7 Quick Takes about Upping the Creepy Factor in Your Holiday Gift Exchange, Our New Pet Wolf, and Why I'm Renouncing My Citizenship as an Earthling

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

—1—

My fifth-grader's class is doing a Secret Santa gift exchange in December, except instead of a traditional gift they're supposed to give a box of stories, poems, and/or illustrations they've created.

Today they're drawing the name of a classmate, who they're instructed to observe until December 14th to get an idea of what they might like before starting on the project.

As my son explained this all to me, my 12-year-old walked by and said "So you're just supposed to stalk someone in your class for two weeks? Creepy."

I doubt their teacher was going for "Secret Stalker gift exchange," but that's kids for you.

—2—

Phillip was hunting all around the house for something the other day and paused in his searching to ask, "Have you seen my hooded sweatshirt?"

"The green one?" I said.

"Uh..." he looked at me with a quizzical face. "I don't have a green one."

Well, that was an odd thing to say. His forest green hoodie is his favorite one. It has warm, fuzzy forest green lining and he puts it on when he gets home practically every day.

As I was explaining this, Phillip looked at me like I was sprouting additional heads and informed me that the hoodie I'm talking about is 100% gray.

When he found it and slipped it on I took a picture. Due to the light it doesn't look as green in this picture as it does in actual life to my eyes, but it's still green-ish, right? Someone please tell me you see it, too.

Subject of the photo refused to look at the camera or stop making eggs because he thought this was a dumb argument to be taking to the Internet.

This isn't exactly a new topic, though, because we also can't agree on what color the house is. I say yellow and he says green. However, I'd like to point out I once asked a neutral third party who said "tan," proving that our house color is legitimately ambiguous.

—3—

As we were sitting down to lunch with a friend's preschooler who was over for the day, he told us all conversationally, "I don't have any pets."

Bolting upright in his chair, my 2-year-old yelled "I do!"

Seeing that for the last several years Phillip and I have held to a strict "no bringing things into the house that require Mom to clean up their poop except for babies" rule, I was curious about what pet he could be thinking of.

"What kind of pet do you have?" I asked him.

He pointed to his shirt, which displayed the outline of a wolf, and said, "I have a dog."

Phew. Well, as long as he's happy and there's no feces involved, then I'm okay with it.

—4—

Autocorrect has been driving me nuts lately. If I don't go back and edit my texts, I sound like a crazy person when I talk to people.

Not only does it insist on changing the names of my children and everyone else I know to random nouns (my friend Susan is just going to have to officially change her name to Sudan at this point,) but it also leaves the obvious typos like "someth8ng."

As if that would ever be something I actually meant to write. Get it together, autocorrect!

—5—

I was at the library browsing for some easy readers for my first grader, and as I ran my finger over the spines of the paperbacks I noticed that one of the titles was The Day My Butt Went Psycho.

At first I just shook my head and thought, "Come on, this 'using potty humor to trick boys into reading' thing is getting ridiculous." I never thought I'd be nostalgic for the good old wholesome days of Captain Underpants, but here we are.

Then I tried to envision our straitlaced children's librarian — or any librarian, for that matter — recommending it by name ("Oh, and by any chance have you read The Day My Butt Went Psycho? It's excellent.")

Then when I was sitting down to write this, I Googled it (because I like to sound like I know what I'm talking about) and found out it's actually worse than I thought.

The Day My Butt Went Psycho is merely the first volume in the bestselling trilogy that includes the critically acclaimed Zombie Butts from Uranus.

Speaking of Uranus, the next thing I did was made a desperate phone call to Elon Musk begging him to take me with him when he moves to Mars because I just can't with this planet anymore.

—6—

Those of you who've been following this blog know I've been having a hard time with the transition of being a mom of little kids to being a mom of big kids, especially since my oldest started high school this year.

I always knew they'd grow up but I never really thought about how I would feel as my role as a parent as I've known and loved it for a decade changed. And it really does change when you're taxiing around teens instead of giving baths to toddlers and watching Disney movies.

