Laughing is good. Most of the time.

In the words of storyteller Robert Munsch, “This house is going craaaazyyyy!”

Not really, but it sure feels like it sometimes.  I have tried to look at the ridiculous and the delightful, as a way of counting my blessings.  Here are a few.

• “I want some of that too!  What is it?”
• cantabump, n.  A person who eats other people.
• “I’m full.  Can I have more?”
• “I love you. You’re the best whole world.”
• (At the end of the book, every time)  “Amen.”
• Bear’s name is Foo Foo, but we can’t pronounce that, so we call him Poo Poo.
• Name of a certain private body part: tooter.
• Raisin Bran for breakfast please, but I will not eat the raisins.
• “Finger out of your nose, please.  Do you need a tissue?”  “No, I just had to get this out.”  (produces “this.”)
• Picking apples wearing a leotard and cowboy boots.  No, this was NOT me.

Medical Adventures

We’re spending some time at CHaD with our [foster] baby as she has been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.

Acadia asked if the doctors took out her lungs.  (No, they didn’t.)

What conflicting feelings when one of the kids is sick!  I want to be with her, but I don’t want to ignore the other kids, who are also sick with colds/strep.  Asking other people to watch them when they are sick…not on my list of fun things to do.  And yet all I want to do is to hold that cranky little one and try to make her forget that she doesn’t feel good.

I’ve also got protective feelings for Brian, who is sick with this coughing, nasty cold too, and who slept last night on one of those pull-out chairs that is generously called a “cot”.  He won’t say if he needs a break, so I try to guess when he does and force him.  Yeah, that doesn’t work well.

Some of the folks who work at CHaD are Christians, and I love the fact that we can talk about God with someone there.

I’m thankful for Brian’s job, which has allowed him to take time off for the baby, both for court and illness.  Not everyone has such a reasonable employer to work for.  Or any employer, for that matter.

Our friends are amazing people.  One fellow mom gave me her car to use to bring baby to the hospital, then stayed with my kids for hours, all the while missing her own little one.  I know she doesn’t do it so I will thank her, but just because that’s what friends do.  (I will thank her profusely, however, for washing the dishes and tidying up a mess that was already there when she arrived!!)  I see Christ in you, and in the many people who have offered to help, not just for this incident, but at many opportunities.

Once again I will say it: parenting is not for the faint of heart.

My Boy is Eight!

Gannon’s wish was to visit the National Guard Armory in our town.  He and Acadia and I biked there after lunch.

My first baby This young man was able to wear some of the soldiers’ body armor.  Gannon asked what it was made of.  The man started to explain in general terms.  Then Gannon asked, “Is it kevlar?”  (It was, in part.)  The man looked surprised that he knew that word.  The look appeared on his face a few more times during the visit.

Gannon got to sit in the cab of the trucks while the man (I wish I could remember his name) told us all about what things did what.  I would tell you here, but of course I don’t remember things like that.  Pretty much everything had initials.  I do remember that this particular truck carried a water purification system that was worth $300,000 and was capable of supplying the entire city of Boston with clean water.  Thirteen gallons per day per person.  See, I do remember some things.

Then we went to the playground, where the kids did all sorts of things and told me to watch.

“Are you really watching, Mom?”

This is why Acadia likes long hair.

“You’re supposed to sit right on the swing!”

“Okay, see, it’s easy.  You reach waaay up and grab on really tight.”

“Then you jump and PULL yourself up onto the seat.”

“And then you’re on the swing.  See?  Now you try it.”

“WWHHHEEEEE!!”   “Cadia!  Not like that!”

Oh well.  It’s all good.

I asked them to sit on the table so I could get a picture of them together.  Of course Acadia immediately throws her arms around her beloved brother.  Gannon pretends not to notice.

At first, anyway.

This is the best one I got of these two goofballs.  It only deteriorated from here.

“Gannon!  That tickles!”

“What? What tickles?”

“Oh, you mean this?  This tickles?  You mean when I do this?”

Gannon got done with the camera.  Acadia, however, could go on for hours.

But I thought we should probably call it quits.  When you start getting the roof-of-the-mouth shots, you’re pretty much out of good material.

