field trip or do a nature walk." I mean, I don't want to do anything educationally related at all. Nothing. I don't even want to correct my kids manners today. I will because I'm OCD about their manners and proper grammar, but aside from that I don't want to pull out the counting critters for addition, I don't want to do map work and I don't want to discuss the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Nothing, nada, zilch.

See, we've had two very long days and nights in our house. The kids were up late two nights in a row, which is generally a recipe for chaos anyway, and we've had Verizon digging up our neighborhood to install big orange cables of some sort and the jackhammering, digging and coffee inspired good natured comaraderie commences at 7am. Toss all that in a big bowl, mix it up and you have a healthy dose of exhaustion with a heaping side dish of grumpy. Not me...the kids. I'm not grumpy. I'm not. I'm just expressing my very strong desire to avoid my teaching responsibilities while blaming it on anything and everything that shifts the blame to something that isn't me.

So I have declared today to be a snow day. (It's not snowing) Or a holiday. (Today is National Almond Day)* Or a teacher workday. Take your pick. It is a workbook free day.

*Today is in fact National Almond Day. It is also the anniversary of both the first 911 call and the day King Tut's tomb was unsealed. All items of significant historical importance that are being sadly overlooked. Hence, my selfless decision to hold a solemn school-free day to honor almonds, emergency services and Indiana Jones.

Deep Down I Still Want to be Cool

Not that I was ever supremely cool to begin with. But sometimes my inner rock star desperately wants to make an appearance...somewhere between the homeschooling, the mini-van driving and the grocery shopping. Just a little bit. I don't want to recapture my youth (good Lord no! Anyone who says that may not remember high school clearly enough) and I don't want to jump into some wildly age-inappropriate outfit and try to figure out how to look like I belong in a vintage record store. But every once in a while I'd like to feel...hmmm...not quite so old. Is that fair?

Well, last month I got to do just that. And it was all thanks to Major Dad.

The story starts way back in December, right before Christmas. I went to the mall to get shoes for the kids (cause there was a sale and I had a coupon...that's the "old" me part of the story). Well, in the parking lot I had a boo-boo. A pretty big boo-boo. I was pulling forward through the parking space and I scraped against the neighboring car. And not only did I scrape against it, I managed to pull my bumper almost entirely off. Yeah, oops.

I left a note with all my information and told the kids about being responsible and all that, but I felt rotten. Just rotten. Major Dad earned bonus points because he asked if I was ok and told me "accidents happen" before he laughed at me.

Anyway, the car needed lots of work. Lots. So I ended up with a rental car. A nice, economical Chevy Impala. Blech. But, the rental car person wasn't having the best day so not only did she accidentally charge me $100 when she shouldn't have, the gas tank was also on empty. And, she left all of her rental car keys in the Impala when she let me drive off. So I left with the keys to all of the cars on her lot. And you thought you had some bad days. Well, of course I returned the keys to her as soon as I noticed them, but Major Dad was not pleased with the customer service. So, being major Dad he called and had a "talking to" with the company.

And voila...upgrade.

I felt awful about it (because I'm allergic to confrontation), but I went anyway to get the upgrade.

This upgrade....


That's right, a brand spankin' new Dodge Charger as specifically requested by Major Dad. He knows me so well. And I got to drive it for three whole days. Three days of rolling down the highway in a muscle car. Vroom. True I had two kids in the back and I spent most of the time saying things like "do NOT drop your Cookie Crisp on the floor this car doesn't belong to us." But still, it was a fun three days.

It's a Monday...On a Tuesday

Monday was fine. Monday was great. Had a good day, all was well in my world and things went just swimmingly. Which is kind of a strange way to say that everything went smoothly, because you'd think if things were really going "swimmingly" while you were on land without a lake, pool or puddle in sight, that anything swimming would be a bad sign. Am I right? But I digress. Monday was not a Mon-don't talk to me until I've had coffee and something with a high sugar content-day. It was a Mon-smile, giggle, smile-day.

Then Tuesday hit. And apparently decided to pick up the "welcome to another week" slack that Monday dropped.

My alarm went off this morning, my eyes opened and my brain said "nuh-uh. Going back to sleep." I finally monologued myself into getting up simply because I knew we had a full day. Schoolwork, skating, grocery store, church event...busy day.

Then I wandered downstairs to get Jack's math book because the kids decided to do their schoolwork upstairs at the dining room table. I don't know why, but judging by their earnest little faces it made perfect sense to them. So I headed to Jack's desk and looked in the cubby for his book. And all I saw was blackness. A yawning, taunting abyss of dark emptiness.

My first thought, "Jack decided to redecorate."

Second thought, "where would Jack put his books?"

Third thought, "it's a Monday."

Fourth thought, "no, wait it's Tuesday."

Fifth thought, "duh."

I spent the next few minutes (I won't tell you exactly how long it was because in a few lines it will be really embarrassing) searching for a pile of Kindergarten workbooks. And they were nowhere to be seen.

So I headed back to the inky blackness of the cubby intending to...what? Look for clues all CSI style? I have no idea. It was a Monday by proxy. And as I peered into the blackness what did I finally figure out? Jack had taken his black 3-ring binder and put it sideways in the cubby. And guess what...Jack's black 3-ring binder is the same width as the black cubby in his black desk. So where were all the workbooks? Sitting contentedly behind the binder right they always sit.

Hello, Monday...on a Tuesday.

P.S. I have more evidence of Monday's Revenge that involves me buying chicken at the grocery store because when I opened the refrigerator to make my list this morning I somehow managed not to see the chicken I had already bought. You win this one, Mon-my powers are not limited to just one day of the week you silly human-day.