At first I thought I was having a midlife crisis, but I think I've identified the feeling now: grief.

But as grief tends to do, it's starting to get less painful. I'm starting to believe I could even like this strange new world in which I find myself.

My 14-year-old has a 6 AM scripture study class before school, and this was the first morning of the year it was cold enough overnight to leave frost on the windshield. As I grabbed the ice scraper she asked (knowing that I have Raynaud's, a condition where my hands don't tolerate the cold well,) "Want me to do it so your hands don't freeze?"

So I sat in the car while my daughter scraped my windshield for me at 6 AM, realizing that life is different and will continue to change as my kids grow up one by one, leave home, and start families of their own, but different isn't all bad. It's going to be okay.

—7—

There's a Christmas tree farm near us and even though a tiny bit of my cheapskate heart dies every time we drop $70 on a tree we're going to chuck in a month, we make a morning out of it and memories are made.

The kids love picking out and cutting down our own tree, and riding with it on the trailer back to the parking lot. And one day if we strike oil in the backyard, maybe we'll even buy the overpriced apple cider they sell at the end.

However, once we got the tree set up in our house we realized it's impossible to make it look straight because the trunk itself is slightly bowed. No matter how we position the thing it looks like we let our toddler put it up himself.

But with the trunk bent like it is, there's nothing we can do except situate the tree so the best side is facing toward the front and then privately laugh about how it looks like the leaning tower of Pisa from any other angle. Which seems like a really appropriate metaphor for our life in general.

So maybe the tree is just perfect, after all.

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Best Gifts for Kids Who Are Obsessed with Vehicles

If you've got a kid who loves things that go, then you're going to want to print out this list and frame it.

Over the years our family has used all of these toys, which have not only been instant hits with our boys but have also stood up to lots of heavy use in our family of 8.

Fisher-Price Little People Stand 'n Play Rampway

Several years ago, my son discovered this at a friend's house and all of a sudden she was his best friend in the world. While he probably liked her alright, I'm pretty sure he was just using her for her Little People car ramp. This thing would entertain him for hours, at over 2 feet tall with two spiral hid-and-seek ramps that are sized for Little People cars but will work with any matchbox car. Batteries are optional in my opinion: even without the lights and sounds, this toy car ramp is still amazing.

Vehicle Tap Tap

This toy combines the first true loves of my second son: vehicles and hitting things with a hammer. And from a parent's perspective, it's pretty awesome, too. Kids develop fine motor skills while placing the little tacks and aiming the mallet. They work on matching to make the pictures on the cards or creativity to make their own vehicles. You'll need to supervise clean up a little to make sure all the tacks go back in the sturdy box (a box that won't fall apart is a big deal to me!) but the tacks themselves don't pose a safety risk because they aren't very sharp and slide easily into the corkboard surface.

Green Toys Ferry with Mini-Cars Bathtub Toy

My mother-in-law first saw this toy being played with at a children's museum and knew that it was durable enough for a children's museum, it was durable enough for our household. She was right. Green Toys are excellent quality (we also have the helicopter) and our kids have hours of fun driving the cars up and down the ramp of the ferry. We use ours as a playroom toy, but you can also take it in the bathtub, so it really doesn't get much better than this.

Under Construction Floor Puzzle

Your preschooler who loves trucks will spend hours assembling and reassembling this giant 24-piece floor puzzle. The puzzle measures in at 3 feet by 2 feet, and the puzzle pieces are sturdy enough that even though it's played with practically daily in our house, it's still looking good a year later. At the same time, we also bought the T. Shure railroad puzzle, which is just as amazing if your child also happens to love trains.

Open-Top 18" School Bus

When our toddler went through a phase where was obsessed with buses, we searched the Internet high and low to find him this plastic school bus. It's not just any bus! Most we saw were too small for toddler hands and too easy for things to get stuck inside, but at 18 inches this is big enough for some special play and the open top makes it easy to put things in and take them out without frustration. We knew he'd love it, and were proven right when he got up early on Christmas morning and started playing with it before we were even awake.

