Little B Solves Hunger and Homelessness

Last night I came home to a line of ants walking through my children's bedroom window.  My son was sitting by the window with a strange look on his face trying to kill the ants as fast as they marched in.  I walked in and let out a little cry of shock at the band of ants quickly taking over my house.  

Little S looked up at me and smiled.

"B did it! He did it its all his fault punish him." pigtails bouncing and the little gap with the two missing teeth shining in the ant light.

"Did what I ask? " not really wanting to know what crazy scheme had ended with my house over run by black ants.

"Fed the ant blueberries. He opened the window and fed them blueberries!" 

"Why B? Why?"

My son cleared his throat and with a look of pride announced , "They were hungry so I fed them blueberries. They were cold so I opened the window." 

I'm not sure if I should be proud or ground his little butt until next Tuesday. 

Calling the President

Todays the day. The day of the dreaded test. My poor son has had nightmares and anxiety attacks about this test. Its gotten so bad I actually called the president to complain. Not the PTA president the president of the USA.

 I waited on hold for about 45 min. I felt patriotic waiting to share my thoughts with the president the commander and chief the big todoo. I felt I was doing my duty as an american and letting  my president know about the issues facing me and my family. When I finally got through I was inspired I told my sad story with elegance and compassion. I told them about how my son now hates school. How class time revolves around preparing and is no longer about learning.I told them how my son's curiosity has been squashed.   I poured my heart out to Obama. When I finished the operator said to me, "So you hate standardized testing and think it should be done away with?  Should I check that box?"

Yes check that box.

I hate those stupid tests.

The Evil Spring Break

You may have wondered if I have taken another leave of absence from my blogging.  have I abandoned ship, skipped town, tripped the light fantastic? The answer is no. I was being held hostage by the evil villain also known as Spring Break.

Spring Break is the time when there is no school for a long, long time and parents still have to work. It is a time of fear, terror and of course the time when the evil words are uttered with complete abandon "I'm bored."

I guess I'm lucky cause I can bring my kids to school with me. However since they're not so little anymore they just tend to run around the school terrorising the babies and saying things like "You can't tell me what to do!" to the teachers who are trying to quiet them.

I had an important meeting this week and I told my kids under no circumstances were they to come in my office while I was meeting with the big boss. So being the literal crazies they are they stood directly in front of my office door jumping around trying to get a good look at my boss and saying things like, 

Is that the Big Boss?
 He's always mean to mommy? 
He doesn't look so scary. 
You go poke him!

and other gems that I'm sure will help my career. 

So on Wednesday I packed those backpacks up with a smile on my face knowing I had escaped the dreaded Spring Break .....until next year

Guess What A Small Child Hands You At 1:30 am?

Last night at about 1:30 am I was awakened by my daughter handing me something. Past experience has taught me that anything handed to me in the middle of the night by a small child is not something you want to hold onto. Typically it's a booger or head lice. So it being 1:30 am and with this prior knowledge tucked firmly in my mind I took the offending object and hurdled it across the room.

Little S looked up  and me and smiled. Even in the dark I could see a hole where her tooth had previously been.

Mommy it came out! I lost my first tooth! Should I put it under my pillow? Will the tooth fairy come tonight?

Suddenly it hit me. 

I had had thrown my daughters first tooth somewhere in the dark. So at 1:30 am this morning the great tooth hunt began. Armed with Kindles and flashlights we searched the great expanse of the rug. Boy those little baby teeth are small. After several panic filled minutes I found it stuck to the bottom of my foot.

I think were waiting for that tooth fairy's visit for tomorrow night.

The First Night Away From Home

Tonight is going to be the first night I've spent the night away from the kids unless you count a hospital stay for gallstones (which in my book writhing in pain doesn't count). So in my totally not insane fashion I have prepared everything for tomorrow morning. There are post-stick notes everywhere the eye can see. It is like a field of yellow sticky paper telling my Hubby what to do next.

