12 posts tagged “parenting”
I finally broke down and bought Scrabble after hearing all these great reviews. Turns out we love it so much we play almost every day. I'd never play with anyone outside my immediate circle, I don't have that much self confidence in the spelling arena but it's fun when it's just us.
Today we went to Barnes and Oval where DeWitte purchased the super duper extravaganza version because he got tired of all the little tiles sliding around. We took it home and played our first game on the new board.
Now as everybody on the planet knows, Nathan talks. A lot.
I go first with ember. DeWitte goes next with bear.
J. Nathan, it's your turn.
N. Are you gonna just use that timer on Dad? He sure takes a long time to play. You can use it on whoever you want, you know. It's a nice timer, though. I like how it's black instead of white like the one we use for Boggle.
J. Go, it's your turn!
N. Ok! How do you spell quibret?
J. I'm not sure that's a word, why don't you look it up.
N. Bah..this dictionary doesn't go that far.
J. It does go that far and quibret isn't a word, pick a different one.
Nathan plays ran.
J. Now look for your next word while we take our turns.
N. Ok..how do you spell bowwow..
J. Look it up.
N. Never mind, I don't have any w's. It sure is nice out. I think I'll go play on the trampoline when we get done. This game sure is long. How much longer is this game, anyway? The sky sure is blue...hey, how do you spell blue?
J. You know how to spell blue..
N. Yeah, never mind, I don't have any l's.
J. Nathan! Go, it's your turn!
N. Ok, ok! How do you spell snarfless?
D. I'm gonna go lay on the couch.
Just this last month we caught a possum, who not only played dead but smelled dead, too, a raccoon that DeWitte and Nathan tried to keep, the little hissing, vicious thing that it was. I had to put my foot down on that one. He might look like a cute little bandit but he'd take your face off in a minute. We also got a cat, which we let go because I think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I bet he doesn't try to get a free meal from us again. Those were in the live trap. In the spring traps we got two rats that we told Nathan were mice, church mice, (That trap snapped right on that church mouses nose. Bam, like that..slapping his hands across his face....That was the reenactment. I didn't get close enough, myself, to see.) so he wouldn't go to school and announce the fact that we caught rats. Kids don't know when to shut up. Like that little girl that went to school last year and announced to the class that they had roaches at their house. Better to keep some things to ourselves.
This year has been particularly bad. Nathan called down and said he heard something in the ceiling in his room. We went up to investigate and it sounded like whatever was up there was bowling for dollars, they were that loud. Seriously, I didn't know that critters played sports but they were playing them over Nathan's ceiling. Over the bathroom upstairs it sounded like someone was having a bar fight and finally, enough was enough. We called an exterminator but they couldn't help us. They did tell us that, because of the time and sounds we heard, that they thought it was squirrels...add another critter to the list, and if we wanted, we could call a company that would take the walls apart and get rid of the critters, for only $100-$300 a pop. Since it sounded like an entire critter village had moved in, that didn't seem like an option.
DeWitte set some traps in the attic but that didn't have any effect and since Nathan had been sleeping in our room because the sound decibel was under "jet plane" (our critters have very active social lives.), not to mention the nightmares he was having about squirrels jumping him in the back yard, it was time for drastic measures. Drastic measures = poison. DeWitte laced the attic like those two old ladies in Arsenic and Old Lace and we waited. At first it seemed like they were more active but I think they were fighting over the bait. After a couple days, though, things got quiet. After a couple more days, the smell came. A couple days after that came the flies. It's kind of like living in Amityville Horror but without all the ghosts.
This weekend is Nathan's birthday party. His birthday isn't until next week but we're having the party this weekend (a whole other story). I haven't gotten his gift yet because I'm lazy. This morning I had him show me again, exactly what he wanted. Some Lego deal with 900 pieces I get to step on in the middle of the night. I heard they hurt worse than hot wheels, so I've got that to look forward to.
Instead of buying it online, I wanted to see if the toy store had it. That way I'd save on shipping but if they didn't have it I still had time to order. So after running some errands this afternoon, it was off to Toys-R-Us, or Parental Abuse Is Neat, P.A.I.N. for short, which ever makes you more comfortable.
We get in the store and it's like being hit in the face by an obnoxious clown named Twinkles. They put all the colorful worthless stuff right at the kids eye level. I'd already warned Nathan before we got there I wasn't buying him anything but what we came for so he didn't bug me to death and it was off in search of the Lego's.
We head off to the boys' toys. I know that Lego's aren't necessarily a boys' toy but they seem to market pretty strongly to that idea. No Lego's. Hmm...off to search some more. Just then Nathan tells me his stomach hurts. He throws up if you look at him funny so I tend to take this stuff serious but I know that he's eaten and the drive wasn't that far so I figured it was probably the heat. I gave him my water bottle and went off to search some more. That's when he tells me he's gonna throw up.
