Friday, February 28, 2020

7 Quick Takes about Little Old Ladies, Adventures in Beard Land, and New Cereal Products I'm Not Sure Are a Good Idea

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

1


My kids don't usually want to dress up for PJ Day, Crazy Hair Day, or any other special days at school.

Normally I don't mind, because we're barely catching the bus in the morning as it is. No need to add some nonsense like having to put together a costume of my son's favorite book character or fashion my daughter's hair on top of her head to look like a plate of spaghetti.

But it could be fun, at least once in a while.

So I was thrilled when my 8-year-old announced that she wanted to dress up like a 100-year-old lady for the 100th day of school.

We popped the lenses out of a very round pair of dollar store sunglasses, put her hair in a high bun, found a pearl necklace and a shawl in the dress-up bin, and drew some wrinkles on her forehead in brown eyeliner.

She was SO CUTE.

The next morning before school, literally 15 minutes before the bus came, my kindergartner decided he wanted a shirt that said "100" on it.

With the clock ticking, we were scrambling trying to find a plain-colored shirt that was somewhat clean and frantically fashioning the number "100" out of duct tape on the front. (A suggestion for the school: please consider celebrating the 111th day instead, that would have been waaaay easier.)

We finished in the nick of time and he was running to the end of the driveway (no time for your gloves, sorry!) to get on the bus before it left without him.

Just a sweet reminder of why I'm still actually sort of glad the kids aren't into dress up days.

2


While my dad and stepmom were here last week, Phillip and I took a little overnight getaway. We've been trying to plan in more vacation time with each other since our trip to Florida in December and this was the perfect opportunity.

We did a little sightseeing, ate mediocre Thai food and really good Mexican food, watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, window shopped at a fancy mall where a women's shirt cost $234, and also, I tried out a sensory deprivation tank.

We toured a few beautiful old churches, and I must be old because I really like that kind of stuff now. I remember being bored out of my mind when my parents dragged to these places when I was younger:


I thought this was wood but realized after taking the picture it was actually metal.

3


Phillip's beard experiment is ongoing, and since it's starting to look like legitimate facial hair that's there on purpose now, I thought it would be a good time to take a picture of it:

Selfie from outside the hotel.

Bonus side shot, since I took a second one by accident.

I've decided that beards are really weird. First of all, Phillip's beard is mostly silver and red, while his hair is mostly dark blonde or light brown.

"I still don't understand why your beard has so much red in it," I commented once during Phillip's nightly Admiring of the Beard Ceremony in the bathroom mirror.

He shrugged. "I think there's red hair in my family."

"You say that like it's more relevant than the fact there's no red hair on your head."

Regardless, the plan is to let The Beard stay until spring, and then we'll both be over it.

4


You will never believe this annoying saga having to do with my 11-year-old's watch.

He got a watch a few years ago  nothing fancy, just a digital watch with an alarm and stopwatch  that he loves and uses all the time.

By December, the watch band is getting frayed so we shop for a replacement on Amazon to put in his stocking. Since the exact replacement won't be here by Christmas, we opt to buy a knockoff brand.

The knockoff is a complete piece of garbage that falls apart in 2 weeks, so we order a nice silicon band.

A few days later, the watch quits working.

I order a new battery online, which ends up being a pain to replace, and after it's got a new battery the watch still doesn't work.

So we order him a new watch.

When it arrives, he puts on the nice band we'd bought for his old watch and wears it to school. He comes home that afternoon with a raw spot on his wrist the size of a silver dollar from the silicon band.

By this point, I've been actively engaged in trying to get him in possession of a functioning watch since December.

I know it wasn't his fault, but I'd had it up to here with the stupid watch and I snapped, "Fine, just take it off and use the band it came with."

"I... already threw it away."

GAH!!!!

5


I took my youngest two to the mall to pick up some photos at JC Penney, and since they were being good we stopped at a bay of coin-operated ride on toys. (We never actually put coins in them, but they enjoy playing on them anyway.)

The 6-year-old leaned out the window of the toy food truck and asked me, "Do you want to order some food?"

"Sure."

"What do you want?"

"I think I want some fries. What sizes do you have?"

"Ummmm... medium and huge and normal and small and humongous."

I'm glad I asked. I never would've ordered the right one otherwise.

6


I was grocery shopping when I happened to spot this new product in the breakfast cereal aisle:

I'm uneasy about the world and the handbasket we seem to be riding in.

My question is, where did this idea come from? Who is the deranged individual who bit into a Hostess Twinkie and thought, "This should totally be part of a balanced breakfast!"

7


My 3-year-old has been killing me lately with all the cute things he says.

Exhibit A: I told him I was making a shopping list so we could buy ingredients for dinner. He asked what meal we were having and I told him, "Stroganoff." So he thought for a minute about what helpful suggestion he could offer, pointed at my list, and asked, "Did you put 'strogans' on it?"

Exhibit B: After dropping my daughter off at a church youth group activity, the 3-year-old was surprised to see me come home so quickly (we live two and a half minutes from the church.) When he said "That was fast!" I reminded him that we live really close to the church. Smiling as if realizing something for the first time, he said, "So Jesus is our neighbor!"

Babies and puppies are well and good, but you'd have a pretty hard time convincing me there's anything cuter than a little person asking if he should put on shorts or "long-sleeve pants."

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7 comments:

Caitlin Spearson said...

I attended that church for years, and got married there. I thought it was wood! hahah

AnneMarie said...

I have to confess that regarding the 100 Days of School Celebration (which I hadn't heard of until this school year, when ladies at a library event were discussing it), I'm reminded of Mr. Incredible when he talks about "celebrating mediocrity." I mean, yes, I guess it's a nice way to mark the time, but aren't there cooler actual holidays kids could celebrate at school? That being said, seeing photos of my friends' kids dressed up as old people was super fun and really cute :)

That twinkies cereal looks terrifying! At the store yesterday, I was a little freaked out when my preschooler noticed that there is a Baby Shark cereal. I feel like cereal has gone off the deep end of ridiculousness.

Ann-Marie Ulczynski said...

The watch saga reminds me of the MASH episode called “for want of a boot.” Same thing - Hawkeye just needs a new boot, but it just goes and goes. Your floating experience sounded interesting. I didn’t realize those things had water in them. I thought that sensory deprivation was more like a bed in a tube. But kudos to you for trying it put!

And yes, we count to 40 before dinner every evening during
Lent. The original idea came from Kendra Tierney over at Catholic All Year,

Rachel said...

Twinkie cereal? What? Who even wants that?
I really felt that watch drama story. Angel always needs a watch, and he's picky about watches, and that kid has gone through so many watches since we left the USA--it's so hard to find one, he kept having issues with the strap cracking, breaking, and other ridiculous watch problems. I never knew it could be so dramatic. His current watch, he got the Christmas before Cyrus was born, and it's a smart watch ( a cheaper Asian brand of the GPS running watches)...that one has lasted over two years now, and I'm hoping it will stick around for another couple years!

Rosie said...

My husband has brown hair but his beard is distinctly red! Beards are incredibly weird.

Michelle said...

Facial hair really is weird. My dad has dark brown hair naturally (well, grey now), but his facial hair was all bright red. His dad was a redhead so I guess it makes sense, but funny how he still had brown hair.

Terra Heck said...

Kids say the cutest things! My husband is rockin' the beard too. For some reason, he's really into it this year. It's all right but I prefer him without. $234 for a shirt?!!! No thanks.