Quote of the day

"No, no, no, that is not a helmet for your sister!"

I am afraid I will hear many warnings similar in nature over the next 18 years.

Picture to explain this will come later!

2 strikes, we are out!

The baseball Gods were not happy with us this week. I do not even know what we did to upset them! We enjoy going to a few Durham Bulls games each season. It is relatively cheap entertainment and the boys really love it. We decided to go to the game Tuesday night. We had it all planned. Tuesday dawned nice and rainy. Rain all day. It was not raining on our house when it was time to make a decision, to go or not to go. Matt and I decided for not to go. A rainy ball game with 5 kids, 2 pretty little, did not sound like our idea of fun. Madsen said we could wear jackets. We stayed home. Declan was invited to go to that same game with our neighbors, so he got to go. Madsen was jealous. Disappoinment #1.

We decided to go to the game on Friday. They have fireworks every Friday night so that would make it even more fun. I packed a gourmet picnic. We headed up to meet Matt at work and eat our dinner. All is well! Then we get to the ball park. I have never seen so many people in that area at one time. Something is looking fishy. We park and make the trek to the ticket counter only to discover there is standing room only. If a rainy ball game with 5 kids did not sound fun, does standing for a ball game with 5 kids sound fun? NO!!! So, after much dileberation and complaining, we opted to go home. Madsen was disappointed. We did get our $3 parking fee back! Disappointment #2.

We have gone up to the park with out tickets before and been able to get in. We have never been to a sold out game. It never even occured to us to see if there would still be tickets. Then we heard that they were playing the Boston Red Sox farm team. It was a stadium record number in attendance. No wonder we could not get tickets.

We were smart though, bought our tickets to the July 3 game while we were there. Not a complete waste of a night!

The boys were upset. Cannon said to me, "thanks for ruining our whole day" on the way home.

So, to make it up to them we drove through some really fancy neighborhoods looking at houses on the way home. Sully said, "you already made us mad, are you trying to torture us now?" OK, looking at the houses was for me!

We did stop at Target and get icees to make them feel a little better and we went home and watched The Princess Bride.

Lesson learned and we will have fun at the ball game on July 3!

Me at the dentist

It was my turn to go to the dentist today. This is not something I look forward to. I always have fears of horrible problems with my teeth that will take time and dollars to fix. I also have an over active gag reflex, so having instruments and fingers in my mouth is a challenge. I have one tooth that is really sensitive to temperature, I only chew on the left side of my mouth to avoid this tooth. And I have a weird thing with my jaw, it pops all the time, occasionally it gets stuck, sometimes hurts. I discovered that my teeth are overall, just fine. The problem tooth is gum recession. Apparently, I brush too hard. I can get it fixed by having gum grafting, if I want. Sounds pleasant! The dentist was entertained by my jaw. Did not have an explanation or a solution. Just thought it was interesting. Had me open and close a lot! He had me move my lower jaw all around. I also discovered that I must clench my jaw while I sleep. I am happy that I do not need any dental work done and all it cost me was $3.50 for the fluoride mouth wash the dentist recommend.

Now I do not have to take any one to the dentist until November.

Today I am thankful for dental insurance and kids old enough to leave at home.

Kiss a Girl

Cannon has a thing about kissing a girl lately. I am not completely sure where it is coming from. There is a song we hear occasionally called I Want to Kiss A Girl, I guess he listens more to the words of songs than I thought. The other day in the car he said, out of the blue, "who wants to kiss a girl?" the result was lots of laughter and eww, grosses from the brothers. I told them I would prefer they want to kiss girls than boys, a discussion for another day.... They decided that is was ok to kiss Mom and Waverly.
Tonight at dinner they were discussing some gross boy things (Sully has been sick and vomited earlier today). Cannon said, " what if you were kissing a girl on the lips and you puked and it got on her?" I told him he would probably not get to kiss her again. I do not know where he gets his crazy ideas.

I think when I told my mother that I hoped I had a bunch of boys when I grew up, I had no idea what I was getting myself into!

when first we practice to decieve!

I got to the school for the 5th grade picnic and celebration. I was quickly shuttled into the principals office. All the kids got to spend 45 minutes in there earlier being lectured and writing out the story. All the parents got a lecture too and told that there needs to be some serious punishment at home. The principal told me that Sully was going to be getting an award but now she wasn't so sure.

End result: the mom and girl who threw the phone out the window went and found the phone and then went to verizon to replace it. We all got to pay $12 which the kids will work off. Sully will be mowing the neighbors yards to repay me. They had the owner of the phone come in so the kids could apologize in person. She was a very sweet young lady. I think she felt bad for these silly kids. Sully did get his award. The principal looked right at him when she said these are great kids, 99% of the time.

