Sleep over

Monkey Boy is having a friend sleep over. I came into the house after walking Marco, the Psychotically Needy Puppy to hear a conversation coming from the Tiki Lounge about girls. My baby boy and his friend, who are both 10, were talking about which girls from their class they would ask out if they could date!

Coming up for air

I'm trying to take a moment to come up for air. So far I've been working for 8 days straight and don't really see myself taking a day off in the next week, possibly for 2 weeks. Because of the fact that I've spent most of my past days in meetings, I've had to spend evenings and a good part of the weekend getting my classroom ready for the first day of school on Wednesday.

Tomorrow is another morning of meetings, and then I head over to my school to try to pull together a simple lesson plan for Wednesday. The meetings have hit all parts of the the spectrum as far as their usefulness. At the top of the usefulness index would be the meetings presented by the publisher of our new textbooks. This was informative, to say the least. Going lower down on the scale of usefulness would be the county's presentations. This vacillated between very useful and 'wake me up when we are done.' Finally, at the very bottom, was the presentation by the state representative on standards. Seriously, dental work would have been less painful.

What I have been both delighted by and grateful for is the support being given to me by my colleagues. These are truly wonderful people. Not only do I have the great fortune to have an amazing mentor assigned to me, but our department head and another senior teacher have taken me under their wings.

Exit, Stage Right

I have got to stop volunteering. Is there a 12 step program for this? In a moment of weakness I agreed to become the stage manager for Monkey Boy's play. What does this mean? It means I have to keep 43 (I'm not exaggerating) children in the right place at the right time and I have to keep them quiet. I just finished doing this for 2 and 1/2 hours and I'm exhausted.

So far I've learned that if I know their name already, they get my attention way too much by talking and acting up. I have learned about 10 names so far. Tonight's highlights:

• Peter Pan lost her cool when she realized that her zipper was down while on stage.
• Tinker Bell had a mild crisis when her necklace broke.
• Mermaids were very silly and talkative.
• The flying scene did not go well.
• Some of the older kids tried to put a smaller kid in the electrical box because they thought he would fit.

The "Date"

Monkey Boy cracks me up. A few days ago I scheduled a play date for him and his friend and her cousin to play putt-putt. We have a course about a block and a half from our house. I told him, "I made a date with Miss Alex to play putt-putt Thursday." Cool, no problem.

Later, when we were walking over to Alex's house to pick up the girls, Monkey Boy asked in a very quiet, concerned voice, "This isn't a real date, is it?"

"No, baby. Mom was just teasing you."

"Good. I'm not ready to date yet."

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this kid?

Monkey Boy's New World

Monkey Boy's world has changed since yesterday's whine fest. Changes to his world include not being allowed to use electrical entertainment interfaces (Game Boy, video game consoles, TV, the computer) before 11:00am and having to have the following chores completed before 11:00am:

• Water palm trees by front doors
• Fill up water fountain
• Water pots by front gate
• Fill dog's drinking bowl
• Make bed (he was supposed to be already doing this but I was slack about enforcing it.)

I'm thinking that I'll be adding to this list before the end of summer. I think he needs an afternoon set of chores, too. (Can you hear my evil mommy laugh?) The outdoor stuff has the side advantage of getting him dressed before noon. This morning went fine. I wonder how long it will be before the whining starts again? By the way, I've decided that whine = more changes to Monkey Boy's world. Let's see how long the behavior reconditioning takes. (More evil mommy laughter.)

27 Skills for your kid

I thought that this was an interesting article for parents:
27 Skills Your Child Needs to Know That She’s Not Getting In School

File under "What was I thinking?"

This morning a friend of mine who is landscaping his yard asked me to show him where a local nursery was that I like to go to. His wife had to go to a client's house (she's a decorator) and evil soon-to-be ex didn't show up for visitation this week so between us we had 3 male children to deal with. The morning started out fine until the topic of breakfast came up. I'm used to going out with girlfriends who if they haven't eaten by 9:30 skip breakfast and have an early lunch. Apparently males cannot do this. All 4 men folks started whining that they were hungry. Fine. I'm thinking McDonald's drive-thru for biscuits. Quick, cheap, minimal hassle. Wrong! The men folk decided they had to go to a buffet (which they find amusing to mispronounce in the way you would Jimmy Buffett's last name.). Not just any buffet, but the Golden Corral. If you haven't been 'blessed' to go to one of these places, I can only described it as what a buffet would be if Walmart managed it. Arrgh!

