2012 January

Jan 31, 2012

Copycat

About a week ago, I brought home some poster board. You wouldn’t think this was such a significant event — C.(13) had to put together a quick project on an invertebrate and had asked if I could pick up some poster board sometime when I was out, and I had simply obliged.

But when L.(5) saw the poster board I had brought home for his brother, he was instantly jealous. I attribute his jealousy to two primary underlying facts:

L. is a big fan of paper in general (you would know this if you ever visited our home and saw the piles and piles of paper stashed in various places), and in his mind — the bigger the paper, the better. Just imagine what could be done with a piece of paper that’s almost as big as you!
L. firmly believes that he should be allowed and perfectly able to do absolutely anything his 13-year-old brother does. Age, maturity and stature mean nothing — they are brothers and should be treated exactly the same. Therefore: if C. has poster board, L. should have poster board.

It will not surprise you to know that L immediately asked if I could get him some poster board the next time I was out — and also, if I could make that next time happen very soon.

While my next outing (at least, my next outing that took me to a store that sold poster board) did not happen quickly enough for L.’s liking, it did eventually happen. On Sunday, I came home from the store with a gigantic piece of paper, just for L. Coincidentally, Sunday was the day C. chose to do his project, using the previously-obtained poster board of his own.

I should have been able to predict what happened next.

C. worked diligently — gathering, cutting, and pasting pictures and facts relating to the invertebrate assigned to him (it was a black widow spider, and since I am most definitely not a fan of spiders, this poster cannot head off to school fast enough, in my opinion). And unbeknownst to me, L. began to work on his own “animal poster.” He decided to dedicate his project to Ants. By the end of the afternoon, we had two creepy crawly type posters in our home.

Due to the fact that L. used a pencil to write out his “ant facts,” you most likely can’t read them. Allow me to help.

L. drew several different types of ants and made notes about them all. He has:

“This ant blends in with colors.” (that would be the one you can’t see on the black construction paper)
“This ant looks sad because its blue.” (blue ant on red paper)
“This ant is big.” (ant at the bottom with 30 legs)
…and a few things that I did not understand, despite L.’s best attempts to explain them to me. I think it’s because he was making up words.

If you can make out the pictures, you’ll see that the “ants” L. drew on his poster have many, many legs — far more legs than the scary black widow spiders on C.’s poster. Let me assure you, if I found any ants in our home that size and with that many legs, I would a) call the exterminator, and b) move out.

I learned a few things from the poster board projects:

Do not use outdoor porta-potties if you can at all avoid them. Aside from their inherent disgustingness, black widows apparently enjoy hanging out in them. Don’t ask me why. Just stay away.
L. really, really loves his big brother, and wants to be as much like him as he possibly can be.

This is just one example of the cute little copycat who lives in our house. L. looks up to his brother in many ways — always watching, often imitating, deeply loving. And I have the privilege of being the mom who gets to soak it all in.

Filed Under: Family 11 Comments

Jan 26, 2012

Unsent Letters, Volume 5

written by katrina · 9 Comments

Dear Elliptical Machine,

Hello, friend. It is okay if I call you “friend,” isn’t it? After all, we’ve been hanging out together for about a month now, spending “quality time” together most days of the week. And even though, at the beginning, I could only stand to be near you for ten minutes at a time, I’ve gradually found it easier to spend longer and longer sessions with you. Now when we get together, it’s for nearly half an hour. So yes, I think we could consider ourselves friends.

Anyway, here’s the thing. Spending time with you has been good for my heart. My heartrate no longer soars to perviously unknown heights and ridiculously high numbers as soon as I begin to move, and that’s good. But still, when I’m done, my legs are all jello-y, I can hardly breathe, and I feel like immediately falling upon the couch and taking a nap. So could you take it a little easy on me? Or at least say something encouraging while I’m working out? Things would be a lot easier if you said things like, “Good job,” “Keep it up,” or even better, “Katrina — you totally rock!” while I’m exercising.

So, um, work on that, okay? Thanks.

Your friend,
Katrina the Jello-Legged

***

Dear Trader Joe’s,

You do realize that you threaten to counteract all the hard work I’m doing with my dear friend, the elliptical machine, right? With your aisles of yummy trail mixes, cookies, chocolate covered coffee beans, peanut-butter-filled pretzels, and other such goodies…well, it’s hard to visit you and then consistently uphold good health practices.

And yes, I know the food you offer is, in many cases, healthier than the stuff I would buy at Ye Old Standard Grocery Store. But still. If I eat your offerings in enormous amounts, it’s going to cause a problem.

So: you should hereafter sell more vegetables and fewer yummy snacks. Sound good? Good.

Sincerely,
A Very Tempted Shopper

***

Dear poor, neglected boxes in the garage,

I know. I’ve been ignoring you. You moved here with us, from our old house, last October. And while I dealt with many, many (many) of your fellow boxes — unpacking, arranging, storing, putting away — a few of you were left behind. I didn’t abandon you purposely. It’s just…the holidays came, and things got busy, and well…there you are. Faithfully waiting for me, against a wall of our garage.

