Guess What?

You're it!

If you are unfamiliar with this game it is because you are lucky enough not to have gone to Disneyland with my Brother and Slugger Jr. and a bunch of other family members year before last. While we were there, Brother and Cute Sister took one of my bunch to and from the parks in their car each day, (because everyone knows that the only thing better than Disneyland is NOT riding there with your mom). Well apparently on these drives, Brother taught them all a little game I like to call "Next-Time-I-See-Him-I'm-Going-To-Hurt-Him". (My kids call it "Guess What?".)



Essentially it goes like this:

The Pinkiest(5): Hey Mommy!

Me: What?

The Pinkiest(5): You're-It!!!



Saying the word "what" has been all but banned from our household for the last year and a half because no one wants to be the dreaded "IT". My main problem with this game is that once Husband or I am "It", we are bombarded with little wannabe "Its" ALL trying to make us be "It" again, because we have stopped the game. Yesterday The Pinkiest(5) declared Husband "Quintuple IT!!!!". (Does explaining the vocabulary words like "quadruple" and "quintuple" qualify this as an educational game? Because if so, I should be on the payroll for the Board of Education in This Place That I Live. I'm pretty sure it's more than Bubba's(7) teacher is doing. Good thing he is really smart.) Anyway, there are many irritating things about this game, but the hands-down worst part is that everyone- even Monster Truck(2)- participates in this NottheBradys pasttime. And it. is. annoying.



In spite of my daily attempts to forget the whole thing exists, I thought of it ("IT!") today because- you guessed it.
I'm "IT!"
I've been tagged by This Guy. You should go to his blog at least this once. I normally don't care for cutesy animal pictures, but his pets will make you laugh out loud. Just scroll down to the cute doggies.

So back to annoying games of tag. I'm "IT". I don't know why anyone bothers to fill these things out in the first place. Does anyone actually read them? All right, I admit it. I skim them. But only if I REALLY like the person. In general though, if I see a meme posted I just move on to the next blog in my bookmarks. Why do people pass them on? I will tell you why. Because they, like some of my family members, don't have an inherent spam filter in their brains. I know that brain-inherent-spam-filter-deficiency is a problem because I know someone who forwards sappy-Christian-chain-emails. You know the emails I am talking about. Well actually, I hope you don't. Let me describe. They are the emails which curse you to remain outside the pearly gates and be selfish and not care about kids with leukemia and hate animals and small children and the person who so obviously loves you that they sent it to you if you don't immediately forward it to 15 people. Also, you should forward it back to the person who sent it to you as if they didn't actually read it before forwarding it to you. (This is entirely possible, come to think of it, because I think if they DID read it they would've done the same thing as the rest of us and deleted it when they saw the title:
"Give this heart to everyone you don't want to lose in '08 including me if you care. Try to collect 12, it's not easy!"
(I swear to you I did not make that up.) I receive these type of emails so often that at times in the past I have actually had to enter my own family members into my SPAMblocker. True story. And there you have it.

Well, I will fill this out. I am going to do my part for the earth (thus filling my go-green quota for the year) by NOT tagging anyone else. But I will fill it out- if only because I feel honored to have been tagged. And I think I have just stumbled onto the answer to my own question. People fill these out because IT IS AN HONOR.
Hee hee.

Without Further Ado-

4 Things

4 Jobs I've Had
1. Poop Patrol... I worked as a CNA in a nursing home for a couple of years. Funny how some people find their callings early in life. Excuse me while I go change [another] diaper.
2. Begging For Money... I worked as a fund-raiser for That College I Sometimes Go To, calling Alumni and continuously asking for donations until they finally caved and pledged something.
3. Grocery Store Checker
4. Executive Assistant/Customer Service Training Course Developer... because of my excellent people skills.

4 Movies I Watch Over and Over
1. Tommy Boy... "We're family! We're going to be doing lots of dumb stuff together."
2. Multiplicity... "Hi Thsteve! Come on up! I'm thspittin' on bugs."
3. Fools Rush In... Don't ask me why. I don't have a good answer. Mostly because I don't have to "watch" it to watch it. I get a lot done with that one on.
4. Elf... "And now I'm here...singing a song...to my dad...but you didn't know that I was born...but I'm here now...and I love youIloveyouILOVEYOOOUUUUU!"
"Call security."

4 Places I Have Lived
1. This Place That I Live In
2. That Place With That College I Sometimes Go To
3. Arizona (It's the armpit of the country. Really. Smell IT.)
4. Oregon (Do you hear the Heavenly Choir singing?)

