Ginger Unplugged

So. I haven't posted very often since Sleestack developed a personality. Or should I say, even more personality? She is currently three years old, is growing out the haircut she gave herself, and is sporting a black eye I assume she also gave herself. Here are Sleestack favorites from just this week: 1. Sitting in church. The little boy in front of us keeps dropping his bouncy ball and Sleestack retrieves it for him several times. It happens again until she decides the best way to remedy the situation is to hurl it as far as possible into the congregation. I don't know whose head it hit, since I covered up my face in what I hoped looked like pious shame but was truly hysterical laughter. 2. Playing "Ponies" with me, Slee decides her pony is the teacher and mine is the student. She decides to teach me that flower stems are green because they get the energy from the sun for food that way. Okay!? Who's been teaching my daughter photosynthesis on the sly? I ta...

So, I think it's very possible that I'm losing some of my hearing. This first occurred to me several years ago at the Disneyland equivalent of a book club where a woman I didn't know was trying to talk to me while 50 other women I didn't know chatted in a crowd around the divine artichoke dip. Not being able to even yell loud enough to convey the thought, Hey! I can't hear you!! I dutifully smiled and nodded and before I knew it she had completely held and exited the conversation I had no idea was coming to a close. As she wended her way through mobs of passionate book lovers, I deeply hoped that I hadn't smiled and nodded at something terribly embarrassing to us both. My family has caught onto this and there have been a lot of whispers around here which sometimes I DO hear, and sometimes I've been told about. Here are my favorite three from just the last week. Whisper 1 Sleestack: Waaaa-haaa-haaaa (this was not the whispered part). Monkey: That...

In case my husband Facebooks this, I wanted to get the real story in writing...because I like to think was justified! Back Story: Around bedtime tonight, Sleestack whines and whines for me to put her to bed. I explain many times that she has to actually get ready for bed before I can put her in it. Her father is trying to help her with this but she keeps crying and yelling for Mom to put her to bed. Ack. She is finally ready and asks me to change her pajama shirt because there is some undetectable something in the elbow that is causing her great pain. Fine.  She is finally in the bed, and I'm sent to get her water. I sing her choice of song. It's time for her to pray and she's suddenly forgotten how and I am out of patience. Normal people would probably just say the prayer for the child. Do I? No. I'm sick of being ordered around by a two-year-old. Me: You're not going to pray? Sleestack: I don't know how. Me: Seriously? Fine. Then we won't...

A caring friend bought me a book a while ago called something like How to Cope, Now That You Have Children Smarter Than You . Okay, that's not really the title but that's what the title really means. At least, I think it does. I'll ask one of my kids and report back... Anyway. I'm embarrassed that I haven't made it all the way through yet but I did start taking the book's suggestions immediately. Suggestion #1: "Thank your children in advance for good behavior." The reasoning goes that it shows your good faith in them and inspires them to follow through with what you asked. Easy, right? This is how it looked at our house. Me: Thank you, Princess, for putting your shoes away. Princess: Uh, I haven't taken my shoes off yet, Mom. (Looks at me like I've dropped a few IQ points.) Me: Yes well, I'm thanking you in advance. Princess: Okaaaaaaay...? Try number two: Me: Thanks, Crash for taking out the trash. Crash: I didn't ...

I always thought my kids would whine things like, "But Mom! Everybody's doing it!" And, "Just this once!" My kids? No. They whine, "But Mom! The moon phase is perfect for it!" And you know what? I have to give in. I've been preparing for the other whines for a decade. With the moonphase argument...I got nothing.

Tom Clancy once said, "Every person you meet is another opportunity to learn." He said it like it was a good thing, but after my latest camping experience I've just had a crash course in people--and it wasn't my favorite. We pulled into camp to find a boyscout troop taking up one of the areas and three single guys taking up all the rest. My dad quickly made friends with RON who said we could share his fire pit. JOE said we were good to pull in as well. Unfortunately, we didn't check with LARRY as he wasn't even in our immediate vicinity. Had I known about LEO, we may never have pulled in at all. Before we'd been there long, Larry (the guy we didn't check with) had turned up his eclectic oldies-country-jazz-big band music as loud as he could without blowing a speaker, then waited for me to go fight with him about it. Honestly, some of it wasn't bad, but I swear he was trying to find all his B-sides. I was really nice as I told him my "s...

