Childhood Magic via The Water Heater Guy



Earlier this week I came across this article from the Huffington Post, I'm Done Making My Kid's Childhood Magical. In the article the author reflects on how parenting has become practically a competitive sport and how parents are trying to schedule everything perfectly in their children's lives from perfect crafty playdates to the perfect birthday parties and how exhausting it is. (My sister made the point that this is exactly the reason she doesn't read parenting magazines any more, because they just perpetuate this notion that parents have to perfectly plan everything.) Not to mention how completely pointless it is because kids don't need grown ups to orchestrate it all for them since they are more than capable than doing it perfectly themselves. Which leads me to my water heater....

 

My water heater, without my realizing it, has slowly been dying! Yesterday afternoon The Water Heather Guy came to put in a new one and he was still here when the boys got home from school. Of course the boys stood outside the door and talked the poor guy's ear off while he was working. But then Mr. Water Heater did something awesome; he gave the boys two pieces of scrap foam pipe insulation, not to mention the giant cardboard box my new appliance arrived in.

 

 

My boys were thrilled! They spent most of the afternoon until dinner "sword fighting".

 

I didn't plan it.

They didn't plan it.

Mr. Water Heater Guy didn't plan it.

 

Nonetheless, Yip and Yap adored their new toys that cost them nothing.

Cost me nothing.

And got the boys out of Mr. Water Heater's way.

 

 

Had I tried to "organize" and "create" this moment for my boys it surely would have been a flop. I can't create that magical sense of daydreaming or losing time in their imagination. Kids have to do that for themselves.

 

 

If you have the chance read the article, I'm Done Making My Kid's Childhood Magical. It's a good read for parents, parents to be, and grandparents.

 

 

Tis' the Season...for BASKETBALL!!

Right after football ended for Yip and Yap back in the fall, a paper was sent home from school to sign up for basketball teams. At the time the boys weren't interested, probably because they had just finished football and really weren't ready to start anything new. At the time that kind of bugged me. I started playing basketball when I was in 4th grade all the way through my sophomore year in college and then coached. DR doesn't even like watching basketball on television with me. I'm kind of intense. So, it kind of hurt my feelings when Yip and Yap didn't want to play basketball. I got over it though. No basketball meant less of me running the boys all over the place.

 

 

Fast forward to Christmas vacation...our friend, the 3rd grade boys basketball coach, was desperate for players so he asked the boys again if they'd like to play.

 

"Sure, why not?" they said. Where did that change of heart come from?

 

So they made it to one or two practices and before you know it we are spending our Saturday mornings at basketball games! Two Saturdays down and four more to go.

 

Yip and Yap may be the tallest on the team but graceful they are not.

They kind of remind me of two long legged baby giraffes when I watch them run down the court.

 

I was never much of a ball handler when I played...and neither are they. Of course DR likes to call it "amoeba ball" because no matter where the ball is there are at least 6 kids crowded around it. So, there's a lot of loose balls. I think there has been more tackles during the basketball games than there were during all the football games.

 

Well, it's not the NBA (thank goodness) but it's been a lot fun watching all the boys play!

 

 

Let's just hope they get a bit more coordinated in the next month! They sure couldn't get worse!

Garden Dirt Clod Fight

The other day I decided it was time to dig up my sweet potatoes. Yes, I know we haven't had a freeze yet but I decided I'd rather dig when the weather was pleasant than cold and windy. While the weather was pleasant I was also able to get more willing helpers! Yip, Yap and the neighbor boy helped me scrounge through the dirt, after I dug, to dig out those big red tubers! Yum! Sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving! 

After we were all done the boys decided that that freshly turned earth was too good to pass up and they proceeded to have a dirt clod fight! I did warn them that if they were going to throw dirt clods that I wouldn't tolerate any whining if they got HIT with one. 

Winding up! 

I often tease Yip that his body movements mirror Captain Jack Sparrow. Sometimes his arms and legs are all akimbo but they always tend to land just where he wants them too, though I often fear he's going to just trip over his own feet! 

It's harder than you think getting a good photo of a dirt clod. 

My boys are getting too dang tall!! Yap there is one size away from he and I wearing the same size shoes! 

And here are my wonderful, small, but glorious crop of taters curing in my kitchen. Another couple of days and I'll make myself a batch of sweet potato fries before I store up the rest. 

DR and I love sweet potatoes. The kids..not so much. Anyone have a great sweet potato recipe to win over my kids, not involving marshmallows, that you could share with me? 