But perhaps you’ve noticed that I’m back at it. I’m back to unpacking, finally. My goal is to be done unpacking before we’ve lived here 4 months. And that’s coming up quickly. So take heart! You are on the agenda. You will be neglected no longer!

Affectionately,
A fairly rotten unpacker who should probably never move again

Filed Under: Unsent Letters 9 Comments

Jan 25, 2012

Would you like some tartar sauce with your vitamin?

written by katrina · 9 Comments

My older son, C., has been swallowing pills for a while. As a kid plagued with headaches, he had to learn some time ago to take an Advil or an Aleve, if he wanted to get rid of the pounding misery that occasionally attacks him.

But recently, his pediatrician advised him to start taking some multi-vitamins that are, shall we say, sizable.

They’re not the biggest pills I’ve ever seen or taken, but they are substantially larger than your standard fever-reducer or sinus-decongester.

C. was not impressed.

Despite my urgings, he claimed that water and other liquids just wouldn’t do the trick. The big pills were being difficult. So one day, I plopped the vitamin into a yogurt he was about to eat and — voila! — a solution to large pills was born.

Now, I’m fine with him gulping down a pill with a spoonful of yogurt, or even some applesauce. But C. has not been content to stop with these standard mushy food items.

Instead, I regularly find him searching through the refrigerator for the next, latest & greatest, vitamin-swallowing helper.

To date, he has taken his vitamins with:

Bleu cheese salad dressing
Straight BBQ sauce
Jello
Tartar sauce
Chocolate syrup (Suggested by my husband, and to which C. replied, “I’m sure my doctor would love to know that I’m taking my vitamins with chocolate syrup.” But of course, he didn’t turn it down.)
Pickle relish
Sour cream
Ketchup (yes, just a spoonful of ketchup)

There might be more. But honestly, I’ve stopped looking. I just give him the big blue pill and trust that, one way or another, it will make its way down.

If you ask me, I think he could probably swallow the things with a swig of milk. After all, chocolate syrup is mostly liquid, so if it goes down with that, it should go down with milk. Or juice. Or water.

But what fun would that be for C.? After all, with his current approach, he gets to play with condiments and drive his mother a little crazy. A little bright spot in every day.

It’s okay though. I love this kid — vitamin-taking quirks and all!

Filed Under: Family 9 Comments

Jan 24, 2012

Proof that I’m raising my kids right

written by katrina · 17 Comments

The other day, L.(5) was musing about a recent kids’ movie. We haven’t seen the movie, but he has seen the merchandise, the themed fruit snacks, etc. and is well aware of it. I overheard the following conversation between L. and my teen, C.(13).

And let me tell you, it just warmed my heart.

L.: I think we should go see that movie.

C.: Well, I’m not sure that movie would be appropriate for a 5-year-old.

L.: Why not? Are there some really scary parts in it?

C.: No, I don’t think so.

L.: Then, what? Is there bad grammar?

Score one for grammar geeks! (That’d be me.)

Okay, so it’s possible that when L. said “bad grammar,” he was actually thinking more, um, globally, and meant something akin to “bad words” instead of just “bad grammar.”

But still, the mere fact that those words would come out of his mouth, and that he would sound somewhat horrified at the prospect of bad grammar has to count for something.

Right?

Filed Under: Everyday Life, Family 17 Comments

Jan 23, 2012

The week in words

written by katrina · 4 Comments

Barbara H. hosts a weekly blog carnival called “The Week in Words,” which is, as she says on her blog, “where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us…”

It seems I’ve been fitting in lots of reading lately — and from a variety of books. Here are some things that jumped out at me this past week.

From J.I. Packer’s Knowing God, which our pastor has challenged us to read as a church during January, February, and March of this year:

Many of us [would never] naturally say that in the light of the knowledge of God which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heartbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don’t matter. For the plain fact is that to most of us they do matter. We live with them as our “crosses” (so we call them). Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them, which we frequently do. The attitude we show to the world is a sort of dried-up stoicism, miles removed from the “joy unspeakable and full of glory” which Peter took for granted that his readers were displaying (1 Pet. 1:8). “Poor souls,” our friends say of us, “how they’ve suffered.” And that is just what we feel about ourselves!

Oh this struck home with me. How I long for a deeper knowledge of God, so that the heartbreaks of this world do fade to nothing in light of the joy found in knowing Him, so that disappointments and bumps in the road don’t matter, because my perspective is more like His.

I’m also reading The Next Story by Tim Challies (I’m going through it with my friend Jennifer). This past week, I read Chapter 4, where Tim talks about how very much we communicate in our culture. Between emailing, texting, and social networks, we face the very real potential for communication to be nearly constant. In light of all these words, Tim says:

The caution that marks our speech must also mark our texting, our e-mailing, our commenting, our blogging, and our tweeting. The fact that we communicate at all should cause us to stop and to consider every word. The fact that we communicate so often today and do so before so great an audience should cause us to tremble. As we communicate all day, we give ourselves unending opportunities to sin with our words.

Isn’t that the truth? “Unending opportunities to sin with our words.” It’s sobering, and makes me think I should probably be much slower to “speak” (whether it’s verbally or otherwise).

What have you been reading this week? Did anything really stick with you?