I personally think the whole thing was blown out of proportion a little. They did do something wrong. But my goodness! The principal just kept going on about how bad they were and what a horrible thing they had done. I am glad this very important life lesson was learned over something as unimportant as a cell phone. I told Sully that I think he has sufficiently punished himself and next time he is in a similar situation with peer pressure, he will make the right choice.

Oh what a wicked web we weave...

I got phone call from the elementary school principal yesterday telling me to talk to Sully about a cell phone that a high schooler lost on the bus. Apparently pictures were taken of Sully along with text messages saying, "hi, I am Sully" with this phone. After asking Sully if he knew anything about this and him telling me no, I told the principal that Sully had no idea what she was talking about. I went on to tell her that Sully is a good, honest child who would tell me if he knew anything. How he is not a trouble maker and would not even know how to take a picture with a cell phone or send a text message having had no experience with either. He then listed off names of girls who sit by him on the bus who may know what happened. Then I get a call from the bus driver telling me the whole story again, so I repeat what a good kid Sully is etc...

Meanwhile, Sully is sitting very quietly with a concerned look on his face. He said he was worried that he was going to get in trouble. I told him that if he did not do anything wrong, he would not be in trouble. A few minutes later he came and confessed.

The girls found the phone and told him how to take a picture, which he did, of himself ( do not take pictures of yourself with someone elses phone!) He brought the phone home one night and the next morning the kids were playing with it on the bus and one of the girls took it. On Monday, they were again playing with the phone and apparently, this is when the text was sent. Tuesday morning again the kids are playing with the phone and one of the girls threw it out the bus window. Not a very smart chain of events.

The family of the kid who lost the phone received the photo and text on a different phone of theirs. This is how they got Sully's name.

I e-mailed the principal this morning telling her all that happened last night. He now faces the unpleasant prospect of being lectured by the principal and dealing with the gilrs who he named.

He is very upset. He spent the rest of the evening in tears, did not eat dinner and went to bed early. This morning he told me he thinks he is sick. He probably is. I sent him to school to accept his consequences.

All of the things done were minor and could easily be remedied up until the girl threw the phone out the window. The worst thing Sully did was lie about it.

I will be interested to hear what happened at school today. I do not think the principal can punish him any worse than he has already done to himself.

There are many lessons to be learned from this and I really hope he does!

I want...

Tomorrow is the last day of school. The last day of elementary school for Sully. The last quiet day at my house. I am ready for school to be over. I get tired of getting out of bed in the morning earlier than I want. I am tired of making lunches that kids don't eat. I am tired of homework. I am tired of schedules. I am tired of Cannon being bored at home.

I want to enjoy the summer. I want to have fun with my kids. I want them to have free days to just be boys. I want them to read books and play games and be dirty (outside). I want them to swim. I want them to discover something. I want them to be nice to each other and not drive me crazy! Not asking too much, am I?

Saturday is soccer tournament day. I want my kids to do well, mostly. I really want them to lose so the season is over and I can reclaim Saturday.

I want to sell my house and buy a new one. There is a lot of work to do to get a house ready to sell. I am only talking about cleaning and organizing and decluttering. I want to be in charge of all of it and throw away so much stuff. I want my husband to not notice!

I want to know how things will turn out.

Today I am Thankful for...

I love to read Matt's Aunt Dianne's blog. She is funny and introspective and has given some great advice without even knowing it. One thing I like about her blog is how she ends so many posts with today I am thankful for and a little list of simple things. So, here's to Aunt Dianne!

Today I am thankful for Sully's friend who lives right by the school. The fifth graders are going to the beach for a field trip and they are to meet at the school at 5:30 AM! That would require me to leave the house at 5:00, waking up around 4:30. Thankfully, Sully's friend invited him to sleep over tonight so they can go to school together and I do not have to be up at the crack of dawn.

June 1! and the result is...

Monday, June 1!!! I love it when this happens. I really love this June 1, since my chocolate free May is finally over! I survived, yes I did. I almost ruined an entire month last night when I was making dinner. I had just put a handful of chocolate chips on the waffle and was about to throw the remaining 3 chips into my mouth when I realized it and stopped myself. It may not seem like a big deal, 3 chips within hours of completing a goal, I would have had to start all over, and that my friends, would be hard! Here is what I have learned: I can live without chocolate, it is an addiction, I eat way to much of it! I lost almost 5 pounds in May, just by not eating chocolate... and strictly limiting the snacking I do during the day and not eating ice cream every night ( I only like ice cream if it has chocolate in it). I have to admit, I failed in my goal to start exercising, again.

My new plan is to enjoy my chocolate in moderation. To run or some other form of exercise 6 days a week. I can do this, I have done it before and then it becomes an addiction that I do not have to give up! I just got off the treadmill for today so 1 day down!