just check it out

http://superbrent.blogspot.com/2007/10/five-little-monkeys-jumping-on-bed.html

that's my buddy's latest post. he is obviously a lawyer, and not a sympathetic parent. but i laughed so hard reading this, i thought it was worth passing along.

and that's a wrap!

fall is officially over for me. we wrapped it all up in one tidy little weekend. highlights:

the gourd patch:

oddly, moving to idaho, i was under the false impression that there would be a lot of pumpkin patches around. alas, the best i could drum up was a farm with gourds. i begged, and they let my kids traipse through and select a few. check that box.

next, apple picking:

they were totally disgusted with the many bird-pecked apples they found. i kept promising them if they picked enough, we could bring them home and make a yummy apple pie. i bought some refrigerated pie crust, (made specifically for people like me) and we'll see what we can drum up for tonight's FHE treat. check that box.

apple cider:he cut them, pressed them, strained them, and bottled it. then he drank way too much of it, and was up all night with diarrhea. check that box.

the obligatory "tribute to the white kids" barn dance:





this is something known as a "line dance." also, the ever popular "chicken dance." (see cha cha slide a few posts down). i'm all for fun line dances. but WHY do white people look so conspicuous doing them? can't they be taught by a smooth movin' sista who knows what rhythm really is? anyway... cowboy apparel worn and country dance moves "learned." check that box.

finally, costume wearing for candy:

a princess, a wizard and a devil. props to my mom- she made that devil suit for my brother when we were little. and the wizard suit was my witch costume when i was 8. i told mika it was wizard's robes from 1981. this seemed to satisfy him, probably better than knowing it was mom's old witch suit. and 1981 was back in the medeival days, when there really were wizards. anyway, they trunk-or-treated, and ate most of the candy on the sly the next morning. they leave for a week with their father tomorrow, so i'm officially done with the fall season. boxes checked, suitable pictures taken, fun had by all.

this is all i have to say

(well, and i'll also say I LOVE THE RED SOX!!!!)

the down side of satin sheets for your birthday (PURELY HYPOTHETICAL!)

1. running and jumping on the bed will send you hurtling against the closest wall. (think slip-n-slide)

2. rough, dry feet make noise comparable to nails on a chalkboard.

3. any other blankets you may want to use will slip right off.

4. a chipped fingernail will snag and leave unsightly marks.

5. drool marks on pillow cannot be hidden.

6. any non-traditional positions become circus acts.

7. while the "shimmer" from the full moon at first appears romantic, by about 3:am, it's more of a glare.

(here's someone who can enjoy the satin sheets)

how many spankin's am i throwin down 2nite?

TODAY IS HIS BIRTHDAY!!!

if you know me, you know i have a 364 day countdown every year until my birthday. so who do i marry, but mr. who-cares-about-birthdays. perhaps out of sheer fear, he does remember my birthday and celebrates accordingly. but his birthday is like an afterthought. although, deep down, i can't imagine ANYONE not wanting a fuss made on their birthday. i'm sure i could be wrong, but since i'm always right, then probably not.

anyway. we've been celebrating birthday week- a gift a day, coupled with a lunch date.

monday was a new "after hours" mix cd

tuesday was tamales, refried beans and rice

wednesday was a big glass jar of mike and ikes

thursday i framed a brazilian pictures and hung them on the wall in his office. i also brought brownies into his class. and there will be a new set of satin sheets on our bed tonight.

it's been great. i'm so glad he was born! i figured i'd throw out some little known facts that may surprise you about this really great man i married:

1. he is an extremely talented trumpet player.

2. he has literally saved men's lives before... more than once.

3. he refuses to eat most vegetables, or anything from the ocean.

4. he has been to twice as many foreign countries as i have, which is a lot.

5. he is one of the few who can go toe to toe with my mother in sports debates.

6. he is a shadow puppet master.

7. he once broke a bone running away from his mother. he was actually running across the rooftops in his neighborhood, and eventually had to jump down. he's lucky he broke the bone himself, she may've broken more than one.

8. he has cheated death more than any human being i know.

9. not only does he have a great scrabble vocabulary, he has killer scrabble strategies.

