How to drive your sisters crazy...

Take these simple tips from Caleb, the the Master at driving his sister up a wall. He's a veritable savant, at just 2 years old, and he's willing to give you advice for the low low price of a cookie, or other likewise valued sugary treat. Just look and listen to a few choice methods he enjoys:

1. The Voice of Insanity-

Caleb has the ability to make Hannah blow her top just by calling her name. "Her name?," you ask... why, yes. Names should be harmless, unless you add a few extra flourishes afterward, as Caleb demonstrates while in time out for the 50 millionth time today.

Caleb: "Hannah Bobanna!"

Mommy: "Hannah, just ignore him. If you ignore it he'll stop."

Caleb: "Hannah Bobanna!"

(Hannah turns purple but remains silent)

Caleb: "Hannah Bobanna!"

(Hannah stomps, but remains silent, giving Caleb the Glare of Death)

Caleb: "HANNAH BOBANNA!"

(Hannah turns green, grows ten-fold, and hulks-out on Caleb in an unleashing of Hannah-fury...Mommy rolls eyes and tells Caleb to shut it lest he get ANOTHER spanking)

2. The Destroy and Brag

Say said sisters have created something wonderful and amazing with Daddy the night before, like an awesome tinkertoy robot. Stalk the robot throughout the day with your eyes, just passing near enough to drive sisters nutty with anxiety... but wait. Wait patiently until afternoon, milking these opportunities at every chance, and then 10 minutes before Daddy walks in, while Mommy is busy cooking, do this to the beloved Robot:

3. The Toss Across

Wait for Mommy to leave the room on a short errand, believing that all are playing quietly and nicely with Little People, then once she's gone, chuck it all at sisters' heads until they sqeal like little piggies and run for the hills crying for Mommy. Rejoice in having toys all to self for the 30 seconds it takes Mommy to decipher sisters' gibberish cries and run upstairs for the next beating.

4. Merman's Revenge

Wait for Mommy to drop you off in the tub with a sister, then leave the room (are you seeing a theme here?) to dry off another sister after finishing her bathtime. Let Mommy believe all is peaceful in the tubby for a few precious seconds, then proceed to dump cup after cup of water on the tub-sister's head until she's near-drowned. Then, to distract Mommy, dump a couple of cups of water on the floor so she's slowed down in her approach and thus delay the next round of whoopins.

These are just a few of his time-tested methods. Caleb says send cookies if you'd like to hear more. You can find him here:

in his trusty time out chair. Again. With his foot in the electrical plug to drive mommy crazy. Again.

Why Sarah Would Make A Terrible Monkey...

These...


are meant for these...

not these.

Well, my Sarah broke her arm this week, and let me say I'm predicting it's probably going to be the first of many such orthopedic mishaps for Sarah. She is definitely from my end of the gene pool, as clumsy as a bull in a china shop, as she well proved with her many attempts to achieve this break...

Her first fall was from the monkey bars at the park. Ryan says I should have known it was coming because apparently he has noted a pattern that she can only go three bars before falling, however I was not clued into her penchant for falling, and so I was sunscreening myself and looked up just in time to see my daughter's face making contact with the ground with an awful "thud". Gotta give the girl credit, though, she's a tough cookie. She cried a while and complained her arm hurt, but was soon up and using it to play and bearing weight on it, so we figured we got by with a close call.

Then came the 2nd mishap: while playing out back with Hannah, the two ran at the huge inflated sprinkler ball I had out for them and rolled over it. Like moss on a stone, Sarah clung to the outside of the ball and rolled forward into a handspring... right onto the wrist that was already hurt. But did I take her to the E.R.? No, because I'm thick and it takes me almost as long to catch on as it takes Sarah to break her arm good and well. Soooooo...

After about 24 more hours of fun and silliness with very little complaint from Sarah, while I was folding laundry upstairs, my dear ballerina was twirling with her sister and brother downstairs during that last-blast-of-daily-energy that is the witching-hour right before bed. Parents know this is when their kids have the most destructive and difficult to contain energy, and for Sarah, this led to a dizzying spin to the floor with a landing on, you guessed it, her right arm. So I finally caught on that, hmmm, maybe she might need to have her arm seen. I still never guessed it was really broken, though, until the doc showed me the x-ray and said, "and here's the fracture"... He must have thought I was a little coo-coo because I actually laughed out loud at that. It was more at the surprise and irritation at myself for not checking it earlier that I laughed, but doc must have been wondering a bit, because here I am with this adorable little pixie who just happens to have a black eye (from whacking her head against Hannah's on another occasion), a missing tooth (lost by natural causes, I assure you), and now a broken arm, and here I am laughing at the poor dear's misfortune.

Nevertheless, Sarah is adjusting to her newly-casted limb well, and no one has called CPS on me yet, so I think we'll make it past this incident. She shocked us when she picked red for the color of her cast (Sarah is famous for wanting everything to be blue... I even get confused when she and Hannah occasionally swap shirts and wear different colors because my brain is now hardwired to call whoever is in blue "Sarah"), but then she explained that she wanted red so that it would show better when people signed and drew pictures on her cast. We were blessedly able to obtain permission for a waterproof cast, and I'm so glad, because she has been loving the water this summer and making progress with swim lessons. And now, to look on the bright side, she has a lovely red hammer attached to her arm with which to crack nuts, crush her brother, or hammer nails if she should wish to do so.