 Its not like he's not a competent guy but I'm sure my detailed step by step directions of how to do pigtails will make all the difference in their morning. I rehearsed it with my son last night and I cant say it went very well. He couldn't seem to make the hair bands work and there seemed to be lots of hair pulling and wrestling to the floor involved which I generally don't do when fixing my daughters hair. I'm a little paranoid about the hair since I had lice in my eye while teaching pre-k but that's a whole other story. So I do insist on it going up. 

There are detailed direction about socks and lunches. There are even details about which bear goes where for bed time. He should be all set. I have packed multiple lunches I have done laundry, written notes to teachers ahead of time even prepared dinner in little plastic containers which I know no one will eat. 

My son says he's going to be Mommy tomorrow. My daughter says she'll be Mommy too. I guess there's going to be a lot of people telling each other what to do. Which should be fine cause three people being on charge of ..um...no one is totally a recipe for a smooth morning.

So I'm relaxed, totally relaxed not at all paranoid that something horrible will happen and everyone will get sick, get lice, forget to go to school, get lost, set something or someone on fire, drown in a horrible scuba diving accident or loose a limb while using a can opener.  

Totally ...fine...and relaxed

Getting Hit With The Old Flu Stick

About a week ago everyone in my house was sick. The whining was monumental. My son whined for soup the soup was too hot then after cooling it it was too cold. My daughter was thirsty but her taste bugs made everything taste funny. They took turns keeping me awake all night. First my son threw up then my daughter couldn't breathe through her stuffed up nosy and needed me to blow it. Then my son was cold then my daughter was hot. It was a relay race of non sleep.

They gooped on me 
They coughed on me. 
I wiped their little fevered brows. 
I blew their little snotty noses.
 I could feel the germs crawling on my skin and jumping aboard for the ride of the lifetime. And then as they miraculously turned a corner and felt almost all better, but still needing soup and cookies type of almost better I got hit with the big fat flu stick from hell.

It was a mean type of flu the kind where you rent movies like the Notebook which you've always wanted to see and yet after watching it you couldn't tell who had the notebook why they would even want one and why they just didn't buy a new one from Target.  The kind of flu where taking NyQuil doesn't lead to a sleep filled with plaid elephants eating cheese steaks off Kenu Reeves backside and instead just has you waking up in a pile of green drool and snot feeling even worse.

It was no fun at all. My kids tried they really did. I awoke one afternoon to find I was covered in sparkles and home made get well cards. But most of the time I woke to the sounds of my kids killing each other.  From my flu haze I still found myself yelling about things like:
 Let go of your sisters neck!
 and 
Stop sitting on your brothers head!

 Through a  haze I searched for shoes, made peanut butter sandwiches and attended parent teacher conferences. I was on automatic mom and it worked not well but it worked.

So 13 cans of soup, 12 episodes of Extreme Couponers and 23 boxes of tissue later, I have emerged from the flu haze and good lord what the hell happened to my house!!!

Thing Are Not As They Seam

Every morning its the same thing. The days begins with B's battle cry:

My socks don't feel right.Mom! They're bothering me!!!

It's the whining call of the morning like a bugler in the boy scouts letting everyone know the sun has risen.  My mornings are spent adjusting sock and changing sock.   I have a whole collection of different kind of socks big ones, thin ones, thick ones, silky ones, rough ones all waiting for their turn to be tried on the feet of B only to be thrown back down again in shame and ruin.

I have tired turning them inside out
I have tried buying expensive unseamed ones
I have tried yelling and just telling him to deal with it.
I have tried ignoring the problem.
But nothing works.

Its gotten so bad my son now wears his socks like this! 

No that's not the latest in shoe fashion those are the kid's socks pulled down in such a was that he doesn't feel the seam. The socks flop around on the top of his shoe like a Great Danes tongue. 

His teachers have written me notes about it.  Apparently its hard to be a star in gym when you have dumbo ears flapping out of your shoes.  

People point it out to me on the street like I don't know my son's socks are pulled up around his ankles like a crazy cat lady might wear while roaming the streets looking for an alien space craft driven by a race of very large tabby's. 