Football Players Don't Smile and Crazy Mama Drama.

Football Season is going pretty well....as in, my boys are having a good time playing football. If you asked them what their team's win/loss record is...well...then it's a different story. Saturday after the games it's not uncommon to see little 9 and 10 year old boys crying because their team lost..again. Not my boys though. They could really care less if they won or lost and that's fine with me (though on the inside I'm just as torn up about my boys losing!) There's more to this life than sports though and as another mom put it today, they are too young to be so torn up over anything. Good point. 

This Saturday I got to take team individual pics of all the boys. I learned a lot this morning that's for sure. I sure wasn't expecting the sun to be so bright but I think the shots turned out rather well. I had to brush up on shooting outside with a flash which I hadn't done in a while. 

I couldn't convince Yip or Yap to smile though...or quite a few of the other boys. I kept telling them this picture wasn't for them but for their moms. 

I don't know what I did but Yip's picture is the only one that turned out awful. He was the first one so I was fine tuning with him. I guess I just didn't fine tune enough. Well, I'll have to drag him out to the football field for another photo sometime soon. THAT should be horribly fun!! 

I have to tell you about a side effect of taking these photos that I wasn't expecting. There's 23 boys on our football team and I'm Facebook friends with some of them but not many. When I was done editing I put all the pics on Facebook and tagged some of the parents. Then I get a friend request from one of the other moms, after I gave her permission to tag my photo. (Can you feel the Facebook drama building??) 

I declined her Facebook request. (No feedback yet, cross my fingers.) See here's the thing, I have a problem with people wanting to be my Facebook friend when I've only ever talked to them three or four times. I have a problem with someone wanting to be my Facebook friend just because our kids are in the same class/football team/time zone. Just because our kids hang out with one another, sometimes against their will, doesn't automatically make us "besties". And I REALLY have a problem when one of these moms wants to be my Facebook friend and she's. just. crazy. The mom I friend declined just dripped drama. 

Is it just me or do other people have to deal with these "drama mamas"? Is it getting more prevalent? Have there always been crazy moms or is it just my generation? I haven't seen drama like this since I taught middle school and really, I could see some of my crazy moms going back to junior high right now and fitting right in!

I'm getting better and identifying crazy mama drama. I didn't use to be. I used to be too dang gullible and these CRAZY moms sucked me into the whirlwind of nutso. It's exhausting to climb your way out of someone else's crazy. It's like climbing out of a hole of peanut butter. So I'd rather just be known as the unfriendly mom rather than to get sucked into all that. 

If I didn't have family 1000 miles away to talk to, I would give up Facebook in a heartbeat; they're the only ones keeping me on. As soon as my family is off Facebook I am too.

How do you deal with Mrs. Crazy Mom? 

(Unless you are one? Are you? ARE YOU?)

Right now my dealing with crazy mama strategy is avoidance, the buddy system (always attaching myself to a normal mom) and avoiding eye contact with the crazed beast. So far so good. 

Tampons and 9 Year Old Boys.

Have you seen this commercial for Hello Flo floating around the Internet? Take a 3 minutes to watch it (I'll wait), it's super cute and a really neat concept....I wish I had thought of it. 

Wasn't that funny? DR actually told me about it a couple days ago and pulled it up one evening for me to watch. This particular evening was like any other evening. Dinner was done, dishes washed and the kids were just hanging out around the house until bedtime. I was in the kitchen, on the laptop, trying to watch this three minute video without interruption. (right) Yip more than once came wanted to know what I was watching.

"It's a girl thing that you don't need to know about!! Beat it!", I snapped. Which he would respond to by immediately sneaking around the corner to watch the video behind my back. I kept pausing the video and shooing him off because really, explaining a period to a 9 year old boy just wasn't on my to do list for the day. 

As we were getting the boys ready for bed that night Yip just wouldn't let it go. "Mom, what was that video you were watching?" 

Of course that got Yap immediately interested, "What video? I want to see it!" *SIGH* The whole time the boys were badgering me DR was in the background telling them to drop it, shut up, just leave it alone and vainly trying to convince them that they didn't want to know anything about the video I was watching. 

But they just. Wouldn't. Drop it!! 

Fine!!! I caved! They wanted it, so I was going to GIVE IT TO THEM! 

May God have mercy on their souls! 

I broke out our handy dandy sex ed book....which DOESN'T explain periods...

....and found a uterus....

Now we've talked about sperm and eggs and where babies grow and they've looked through this book until it's ragged, not that they've read much so they know the black and white of the birds and the bees. Periods and sex haven't come into the discussion yet. 

