How To Wake Up A Princess

Getting out of bed on Sunday mornings is hard.  Getting Leah out of bed on Sundays is even harder.

Now that I run the sound system at church on Sundays, I have to be there by 8 o'clock.  This is a huge change from our previous routine which landed us in town about five minutes before church started.  There has been more than one occasion in which we've had to sneak in through the back and quietly slip in to our seats. Quietly slipping isn't so easy when you're dragging along two girls in Sunday dresses that swish and swoosh with every footstep and a boy with the energy of a Chihuahua on Red Bull.

Last Sunday it was about 7:40 and everybody was up and ready to go.  Everybody except Leah.  She's like her Daddy.  We're not morning people.

So I go in to her room and try to wake her up.  "Leah, it's time to wake up.  Leah.  It's time for church.   Let's wake up Leah.  Time to get dressed."  Her response was less than enthusiastic:

It's at this point that I remember how much I hated when my Mom would wake me up whether it be for school or church.  She'd pop her head in the door and say, "Pooh Bear, it's time to wake up Pooh Bear."  God, how I hated that.  To this day, I despise all things Winnie the Pooh and I can appreciate Eeyore's suicidal tendencies.  But my hatred of hearing that each morning is where the genius lies.

The sooner I woke up, the sooner she'd stop saying "Pooh Bear" in that annoying, drawn-out tone.  I shudder just thinking about it.

Then I realized, despite her annoying methods, maybe Mom could help me rouse Leah from her sleep.  We sit next to Grandma every week at church.  It's a fun-filled hour that's full of coloring, stickers, and little baggies of Goldfish crackers for each kid.  Grandma is a big hit on Sunday mornings.  I try again.

"Leah, do you want to go see Grandma?"

Mental Floss

I love trivia.  More accurately, I love knowing the answer to trivia that no one else knows.  The problem is, I don't know as much as I'd like to think I know.  I have a brother-in-law that can tell you the scores of every Super Bowl played since the beginning of time and who had the most stolen bases in Game 3 of the 1909 World Series.  Seriously, just make up some random question about sports and chances are he'll know the answer.

It's creepy.

And awesome.

And, I wish I had that kind of memory.  But, I don't.  My Dad has all kinds of useless facts roaming around in that brain of his, but not me.  Apparently, it skipped a generation.

I think the boy has it.

It's not even a good memory or useless trivia with him though; it's knowledge.  That's half the battle.

Tonight we played the Mental Floss board game.  A great game based on an even better magazine.  If you don't read it you should.  At least visit their website.  I was given this question:

"What is sodium bicarbonate also known as?"

Apparently, I should have known this.  Like I said, I'm not the brightest.  I was thinking it was salt or soda, I had no clue.  Lose a turn, feel ashamed, ask the boy.

"Hey Caleb, what is sodium bicarbonate?"

Without even pausing to think about it or missing a beat of his hand-flapping, he replied:  "Baking Soda."

That's my boy.

2014-1-25

Caleb:  You woke us up this morning saying that you hurt your right elbow and couldn't move your arm.  You  said, "Well, I guess I'll just be left-handed from now on."

Leah:  I look forward to your future career as an architect.  Or, as a hobo making shelter out of whatever is available.

Elizabeth:  You are picking up bad habits from your siblings.  Climbing on a chair to reach the snacks in the pantry is not acceptable.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

I might be getting old, but not too old to party.

Sign I'm Getting Old:  I went to pick up the kids from school today and completely missed my turn-off,  heading half-way in to town.

But Not Too Old To Party:  So I pulled a U-Turn, cranked up some metal (Rings of Saturn) and head-banged all the way to elementary school.




Sign I'm Getting Old:  I'd rather stay home with the family than go to an outdoor metal festival.  Sorry Mayhem Fest.

But Not Too Old To Party:   Those kids are going to bed early so I can drink beer and play Guitar Hero in my underwear all night.

Sign I'm Getting Old:  I spend more time yelling things like "Don't touch that", "Who did this", and "Stop".

But Not Too Old To Party:  When I do yell "Stop" it is immediately followed by "Hammertime" and my awe-inspiring rendition of the Hammer Slide.

