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Thursday, May 30, 2013

A story about how I was nasty to my dad's boss, at age 5

Recently my four year old (almost 5 in a few weeks) said to my boss "I love you" and "You're handsome"!  Which made me exceedingly relieved because when I was her age I was very nasty to my dad's boss.

The year was probably 1980 with the entire family dressed in Sunday best to attend dad's work hosted Christmas dinner.  He loved these events because they had his favorite fried shrimp dish in an all you can eat buffet.  For a family that rarely ate out this was an exceptional treat.  We even attended with our grandfather and his sister because he worked for the same company.

At one point in the evening, my great aunt took me to the bathroom and along the way we were stopped by my dad's boss.  He smiled at me and asked if I was having a good evening.  I said, "Well I was until I ran into you", with all the snottiness a 5 year old can offer.  I felt very satisfied with myself until I saw the look of horror from my great aunt but she was always disapproving about this or that.  She hurried me off to the restroom muttering to herself about manners.

Undaunted by my great aunt's reaction, I returned to the table and proudly announced to my dad what I had done.  His reaction was even worse!  He may have said something like, "oh great, what will he think I've been saying about him at home!"  My mother wisely pointed out that little girls say silly things all the time and it probably wouldn't amount to anything.

Life went on and the incident was forgotten by all but me.  I never forgot that little girls listen to everything their parents say and can have a very defensive reaction.  So I've been careful with my little one to not vent about work in front of her and I think it's paid off.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Memorial Day 2013

This post written two years later and post dated.

From the photos I can see we were deep in the throes of packing.  I don't see any celebratory foods so it must have been a hard core packing weekend.  Good times!

Vi was not walking yet, looks like she had fun with our packing supplies!



 I guess we at least had cupcakes with red sprinkles.



Oh how patriotic of our Amaryllis to bloom for Memorial Day!  But something strange happened to it this year, the stalks did not grow so all the flowers are really close to the base. 

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Packing with three children under five

Packing, packing, packing.  That's all we are doing this Memorial Day weekend.  See that link on the side of my blog, we only have 18 days left.  No beach, no bar-b-que and absolutely NO fun!  Except for bubbles, coloring, cake pops and all the other little things that sneak in regardless of our parental resolve to STAY FOCUSED.

It goes something like this:

1.  Select a box, tape bottom, STOP, get child #1 crayons and paper. 
2.  Start to fill box with kitchen equipment, add about 2 things, STOP, get child #2 water.
3.  Add a few more things, STOP get child #3 a graham cracker.
4.  Finish box and refuse to stop until it's FULL!

Lot's of distractions, yet somehow we persevered.  At the end of two days a wall of boxes is packed.


Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Random Tuesday: Bedtime script - I think we are ready for own reality show


INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT


Two parents, struggling to get three children to sleep.  One sits in the corner rocker with a quiet one year old while the other alternates cuddles with the older siblings.

SAM
PBBBBRT! (noise)

MOM
No Sam, stop that.

SAM   
PBBBBBBBBRT! (noise)

MOM
Saaaaam!

SAM
Moooom!

MOM  
One more Poot and I’m leaving.

SAM
GIGGLES, Moooomm, GIGGLES

15 seconds of silence, parents hold their breath in the hopes that it will all be over soon.

SAM
PBBBBRT! (noise)

MOM
Stop it!

SAM   
Stop it!  GIGGLES

MOM
You’re such a two year old

DAD
Sam, no, that’s not nice.

SAM   
TOOT.  He he.  GIGGLE

MOM  
Stop it!

Sam:   
Stop it.

MOM
You little parrot.

SAM
Ma, your a pirate.

CHARLOTTE
No, her’s a princess.

Sam:    No a pirate, ya ya ya ya ya

DAD
SHHHHHHHHH

SAM
ABCDEFGGGGG, HIG, LMNOPPPP, QRS, TUV, WXYN, ZZZZ (singing)

CHARLOTTE
12345678910111213 (singing)

MOM
That’s enough, no more singing!

SAM
Baa Baa (singing)

MOM
SAM!  No more singing!

SAM
Nooooooo!

MOM
Close your eyes.

SAM
Mom.

Mom
Quiet!

CHARLOTTE
(quietly) I wish I could talk to ghosts.

MOM
Um, why?

CHARLOTTE
Because I like it when I talk to friendly ghosts.

MOM
Have you ever met a ghost?

CHARLOTTE
Um, no.  Maybe I can be a ghost for Halloween!

MOM
Yeah, maybe you could be Princess Ghost with a crown!  Or a bear in a squid costume!

CHARLOTTE
Yeah!  Or maybe I could be a Squid!