Melissa & Doug Nesting and Sorting Garages

Durable wooden cars, colorful garages you can stack and arrange in multiple configurations, opportunities for teaching numbers when they're playing... what's not to love about these Melissa & Doug garages? When we first received these, I was a little disappointed that the garages were heavy cardboard instead of wood, but after seeing how my toddler likes to stack them high and send them flying sometimes, I think that's actually a good thing.

Push & Go Friction-Powered Car Toy Set

While my boys own plenty of matchbox cars, these are unique in their collection. Not only are they vehicles you don't see everywhere (I don't think we've ever owned a street sweeper before,) but these chunky, durable cars do cool things with no batteries required. Pushing the car is all you need to make the combine reel spin, the sweepers activate, or the cement barrel roll. My boys and I love these vehicles.

City Life Car Play Mat

You know you already have too many matchbox cars, so put them to use with this rug! I promise you'll be shocked at how much time a kid can spend driving toy cars up and down these winding roads making vehicle noises. There are a lot of car mats out there of all sizes, but I especially like this one because at 60" by 32", it's a good size and shape for multiple kids to play on without taking up too much space in the room.

Buying toys for a kid who loves trucks, trains, cars, and things that go can be hard — after all, they have a lot of them already! But it's also really fun, and these great vehicle toys are sure to delight and hold up to years of heavy play.

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7 Quick Takes about Chocolate Compensation, Metaphors that Are Mostly Lost on Preschoolers, and Being Completely Unforgettable

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

—1—

Wow. I'm honestly confused about the timeline of the last few weeks.

I know Phillip was gone on a few work trips for what feels like a zillion years but was probably only a week and a half. It's all a haze of cleaning up after puking kids day and night and trying to sleep inbetween sometimes.

And if my life were a novel, just as you reached the end of that chapter (entitled "What Jenny Can Handle") there was a plot twist: 5" of snow followed by rain that made it too slushy for the snowblower and too heavy to shovel, rendering us totally homebound with our sloped driveway. It's possible that our heroine could've figured something out, but at that point I believe I heard the literal crack of my spirit breaking so I just went back to bed and cried.

But things got better. 

My sweet neighbor plowed our driveway and drove away before I could even thank him. Phillip came home and is currently giving me several hours a day to myself to do whatever I want. And he brought me these:

French chocolates: almost making up for a spouse leaving you for a business trip in Paris during Armageddon.

—2—

Since Phillip was traveling on his birthday, we celebrated when he got back. With the kids' help (and after the lying-in-bed-giving-up-the-will-to-live incident) I was able to make him this pistachio cake.

Ordinarily, I'm not a fancy cook. I refuse to use a flour sifter or separate bowls to mix the wet and dry ingredients. But I will do it once a year, for Phillip's birthday, and this year his cake (pisatchio cake with honey cream frosting, FYI) was one of the best I'd ever had.

You should've seen the pistachio-shelling sweatshop that was my kitchen as we baked this cake.

I'm proud of keeping my composure when cooking with the kids and also of letting them place the berries around the bottom at random orientations instead of slanting them all the same way, which I am totally cool with and doesn't make my eye twitch AT ALL.

—3—

There's a bookstore in town with a cute little children's play area. It seems like a nice winter playdate spot where you can chat, let the kids play, and then leave with a book. In my opinion, that sounds better than spending a few hours at a McDonald's playplace and going home with a watery soda and rotavirus.

When my mother-in-law was visiting in October, I took my 2- and 4-year-olds there for the first time. My 4-year-old spent the rest of the day complaining that he didn't have fun there, but the next day he was begging to go back like it was his favorite place in the world.

So I recently suggested meeting up at the bookstore to a friend, and even though my 4-year-old played happily while we were there, he started complaining again that afternoon.