Crash: The earth will be in the same place it was when I was born in one month and twelve days. Me: You mean on your birthday? Crash: Yeah but "birthday" is a dumb name for it. Every day is a day. Only one day a year is when the earth is in the right spot for my birthday. Me: Okay, well, we'll be wishing you a Happy Birth-the-earth-is-in-the-same-spot-relative-to-the-sun-as-it-was-the-day-you-were-born-day when you turn twelve then. Crash: Thanks, Mom. It's so nice you understand me. Okay, I made that last line up. I don't really understand him and he knows it. But I try.

Like all Moms I hate the phrase, "Mom! What should I do?" I usually claim I can think of lots of things and start giving them work around the house until they magically come up with something to do on their own. Trouble is, they're so well trained now, most of the housework I actually want them to do (those things besides painting the bathrooms or pruning the roses) is actually done. So I got out a list Butterfly's online school sent me for the summer. "40 Things To Do The Next Time You Are Bored!" I told Crash--surprisingly the most bored of my children--that when he asked me for something to do I'd make him pick a number and he'd have to do whatever the list said. He quickly chose #27. "Order a pizza." I accused him of cheating and hid the list but to prove I wasn't kidding, I ordered him a pizza. Paybacks were today when he chose #4. "Bead some bracelets and sell them for charity." The bracelets turned into toe rings ...

Monkey: Isn't zero a number? Me: Yes. Monkey: Then why don't we count it? From now on I think I'll refer Monkey to the other kids whenever he has questions.

Here are my kids' answers to that well-worn question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Princess: A novelist and a pilot. Crash: An engineer, astronaut or a photographer. (Funny, he never takes pictures of anything.) Butterfly: A cat groomer, "And when I really grow up...a museum artist." Monkey: An Astronaut. I asked him "What does an astronaut do?" He responded, "Flies around in spaceships and pushes buttons and stuff." I think he's got a pretty good handle on it. Unfortunately, Sleestack didn't answer as her only words are banana, light and plant.

I have been dreading Valentine's season for several weeks now. Besides the fact that my kids' school classes are always just a few students' more than the number of valentines in the average box, Princess and Crash are obsessed with making the most complicated Valentine's Day boxes on the planet. This year I was prepared with relatively simple ideas I found online. See? But Crash approached me sooner than I expected. Crash: MOM! I have the best idea for a Valentine's Day box! Me: Uhhhh (frantically reaching for my computer to show him the picture). Crash: Well, I actually have two ideas. Maybe I can make them both. One is super easy. Me: Really? (He knows what I want to hear.) Crash: Yeah the first one has like a spring release to shoot the valentines into my box. Me: Oh yeah? Great. What's the easy one? Crash: That IS the easy one! The hard one is cooler though. You get a blow dryer and...hey, do we have any clear pipe? At this point I show...

Crash had to make a safety notebook for cub scouting. Apparently this is some kind of binder or stapled papers they put together with emergency phone numbers on it. His says: Safety notebook Fire, ambulance, police 911 That's it. At least he's efficient.

Butterfly had a school assignment that told her to "Circle the compound word. Then write its meaning on the line." For snowflake she wrote "fluff of ice."

Our house is currently covered in balloons--well, at least the floor of our house. Monkey has taken to setting them over the heater vent to see them float, which is pretty impressive I have to admit. He is also enjoying playing with a brand spankin' new Thomas the Train bouncy ball. For whatever reason, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to teach him the science of "Heavy and Light." Me: Hey Monkey, those balloons look so cool, do you think your ball will float? Monkey: Yep. Me: Let's try it. (The ball doesn't float.) Me: Why do you think it doesn't float? Monkey: I don't know. Me: Is it heavier than the balloons? Monkey: Yep, it's heavier. Me: The balloons are lighter. Monkey: Oh yeah. We don't have dark balloons. Me: No, I mean the ball is heavy, not light. The balloons are light, not heavy. Monkey: Right, the ball isn't light like the Sun. Me: Well, true. But it's heavy. That's why it doesn...

