Further proof my kids are awesome

Duncan: My bum is on fire!

Kaes: Stop, drop and roll, Duncan!

Hitting Puberty

Duncan: I think I hit puberty.

I don't know what it is, but they say you're a man when you hit it.

So . . . I hit puberty.

Nerves of steel

As I was driving home after dropping off Duncan and a friend at Classic Skating, I noticed something crawling across my windshield. Not only was it crawling across my windshield, but it was on the INSIDE of my windshield. And it was a spider. Without freaking out, without screaming--even when I looked away for a second to check traffic and when I looked back I COULDN'T SEE IT--I calmly pulled over to the side of the road, engaging my blinkers and everything, and killed it with a handy piece of trash lying on the floor of the van.

I could be a freakin' brain surgeon, my hands are so steady.

Also, cleanliness is way over-rated.

Irony

Kaes and Duncan were 'watching' TV in a manner that involved more rough-housing than watching. I suddenly heard the frantic pleas of a panicked older brother as Duncan whispered, "Don't cry, don't cry, Kaes, don't cry."

My ears always prick up at the words "don't cry" so I started paying closer attention to what was happening downstairs. Kaes laughed, but in a not-quite-sure-about-it way, and then my ears relayed a message to my brain that just had to be false. I called the two of them upstairs and asked Duncan very calmly if he had told Kaes, "Pain is temporary." "Yes," he said, then his mouth dropped open and his eyes got big. "Oh!" he said, as he ran from the room.

"Pain is temporary"? This from the boy who, as a toddler, had one temper tantrum where he threw himself on the kitchen floor and banged his head. All tantrums after that involved walking over to the carpet and deliberately lying down very carefully, then screaming. This from the boy who won't even put on roller skates because he knows he will fall down. This from the boy who winces watching OTHER PEOPLE ride their bikes fast because he just knows they're going to crash. He rides his bike, but racing is not in his future.

And he tells his sister pain is temporary. Apparently, only for other people.

Happy Mother's Day to me

Today is Mother's Day and it is my job on Mother's Day to stay in bed until breakfast is delivered. It is a long-standing tradition that involves the whole family eating cereal on my bed, usually (as was the case today) with me about to explode if I don't get to the bathroom soon (it's not like it's an early morning breakfast, and I'm getting old). The bed isn't the most stable of picnic areas, but luckily we've had no major spills (thank heaven).

Today when the kids came in Kaes brought the picture and potted plant she had already given to me on Friday after school. Jonathon is in junior high and hasn't made a Mother's Day gift for me in years, but he climbed up on the bed, touched foreheads with me (a Jonathon hug when it's too difficult to use arms) and told me sincerely that he loves me. Duncan's teacher this year is a man, and either male teachers don't do Mother's Day gifts, or sixth-graders don't, I'm not sure which, but he had nothing from school to give me. Instead he read this to me:

Dear Mom,

I love you. You make good cookies. I like the Fridays we do together.

Violets are red
Roses are blue
Just think it over
It's all up to you.
You better like this or die.
Ha Ha just kidding
That was a lie.

A haiku poem
Mother you're nice, lots
You make me smile like a duck
You're scary but nice

From,
Your favorite kid (wink wink) =)

The boy totally has a future at Hallmark.

How did that happen?

Me (brushing Kaes's hair this morning): Your hair is pink.

Kaes: My hair is pink?

Me: Yes. Why is your hair pink?

Kaes: Maybe it happened while I was coloring with markers last night.

Me: What? How did you get markers in your hair?

Kaes: I kinda did it on purpose . . . Do I need a bath today?

this little pig said "Go brush your teeth"

I am reading Igraine the Brave, by Cornelia Funke, to Kaes during breakfast. Igraine's parents and older brother are all magicians, but Igraine wants to be a knight. Her birthday is coming and her parents and brother are locked up in their tower, magically making her present. Early, early on her birthday, her brother wakes her up and tells her to come to the tower, where she finds that her parents have accidentally turned themselves into (talking) pigs and cannot turn themselves back because they are missing one of the magic ingredients.