10. his dream is to own and rebuild an old corvette. dreams are nice.

my husband is great. he is fun, smart, talented and good-looking. he is working on being patient and i admire that more than i can say. he shows me he loves me, he's willing to work through our differences, and when we disagree, he never gives me the silent treatment longer than 24 hours. he even reads my blog without coercion.

skip is my best friend. i love him, and being married to him is the greatest blessing in my life.

get funky with it!

i love the cha cha slide. in fact, i'm pretty good at it. IN FACT, it's safe to say i've mastered it over the past year. so imagine my grave disappointment when my husband announced the other day, "i can't stand this song." mouth ajar, i inquired why. his explanation:
"it was written to make white people feel better about themselves." hmm. he asked me to think back to my clubbing days. he too, was an avid clubber, and pointed out the following: "what happens when they play the electric slide? or the macarena? or THRILLER? all the white people come out on the dance floor! someone is telling them exactly what to do, so it's their moment to shine! for a 4-minute period in time, they can dance!"
so i thought about it. and for a minute, i felt like such a white girl! i was ashamed. but after giving it some thought, i've realized that i AM white. i will never, no matter how hard i try, master beyonce's bootylicious moves. and frankly, the older i get, the more likely i am to throw my back out in the process.
i love to dance. i love dance music. i've even been known to cut a rug from time to time. in my opinion, there are a lot of people who look worse than i do on the dance floor. but since my dance floor now consists of the pergo in the kitchen, i think mastering the cha cha slide for my children is a noteworthy accomplishment. i can embrace my inner caucasian with pride. and while for skip, this may be the "worse" part of "for better or for worse," i look at it as a "better" moment.
now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to go give five hops, then slide to the left. charlie brown.

p.s. there are black men and women in the video. am i to believe they're there just to make fun of the whites?

oh HELL yeah!

it's sox vs. rox now. mr. thornton... could i interest you in some red sox apparel for your children?
check out all the highlights of the best team ever and make sure you bring your big papi celebration goggles to the world series.

operation: entertain me

skip is at UofOregon for a few days, leading the cadets in ranger challenge. i feel like a lost puppy. i'm trying to keep myself busy, but frankly i've run out of things to do. here are the top 10 things i've accomplished so far:

1. i helped oprah give dave a sponge bath. (surprisingly, not as kinky as it sounds)


2. i got ellen's dog returned to her hairdresser's kids, sans violence. why can't we all just get along?


3. i volunteered to be brittany's parenting coach during her weekend visit w/sean preston and jaden. (she's doing much better, BTW, and we are now BFF's)


4. i popped into fenway to drop off a new necklace for josh beckett. (i think there was a horcrux in that other one he's been wearing.we should see an improvement)


5. called joe torre to see if he wants to be my kids' new manny. he turned me down because he's holding out for the yankees to make a better offer.


6. i went to bible study with paris hilton. new mantra: god is hot.


7. took nicole richie out for a hamburger. i convinced her "it's for the baby".


8. i helped mitt romney do his hair. (that was all day thursday)


9. i tried to resurrect they might be giants' career by posting the video of "birdhouse in your soul" on youtube under "hot new releases"


10. i helped al gore polish his new grammy award.

anyway. i'm exhausted, but still lonely. wonder what else i can come up with in the next 24 hours. wish me luck.

minha filha querida

i love my daughter in a way i cannot describe. i am actually in awe of her a lot of the time. before i elaborate, and risk sounding like an obnoxious parent, let me throw in the disclaimer here... she can be a little snot when she wants to. she can be moody, selfish and demanding at any given moment. in most ways, she is a very typical four year old girl.


you may or may not know that when she was three, she was diagnosed with hearing loss in both ears. no one knows what caused it, as her hearing was fine until about age 2. it took almost an entire year to figure out something was going on, and then successfully test for it. but that's another story in and of itself. but by the time preschool started last year, she was fitted with bilateral hearing aids. she lost most of the speech she had acquired, and her level of frustration (as well as mine) was at an all-time high.
she was able to get into a good developmental preschool in oklahoma, and started speech therapy. then we moved, and we had to start the process all over again. i was initially disappointed with the lack services for her in this community; however i truly believe god steps up to fill in the blanks in our lives. i discovered head start here, where she attends with one full-time and one part time aide who assist her with speech and language. she also goes to speech therapy at the university, where she has a phenomenal student clinician who works one on one with her.