The Chop-Stick Incident...

Just after leaving from a visit with my family this evening, Hannah called out from her back seat, "Momma, did you remember to get my chop-stick Nonnie gave me?"
I searched the dusty, Barney-brainwashed files of my brain and could find no reference to chop-sticks, so I challenged, "Hannah, Nonnie never gave you a chop-stick... what on Earth are you talking about?"
Hannah's voice ramped up about three million decibles and at least 2 octaves, "THE CHOP-STICK! Mommy, you didn't forget it did you! I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed my CHOP-STICK!"
"Hannah, have you lost your mind? We haven't had chinese food or sushi in ages- I. have. no. idea. what. you. are. talkingabout!"
"MOOOOOOOMMMMMMYYYYYYY! I gotta have my chop-stick! Can we go back to Aunt Catherine's to look for it?"
"Um, No. I'm sorry, you must have lost it but I'm not going to go looking for a chop-stick. Why did Nonnie give you one, anyway!?"
Hannah replied in glass-shattering staccato notes:"My lips are dry, Mommy! I need my chop-stick!!!!"
"OOOOOOoooooohhhh! I have your CHAP-stick in my purse, Hannah. CHAP-stick... not chop-stick."
"Oops...so, you have it?"
"(Sigh) yes dear. You can have it when we get home."
"Yay!"

I'll never get to eat Chinese without a little giggle to myself again. :)

Priorities...

We had a lovely day at the beach today, with lots of fun with friends from our homeschool group, however, I did notice a few snags in our day...

For one, since when did I become a glorified sand-sherpa, schlepping huge amounts of kid gear over the dunes while people moan about how far our spot is from the car? Also, Caleb still refuses to go near the ocean water and so it makes for a hot day hanging with my little buddy on the towel and begging him every few seconds to go in the water with me (my revenge on the constant "are we there yet?" assaults in the car, hee hee). Furthermore, I would like it noted that I very much dislike the way the beach seems to follow me home... I think we had at least a bucketful of sand stuck to our clothes/towels/toys on the way home. So today, upon returning home, all items which had been used in the sand were dumped on the porch to dry before washing so I could shake off the sand outdoors, rather than in my home. As I returned outside to get the clothes, I heard a shriek from indoors...

"MOMMA, YOU LET IN A WASP!"... "Crap! No Ryan to kill this thing," I thought to myself, "now I hafta look tough and get it out or kill it myself." I pretended an air of confidence that would have won me an Oscar, chasing the bug around with a thick junk-mail envelope, my weapon of choice for stalking errant bugs since cancelling my daily newspaper subscription. The air of confidence came to a sharp halt, though, once a missed strike led to me losing where the bug was in my sights. "Where is IIIIIIITTTTT?! I can't find IIIIITTTT!," I hollered in a panic. Suddenly, the bug reappeared and was no more after a swift swipe of my American Express pre-approval envelope (hey, it is good for something!). After I left to drop the carcass outside and returned indoors, my children hollered triumphantly, "Yay! Momma, you got it!" Sarah, who is a hopeless t.v. addict, added, "Yeah, Momma, you saved the T.V.!"

It's all about priorities.

Sarah's are apparently to save the t.v. above all else :)

"You can take my family (esp. the little brother), but I'll be darned if you're getting my cartoons!"

Another Homeschool Fail...

On our way to the campsite for our Memorial Day fun this weekend, Ryan and I were discussing the kids while the children watched DVD's in the back (no judging!). Ryan was teasing me about Caleb and what an awesome job I've done of teaching him his letters, colors, shapes, and numbers... as in, he doesn't know even one of 'em. Not for lack of trying, I asserted, as I reminded Ryan that even though we're done with school for the year, I still spend lots of time reading to and playing with the kids, and I always make sure that those more scholarly goals are addressed while we play. "Hmmph! Yeah, some teacher you are!," he jibed. This is not the first time we've had this discussion, by the way, about my homeschooling prowess. Mutually, we know that the boy would have no difficulty learning these things if he just cared, but it's just not Caleb's thing to care about those things when he could be memorizing the names of the million different dinosaurs and construction vehicles there are out there. But I digress...

Just as I was about to jibe back at Ryan for being a turd and giving me a hard time about my homeschooling skills, Sarah (who has timing) chimes in from the back, "Momma! Look! I saw a really big GOAT with horns!!!!" Meanwhile, this is what Sarah really saw...

I hung my head in shame while Ryan corrected the dear in-between giggles. And by the way, the child has seen and interacted with both cows and goats before... unfortunately though, she's got more of my genes than I thought because as smart as she is, she still has a little dingbat in her at times, too ;)

And just to prove the boy knows his stuff when it comes to construction...

The boy was on a bit of a "cherry picker" bent today, but believe me, he's done the whole book before flawlessly without prompts. Cracks me up!