That's pretty much where we finished reading the other day. I asked Kaes if she would like it if we (Mom and Dad) were pigs. She looked at me with horror and said "No! It would be so hard. I like pigs for breakfast. I like bacon. But I would convince myself not to eat you."

I feel like the one pardoned turkey on Thanksgiving.

Sad day for Dad

This morning while we were lazing around in bed, Matthew called Kaes in to "talk and snuggle and visit" with him.

Kaes's response: "Jonathon can do that job."

attitude

Prologue:

Tuesday morning Duncan was a bit crabby while I was taking him to school. I was trying to tease him out of it, which sometimes works, but not Tuesday. I finally asked him if he was having an attitude with me and he said, "Everybody has an attitude."

Tuesday afternoon:

A kid was pestering Duncan and his friend during recess. The kid was kicking them, and Duncan was trying to push him away with his elbow. Finally the kid left and the playground teacher came over to Duncan.

Playground teacher: I saw you kicking that boy.

Duncan: No you didn't.

PT: Yes, I did. You were kicking him.

D: Fine. Believe what you want to believe, but I wasn't kicking him.

PT: Are you having an attitude?

D: Yes.

PT: Do you want me to write you up?

D: Write me up if you want to, but I wasn't kicking him. He was kicking us.

PT: I'm going to go talk to the boy.

D: Go ahead.

At this point the playground teacher left. She did not write him up AND she did not go talk to the other boy.

When relating this story at home, yes, Duncan was mad that the playground teacher did not believe him. But you know what made him REALLY mad? The playground teacher didn't write him up, neither did she go talk to the other kid. She was useless, across the board. THAT is what he was the most upset about.

Sound familiar? If you have ever met my brother Aaron, then yes, it does, which is just thrilling for me. I love Aaron very much, but I already raised him once and I'm pretty sure I don't want to go through it again. He's all about attitude...

Footnote:

A couple weeks ago Duncan argued with an old lady who told him he couldn't play on her apartment complex's playground because he didn't live there. He told her people come on his yard all the time (which they don't) and it doesn't bother him (which it would if they did). I told him he can't argue with old ladies. He didn't believe me.

Questions you don't wanna ask

Last night Duncan was supposed to be in his room doing homework and Kaes was supposed to be in her room not bothering him. Kaes came downstairs with Duncan's water bottle. I talked to her for a minute, because I'm her mom and I do things like that sometimes.

Then Duncan yelled out, "Forty-two seconds!"

Kaes gave me a wild, panicked look, said, "I gotta go," and ran upstairs, clutching his filled water bottle in her arms.

What was that? Blackmail? Indentured servitude? Slavery?

These are all questions I'm not asking.

You reap what you sow

Today is garbage day, so last night the boys were supposed to go through the house and dump all the garbage. Technically, Duncan is supposed to do it all himself, but somehow dumping all the trash and putting in new liners is just too much for him, so I told him he could ask his brother for help and if Jonathon said yes, then he would be in luck. I was trying to get the kids in bed and went into my room for something. My trash can was lying on its side, there were some pieces of trash scattered on the floor around it, and the 'liner' was on the floor on the other side of my bed. Definitely not lining my trash can. I made a growly noise and went into the boys' room, where I saw that their trash hadn't even been dumped at all.

"Duncan!" I yelled. "You son of a-"

And I stopped, because it is wrong for parents to say such things about their children. I STOPPED! I did not complete the sentence.

Then Jonathon, who was the only other person in the room, said, "Well, he's your-"

And he stopped. He did not finish the sentence, but seriously, we all know where he was going.

He had the decency to blush at that point, which is a big deal because blushing could be considered a 'reaction' and Jonathon doesn't do those very often.

So what am I supposed to do? Not talk like that? I DIDN'T! I swallowed that last word like a chameleon taking down a fly. It did not escape. Apparently, however, the fact that flies have ever buzzed around my head is enough for my kids to know what they sound like when they hear them coming.