"I had a bad day," he informed me.

"Why?"

"Because we had to go to the bookstore. The bookstore made me have a bad day."

Fine. Whatever. Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me.

But you guys, he woke up the next morning begging to go to the bookstore again! I just can't with this kid.

—4—

We've been attending a lot of concerts/programs/awards ceremonies for the kids' various school groups lately, and even my 2-year-old has caught on to the fact that they serve refreshments at the end of these things as a reward for sitting through it.

Now when we sit down in any type of performance, he looks up and asks, "Can I have 'freshments?"

That has saved us many times. I honestly don't know what we'd do to get them to behave if we couldn't threaten to take away 'freshment privileges a dozen times before it's over.

—5—

As far as teaching profound spiritual truths to children under 5, this week has definitely been a big, fat fail.

On Sunday during church, while the bread and water were being passed around the congregation, I whispered the story of Jesus healing a blind man into my 2-year-old's ear. He seemed to get it, but then he turned to my 12-year-old and whispered, "Is Jesus' eyes broken?"

Clearly he didn't think I could be trusted.

After that I went to teach my nursery class, where the lesson was on being reverent. I displayed a poster of ways we can be reverent at church (listening, quiet voices, thinking about Jesus, etc.) and passed out stuffed animals.

"I need you to help me teach your stuffed animals to be reverent," I said. Pointing to the picture of Jesus on my poster I asked them to reverently whisper to their stuffed animals 'There's Jesus!' Which one of the 3-year-olds in class interpreted as, "this would be an excellent time to yell 'POOPY POOPY PEE-PEE POOP!' at the top of your lungs."

And then on Monday I read a children's book of Bible stories one of the kids picked out, and my 4-year-old had some serious questions about the parable of the wise man who built his house on a rock.

4: "Why did that guy build his house on rocks?"

Me: "Because he was the guy who followed Jesus and did what He said."

4: "Jesus told him to build it on rocks?"

Me: "Yes. Well- no. It's a metaphor. The house is like... your life."

4: [pointing to the wise man] "Is that the life?"

Me: "No, that's a guy. It means that if you build your life on Jesus you'll be okay, like this guy who built his house on a rock."

There was silence for a minute as my 4-year-old absorbed what I was saying.

Then he asked earnestly, "So did Jesus build our house out of wood?"

—6—

Aaaaaand Thanksgiving. You didn't think I'd forget about Thanksgiving, did you?

Even our library got into the Thanksgiving spirit. I don't know why I thought this was so hilarious. I just did.

—7—

Some friends invited us to Thanksgiving dinner and offered to share cooking duties with us, which was good because Phillip was worn out from jetlag and I was worn out from the week in Hades (see Take #1) and my plan before they called was going out for Chinese food.

We had a great time at their house.Their 6-year-old decided my 14-year-old was her favorite person. While we were playing a board game she looked up at my 14-year-old and said "You're a girl I'll never forget! [slight pause] What's your name?"

We all had a good chuckle about it because seriously, how are little kids so funny like that without meaning to be? But then we really could not stop laughing when she asked my 14-year-old again as we were leaving what her name was.

Like she said: unforgettable.

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Inspirational Thoughts Interspersed with Random Antics from My Kids

Actually, that could have been the title of my blog if I'd thought of it earlier.

Last month was General Conference, a worldwide meeting for my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) that I suppose you could compare to a series of TED talks for the soul.

The talks were encouraging, the music was moving, and one of my children almost choked on a Mentos. That about sums it up.

Inspirational Thought #1

Have you ever wondered whether it's even a good idea to bring children into the world with all the scary things that happen sometimes? I personally haven't had that exact question because I love me some babies, but I know what it's like to be paralyzed with fear over the what-ifs. 

Elder Rasband's talk "Be Not Troubled" happened to be one of my favorites, about how we can overcome fear with love: our love for God, and His love for us. 

