Friday, December 22, 2017

7 Quick Takes about Reading Material, Friendly Apparitions Caught on Film, and Little White Tigers that Are Harbingers of Doom

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


For years, my 11-year-old has been writing a story called Seasons. I'd describe it as an epic tale on the scale of J.R.R. Tolkien, and it's about four sisters who are winter, spring, summer, and fall personified in a battle for the earth.

Heavy stuff for a 6th grader.

Anyway, she's been at this for so long it's become commonplace household conversation. And then I discovered that my 6-year-old writing Seasons stories of her own using the characters her sister created:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
"The bad army was coming..." it begins. This is going to be a real nail-biter.

My kids are literally writing fan fiction for each other. I always joke about how lucky they are to have such a large and devoted fan club... but I guess it's not really a joke anymore.

2


Every time I walk by an in-store makeup display, it's usually been defaced by the makeup samples to look something like this:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
I prefer the classic blacked-out-tooth-and-eyepatch look, but this works, too.

I wonder if the models know? I mean, they went to so much trouble to look nice for the shoot, just to end up like this. Does it bother them?

These are the kinds of deep meditations I have when I go to CVS on a Tuesday.

3


I was doing what every parent does at about 9 PM every night and deleting 147 blurry toddler selfies off my phone, when I saw something.

At first glance it looked like a black screen and I almost deleted it, but then I looked a little closer and noticed it was actually more interesting.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

This ghost is waving at me, you guys. My kids are artists.

4


I try hard to keep the little kids away from their big siblings' homework, but sometimes things happen.

Luckily, my kids report that the teachers usually think it's kind of cute when they bring in papers that have been scribbled on or otherwise desecrated by the toddler (as long as it doesn't happen too often.)

And there's always the popular excuse "My brother ate my homework."

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Someone in our house has a healthy appetite for learning.

5


We had a disastrous trip to the dentist this week that was absolutely not funny at the time, but in retrospect I guess it kind of is.

When we arrived, I gave the receptionist my daughter's name. She was just coming back from her lunch break and was getting logged back into her computer, but she said "You're all set, take a seat," and so we sat in the waiting room.

And sat and sat. For like, 45 minutes.

Finally I went back up to the desk and asked, "Did I get my daughter's appointment time wrong? We've been waiting for a long time."

I watched the blood drain from the receptionist's face as she looked up my daughter's name and said, "I'm sorry, I don't see her name here!"

"How is that possible?" I asked. "We checked in when we got here!"

She mumbled another apology and handed me a gift card to Starbucks, and that was that.

We'd showed up on the wrong day and that part was our fault, but the receptionist messed up too because she didn't actually check us in when we arrived, or she would've seen that on the computer!

In retrospect, I have two thoughts about it:
  1. I'd rather have avoided the long wait for nothing with an overtired toddler having a series of meltdowns over the fact that the magnets on the trains at the train table have positive and negative sides, but I guess a free Starbucks muffin is better than nothing.
  2. Having a stash of "sorry I screwed up" cards on hand is actually a pretty brilliant idea. Looking into it right now.

6


I've mentioned before that I love our school's holiday policy. Instead of forbidding any any mention of Christmas, they just devote equal time to talking about all the winter holidays. I love when my kids learn about other religions and cultures so I'm all for this.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

My kindergartner was showing me her papers from school and showed me this beautiful menorah picture she made.

"Wow, that's nice!" I admired it. "Do you remember what that thing is called?"

I could see her racking her brains for the large, unfamiliar word menorah.

"Umm... orthodontist?"

So close, kid. So close.

She did, however, remember that the middle candle was called the shamash candle, so at least she was paying a little bit of attention.

7


I've always been careful with each of my 6 kids not to have them get attached to a particular lovey.

I have no problem with a toddler or preschooler who likes to sleep with a stuffed animal or carry around a blanket. I think that's cool, as long as they'll accept a number of different ones.

It's when they get attached to one specific lovey that you find yourself tearing the house apart to find it at bed time. Or making a special trip to the park 30 minutes away because they left it sitting on a bench. Or paying 10 times what it costs to buy a replacement on Ebay because it was discontinued by the manufacturer years ago.

My toddler always wants a stuffed animal before bed, but I didn't really even notice his preference for his sister's tiger until it was too late.

Now he carries it around all day long and refuses to go to sleep without Tiger. Not just any stuffed animal, but Tiger. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

By the way, it was hard to even get a non-blurry picture of Tiger because he was trying to rip it out of my hands in every single one.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}

We're in trouble. Might as well go buy 10 of them, I guess. This is going to be a disaster.


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4 comments:

AnneMarie said...

Oh man, #4 brings back memories! When I was in middle school, we read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and had to make board games for it, and I made this awesome game with a 3D wardrobe. It was sitting by the front door, all ready to go to school the next day, when my younger brother decided to vomit all over it. Sure, he could have turned the other way and done his business, but nope-all over my homework. Thankfully, after seeing a bunch of disgusting photographs we e-mailed her, my teacher gave me full credit and didn't worry about it.

I also find it interesting that you specifically try to keep your kids from being attached to one particular lovey, because I've wondered before if I'm depriving my toddler for not guiding him towards one-I've heard moms before talking about the process of getting their babies-then-toddlers to bond with certain stuffed animals, and I never even thought of that til other people mentioned it. But now, reading your reasons for NOT promoting loveys, I'm really grateful that I was too lazy and ignorant to get my kid to do something like that.

Rachel said...

The making sure that kids are okay with playing with different toys/blankets instead of having just one is absolutely BRILLIANT. I'll remember that. My parents pretty much handled it that we were never allowed to take toys or blankets or anything out of the house--except for kid #5, who has never been able to abide by rules that apply to the rest of us, and was attached at the hip to a "Kewpie" doll that went with her EVERYWHERE. I'm pretty sure kewpie adventures traumatized the whole family. Kid #7 is also extremely attached to Snowball, a white teddy bear that my best friend in high school gave her 3 days after her second birthday. How do I know, 9 years later, that he gave it to her 3 days after her birthday? Because she has hosted a birthday party for Snowball every year on that exact day. It's intense. Snowball has never left the house, though, so there have been no repeats of the Kewpie reign of terror.

Jenny Evans said...

Glad your teacher was okay with the photographs. I think they are generally understanding about stuff like that.

And don't get me wrong, it's really cute when they have one special stuffed friend that they want 24/7. It's just a disaster when it gets lost or happens to be in the washing machine when they want it...

Jenny Evans said...

The "not outside the house" rule is really smart. I suppose if you can't avoid the lovey issue, the least you can do is keep it inside to eliminate the possibility of losing it in the wild. For now, we confine Tiger to the house and the car, but if we leave the car he doesn't come into the store or outside with us. For the same reason.