Time for Chai

My current favorite recipe for chai:

1. A good mug, having a smallish surface area so the drink doesn’t cool off too fast.
2. Celestial Seasonings India Spice Chai, 1 bag.
3. boiling water
4. powdered milk, 4 heaping teaspoons (Fat free, yet creamy! Woot!)
5. granulated sugar, 2 heaping teaspoons (Dude, if it’s not sweet, it’s not chai)
6. a timer set for 4 minutes

Steep the tea for 4 minutes or a few seconds longer.  DO NOT SQUEEZE THE BAG.  Remove the bag.  Add milk and sugar, stirring.  Drink and relax.  If you’re really fortunate, you will enjoy the entire cup before it cools.  If your kids interrupt you with things like, “Gannon rode my bike and the chain came off,” or “Will you please call the national guard now,” do not despair.  This is yummy iced as well.

By the way, those are examples of two actual interruptions I have had during this very cup of chai, which I am now sipping.

Suggested Field Trips

We have a running list of places we think would be worthwhile visiting for school.  Here’s our current list.  Acadia just asked me to add the last one.

1. bank
2. post office
3. King Arthur Flour
4. petting zoo
5. veterinarian
6. fire station
7. pizza shop
8. Disney World

Me: Disney World?

She: Yeah, we could just go there and stay only one week, then come back.

Me: Honey, Disney World is very expensive.  I’m not sure we could do that as a field trip.

She: Well, we could save up.

Acadia only wants to go to Disney because her friend is there right now, on a trip courtesy of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  I’m hoping her desire will wane once her little friend comes back.  Yeah right.

Five Year Olds in Conversation

Some things I heard just now as Acadia did some stamp art with a neighborhood boy:

J: You are my very best friend in the whole wide world.

A: Wow, thanks!  Now I have two best friends in the whole wide world!  You AND Jayda!

and

A: Party favors are so fabulous that I could just cry out for joy!

and

J: Yours is fabulous.  Mine is gonna be fabulous too.

A: Yours already IS fabulous!

Kindergarteners are fun to have around.  Every household should have at least one.

I Don’t Make These Things Up.

We ate strawberries and whipped cream last night after Gannon’s ball game.  As we sat in the living room savoring the yummy-ness, I wondered aloud, “What did our pioneer ancestors ever do without carrageenan?”

Gannon asked, “Was she the inventor of whipped cream?”

Ms. Geenan, I salute you.

She’s Got a Collection!

We were out in the “garden” and Acadia came up to me excitedly, with an insect carefully balanced in a little shovel.

Mama, I decided I am gonna add this humongous, scary-looking black bug to my collection!

I love this girl.

Sorry, no photos this time.

Oh, and “garden” is in quotation marks because it’s just a semi-randomly planted front yard. I call it a garden because it sounds pretty. It’s not very, really. I have a place where I want to put some vegetables. Cats keep defecating in it. Not so sure I will ever get around to that veggie garden.

Kid Quotes

This morning we were going over our address during school.  I asked Acadia, who still can’t say the “r” sound, if she knows our town.  I told her it starts with “W”.

“Wuh…wuh….Wussia??” she asked hopefully.

Cute and funny, but no. 

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I asked Gannon if he knew where his sister was.  “She’s at the leutenant’s house,” he told me.

This was disturbing to me, since I had no idea whose house he was talking about.  I asked him again.

“She went over to show Audrey how empty the leutenant’s side is.”

OH.  He meant the other side of the duplex, which would house our TENANT if we had one.

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In our grammar class, we memorize little poems.  One is called “Work.”  Acadia is fine with it till we get to the last two lines, which she recites as:

Things done by calves

Are never done right.

Those of you who are familiar with First Language Lessons will know that it’s supposed to be “halves”, not baby cows!

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Edit: Here’s another one that just occurred.  The kids have started talking kinda goofy, like starting all words of a phrase with the same letter, or replacing one or two first letters with a different one.  Thus, television becomes bel-bah-bision, for instance.  This reached a new level of weirdness as Acadia washed up in the bathroom singing,

“Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, tasing the Lord!”

Just what we need, a five year-old with a taser, tasing the Lord.  Now, if she’d ever heard of a taser, I’d be seriously worried.

Makeup

Acadia wanted to know if on Sunday she could get her makeup ready and wear it to church.  This is how she looked when she asked me.  Can you guess what my answer was?