Random Kid Antic #1

Every Conference, we get a bunch of snack food and put pictures of the speakers on each treat, and as each one talks the kids get to eat his snack. (I cannot overemphasize how excited the kids are about this. They literally remember the apostles of our church by which snack they were on last time.)

We also have them write down an idea from each talk as they're listening and eating. As an example, see this excessively phonetic one from my 1st grader:

"Thar are bad thengs hapning but we don't net to bee fraid."

At least she was listening. The 2-year-old was busy throwing Elder Rasband's gummy worms at the TV.

Inspirational Thought #2

Elder Oaks' talk reminded me of how unique and beautiful God's plan really is. It's simple and all-encompassing at the same time.

I always love a talk that lays out step-by-step our big picture beliefs and then it makes sense why we do everything we do in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Random Kid Antic #2

Since General Conference lasts several hours and there's only so long you can eat fruit roll-ups and take notes, the kids also colored a lot.

We had some intricate mandalas, some multi-colored scribbles, and a Lego superhero coloring page that someone inexplicably decorated with a pickle theme:

Iron Man: "Wow, it's salty!" Batman: "It's a pickle!" Flash: "It will destroy us all." Robin: "I love pickles!"

As I often tell people, "I have no idea what's going on. I just live here."

Inspirational Thought #3

It would be very hard indeed to belong my church without learning that faith is a verb. As Latter-day Saints we believe that religion is a living thing that requires our active participation, and only by living what we believe can we ever really come to know it.

As you can probably guess from his name, Elder Uchtdorf is German and in his talk, describes the cure for weltschmerz (a German word for a vague dissatisfaction with life) in three familiar words. And no, they are not "live, laugh, love."

Random Kid Antic #3

Please excuse the appearance of our surroundings. We watched Conference this time in our dungeon unfinished basement, which will supposedly someday be a gorgeous living space and movie-watching area. 

For now it's the receptacle for all household junk and has a flat screen sitting on the plywood subfloor.

It's not exactly an easy space to fit the whole family for extended periods of time, and when the 2-year-old got bored he started dragging over random junk from all over the basement. Which is why we watched almost all of Conference with this giant red cooler from 1972.

Inspirational Thought #4

I've thought about this a lot. And how do you build a life that's shaped by what you believe instead of what's on your to-do list? And what does that actually look like in real time?

Elder Christofferson's talk was a nice reminder of what it all comes down to: with a prayerful confirmation that what you believe is true, you can move forward in faith toward making the gospel your compass instead of just a map you sometimes kinda sorta look at when you get lost.

Random Kid Antic #4

Continuing with our Conference note-taking, my 10-year-old summed up one of the afternoon's other talks on forgiving others with this succinct note:

Naturally I thought this was hilarious because whenever the kids are arguing about something at home, Phillip and I like to start signing a very theatrical rendition of "Let It Go."

This might not seem effective, but it actually is because it quickly stops sibling squabbles by immediately redirecting the full force of both kids' annoyance directly at us. #proparentingtip

Inspirational Thought #5

As a mother, is this or is this not one of the hardest challenges of life? That was rhetorical. Of course it is.

In her talk "Divine Discontent," Michelle D. Craig talks about feeling the gap between who we are and who we want to be. By following promptings, which is what we usually call those little nudges from the Holy Spirit to do something, we can turn those feelings into something positive.

Random Kid Antic #5

Looking for a parent-approved way to expend his energy, the 4-year-old was waving his arm during one of the hymns between talks. He was carefully following the movements of the conductor on the screen and then turned around to say, "I'm reducting."

Almost, kid. Almost.

Every six months I look forward to the direction I get at General Conference and the thoughts I have while watching on how I can follow Jesus Christ better. And to be honest, I look forward to the kids' random antics almost just as much.

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7 Quick Takes about Attributing Intentions to My Car It May Not Actually Have, Face Washes for Desperate Times, and Places Not To Take Your Three-Legged Dog

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

—1—

Can I just say that this area of my dashboard really stresses me out?