noe is loving, cheerful, funny and kind. she works so hard just to put an "s" at the beginning of a word, or a "d" at the end. she asks me to put on her hearing aids because she doesn't want to miss a thing. what a switch from the beginning, where i had to pin her down and force her to wear them! she knows how to change the batteries in them, and refuses to wear them when the batteries are weak. her right ear is better than her left, so when she has her aids out, she puts her right ear right up to your mouth to listen to you speak. i can't imagine what it feels like to be her, but i know what it feels like to be her mom. sometimes i cry for the struggles she has, as well as those she will have. but i am filled with pride as i watch her befriend everyone she meets. i'm loading groceries on the conveyer belt, she's in full conversation with the woman behind us. they already know each others' names.

she goes at life 100%. "noelani" is hawaiian for "beautiful gift from heaven" and she absolutely is. she makes us laugh, she drives us crazy, she keeps us grounded. i watched her do speech therapy today, and i was so thankful to be her mother. i felt an overwhelming gratitude to have her in my life, and i hope that over time, she gains from me one half of what i do from her.

i have an official niece

having only one sibling, the odds of me scoring nieces and nephews were slim. slimmer yet if you know andrew... the eternal bachelor. however, he got married about a year ago, and frankly, i was shocked. everyone was. i think even him. anyway- he married yisel, who i like a lot. another shocker. never expected he'd marry someone i liked. and she has a daughter, jade, who i think is pretty great.

so here they all are. andrew's women. my niece is named isabella, but we call her bella. when i asked if i could call her 'izzy' andrew said, "not if you ever want to see her." i thought it was cute, but apparently not.

anyway. andrew has become my new lab experiment. and only out of spite on my part. when he was single, he never wanted kids. and everytime he and i were on the phone, the screaming and whining in the background of my house only reinforced that for him. he would dish out parenting advice to me, which i would politely accept and pretend i was going to try. stuff like, "why don't you tell them to stop that?" or "you should get them to stop that." or "go outside when you call me so i don't have to hear that." you know, useful, practical parenting advice.

it's no secret my three are a handful. so when andrew's daughter was born, she was perfect. PERFECT. she slept through the night, didn't cry, smiled at everyone... and he mentioned this every chance he got, wondering why i found parenting so challenging.

-insert evil, maniacal laughter-

recently, bella has started to cry. and wake up at night. andrew is completely confused by this. and he has asked me for advice. "should we let her cry it out? how long should we wait before we go pick her up? is it bad to give her a bottle everytime she wakes up? should we keep putting her in bed with us?" and the list goes on. suddenly, i might have wisdom to impart. i may have had some kind of previous experience that qualifies me to know a little sumthin. so here's what i told him:

let her scream for at least a week. don't go to her. you will feel guilty and get no sleep, but you should do that. it won't work, but i want you to try it anyway. after the week is up, succumb to your guilt, and pick her up everytime she cries. fix her a bottle, bring her into your bed, and hope to god that one day, sometime before she's 7, you can kick her out and regain your sex life. if all of that fails, you could just tell her to stop it, or go outside so you don't have to hear it.

good family fun

so the local radio station was giving away tickets to the university's homecoming game the other day. i was out driving, heard them ask for caller number 5, and figured, "why not?" so i called, and i won. i wish i could post the audio clip for you here, because it was hilarious. not one to miss my 30 seconds of fame, i had some fun with the dj's.
but anyway. the point here is that my kids have been dying to go to a football game FO-EVA. i love football, as i love most sports, so it kills me to fork out close to a hundred bucks to go watch a no name university play football. so i've been holding out. as you can imagine, i was elated that i was about to become mom-of-the-year when i shared the news- not only did i win tickets to the football game, but i was on 106! it's the cool radio station.

so. here we are, arriving early at the game so we could get a good seat. notice the thrilled expression on the faces of my sons... they LOVE it when i make them stop watching the players warm up and take a family picture. LOVE it.

i'll just hit a couple of key highlights from the game. first off, wouldn't you know it, who ended up sitting right next to us, but THAT GUY. yeah, you know. THAT GUY. he's about 35 years old, decked out in vandals apparel and mardi gras beads. and judging by the unofficial breathalyzer test i gave him, each strand of beads represents one beer downed before gametime. (which, by the way, was 2:oo in the afternoon.) he introduces himself to us, probably thinking we're gonna be best buddies by the time the game is over. GO VANDALS! anyway... long story short, he's the guy who initiates every chant of "BOO" that goes up in that stadium, the guy that seeks out the refs and instant replay officials to berate them, the guy who swears in front of children, the guy who still thinks he's 19, the guy (along with his best buddy) whose dates ditch them at halftime, and the guy who is twice as drunk at the end of the game as he was at the beginning. but we enjoyed making fun of him. ah, sports.