Before I even started talking DR told them this, "Boys, Mom is going to tell you something you won't want to hear." 

"Yeah we do!!" heads nodding emphatically. 

"So...", DR continued without missing a beat, "tell her to stop talking when you've heard enough." Boys heads turn to me and the book enthusiastically waiting to hear the "big secret". 

They asked for it. 

"Women are born with eggs, here." I referenced above picture. "Once a month one egg travels down these tubes to here." Once again pointing at the illustrated uterus as I gauged my boys facing trying to decide how to proceed. Simple and straightforward was my best guess since they still looked interested. 

"Blood lines the walls here that will feed and keep the baby safe as it grows." I continued, still no reaction from my boys..they'd heard all this before, pretty black and white biology. 

"But, if a mother and father decide not to have a baby then the egg, which is very tiny, passes out of the uterus.....along with all that blood." I glanced warily at my boys faces and noticed they both wore slightly alarmed expressions. "That happens once a month to older girls and women." 

I was going out on a limb with my next sentence but, hey, they asked for it. "I have a period every month too." 

"STOP!!!" they both declared in unison. Well, I guess that was the tipping point.They didn't even remember to ask what the video was about. I hope I haven't emotionally scarred them too much! 

About that time DR was behind us giggling, pointing and saying, "I told you so!!" That was my first experience trying to explain what a period was to a boy, and I only got partway finished. Did you notice how DR didn't jump it at all to help? That's probably because he's just as confused by "women things" as the boys are. 

Okay, so all you mothers of boys out there....have you ever had to explain this to your sons? Or did someone else take care of it? Any horror/humorous stories to share? Any tips for me when/if I have to finish their education of periods, pads and tampons? 

I'm raising a risky little Monkey.

I had taken these photos way back in February when we had some exceptionally warm and sunny days. 

Warm enough in fact that it was comfortable being barefoot. Of course, we took advantage of the nice weather and spent some time at the park. 

You know sometimes at the park when some big kid has thrown the swing chains way over the top so the little kids can't reach them? Well, Yip found some that weren't attached to swings but had been thrown up around the top, probably for good reason, but he insisted that he could untangle them. 

The shoes had to come off to get a better grip on the slick pole. He spent a huge chunk of time on this endeavor. He must have tried climbing to the top a couple dozen times. 

Yip had to take lots of breaks to gather his strength. 

But eventually he made it and proudly untangled all the chains. 

I think our next home should be in a forest or a jungle, then my little monkey would feel more at home don't you think? 

Yeah, I know...."What if he fell and got hurt?" Well, then he would have fell and gotten hurt. But he didn't. Instead he learned that with perseverance he can accomplish any goal he sets his mind too. I'm never going to tell him he doesn't have the ability to do something. He learned that risk sometimes yields great rewards. 

He has a little sister watching too and I'm all for her growing up learning to take risks too. What will they ever learn if I protect them from every little possible harm? They'll learn that they can't do anything by themselves and that's not the kind of kids I'm going to raise! 

That blizzard was a total letdown!!!

So yesterday I posted about our 4th snow day in a row and how a second blizzard was on our way with an estimated 6-12 inches. Well, guess how much we ended up getting? 

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Nothing!!! We received absolutely nothing. 

What. A. Bummer!!! 

I won't lie to you. I've been praying for a blizzard since December. Shoot, I'd be happy with a 3 month blizzard!

We Need MOISTURE!! 

Yep, we received 12" of snow but I'm greedy...I wanted more!! 

Well we are sure enjoying the snow while it lasts. I even kicked the boys outside Saturday (while Yahoo was stuck in bed with a fever) and made them play in the snow because, around here, you never know how long nice weather (winter, spring, summer or fall) will last. 

I'm kicking the boys outside to play in the snow when they get home from school today too! It's absolutely gorgeous outside today; sunny with no wind. 

Can somebody please tell me why piling all the snow in the middle of the road and only clearing the intersections makes sense? So if my friend lives on the left side of the road I have to drive past her house, do a u-turn at the intersection and then turn around to drive into her driveway. I've never seen snow cleared this way, ever. (Okay, stepping down from my Indiana road clearing rant.) 

I'm glad I kicked the boys out to play when I did because all this snow will probably have melted away by Saturday when the temps are to be up in the 40's. Well, that's what the weatherman says...shoot they missed a whole blizzard maybe they'll be wrong about the melting temps too!!