Sign I'm Getting Old:  I enjoy spending three hours sitting in an uncomfortable chair to watch my little girl perform somersaults, hand-stands, and front-flips during her 5-minute routine.

But Not Too Old To Party:  I know that all this handstand practice will make her own everybody else at college keg stand parties.

  Make Daddy proud.

Sign I'm Getting Old:  I have life insurance, a will, and a trust fund set up.

But Not Too Old To Party:  The will has specific instructions to throw my ashes in a biodegradable urn alongside an apple seed and plant me.

 That's one way to say "Eat Me" to the world long after you're gone.

Sign I'm Getting Old:  My brain comes up with awesome blog posts around 11:30 at night when I'm falling asleep and then I forget them by morning.

But Not Too Old To Party:  I'm getting revenge by slowly killing brain cells.

The brain is such a scumbag.

Do We Speak A Dead Language?

Teaching your kids new things is tough.  The toughest thing to teach?  Language.  Okay, besides how to not poop in your pants, it's language.  We've had two of our three kids in speech therapy.  The third one didn't quite make it because she decided to bust out ten brand new words on the day of her evaluation.  This is what kids do to you.

Sometimes, I feel like we're not teaching the kids how to speak as much as we're teaching them how not to cuss.  Take the boy.  One of his first words was "Fag."  It's not because he's hearing homophobic rants at home, it's because the "L" sound is ridiculously hard to say.  The boy loved flags.  He had a world atlas and would just study the flags of the world.  The lack of a clearly defined "L" was never much of a problem until we took him to his first 4th of July parade.

"Dad, see those fags?  That's a huge fag.  I've never seen so many fags."  While the other parade goers stare, I say "FLAG" loudly just to make sure nobody confuses me for one of those Westboro nuts.

Of course, no cursing repertoire would be complete without the "F" word.  No, not this F word, the F word.   Both the boy and the girl have had problems with this one.  Caleb preferred to drop the F bomb in the middle of words--like Kentucky.  Change the "t" to an "f" and you have yourself a fine curse word.  Don't believe me?  Listen for yourself:


Why the school taught him a song about fast-food joints eludes me.  Now I don't feel so bad about the school cutting music. Learning value aside, it was hilarious.  Leah's F bombs weren't quite as funny, at least not at first.

I heard her sitting on the couch one day, saying f*** over and over.  I knew she had overheard me attempting a simple DIY project the day before--a project that ended with the hammer introducing itself to my fingers and my tongue introducing the niceties of the french language to the girl.

Figuring I should go explain to her why she shouldn't use that word, I headed towards the couch.  When I saw her, I let out a sigh of relief.  She was waving a fork around in the air.  "R" is another tricky letter to master.  After a few days of practice, she got it down...kind of:


Leah butchers words.  Many of them are hilarious and rather than submit to my inner grammar-nazi, I've come to enjoy them.  There is one in particular though, that needs to be corrected immediately.  It could land me in jail.  Lee is a tech kid.  She loves playing on our Nook, texting on Momma's phone, and using the computer.  The problem is she can't say computer.

It's comes out as "peter".  She's always asking to play with my peter.  It was funny the first few times, but now I'm worried she'll go to school and tell her teacher.

Teacher:  "Leah, what did you do over the weekend?"
Leah:  "I played with Daddy's peter."

I can already hear the phone call from the school.  At least I'd get some peace and quiet in jail.

Aaaand, It's Gone.

After two weeks of winter break and another week of snow days, I was ecstatic when the school bus pulled in on Monday to pick up Leah for her first day back to school.  The joy would not last long.  Three days later, "Icy Road Conditions" would cancel school.   (sigh)

Snow Daze

Winter break was supposed to be two weeks long. Winter break should have ended four days ago. Winter break did not end four days ago. Winter break. Winter. Break. Winter break winter break; winter winter winter break. Break winter.

Winter break break break winter--winter (break) break break winter. Winter break winter break winter break. "Winter break", winter winter break.  Winter break winter, winter break break break; winter.  w i n t er bre a k winter b r e a k wnreti baerk...