School Pictures

As a general rule, I think school pictures are stupid. It's just a gimmick to make parents feel like they have to spend lots of money for some crappy, generic pictures where the photographer spent no more than one minute to get their shot ~ and they do it twice a year. Plulease! I usually only buy enough for the kids to have some to give to their friends. Anybody can take more framable pictures than those school pictures! So today when I was getting the form ready for Mark's school pictures, I noticed a new section. This had a place for the parents to put instructions for the photographer. I wrote "If he feels like making a silly face, let him." SO THERE! I might actually buy those just for the fun of having a "professional" photo of Mark pulling a face.

Public Humiliation

My friend Laurie's latest post inspired me to ask this question: Have you ever had one of those mortifying mommy moments when you just want to evaporate on the spot? Tell us all about it!

Oh the joys! Once on vacation, I was in a public pool which happened to be a LONG walk away from our condo. (I can't believe I'm telling this awful story!) Anyway, my baby had a massive escape velocity diarrhea blowout in the pool. It totally was gooing out of his swim diaper and into the pool that lots of people were swimming in. AAHH!! What could I do? There were no authoritative or janitorial looking people around to inform, so I just grabbed him and carried him back the LONG walk to our condo to clean him up, feeling MORTIFIED and horribly guilty about the people swimming in his crap. For the record, I did try to catch as many of those nasty floaties as I could before making my dash away, but it wasn't much use.

Ohh, another time on a different vacation with a different baby, we were at Dixie Stampede and the servers came around handing out these bowls of hot soup with handles. Before I knew what was happening, my six month old reached out and grabbed the handle and slung hot soup ALL OVER!! He totally hit the people who were sitting in front of us. They were NOT happy with me AT ALL!!

Back in the days when I only had Lydia, Ross and Mark (who were about 7, 5, and 3 respectively at the time of this particular incident), I used to frequent the library inside the mall. The kids liked to play in the children's room. They had this big wooden box thing which was painted to look like a fire engine. It had benches to sit on and a bunch shelves stocked with fire safety books and books about firemen and the likes. Also in the corner of the room was a rocking chair stupidly situated so that the back was just about a foot away from the fire escape door. We were happily looking at books and making a huge pile of things to check out when Mark (who was potty training, but apparently not quite without accidents yet) peed inside the fire truck thing. I went and begged some paper towels and cleaning supplies off of the librarian. As I was cleaning that mess up, Ross got a little too enthusiastic with the rocking chair and rocked back accidentally opening the fire escape door which set off the fire alarm. I swore they were never going to let me come back after that visit.

And then there is always this bunch of embarrassment which I posted about a couple of years ago.

Quote of the Day

Upon finding Justice playing with Lydia's flute, I took it away saying "You have to be careful with that. You can't just bang it around."

To which Justice replied "I was just going to bang it a little."

John's Got Style

In response to John's latest post:


I just couldn't help myself.

Can You Say BRAIN FART?!!

"Sometimes I amaze even myself!" Mark is currently on amoxicillin for strep (yes again). Clayton was on some other antibiotics about a week or so ago for an ear infection. I measured Mark's medicine out and Clayton saw what I was doing. Like all kids, he thinks the stuff is wonderful tasting, and he came and stood right in front of me. My brain was somewhere else, and I gave Mark's medicine to Clayton. Half way through I realized what I was doing and spilled it all over. I was too late though, he'd already gotten at least half of Mark's dose. I was at least responsible enough to call the pharmacy and poison control and admit my idiocy. It turns out that I didn't give him enough to hurt him. I just wonder what happened to my brain!

Hangin Out With My Favorite Gal

Lydia cashed in all of her considerable amount beans last night for an all out girls' night out with Mom. We had a blast. First we went out to eat, then we went to the theater and saw ...The Lightning Thief, which might be a bit of a HP rip off, but still very worth the time. We both enjoyed it. Now I'm going to have to read the books. We sat there in the theater cracking jokes the whole time, and just having a good time. Lydia said that I embarrassed her by being silly and talking to other kids' approx. her age at the theater. HA! I'm finally the embarrassing mom. She thought it was funny too though. Then we went shopping at KOHL's. I've got a $50 gift card for X-Mas and I totally need some new things! However, we didn't find a single thing for me. :( Lydia got a cute new dress (but I didn't use my gift cert on that, it's MY money.) Anyway, it was great to hang out with my nearly teen-age girl (ACK!)

BTW, happy birthday to Justice who is FINALLY officially potty trained, just in time to be a four year old. YAY!