4 TV Shows I Watch
1. I don't have T.V. cuz I live in what Technogeeks refer to as a "shadow". That means it is a sucky vortex of all signals of any kind except for one-spanish channel-kind-of-fuzzy-and-that's-only-if-you-have-bunny-ears. Not even AM radio makes it here. I do watch The Office on DVD with Brother whenever I go home. Good times.

4 Places I Have Been
1. Hawaii. LOVE.IT.
2. British Columbia, Canada... toured there. It's beautiful. I liked the ferry rides. Buchardt Gardens is awesome, all tacky billboards to the contrary.
3. Tombstone, Arizona... If you like the movie, don't go there.
Mr. Yuke(4) just said: Guess what mom?
Me (like an idiot that hasn't just been sitting here blogging about this): What?
Mr Yuke(4): You're IT!!! Miss Preschool Teacher said it's April Fools and we have to go home and play a joke on our moms and dads and that's a good joke. Smug smile of satisfaction.
4. Stuck in an elevator in the Tacoma Sheraton for 3 hours after it had dropped about 50 floors

4 People Who Email Me Regularly
1. My Own Personal Dharma... okay, well maybe not regularly. But really, I'm more of a phone person.
2. Blogger [New Comment on...]
3. Previously Mentioned Family Member
4. Father-in-law

4 Favorite Things to Eat
1. Anything with lots of cheese and garlic. Olive Garden is very good for this.
2. Bruschetta from La Vigna- SO.GOOD. Get some.
3. Stir-fry anything that won't kill me
4. Soft, chewy cookies

4 Places I'd Rather Be
1. Getting a massage at a spa
2. Accepting my winnings from a drawing for a million dollars
3. That College I Sometimes Go To
4. The Bookstore

4 Things I Look Forward to This Year
1. Camping. Actually, WARM WEATHER. THAT STAYS. Then Camping.
2. Husband's family reunion. I always enjoy that. He has roughly 63thousand cousins, all of whose company I enjoy immensely.
3. Losing the baby-baby-baby-baby weight before getting pregnant again. (Hey, I can dream, can't I?)
4. Teaching Steve how to count to four.

4 People to Tag
1. Not
2. Gonna
3. Do
4. It

If you actually read the entire thing, consider yourself tagged by default. Just leave 'em in the comments or else put a link to your own post there.

Dirty Words

Human anatomy has become a favorite topic with the pygmies around here lately. Apparently certain body parts are the pinnacle of funny and I was just unaware. Not cute little words like "Bum" and "Knickers McFanny" (thank you Nanny McPhee). No, I'm talking the real whoppers that Brother has a hard time with. I have no idea how to handle that. It seems like it's only more gratifying to them if I react to it and remind them ever-so-gently that it's best not to say those words in the middle of the grocery store AT THE TOPS OF THEIR LUNGS! Oh, yes. That brings on gales of laughter. On a related note- does anyone know what a pee-nit is?
Kids-4, Mom-0

There are some other dirty words I've been contending with lately. Closely related to the human anatomy issue is the ever-dreaded potty training. Now, in the name of good personal hygiene, I have always had the child who has an accident take a quick shower. None of my other kids thought much of this. Well, it turns out that Monster Truck(2) really likes the shower. A LOT. He is quite joyful when he announces that he has peed/pooped himself AGAIN so "I need a shower!". The enthusiasm with which he delivers that sentence just can't be captured in the written word. Suffice it to say, he could just as easily be saying, "I'm going to Knotts Berry Farm! With Santa Claus!!!" Anyway, I don't really know what to do. As long as he keeps getting to get clean after an accident he's not going to try to stop having them. Do I let him walk around smelling like a port-a-potty?
Kids-5, Mom-0

Mucous is another dirty word I've been contending with. There seems to be a surplus of it in the world. Sadly, my children got my genes and therefore will most likely not learn to blow their noses until they go to college. (True story. I just couldn't do it.) They try. Several of them blow out their mouths into a tissue expecting to expectorate the junk in their noses. That's kind of funny, actually. I will continue to wipe their noses I guess. For the next 12 years.

Chores. SIGH. What can I even say about that? Ah. I know. To quote a (cyber) friend:

"Frickin' farker frickafrack!!! Scream."