You have got to be kidding me

Duncan has decided he wants a lizard. What he really wants is a dragon, but since those are hard to come by, he's willing to settle for a lizard. So today we went to the pet store and looked at four-legged reptiles. It was most exciting and a little disturbing. We got to watch a gecko actually shed its skin. It walked around the inside of its fake stone cave scraping its head against the wall until the skin pealed away. And once its head and front legs were free, it reached back and started eating the dead skin. Can I just say at this point that I like my pets not to eat their own skin? That's like bringing home a masochistic zombie and naming it Spot.

So, in an effort to distract my son from lizards, I pointed out that birds can actually be trained and they pay attention to you and they're pretty and they don't eat their feathers. Duncan readily switched over to wanting a bird instead, and even wanted to bring one home RIGHT NOW. I told him that bringing home a bird without Dad knowing about it would be bad. He pointed out that Dad would know about it when he got home, but I had to explain that you really can't just surprise Dad with things like that. He's already not very enthusiastic about us getting another duck and starting up with chickens come spring. Which brought up the point that Duncan is going to be getting a duck in a couple months, so we really shouldn't get another bird now.

At this point I diverted his attention to a fish. We have had fish many times before and it hasn't traditionally gone well. Any fish brought into our house will wind up dead, and generally not in an "everything dies eventually" kind of way. Duncan even said that when the fish does die he would be sad. With all the tenderness of a loving mother I told him that it's just a fish and you can't really get that upset over it. I knew he would get upset anyway, but it wasn't anything I would have to deal with for a couple months at least. I had every intention of trying REALLY HARD to keep the fish alive this time.

So we got a really pretty silvery beta. Duncan named him Firefly before we even walked out of the store. I thought it was a pretty cool name for a pretty cool fish. We came home and I washed out the bowl that had held our last beta and currently was holding nothing but dust. I filled it with water and put the stress drops in it, then added the fish. A very pretty fish right on top of the piano.

Jump ahead six hours. We're trying to sit down and have a late, Friday night dinner. Duncan is taking forever because he says he can't find the fish in the bowl. That's ridiculous, we say, of course it's in the bowl. Come and eat. An hour later and dinner is over and it's time for bed, but again Duncan's hanging out at the piano and now he has Jonathon with him. We can't find the fish, they say. Go to bed, we say. So they go to bed. Jonathon comes down to get something and says, very quietly, "Will you look for the fish? I really can't see it in there." So I look, and guess what? I can't see it either. I get a flashlight and look behind the piano and there's little Firefly. Already snuffed. There's a fish-sized spot in the dust on the piano right outside the bowl. It didn't even make it six hours in my care. But I don't care about the damn fish. I've got Duncan upstairs convinced that it's just a trick of the light and the curve of the glass that's keeping him from enjoying his new fish.

I got in the car and raced to the pet store to get another silvery beta. Unfortunately, the pet store was already closed and there was no way Duncan wasn't going to figure things out in the morning, so I had to come home and tell him what happened. There were tears on Duncan's part. Everyone else was laughing at me. Less than six hours. I broke my own record.

fresh air

Yesterday was a beautiful day for not being inside. It was in the mid fifties and felt positively spring-like. Kaes came home from school, and, after emptying her Valentines on the table, went to play in the backyard in the pink dress she had worn especially for Valentine's Day. She shoveled frozen, crusty snow from one bit of grass to another, and rode a stick around the yard like a hobby horse, with her dress hitched up to her waist. There was something involving buckets that I never quite figured out, but she was hauling something from somewhere and dumping it elsewhere. She was all alone while she did this, no friends or brothers to help her have fun. She is by far the most social person in the family, making friends while standing in line in the store and bringing toys to the park in case she meets a friend (old or new). And yet, when I send her brothers out to play, even if I send them out together, they stand around and look at each other, then at me through the window, and tell me 'there's nothing to do' and 'no one to play with.' But Kaes has an innate ability to play, which often manifests itself as 'constantly doing something' or 'getting into things.'

After an hour of re-discovering the backyard ("Mom, did you know there is grass growing on the side of the house?") she came in, took off her muddy shoes and announced, "I'm gonna get some non-fresh air."

That's my girl.