It's always lit up like a Christmas tree and I'm like, "Look, I know I have no gas and my tires are going flat but you continuing to remind me while I'm running 30 minutes late with a toddler kicking my seat is NOT HELPING THE SITUATION!"

It's worse than when I set my GPS but decide to run an errand first and it keeps saying "recalculating" every 5 seconds in that thinly-veiled "you're an idiot" voice.

—2—

We've had a weird stomach thing going around (and around and around) our family for weeks, which means it probably wasn't the best time for my sister-in-law to come stay the weekend with us.

But Megan had already bought plane tickets and was piggybacking this visit on a work conference, so what else could she do?

It looked like Ground Zero for biological warfare when she walked in. At that exact moment, I was trying not to hurl because I was on my hands and knees mopping up after someone else.

But Megan seemed happy to see us and played with all of the kids anyway, even if I did see her occasionally rubbing Purell on her face like moisturizer.

—3—

My kids aren't used to having relatives besides grandparents come to stay with us, so my littler ones kept calling my sister-in-law "Grandma."

She's 29, by the way.

After being called 'Grandma' for the fifteenth time, Megan mused out loud, "If I had a baby at 14 or 15 who also had a baby at 14 or 15, I guess it's conceivable..."

Then she laughed. "Horrifying, but conceivable."

—4—

Everyone was feeling better on the last day of my sister-in-law's visit, so we went to a place near us that is a cross between the world's most beautiful arboretum and a cemetery. We needed to get out of the house and I figured we wouldn't infect too many people there since most of them were already dead.

It sounds weird to visit a cemetery for fun, but I promise the place was gorgeous and so worth the trip. While we were there, we saw several other people obviously on leisurely strolls with their families so we weren't the only ones.

My kids got a kick out of the pictures on this sign at the entrance:

All throughout the cemetery, they kept freezing in a running man position and saying, "Oh, no! I'm breaking the rules!"

They also noted you aren't allowed to bring your picnic table, and three-legged dogs on the premises are strictly forbidden.

—5—

My 14-year-old bought a bottle of root beer after work and was struggling to open it in the car on the way home.

I was giving her a hard time about it, so she pointed the bottle at me and said, "Here, you open it. If you can't do it then I can make fun of you, and if you can then I get my bottle opened. So it's really a win-win."

For the record, there was something horribly wrong with that bottle and even after we got home and cut the seal with scissors the cap still wouldn't budge. I think she ended up stabbing a hole in it with a screwdriver and pouring it into a glass.

—6—

As I was picking up miscellaneous ponytails and action figures in the kitchen one day, I noticed a random chair in the middle of the floor for some reason.

My hands were full, so I flagged down my 4-year-old and asked, "Can you push that chair to the dining room?"

I'd forgotten I was the one who'd dragged it in the kitchen to reach something on a high shelf, but he looked up from playing cars and gently reminded me. What he said was: "But Mom! You have to put away your crap."

Ah, the joys of hearing yourself coming out of a preschooler's mouth. I was, at least, surprised into putting away my crap, so that's something.

—7—

Lately one of our kids has been coordinating outfits for all the siblings whenever possible. I love it, and not just because it means we might just be able to get a decent family picture for this year's Christmas card.

It especially warms my heart because it immediately makes me think of something I read in a parenting book called Hold Onto Your Kids. When we feel close to someone, we delight in finding (or making) similarities with that person. It's only when the relationship is rocky that we go out of our way to find (or make) differences between us.

So sure, sometimes my 5-year-old will walk around with toys shoved down her pants just so she doesn't have to share, but on the whole I'm so happy they love each other and get along.

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The Progression of Your Despair When Your Kids Get Sick

Having 6 kids is the best, but it makes for some pretty epic battles with communicable diseases.

Even if each person recovers quickly, it still takes weeks to run through every member of our 8-person family, adding up to what feels like a very, very long time of cleaning up bodily fluids and fighting the urge to dunk my head into a vat of Clorox.