MOM
(hurriedly singing) Night, night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, wear your socks and shoes, sweet dreams to you, and I love you.  And you, and you and you!

CHARLOTTE
I don’t want to ever hear that song again mama. 

Lights dim and while dad continues to rock one year old, mom makes a quick escape.  And so ends another typical night.

Stacy

Saturday, May 11, 2013

When your 4 year old melt's down over pre-school math

Assignment: addition worksheet

Teach the concept of 4 + 2 by drawing 4 bubbles and 2 bubbles so she can count them all and reach 6, frustration starts but she get's it right.

Teach 3 + 7, she gets to 10 but tries to write a 3.  Asks me to white out the mistake and then writes the 10.  Frustration level higher.

Teach 4 + 5, she gets to 9, but writes a P.  I tell her she wrote the number wrong and she melts down. 


She's a perfectionist and hates making mistakes.  She likes it when I use white out over a mistake but it's hard to write over white out so I cut out a piece of paper and cover the P.  I open up her work book and ask her to practice writing the 9.  She does it perfectly.  I give her a chocolate chip to help encourage her.  We go back to the homework page and she writes another P.  I can't figure out how to get her to understand that she's writing the line on the wrong side of the circle.  She's frustrated that I keep telling her it's wrong. 

We go back to the work book to practice more 9's.  She melts down again, extreme crying, screaming "I can't do it".  This time I try praying over her angry spirit because she also says she's very angry with me, after the prayer I tell her she's stuck with me all weekend and we are going to keep working at this until we get it right.  She stays mad for a few more minutes and finally calms down.  She writes several more 9's.  So we move back to the homework page and she writes another P!  I cut and paste another piece of white paper over this P. 

Stop, get pulled to the TV by Sam to put on another show.

Come back and after a short discussion about not getting more chocolate because she needs to learn to write the 9 correctly she writes a bunch of 9's.  We move back to her homework page and she writes another P!  This time I just white out the line on the left of the circle and tell her to put the line on the other side.  She does.  I ask her to complete the circle part of the 9 and she just writes another 9.  We proceed with the rest of the homework page with no issues.


This process took one hour.  I forgot to give her chocolate at the end and she didn't remind me.  I'm not sure this was an effective learning tool anyway.  This lesson is the reason I will probably never try to home school.  I don't think I can handle this every day and she doesn't do this at school, only with me.

After the homework pages we move onto the things she really adores, painting, drawing, anything artistic.  Sigh!  She is the product of 2 artist parents!




Thursday, May 09, 2013

Homemade Tex-Mex Seasoning Recipe

This is the recipe that my kids will probably look up first, and expect to take with them to college.  We use it on scrambled eggs, in chicken quesadillas, in our refried beans, and spicy corn dip. It's our go-to spice mix.  I make a new batch every two months in a pint jar.

2 T Chili powder
1/2 t Garlic powder
1/2 t Onion powder
1/2 t Red pepper flakes
1 t Paprika
3 t Cumin
1/2 t salt

Shake bottle until well mixed.  
This mix can be used for many different recipes. I use it most frequently to season scrambled eggs and for chicken breasts in Quesadillas or Burritos.

X6 Recipe fits into pint size mason jar
12 T Chili powder
3 t Garlic powder
3 t Onion powder
3 t Red pepper flakes
2 T Paprika
6 T Cumin
3 t Salt

We fly through the spice jar so fast that I finally said I'm just going to make this in a pint mason jar, I still keep the single spice container because it fits better on our spice rack and takes up less space.  We buy our spices like Chili and Cumin in the biggest size available so it makes mixes like this easy to make.  It just barely fits in this pint jar, shake it really good and it will settle down just below the lid.

 

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Cinco De Mayo 2013

I got these cute little hats at a Mexican restaurant recently, it's a silly thing you'd find in a Florida "theme" restaurant.  My mother in law, who is from Texas, likely found the concept of getting a little hat in a Mexican restaurant kinda odd, because it's just not done in Texas.  I guess the reverse would be like finding sand in a Joe's Crab Shack and calling it "beachy theme".  Anyway, we had a good old time with these silly hats for Cinco De Mayo - well all but Violette.  I think the older kids enjoyed the hats more then the New Orleans/Mexican burritos I slaved over!





And if you're wondering what I meant by New Orleans/Mexican burritos, well I've read that Cinco De Mayo is celebrated more in the US than Mexico.  From Wikipedia:
"today the date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.  In the state of Puebla, the date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862"
So I used my New Orleans Cajun spice on the chicken and in the burritos we had the chicken with black beans and corn.  It was pretty outstanding!