anyway. the other big highlight was, of course, the cheerleaders. not because i like cheerleaders. in fact, i find them rather annoying. but the fact that my boys were swooning over them, and my daughter was following along with their routines, proved entertaining.

here you can see dimples on both boys. they're trying not to give in to the dopey smiles creeping up on them. keola just high-fived a cheerleader, and turned around to look at skip for approval.

and again, trying to contain themselves after spotting bloomers during the high kicks. god help me with these two.

lastly, my daughter. she had the turns and jumps down pretty well by the end of the game. but nothing was quite as entertaining as when the home team scored, the cheerleaders went wild, and so did she. i don't think she really had a clue what was going on, but darn it, if the cheerleaders were excited, it must be something good. i especially like how she tucks the pompoms behind her back when her routine is finished. what a professional.

all in all, very bad game as far as football goes; as far as family outings go, very fun.

p.s. i have never posted video before, i don't really use myspace, i just tried it to post this video. i have no idea what you'll get if you click through any of the links that pop up at the end of my video clip. i just did it so you can watch noe cheer. feel free to offer suggestions on how to post video clips.

ovenmitt may get the sobas: political ramblings

skip emailed me a very interesting article today about my favorite republican presidential candidate. the long and short of it explained that this guy, mark demoss, has given ovenmitt romney his political endorsement. the key thing here is that mr. demoss is a soba! (following the uber-cool american trend of shortening hispanic names by using the first couple of letters, [think a-rod, j-lo, etc.] i have turned the entire populus of southern baptists into sobas). but before i get into that, here's a peek into my political self:

i'm not an intensely political person by nature. but i do enjoy following the workings of a presidential campaign, and this one leaves my democratic mind reeling. there are three democratic candidates who have caught the public's attention. one is my favorite, 2 are not. here's why:

1. hello, dying wife? refocus your attention on the things that matter, ego-maniac.

2. um, well, yeah. aside from the fact that "bush-clinton-bush-clinton" wearies me like a dull tennis match, i just can't stand her politics. or her personality.

3. now him, i like. good politics, stand-up guy, seems okay. plus, he has "obama girl". and she's a looker.

so i have to take a look at the republican party this year, a little more closely than i ever have before. we've got rudy, ovenmitt, and mr. paula deen. at least for me, those are the three with the most viable shot. my take here:

1. i think rudy, other than sharing a name with a cute huxtable, has only 9/11 as his claim to fame. his morals leave a bit to be desired; so while i like him, i won't vote for him.

2. mr. paula deen, otherwise known as "the law and order guy", or in some circles, "fred thompson," is a late-comer, popping up only ONE YEAR before the election! i don't know much about him, but i haven't ruled him out. he was a fair and equitable district attorney on tv, which has nothing to do with being president, but left a pleasant taste in my mouth for the guy. plus, he talks like paula deen, and she's the most adorable cook i've ever seen, and her mac and cheese is divine. i'll have to do more research into his politics.

3. okay. finally... ovenmitt. the thing i can't stand about the ovenmitt-for-president sitch is that me being mormon, i tend to run into a lot of other mormons who think we should all vote for him just because he's mormon too. they don't know a thing about his politics, but are convinced he's privvy to extra revelation, which would make him a good pres. i wouldn't vote for hilary just because she's a woman, or obama just because he's black, or mr. paula deen just because i liked his tv show. so why would i vote for someone just because we go to the same church? back to the original article i referenced at the start of this rambling... the soba guy had to reconcile with himself that he was supporting a mormon. but then he came to the realization that "I am more concerned that a candidate shares my values than he shares my theology." BINGO! mr. soba understands politics!

so. whoever you vote for, make sure you do it for the right reasons. that's the point i'm vaguely getting at here. you have a whole year to observe, study and choose. and make sure when you vote, you don't just impregnate your chad; see it through the whole labor and delivery.

