Good ol' procrastination. I'm speaking (that's right, SPEAKING) in church tomorrow. Ahhh. I know. It's Matt's fault actually. He had to do it a month or so ago and FROM THE PULPIT, -(Is that what it's called? Total brain bubble, sorry)- announced that I would love an opportunity to speak, myself. Yes. Of course he will pay. (And if you have any good ideas, please share!)
So here I sit. I've written a decent amount for my talk, but now I feel like I should take things in a different direction. Seriously though, I'm not feelin' it right now. I'll have to try again later. I actually worked on it throughout the week, so I didn't expect to be left to this tonight. Ugh.
We went to a ward party today. It was nice to see our friends and let the kiddos play. Our buddies, Heidi & Matt, have the cutest puppy! We also got to see Angie & Lance's sweet new baby, Gavin, who is the MOST adorable thing in the world. It rained lightly for a while before we left, but the water cooled us and felt great. Gabey ate enough to nourish a band of giants for a week, then had three cookies. He drooled in chocolate and coated his face and shirt nicely. Then he fell in the sand, which gave him that snicker doodle appeal. Sn-nazzy.
No one was seriously injured and Jesse only drank out of some other kid's cup twice, so over all, I dub it successful. Hurrah.
3 stinky boys and their uber-smelly dad, and me- a happy girl.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
If Only More People Would LISTEN TO BILL...
I read this a few years back & thought it should be recited daily by every kid in grades 7-12! It landed in my inbox again today, so I thought I'd spread it around. Enjoy, and keep it moving. Maybe somebody will learn something from it.
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both. (Little out-dated, but you get the idea...)
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both. (Little out-dated, but you get the idea...)
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Ok, Jesse!
This afternoon in the bedroom, beside Jesse while he eats his apple:
(spitting noises)
"Jesse! What are you doing?!"
He quickly covers part of the bed with a blanket, which I proceed to move. But before the situation registers,
"There was peanuts in that apple."
The bed is strewn with seeds.
This evening in the car, after a minute or two of silence:
"Dad, do you ever shoot mean robots?"
"No, I've never shot a mean robot... Have you?"
"Yeah. I shoot them with big circles and little circles, (I can only figure he's referring to his disc gun). ...And I punch them in the face."
(More silence...)
"Ok, weirdo."
(spitting noises)
"Jesse! What are you doing?!"
He quickly covers part of the bed with a blanket, which I proceed to move. But before the situation registers,
"There was peanuts in that apple."
The bed is strewn with seeds.
This evening in the car, after a minute or two of silence:
"Dad, do you ever shoot mean robots?"
"No, I've never shot a mean robot... Have you?"
"Yeah. I shoot them with big circles and little circles, (I can only figure he's referring to his disc gun). ...And I punch them in the face."
(More silence...)
"Ok, weirdo."
Friday, August 15, 2008
The Darndest Things...
Recently I came upon a great deal on some clothing I'd been eying, so I grabbed a few things and dashed into the dressing room with Jesse. (Gabe wasn't with me.) I was relieved to find the largest room open, since all the others were full. Score. Luck was on my side. *Now hold on- time out- keep this in your brain while I tell you another story.
My kids have the cutest buns. I mean cuter than the buns of your kids. That's right- little tushies of perfection- if you can imagine. (They look just like Matt's buns- only tiny, by the way.) So we tell the boys what we think. Every time they're naked -be it bath time, changing their respective diaper/clothes, or moments they've stripped down just to streak across the living room- they're pretty much bombarded with compliments on the cuteness of their tiny rumpies. Matt and I say things like, "I love your buns! Oh your little rear is so cute I could bite it! All the little girls must think you're so sexy!" etc. -Ok.-
Now back to the first story:
So we're in the changing room and I'm scrambling like a mad woman to try everything on as quickly as possible and get out. Now- I'm wearing garmies, so my zones are remaining fairly well covered (JUST FOR THE RECORD!!), when Jesse decides to reciprocate my daily affections. Loudly. I've got one arm cranked over my head, tied up in a shirt I'm attempting to remove, and the other hand trying (ineffectively) to put something on a hanger, when I hear, "I LOVE YOU BUNS, MOMMY!! - I LIKE YOU BUNS! - THEY'S SO SEXY!!" I knew all the people in the fitting rooms could hear every word. Desperately I pleaded with him (in a whisper) to be quiet. It wasn't until I gave in and raised my own voice that he finally stopped talking over me in his quest to declare his very boisterous admiration. I'm expecting a visit from the Special Victims investigators any day now.
I've heard of kids who ask their moms in public restrooms if they're pooping in there, and even comment on the odor.
I think mine was worse.
*P.S.- I am well aware that use of the term "sexy" is a bit disturbing when used to describe a child. Obviously I use it jokingly. Wish I could have explained that to the women who had to stop fidgeting with zippers in order to call the cops about the monster three stalls over.