Yep. That about covers it. Bubba's(7) friend came over the other day to get Bubba(7) so they could go play at the friend's house. Bubba(7) had not quite finished his chores and he had to finish before they could leave. His friend stood there and watched with disdain while Bubba(7) unloaded the dishwasher. After a few minutes the friend said, "I don't have to do any chores." Bubba(7) shot me the stinkyeye and said, "That's because your mom is nice." (Slam the bowl down.) Me: (No, that's because your mom doesn't think you can do anything yourself you big baby.) Ok. So I admit it. That wasn't a nice thought. But really, do you have to come into my house and make my slaves start having thoughts about the injustices of their lives? I have already been dealing with a near-revolutionary uprising the past few months, no thanks to my next dirty word: Cabin Fever.
Kids-6, Mom-0

Ah, cabin fever. The current bane of my existence. I don't know who has it worse- me or the kids. No one wants to do any chores. No one wants to listen to the parents. No one wants to stay in this house for ten more seconds. I'm just sayin' is all. You know the other problem with being cooped up all winter long? Dirt.

Yes, Dirt. That is my last dirty word for this post. I never realized that Cabin Fever is the reason for Spring cleaning. I always had a vague impression that spring was just some arbitrary time someone picked because the weather is neither too cold nor too hot. WRONG. The reason spring cleaning is in the spring is because with a bunch of kids and no Alice in the house for almost 5 months straight, the house is dirtier than the garden. There are mystery handprints on the walls that have no explanation other than that their origins could not possibly have been any one of my children. ("It wasn't ME!") My children have managed to get crumbs in corners that no human (or vacuum) could ever fit into (behind the bunkbed, under the bookshelf, etc.) The kitchen floor hasn't been scrubbed in I'm-not-going-to-say-how-long (in part because of my feelings about mopping but also) because the kids haven't been able to be outside long enough for it to dry, so what's the point? Yesterday spring finally got here. I hope beyond hope it stays. The weather in This Place That I Live is a little unpredictable this time of year. I remember one June that it was 95 degrees one day and THE VERY NEXT DAY IT SNOWED. I am not making this up. Anyway, if the weather holds out at least for the weekend I'm going to get the dirt (and the dirty kids!) out of the house. Ooooo! It's going to be so great!

Idol and ITunes

THIS GUY has brought up some important and compelling questions in his last two posts. It would behoove us all to read them.

The Donzerlee Light

I love New Year. It is one of my favorite holidays. This is for two reasons:

1. I get to have a big party with lots of food which is not obligatory (read: Thanksgiving). Planning parties is my favorite.
2. It's a good chance to start out fresh. For example: I have said my morning prayer every day this entire year. Sounds encouraging, doesn't it? Try one.

Our party last night was so much fun. Brother, Cute Sister, and Slugger Jr.(3) sent us a movie kit for Christmas. It had a whole bunch of boxes of movie candy, mini microwave popcorn bags, tickets which read "admit one to [Aberjaber] family movie night", and the DVD of "Surf's Up". So last night we brought the t.v., dvd player, and the wii down from the playroom to the living room. We moved the furniture around and we watched the movie. After it was over, we ate a ton of other party food and played the wii for almost two hours. We had a great time. Mostly.

It used to be our policy that just the older kids got to stay up until midnight. We would send the younger kids to bed around 9:00 when they felt like they'd stayed up really late and were super tired anyway. This was a good plan. Unfortunately, nobody informed the little kids of the details. See, we'd send them to bed and they would get up. Every ten minutes. All night long. They would sneak ever so subtlely (like a stampeding herd of buffalo) to some vantage point where they could witness the goings on of the party until they were sent back to bed. Again. So this year, we decided to just extend them an official invitation to the party rather than deal with Bedtime Tourette's all night long. Mr. Yuke(4) was particularly thrilled about this. All day he kept talking about how he was going to stay up UNTIL TOMORROW!!! I kept telling him that it would still be dark and that he would have to go bed as soon as the party was over. He looked a little confused by this the seventeen times we had this conversation but he always agreed with me. At midnight we did crackers, toasted the new year, and exchanged hugs- then I promptly banished them all to bed so Husband and I could play some serious wii. The other children went right away, happy to have stayed up so late and have so much fun. Mr. Yuke(4), however, was LIVID.

Mr. Yuke(4): "YOU SAID I COULD STAY UP TIL TOMORROW!!! YOU SAID I COULD STAY UP ALL NIGHT!!! I WANT TO WATCH SUPERMAN!!!"

Me: "Honey, it is tomorrow. It's the new year. It's after midnight. Remember when I said it would still be dark?"