One of my current joys in life is carpooling for one and a half hours every school day. This is due to Princess getting out of middle school, then Crash and Butterfly getting out of elementary school, then Princess needing to be to swimming. Monkey and Sleestack have miraculously learned to deal with it gracefully (this is where angels sing the Hallelujah chorus). We also pick up two other kids after elementary school--let's call them Adorable I and Adorable II. They are THE BEST sports. Especially when Crash is in charge of the backseat games. Or someone hit and runs me and I chase them down. Or when someone has a messy diaper. I'm thinking if their mom reads this, their carpooling days may be over. Anyway, they all like to play a variety of games in the backseat, including mind games created on the spot by Crash. Crash: Okay, pig is to bacon as cow is to what? One, two... (Adorable I has three seconds to answer.) Adorable I: WHAT!? Crash: Wrong. The answer is hamburge...

Why does everyone make such a big deal about circles not having a beginning or an end? It's not like squares have a beginning. NO POLYGONS HAVE A BEGINNING!!! This is the part where crash stomps off in disgust at the world's ignorance.

Crash: "Oh dang!" Me: "What?" Crash: "I forgot to chew." A conversation ensues about how you are supposed to chew each bite of food 50 times. No one believed me. I told them I'd read it somewhere. (Okay, that's probably not true, I read something about how many times you should chew but I can't remember the figure.) Crash: "50 TIMES!? No way. I gag if I try and chew 50 times. You gotta check out this video on youtube. There's this X-ray of this guy eating an apple and he seriously chews twice and swallows. That bite was totally vaporized." First of all, Crash doesn't watch youtube as far as I know. And I have a pretty good handle on the computer stuff going on. Second, I guess I'm not the only one that totally makes up bogus chewing statistics in this family. Nice legacy I'm leaving. But at least maybe he'll remember to chew every bite at least twice. Usually.

"Mom, you know how when you think it's like a voice talking to you in your head?" "Uh, sure." "Well I find it works much better if there are two voices and they talk to each other."

Watch out, Mom. Watch out! We're experiencing sudden bursts of speed! Really? Are you feeling sudden bursts of speed? Well, no, but our blue dot is stopping and then zooming ahead! I'll be careful. Oh, and if you look over to the left, you'll see a railroad track. WAIT! Is there a pond down there? We're coming to a curve. There! Are we curving? Uh, yes we are. You CAN look out the window and see the curve if you like. Or maybe feel it with your sense of balance? No way, this is cool. Can you go faster? Our dot slowed down. There are lots of cars all around us. Look. Oh. Weird. This thing isn't showing any other cars. Maybe you can go through them. Try it!! Oh and over that mountain is another railroad track. Can we go see it? Um, not today. Be careful! Careful! You're getting close to this gray grid where there isn't anything. Would you just look out the window for a minute? There's no grid! Okay, now turn that way ( he is being m...

Crash got the coveted "WOW" award at school yesterday. Each class in the school picks one kid for the month to receive it and they get a certificate, a special pencil, and their picture taped up until the next WOW awards come out. It doesn't sound like much but they get them in a school assembly which apparently gives a big bang for its buck. Just to give you an idea, my girls have come home with WOW awards that say "For always being on task and a good example to everyone," and "Broke the school record for passing off the 12th grade reading level." Crash's says, "Has made a complete turn around in his behavior, social, and organizational skills. He is a brilliant thinker, amazing scientist, entertaining writer, and fun person to be around." What do I say in all my 9th month of pregnancy crankiness--I MEAN--sassiness? "So basically it says you really used to have crappy skills but now you're doing better?" Luckily, the kids ...