My husband and I have taken to ignoring it hoping that one day he'll out grow it or get self conscious or something. Maybe the peer pressure will get to him and he'll wear socks that don't need their own zip code. 

Don't get me started on the underwear.

The TEST

There is this test they give kids in third grade. Not one of those little pop quiz things were all the kids groan and have to take their books off of their desk and take out their pencils. One of those:

 OH MY GOSH YOUR WHOLE LIFE DEPENDS ON THIS TEST IF YOU DON'T PASS YOU'LL BE HOMELESS AND LIVE IN  A CARDBOARD BOX FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE TESTS!

My poor boy thought school was fun until he hit spring semester at school. He was no longer having his curiosity peaked and finding out all about the world and his place in it. No, now he was in a pressure cooker from hell!

My husband thought it was best to be low key about it. We would joke about it, lovingly telling him the test didn't matter and that if he failed "Which of course he wouldn't" it would be fine and he would only  immediately burst into flames the minute his pencil hit the desk. And then we would laugh , ha ha ha ha.

But as this dreaded thing has gotten closer its gotten less and less funny. Everything is geared to to test. And although I am anti high stakes testing (something that's been a subject in my professional life of my research and publishing) I find myself saying things like you better make sure you have a period on the end of that sentence it'll be on the test, your'e not planning to sit like that for test are you? THE TEST is now not only an event it is a living and breathing thing that lives in our apartment throws it clothes on the floor and eats the peanut butter straight out of the jar with unwashed hands. 

We have tutors, computer programs and handouts all to battle the test we plan around it we worry about it. This test is a monster. I know I'm not alone in this. My work mate has a third grader too. We plot we plan how to handle it. I think I spent less time planning for my wedding then we have figuring out how to pass this thing (and I had a big Jewish wedding). 

I got a note home the other day from the Chancellor of Education he said how wonderful the tests were. How not to panic even though this is the first time they administered these new things and they'd be tested on things they hadn't taught yet. He said I'm sure it'll all be fine.  After all there's always summer school. 


Really Mr. Wallcot? Really? Then come to my house Mr. Wallcot  cause this test is not only driving us all insane its hiding under the bed scaring the cat, hogging the internet  and is peeing on my floor. 

Dinners at Out House

My hubby and I have been guilted into starting family dinners. We frankly never did it before cause its just awful and we'd rather enjoy our dinners alone. But everyone says family dinners promotes family bonding, supports brain growth, stops cancer blah blah blah. When I think of  family dinners I think of those Pillsbury commercials where everyone is smiling at the wonderful meal mom has cooked.  They all sit happily around the table and eat whats served in front of them and talk happily about the  day.

This is not family dinners at my house. First off all family dinners seem to involve going to the potty about 50 times during the course of the dinner first one goes then the other. Then my Hubby goes apparently sitting at the table for dinner is a diuretic. 

As I proudly serve my dinner which I lovingly cook after after a 9 hour work daydreaming of my happy grateful family being nurtured and nourished from my hard work everyone groans: 

I don't want to eat it.
 Can I have peanut butter instead?
Can I only only eat one corner? 
Look I'm like that guy on Bizarre Foods who eats the slugs I tried it twice. I still don't like it can I have peanut butter now?


Then my loving, bonding, brain growing family starts fighting: 
I can't eat cause he farted.
She touched me!
He almost touched me!
She's thinking about touching me!
Aided by my hubby, "Gee I love family dinners what a great idea!"

Finally everyone settles down for about 2 seconds as I ponder the wonderful family togetherness we are creating and then the little one starts to wander. Its not intentional but its like the seat is  made of some type of spring which ejects her from the seat every 2 to 3 minutes. She leaps around not eating but effectively knocking things over while the older one wines that he should be able to wander too. 

My son begins to slide down on the floor and my hubby rests his head on his plate in despair. 

The table is covered in spilled chocolate milk lots of half eaten foods and tears and everyone gives a loud cheer as the signal is finally given to clear that table. 

I'm pretty sure our family couldn't sell a crescent rolls to save our lives?