My kids have the cutest buns. I mean cuter than the buns of your kids. That's right- little tushies of perfection- if you can imagine. (They look just like Matt's buns- only tiny, by the way.) So we tell the boys what we think. Every time they're naked -be it bath time, changing their respective diaper/clothes, or moments they've stripped down just to streak across the living room- they're pretty much bombarded with compliments on the cuteness of their tiny rumpies. Matt and I say things like, "I love your buns! Oh your little rear is so cute I could bite it! All the little girls must think you're so sexy!" etc. -Ok.-
Now back to the first story:
So we're in the changing room and I'm scrambling like a mad woman to try everything on as quickly as possible and get out. Now- I'm wearing garmies, so my zones are remaining fairly well covered (JUST FOR THE RECORD!!), when Jesse decides to reciprocate my daily affections. Loudly. I've got one arm cranked over my head, tied up in a shirt I'm attempting to remove, and the other hand trying (ineffectively) to put something on a hanger, when I hear, "I LOVE YOU BUNS, MOMMY!! - I LIKE YOU BUNS! - THEY'S SO SEXY!!" I knew all the people in the fitting rooms could hear every word. Desperately I pleaded with him (in a whisper) to be quiet. It wasn't until I gave in and raised my own voice that he finally stopped talking over me in his quest to declare his very boisterous admiration. I'm expecting a visit from the Special Victims investigators any day now.
I've heard of kids who ask their moms in public restrooms if they're pooping in there, and even comment on the odor.
I think mine was worse.
*P.S.- I am well aware that use of the term "sexy" is a bit disturbing when used to describe a child. Obviously I use it jokingly. Wish I could have explained that to the women who had to stop fidgeting with zippers in order to call the cops about the monster three stalls over.
Calling All Parents!!!
Anyone who's ever met Matt and me would guess that our spawn would be the most tenacious little humans on the continent. Sure enough, that is the case, and our headstrong three-year-old seems to get more stubborn every hour! Our most recent issue is this.
Being the slacker that I am these days (and I also like to blame the fact that we hardly spend two strait weeks in the same region of the US), it's been a while since I worked really consistently on educational junk with Jesse. So we're just now starting, really, to address letter identification. Yesterday we went over A-D and he picked it up immediately, but I didn't go any further. I want to make sure he learns them well and doesn't get too many letters all jumbled up in his brain. So today I pulled out the flashcards to review and see if he was ready for a couple new letters, and he was definitely enthusiastic to get started. I mentally patted myself on the back and praised my genius knack for teaching while I pulled out the homemade cards. We went through the letters he knows, and he got each one right. Mental gold stars for both of us. Then we began to go through again, and he started to play with me. He insisted that "A" was "B," and that "C" was "Stink." No matter what I said, he wouldn't budge. When I'd had enough and began to just plain argue with him, he only dug in deeper and clung to his opinions like his life was at stake. Now how the crap do you teach a kid the alphabet when he wants to make up his own names for each letter?
Seriously! Any suggestions? I can tell you from experience that he is not likely to back down on this anytime soon. I feel like it's time to call in the professionals. But professionals of what?! People who got their doctorate in the field of, "Education for Indomitable Children Who Refuse to Learn" ???!!! Well the only people I know like that are YOU GUYS- parents of your own impossible little offspring. So please write me with ANYTHING you can think of to try. And please, don't leave a note just to laugh at me. Though to be honest, that's what I would do.
Being the slacker that I am these days (and I also like to blame the fact that we hardly spend two strait weeks in the same region of the US), it's been a while since I worked really consistently on educational junk with Jesse. So we're just now starting, really, to address letter identification. Yesterday we went over A-D and he picked it up immediately, but I didn't go any further. I want to make sure he learns them well and doesn't get too many letters all jumbled up in his brain. So today I pulled out the flashcards to review and see if he was ready for a couple new letters, and he was definitely enthusiastic to get started. I mentally patted myself on the back and praised my genius knack for teaching while I pulled out the homemade cards. We went through the letters he knows, and he got each one right. Mental gold stars for both of us. Then we began to go through again, and he started to play with me. He insisted that "A" was "B," and that "C" was "Stink." No matter what I said, he wouldn't budge. When I'd had enough and began to just plain argue with him, he only dug in deeper and clung to his opinions like his life was at stake. Now how the crap do you teach a kid the alphabet when he wants to make up his own names for each letter?
Seriously! Any suggestions? I can tell you from experience that he is not likely to back down on this anytime soon. I feel like it's time to call in the professionals. But professionals of what?! People who got their doctorate in the field of, "Education for Indomitable Children Who Refuse to Learn" ???!!! Well the only people I know like that are YOU GUYS- parents of your own impossible little offspring. So please write me with ANYTHING you can think of to try. And please, don't leave a note just to laugh at me. Though to be honest, that's what I would do.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
I LOVE THESE BOYS!
The other day, Gabe was crying for who-knows-what extrordinarily-rational reason, and Matt and I were tuning him out, as usual. Then a soft whisper caught our ears and we overheard Jesse quietly comforting his brother, while he stroked Gabey's hair. We interrupted Jesse's gentle, "It's ok Gabey; it's gonna be ok," to compliment him on his sweetness. We told him what a good brother he is and how nice it was for him to comfort Gabe. J's matter-of-fact response?
"Gabey was cryin'. It's my job."
Kid's my hero.
"Gabey was cryin'. It's my job."
Kid's my hero.
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