Poor Little Snowman

Yesterday while the older kids were in school, I took J & C outside to play in the snow. Justice and I decided to build a snowman. Unfortunately, the snow was really dryish or something and it wouldn't pack at all. Finally after rolling this little ball all around the yard and it not getting any bigger, we just settled for a little snowman. Justice was determined that he should have all of the proper parts, so he found two rocks for eyes and sticks for arms. Unfortunately, our little snowman was doomed to have a short life. Much to Justice's dismay, Clayton kept knocking the snowman's head off, and Chloe (the dog) kept running away with the arms. It was kind of funny to watch though.

Loser!

There is nothing like a trip to the symphony to make me feel insignificant and without a hope of talent. So, I trimmed my fingernails and set down at this STUPID WASTE OF TIME computer. I am an idiot. I'm going to repent with a long dose of piano. (I'm not at church today because of a sick kiddo).

Oh the Possibilities!

About a week ago, I took Clayton in for a check up. While we were waiting for the doctor to come into the room, Clayton got into my diaper bag and got Lydia's open tube of fake blood out of it's zip-lock baggy where she had left it. He got it all over his hands. My imagination started going. It reminded me of the secret game. I had a little chuckle at the possibilities and then washed his hands and put the fake blood back away.

...like a weed, A Year's Worth of Growing in Three Minutes

It's been an entire year since I started taking pictures of the kids by my growth chart. My average is about one picture per week, which I'm okay with. I've learned a couple of things that I wish I had known from the beginning, but oh well. And I wish the lighting was better where I am taking the pictures, but once again it's too late for that. All in all though, I'm happy with what I'm doing. Here's a year's worth of growing in three minutes:

And you never know where you will find your kids conked out. Here are a couple of recent shots that I couldn't resist taking: Justice fell asleep playing a computer game.

I don't know what Clayton was trying to do, but YIKES! I'm glad he didn't fall!!
Does this make me a bad mother?!

And I'm putting this picture of Bruce and Clayton in just because I think it's cute:

The Patience Cycle

I think my blog is really feeling mono-thematic lately (the theme being "My Kids are Making me Crazy,") and that is sad. But what can I do? I am stuck in a cycle I call "The Patience Cycle." You see a while back, I prayed for Heavenly Father to help me learn to be more patient. A quick word of advice: Never do that! God has a funny sense of humor about that kind of thing. If you pray for patience, He has a tendency to give you plenty of opportunities to practice it. It's absolutely true. As a mother of five, the two youngest being monkeys and rascals of the highest order, I kind of felt like I'd already had enough situations in which to practice patience! Unfortunately, I fall short every darn day!

Clayton's favorite game right now is "Flood the Kitchen." He literally does this many times a day. You may say to me "Renae, where are you when your child is climbing into the sink and doing these dastardly things?"

To you I say "Many a different places including right there taking him right back out of the sink, only to have him repeatedly climb back up again and again - and I can't get a thing done for pulling him out of the sink. Besides, any parent will tell you that you just can't attach a one year old to your hip or follow him around constantly and expect to ever get anything accomplished. It's totally impractical."

Anyway, the only solution that I've come up with to the "Flood the Kitchen" game is to turn off the water supply to the kitchen sink. The problem with that is that I frequently need to use the water in the kitchen sink. Oh well, it won't be forever. I just hope my cabinet and floor under the sink don't totally rot out before he gets past this stage.

On another similar note, Clayton has also recently discovered the joy of cracking raw eggs. I caught him at it twice yesterday. The second time was particularly bad / ironic / amusing, so I'll tell you about that one. Bruce's grandmother called him yesterday and offered to give him some eggs fresh from her friend's farm. Bruce was all happy about having a dozen and a half "farm fresh eggs" and made a point to open the cartons and show everybody in the family the cool multicolored eggs. In fact he even mentioned that eggs and hash browns sounded like a good thing to have for dinner. Alas, alas, Bruce and I were talking in the other room when we heard the sound of eggs cracking coming from the kitchen. In we both run to find that Justice and Clayton had broken all but one of the new cool eggs. Fortunately, Justice had enough sense to get a big bowl out and crack most of them into it. So Bruce got his wish after all, we had scrambled eggs for dinner last night.

Oddly enough, even though I know that praying for patience is a risky business, I find myself praying for patience enough just to get through another day. It's a cycle. I hope I learn my lesson soon. Huh, that sounds like a REALLY bad thing to ask for. I think I'll just keep that wish to myself!

On a just-so-you-know kind of note, even though my kids tend to drive me up the wall, and I feel like screaming half of the time, and even though I just had to go stop Clayton from playing his other favorite game "Pull Everything Out Of the Cabinet and Dump Cereal All Over the Kitchen" for the second time since starting this post ... despite all of that, I love my little monkeys with all my heart and I thank God EVERYDAY for them and for their health. Clayton just climbed up on the back of my chair and leaned his head around me and said his favorite word "Hellooo" in my face, with a CUTE little smile. Now he's snuggling in my lap. He is a sweetie after all! *contented sigh*