But in the vein of turning my pain into art, here's a little chart I drew up so you, too, can know what to expect when a virus inflicts a week or more of projectile misery upon your house.

According to a Pinterest course for bloggers I've been taking, people like articles offering free printables or something. So if you want a dowloadable PDF of this helpful chart for future reference, just let me know. 

Of course I won't be able to reply until we're through Day 7. I'll be busy constructing a funeral pyre for soiled underwear.

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7 Quick Takes about Having a Positive Attitude, Jewelry Slogans, and Learning What Pinterest Actually Thinks of Me

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

—1—

I wasn't exactly thrilled about Phillip going on back-to-back work trips, but I was determined to have a positive attitude, anyway.

The first day he was gone, my alarm didn't go off to get the first two girls up for school, I woke up 45 minutes later to a kid standing at my bedside clutching his stomach and moaning, and when I jumped in the shower to get ready to drive the girls to school because they already missed the bus, my toddler wandered into the bathroom covered in diarrhea.

But hey, we're being positive, right?

My life in comic book form.

—2—

This week I took one of my kids to get their picture taken at J.C. Penney. I do it every year.

I highly recommend this instead of buying school pictures. I used a coupon and got 7 different poses for $16.92. With 6 kids this averages out to less than $120 per year, and I always have a current picture of each of them on the wall.

And if I'm allowed to brag, I also paid with a gift card I got at a 10% discount which I bought with a credit card that gives me 1.5% cashback, so I'm basically walking out with free pictures.

—3—

As we were walking through the mall after pictures, my 12-year-old spotted a big poster at Kay Jewelers with their slogan "Every Kiss Begins with Kay" (don't pretend you didn't just sing it in your head.)

"No it doesn't." She said, "'Every kiss' begins with E."

And that's when I realized I'd given birth to Dwight Schrute.

—4—

Phillip got the kids into some YouTuber who calls himself The King of Random. He does, well, random stuff. The episode I watched with them he was using Silly Putty as a mold to make a miniature bust of himself.

You don't get much more random than that.

It's not educational in the strict sense of the word, but I think it does open the kids' minds to exploring the different properties of materials, forming hypotheses, and thinking through the mechanics of how to build things so I suppose it's cool.

Also, my 7-year-old keeps forgetting what the channel is called and keeps asking to see The King of Crazy.

And I'm like, "Sure, I'm about to mop the floor. You want to watch?"

—5—

We are supposed to be done with soccer right now. That was the deal when I signed up. That was always the deal. I've been counting down the days to the last soccer game of the season like an uncomfortable behemoth of a pregnant woman counts down to her due date.

However, it's been such a rainy fall that games keep being cancelled and then they schedule a make-up game for a week or two later. Why do they keep scheduling make-up games??? It takes away the entire point of being excited for bad weather that closes all the fields.

—6—

I was going to help a friend replace some rotten boards on her deck and asked, "What tools do you need to pull up the boards?"

She told me the necessary tool was called a 'pry bar,' which sounded familiar to me so I figured there might be one in Phillip's workshop. He's a tool hoarder so I shouldn't have been surprised when I went down there that he had not one, not two, but three of them.

I gathered up the pry bars and just as I was about to leave, my 7th grader came home. "What are you doing here?" I asked, surprised since it was only 11 AM.

Apparently she had a half-day from school, and I had no idea. If you want to know what the world's greatest mom looks like, see my bio picture.

All I'm saying is, I felt a little better when we got to my friend's house and she called the dog her son's name while she was yelling at him.

—7—

I'm not very knowledgeable about Pinterest, but I was surfing around trying to learn more about how it works.

When I clicked my cursor in the search bar, a list called "ideas for you" popped up underneath with recommended topics it thought I would like. Kind of like Google autofill, but I hadn't typed anything yet.

The very top one was "jokes hilarious stupid."

I'm trying to be offended but that actually sums up this blog and most of my Internet usage pretty well.

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