wild, wild kingdom

if you thought the cow and pig were good, get a load of this:

however, lest you think this was some kind of "good example" to the children, please take note of the following:

while her speech may sometimes still be a bit unclear, there was absolutely unmistakeable articulation of, "there is no way in HELL i'm gonna touch THAT THING." i heard it. clear as day. all that speech therapy is paying off.

mayhem ensues

couple things to mention here. as you know, sox- AL east division champs. very big moment for me. and mad props to the angels... AL west division champs. it was a happy time in our home. thus, as the baseball gods desired, the two teams were paired up in the first round of the playoffs. at first, there was rejoicing. but then, things took a completely zany, chaotic turn towards the abnormal.
observe:


now 'SPLAIN ME DAT, LUCY! we watched game one in the inner sanctuary... aka our living room. with children at our feet, supporting one another in love and harmony, we cheered our teams like mature adults. then, suddenly, i heard my children, my own flesh and blood, cheering for the angels! "stunned" and "speechless" do not begin to describe my condition. especially the speechless part... because believe you me, i had things to say. and when i suggested they would be wise to cheer for the team whose very name matches the color of their life blood, i was met with some bizarre bugsy malone soup kitchen chant of "NO, NO, NO, NO!"

now. my husband finds humor in all this. the disgrace of having children who are fair-weather fans is almost more than i can bear. just the other day we were listening to ESPN radio, and the debate was over whether or not you can have more than one "team" in any given sport. i agree that it borders on sacrilege. you grow up with a team, you dedicate your soul to the gods of that team, and you stand by them come hell or high water. (hello, celtics fan, i get that concept). i bear that responsibility with great solemnity, and i believe it is my duty to produce a minimum of three more red sox fans as borne from my womb.

however, the past two years of my life have been very trying for me, and brought many of my personal weaknesses to the forefront; chief of which is the fact that i have control issues. so in my effort to "let go" of the things i cannot control, i release myself from the responsibility of fan-rearing. "the children" as they will now be ambiguously known, are free to choose whatever team suits them. should they decide to jump back on the beantown train, i will be there to greet them with a warm and loving embrace. if they do not, however, choose to support the right team, i cannot be reponsible for what may ensue. however, i believe in the bible, the book of joshua clearly states that "as for me and my house, we will serve...big papi and the ALDS champs" (italics added with minor creative license)

I CUT MY HAIR!!

i cut off about 14 inches of my hair. i've been thinking about doing it, but not seriously. skip's ringtone for me is "grown and sexy" by chamillionaire, and it came on my ipod while i was out and about. it put me in such a good mood, i just thought what the heck. so i pulled into the first place i saw and said, "can you cut all my hair off right now and be done by 11:30 so i can get my daughter off the bus?" and whattaya know. they could. and they did. and now here i am. next i may go ballistic on a parked car with my umbrella, and then get belligerent with the paparazzi.

macroinvertebrates are not edible bulbs

today mika's 4th grade took a field trip to the local environmental institute.
it was actually fascinating. i learned all kinds of stuff about aquifers and camass and how bugs can tell us if water is healthy or not. kudos to this place... for an outdoor environmental dive, they were a hip-hoppin joint. they were well-staffed with all kinds of bright college students who oddly enough, related well to 9-year olds.
here you can see mika, smiling over a petri dish. this is a good sign. wanna know what makes a 9-year old boy smile when you put it in a petri dish?:



macroinvertebrates.
they looked at them through microscopes, and truthfully, they were TOTALLY COOL. i wouldn't want to find one in my tub or anything, but confined to their pond water in a petri dish... kinda interesting.

after they examined a variety of these fascinatingly hideous things, the kids went over to dig up camass. to the best of my understanding (okay, i admit, i was chit-chatting with the other grown-ups during the 'camass explanation speech'), these are some kind of edible bulb. they are apparently one of the main things that kept lewis and clark alive during the hard winter months.
i am impressed that the kid is SMILING while doing manual labor. this is a sign of a good teacher- or at least someone who has the tom sawyer routine down pat. "hey kids! my boss wants me to dig up 225 camass bulbs by lunch time! don't you wish you could have as much fun as me doing this digging? imagine, if you were doing it, you might find your VERY OWN CAMASS!" (insert sound of children rushing to grab shovels, mingled with arguing over who gets to go first)


and there you have it. a cammas bulb. not to be confused with a macroinvertebrate, which apparently will NOT keep you alive during the hard winter months.