Mr. Yuke(4): "BUT IT IS NOT MORNING!!!"

Me: "You need to go to bed. I love you. Goodnight."

Husband: "Goodnight, [Mr. Yuke(4)]. I love you."

Mr. Yuke(4): LOUDLY under his breath- "This is NOT what I signed up for."

I don't know where he gets that stuff from. So funny! Anyway, in spite of Mr. Yuke(4) melting down as only he can, and Monster Truck(2) throwing up at about 10:30, we had a really good time. I hope you all rang in the new year as cheerfully. Good luck with your resolutions!

The Highlight of My Trip

I went whitewater rafting with Cute Sister and her family this last week. I was on Mommy Vacation and it was awesome. I had an hour and a half of peaceful silence to study scriptures, pray, and contemplate life every morning. I wrote in my journal every night. I was spiritually rejuvenated (which is why I went on the trip).

There were a lot of great moments out there. When we hit that set of rapids exactly right and Brother was nearly looking straight down; when we watched the meteor shower and one shot halfway across the sky leaving a tail even after the meteor had burned out; when I got to take my nephew, Slugger Jr. (3), to the library and out to ice cream; when I went with Mom and Aunt to a double header of movies; when I got Brother engaged in a real life conversation-


BUT-


the highlight of the trip was far and away getting to witness/participate in the following conversation:



Slugger Jr.(3): "Dad, what do girls have?"
Brother: Oh crap! Is this going where I think it's going? "Uhhhhmmmmm..."
Slugger Jr.(3): "What do girls have?"
Brother: "Weeelll- what do boys have?"
Slugger Jr.(3): "Boys have a PENIS."
Brother: Damn. I knew it. Any chance I can die right here before having to say THAT word? Nope. Okay. "Girls have a vagina."
Slugger Jr.(3): "Right. Girls have a bagina."
Brother: "Yeah, except it's VUH-gina. With a VUH VUH "V". Like vvviolin."
Me: Oh, a chance to save him! Quick change the subject! "Hey Little Einsteins like violins!"
Slugger Jr.(3): "Yeah. Like Little Einsteins. Like dragons."
Brother: ???????
Slugger Jr.(3): "And like kites."
Brother and Me: ???????????
Slugger Jr.(3): "And kites and dragons. The Little Einsteins."
Brother: (Understanding dawning-) "Ohhh. Like China?!"
Slugger Jr.(3): "Yeah! Like Little Einsteins. Girls have a china."
Me: HYSTERICAL, SILENT LAUGHTER.
Brother: "China is a place where a whole bunch of people live."

Me: (Face turning red with more silent, hysterical laughter)- "Not this one." China. Hilarious. Wait a second- "Grandma's china is blue."
Brother and Me: more laughter
Slugger Jr.: (Seeing the swing not getting pushed due to adults who seem to be sharing their own private conversation.) "Hey. I like to get high."

You can't make this stuff up.

Bears, Celebrity Death Match, and Dominoes

We just got back from a family reunion. It was what all family reunions are. Fun, all in all, but fun with a backdrop of the up-close and personal look at exactly what you were escaping when you took that plunge and, risking life, jumped from the nest. It was far too short, actually. The reunion, not the jump. The time FLEW by. Let me tell you about some of the stuff I was NOT escaping when I left home.

We spent two of the days out camping. This was a bit of a worry for my kids, especially The Pinkiest (4). It did not help that a bear actually ate a kid near where we live one week before we left for the reunion. In spite of my trying to shield them from this information, my kids found out about it from their friends. Shielding kids from stuff never works. They will still come face to face with whatever it is eventually. Someone should inform the Jehovah's Witnesses of this. Teacher actually had one student this year whose parents wanted Teacher to pretend that Martin Luther King is not celebrated on his birthday but that it is just a day on which we happen to honor him. Like that child is somehow never going to find out that Martin Luther King Day is the date of his birth. As if. These are the same people who somehow believe that if they insist entire school districts bend to their way of doing things their (I can only assume SLOW) children will somehow be protected from knowledge of the evil practice of holiday observance. Does calling it a "winter party" instead of a Christmas party and using no decorations that might or might not be traditionally used to decorate for said holiday change the fact that Christmas is being celebrated by a large segment of the population and these same prohibited decorations are in every store, post office, bank, and street for at least two months. Who do they think they are fooling? Are their kids really that dumb? Or do they keep them in their houses for those five months until Jim Bob finally takes his Christmas lights down in March? It should be called "Politcal Buncha Crap". There is nothing correct about it. But I digress. Shielding kids from stuff never works. Learning about child-eating animals "in the woods" meant that The Pinkiest was not going to be able to sleep "in the woods" until her Father promised to bring his guns with him. Which meant I was not able to sleep, knowing there were weapons around not locked up. Ok. That is an exaggeration. I sleep no matter what. Typhoon, earthquake, crying baby, midterm. But I was concerned. Granted, they weren't loaded, and the kids didn't know where they were, but it still worried me.

