—1—
Every Christmas, my kids make me a new calendar with original artwork for each month.
I had a lot of favorites, but this was probably the one I looked at the longest:
For clarity, "poles" is supposed to be read "police." We don't have anything against Polish people and we certainly don't want to drop logs on them. |
There's just so much going on. I asked my son tons of questions, and realized later that I still don't know why a robot and a Jack-o-lantern are roasting marshmallows on top of the jail, or why there's a giant skeleton towering over the little green guy with a laser gun on the parking garage.
—2—
Speaking of Christmas presents, the baby has been playing a lot with his new Melissa & Doug latches puzzle. Basically, every kind of lock or closure mechanism you could buy at the hardware store is on this thing. He figures out how to undo all the locks and open the doors to see pictures of farm animals.
It wasn't until Phillip said "Tell me again why we're teaching him how to get around every conceivable way we might try to keep him out of something?"
Well, when you put it that way, it does sound rather stupid of us.
—3—
My 3-year-old is a real daddy's girl, which means I miss out on whispered conversations like this one. She crept into our room at 5 AM on Thursday and whispered, "Daddy."
"What?"
"I have a problem."
"Did you wet the bed?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter?"
"I have a problem."
"What's your problem?"
"I need a stuffed animal."
"...Then go get one."
She skipped back to her room, and that was the last Phillip heard from her until morning.
Kids are weird.
—4—
Our preschooler hasn't been napping well lately, and when I went up to check on her yesterday afternoon I found out why. Instead of sleeping, she's been busy tucking every doll, stuffed animal, and plush object in the room into bed.
Weirdest slumber party ever. |
When she ran out of blankets, I noticed that she laid out her coat (don't ask my why her winter coat was in her bedroom) and started tucking dolls into the sleeves. She might be naughty for sneaking out of bed, but at least she's resourceful.
—5—
After taking a sabbatical year, I went back to my friend's Zumba class this week. I love Rita, our instructor. Not only does she teach this class for free at our church out of the goodness of her heart, she doesn't even laugh at me when she's watching me from the front.
I'm deathly serious when I tell you my dancing makes Rick Astley look like Beyoncé.
The next day I decided to keep the endorphins going by doing a workout video at home, and my 3-year-old told me that doing reverse crunches made me look like I was getting my diaper changed.
—6—
I bring up Zumba because we danced to a really fun song I'd never heard before, so I came home to do some research on it. You know, for the blog. (The great thing about having a blog is that you don't waste time on the Internet anymore, you just do research for the blog.)
Anyway, when my kids saw me on YouTube they immediately crowded around begging for goofy viral videos their friends at school tell them about. I obliged them, and felt so much dumber after watching The Duck Song and I'm a Gummy Bear.
This is why I'm happy we don't have a TV.
(You're probably wondering what the song is: It's called "Chocolate" by Soul Control. And honestly, it's only slightly less dumb than those videos my kids wanted to watch.)
—7—
Phillip and I have lots of strengths, but yard maintenance isn't one of them. He mows the lawn about 3 times every summer, and I sometimes have difficulty telling whether something in the garden bed is a weed or an actual plant so I just leave it.
You may recall that we lost the battle with Mother Nature again this year and failed to rake our yard before it snowed.
Well, as chance would have it, all the snow melted, so we got out there and took care of our yard. Who cares that it was 6 PM and dark, or January, or 30 degrees? It may already be winter, but dang it, we were winterizing our yard.
Kids trimming back the perennials like I should've done in October. |
Phillip with the leaf blower. (The dots are just a strange camera thing, not snow. Although this would've been an even better story if it was snowing.) |
Just trying to defend our reputation as the weirdest family on the street.
4 comments:
I am so impressed with the artistic ability and creativity of your son's art work. Whose genes?
Definitely Phillip's. My kids love to tell the (by now) infamous family story of when my toddler asked me to draw a train for her, so I tried, and she started sobbing, "That's not a train, that's a pig car!"
The thing is, it really DID look like a pig and a car put together!
Many of your blogs are quite humorous because you touch on the "every day stuff" all parents deal with. I suspect you present in person a different persona than how you write which makes the blog even more enjoyable to read. Some topic ideas of which maybe many can resonate with:
missing library books on the day they are due
"nothing to eat" 2 days after you've done the weekly shopping
finding folded clothes in the hamper
leaving the lights, appliances, technology, etc, still on after kids have left the room
a new bath towel each time the kids take a bath, shower
the proverbial missing socks in the dryer
messy bedrooms, unusual items found when cleaning the bedrooms
I probably do seem slightly more normal after I've prepared to go out in public for the day.
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