Fabulous! Now I've got about 5 seconds to find something for him to throw up in. I try to make my way up to the front of the store for a trash can. Every time I turned a corner, though, it was just another aisle. Las Vegas casinos aren't that disjointed and hard to get out of. I finally step into the light and spy a trash can sitting in electronics. Nathan's standing off to the side, about five feet from me. He's got his hand over his mouth and is looking three shades past green. Have you ever seen a baseball game where the batter guy is running for the plate and the ball catcher guy is running for the plate and they both get there at the same time? Well, it was kind of like that. I grab the trash can and run it to Nathan just as he leans over to puke. I got it under his face right at the last second. Whew, crisis averted!
After he was done, I cleaned him up and tied up the dirty trash bag. Now what to do with it? Do you call someone and make them deal with it? There by embarrassing yourself 10 fold? I decided to find a bathroom and put the smaller bag into a bigger trash can. I put a new bag (that was under the used one) back into the can (electronic boy can scratch that off his to-do list), put the trash can back and go off in search of the bathroom.
Going to the toy store, for me, ranks right up with getting my fingernails pulled out on my "stuff I like to do" list, so I don't know that store very well. We walked around the edges, trying to avoid people because a middle aged woman (well, technically, not yet..you're not middle age until you hit 45 and I'm only 39. They said so on jeopardy!) walking around a toy store with a full bag of trash just can't look normal. Unless you're a bag lady, which I'm not, though on some days if you saw me you'd wonder.
So, finally, I found the bathroom on the other side of the store, managing to avoid all other people. I got the smaller trash bag into the larger trash can without embarrassing Nathan or myself and that's how I saved the day. I'm like a super adventurer heroine master, or S.A.H.M, for short.
When Nathan was three or four, he woke up and came downstairs one night just as DeWitte and I were about to head out to the pool for a little skinny dipping. Neither one of us are skinny so maybe I should call it chubby dipping...no, that just sounds nasty. Skinny dipping it is. Now, we're not hippies or anything but I decided to let Nathan come with us. Figuring he'd never remember.
WRONG. It's a little fun fact he likes to bring up at places like dinner parties and school functions. Ya know, just to keep the conversation lively. When he grows up and his shrink asks what his first memories are I'm sure to get a phone call.
So tell me why. If he can remember one night of skinny dipping at the age of three or four, why am I being subjected to "Thomas And The Magic Railroad" (How did Alec Baldwin not win an Oscar for that role?) that he watched fifteen million times at the same age because he doesn't remember watching it?!
This summer is getting longer by the minute.
There's a little girl in Nathan's class that looks just like Rosanna Rosannadanna. Only smaller and less Brooklyn-ish. She's a collector. Yesterday at field day she collected, acorns, gum balls from a gum ball tree, a hair barrette, two broken water balloons, a plastic water top, a random piece of pink paper, a piece of bird egg, and a post it note. I held them for her during events. I asked if she wanted the piece of plastic I had in my pocket but she declined. If I'd have dropped it on the ground, though, that would have been a different story I bet.
I told Nathan we'd come back and eat with them. I came home to pick up DeWitte and some lunch and we headed back up to the school. Nathan was already in line so I pulled him out and we head for his table. We were fortunate enough to sit near Rosanna because she had Fig Newtons and she shares. I gave her some of my chips in return. That lunch trade thing really rocks. She also had a sandwich in a Tupperware container but all she ate was the meat.
We were all eating and talking about summer vacation. DeWitte and I were pretty amused with the kids. One kid said she was going to Georgia when another kid asked if she knew Susan because Susan lives in Georgia. The first kid said that she didn't. All of the sudden Rosanna pipes up and asks if anybody wants to play cards. Sure enough, she pulls a deck out of her lunch box. And then she pulled out a puzzle, a full size water bottle (which was collected from field day), and her field day award ribbon, not to mention the big Tupperware thing and that wasn't all she had in there.. Her lunch box wasn't over sized or anything. Just a plain old lunch box. I figure it must have had magic powers like Mary Poppins' carpet bag because that's the only way it could hold that much stuff.
I hope her parents get that collection thing under control. Rosanna just might get the "most likely to live in a house surrounded by newspapers, boxes and cats" award at the first grade award ceremony tomorrow.
Perky PTA lady made an announcement that they had a sale on the "extra" pizza's. $5, while they last. She didn't want to get "stuck" with a bunch of extra pizzas this time. BFF got a couple after telling me how bad the pizza was. I guess she planned on taking them home and adding her own personal touch in her kitchen. She better watch out for that bike. After all the pizza's were gone, a few more family's showed up. Perky PTA announced that they could go down to the store and get some more but they'd have to be full price. I hope they weren't gonna get them the frozen kind, I didn't see a microwave anywhere and the kitchen was locked up tight. I guess maybe next time, they'll wait more than 15 minutes to make that first announcement, I hate to see people miss out.