My Cute Sister bought the kids bug catching nets and houses which were such a hit that they are still talking about them. (This is a long time in kid years. Attention spans for these sorts of things usually maxes out around 2 days.) The bug catching kept them busy and Bubba (6) still hasn't forgiven me for not allowing him to bring a bug home and feed it. The fun really got going when Brother taught the kids how to host a celebrity death match bug-style and put a red ant and a spider into a magnifying jar together. (Interestingly enough, we all thought that ant was toast. In actuallity, the ant killed the spider in about 5 minutes. I'm sharing this scientific discovery to assauge the guilt I feel over watching it happen.)

The campfire was lovely. The second day Teacher thought we didn't have enough firewood so she bought two more bundles from the campground host. Brother, who believed we were all up too late the night before, decided that he was going to burn through that wood in the same amount of time that it would have taken without it, and built a fire that we could have fired ceramics on. I swear we sat so far away from it that we could just sort of see it in the distance and don't even get me started on how painful roasting marshmallows was. I think I nearly cooked my face. (Just kidding, Brother! It was a good fire.) Well anyway, when the firewood was gone all us girls were not ready to be done with fire, so Cute Sister and I went looking for sticks. We came back and threw them on the dying embers in a fashion that would have made any boyscout ashamed to admit to knowing us. The fire brightened back up and we sat and enjoyed it for two whole minutes before we needed more sticks. We repeated this process a number of times all the while being mocked by those less enthusiastic than ourselves. (Hey, it was dark.) Then Teacher lugged an uprooted tree stump over to the fire and we were able to sit and enjoy the fire until it died out. I would describe how the stump was too big for the fire-ring and was sort of precariously balanced on the metal part and how we prayed we weren't going to start a forest fire, but I couldn't do it justice.

We managed to make it home without poison oak, forest fire, or death by man-eating bear so the camping trip was a success. We did not however, make it home without either pee all over the tent or the flu. Mr.Yuke (3) recently learned the joy of peeing out of doors at the father-and-sons campout. I think Dad may have left out some of the finer points in the instruction stage. Like don't pee uphill from the tent, don't pee from the tent, don't pee toward the tent, etc. What a mess. It was not fun to clean up but luckily only one of us was sick at that point. Poor hubby had to help me take down tents inbetween bouts of throwing up. What fun. The rest of us went like dominoes over the next several days. In spite of all the sickness, the reunion was great. Cute Sister did a wonderful job planning it. We'll go again. But maybe next time we'll be a little more prepared- with a target. Think about it.

A Devil of a Time

I was recently informed that blogging is of the devil. Apparently it is a monumental waste of time and it is the negative, bastardized version of legitimate journal keeping. I thought this over for a while and have come to the following conclusions: Blogging is better than NOT keeping a journal at all. Blogging does tempt the writer to gripe or to pontificate on pointless chatter. If you are careful not to be too negative, blogging can be a positive thing- even with the pointless chatter. When my brother discovered I blog he thought I was extremely weird. Then he started one. And since then, he has had much more contact with me than he used to. I think this is an extremely positive outcome of the use of my time here. Also, I have the added bonus of a fair warning against Cajun fries. Trust me, they're disgusting.

Let me tell you what I think is of the devil. Mopping. Talk about your monumental waste of time. I have mopped occasionally in the past. Usually when company is coming (and they have had the courtesy to inform me ahead of time.) But when nobody is on the threshold I just don't see the point. Let me tell you why every family with more than one child should have a dog. It is called "crumbs-don't-really-come-from-bread-stuffs-they-are-manufactured-somewhere-inside-of-kids-and-jelly-must-randomly-ooze-out-of-the-floor-because-none-of-my-kids-ever-got-it-anywhere-but-on-their-plate". Now I know those of you who have had dogs will insist that they come with their own messes, but I contend their messes are less messy than jelly-bleeding linoleum. Mopping. It's of the devil.