After the kids were through filling up on bananas, bacon, eggs and ice cream, we finally got to the nursery. This place is amazing. It's about 4 acres of wall to wall vegetation. Their quality and prices are awesome. So I told the kids to run around and count how many kitties they could find (this place is crawling with kitties) thinking this would entertain them for at least half an hour. 5 minutes later the whining began: "It's hot.", "I have to go the bathroom.", "I'm sweaty.", "Is it time to leave yet?" So my friend drives the kids to the jiffy mart to let them use the bathroom (there were ants in the port-o-potties and the young males freaked out) and they come back with candy, slushes, toys and more whining. I stayed at the nursery so I had my clump of plants picked out. My friend gets the 2 trees he had been looking for. Have I mentioned that at this point it's high noon and 96 degrees with a heat index of 105 degrees? Joy. We load the truck with the help of the whiny tribe and finally get out of there.

Seriously, what was I thinking?

15 step program

My friend, Sexy in Suburbia, emailed this and I thought that not only was is hilarious, but dead on. For those of you who haven't been blessed with children, you'll wonder why we would ever put ourselves through this, but the truth is, even knowing this stuff, most of us would do it again in a heartbeat.

Thinking of Having Kids? Do this 15 step program first

Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...
1. Methods of discipline.
2.Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel....
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds,with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.(Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag,until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive).
10. Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. and wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hangout.
Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6
You may think the work is basically done when your child starts school. Here's the fun you'll enjoy then:
1. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a jar of paint, turn it into an alligator.
2. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of aluminum foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.
3. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 7
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 8
1. Get ready to go out.
2. Sit on the floor of your bathroom reading picture books for half an hour.
3. Go out the front door.
4. Come in again. Go out.
5. Come back in.
6. Go out again.
7. Walk down the front path.
8. Walk back up it.
9.Walk down it again.
10.Walk very slowly down the sidewalk for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps.
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Lesson 9
Repeat everything you have learned at least (if not more than) five times.

Lesson 10
1. Go to the local grocery store.
2. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat.
3. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight.
4. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 11
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine-month old baby.

Lesson 12
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney,the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking;What's "Noggin"?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 13
Move to the tropics. Find or make a compost pile. Dig down about halfway and stick your nose in it. Do this 3-5 times a day for at least two years.

Lesson 14
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying "mommy" repeatedly.(Important: no more than a four second delay between each "mommy"; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 15
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt-sleeve, or elbow while playing the "mommy" tape made from Lesson 14 above.You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Parenting Moment

Shhhh. Don't tell him that I'm telling you this, but Monkey Boy is cleaning the house. I didn't ask him to do this. This is totally his own idea. Earlier today he got in trouble for not getting off of his computer when I told him to and then lying about it. He has lost his computer for the weekend (I've put it away in my room). He is now trying to do anything he can think of, including cleaning the house, to soften me up and get his computer back. I did not suggest this, but hey, who am I to stop him?!

Did you know that Peter Pan was a drama?

I didn't. I thought it was a light children's musical, that is until I sat through the hell of watching children audition for the local summer production for 4 and a half hours! There were three classes of 'actors': the truly sucky, the average (Monkey Boy was in this group) and the "why are you here instead of Broadway?" They sang, they danced and they read lines. If parents made any noise we were greeted with a loud "ssshhhhhhhhhhhh" by some teenage intern that was far more disruptive that anything we could have been doing. If I had popcorn, I would have thrown it at them.

I found it interesting how many stereotypes were represented in the crowd of 'actors.' There was the drama queen. She cried and fluttered around whining that she couldn't possibly sing as she didn't prepare her vocal chords. Many of us, yes that includes me, just rolled our eyes. Then there was the drama brat. Drama brat pushed other kids out of his way to get in better light, snatched lyric sheets out of the hands of small children and huffed if someone else messed up a line. There also were a couple of what I would call drama cheerleaders that had been doing the summer production for years and were so cheerful that you were pretty sure that they had eaten way too much sugar and knocked back a couple of large lattes. Of course some were simply charming, including my Monkey Boy! Can't say that he's ready for American Idol in the singing department or will win any dance contests, but he did a really nice job of reading lines. He read for the part of John and kind of had a very proper Harry Potter sound to his interpretation of the part.

After all this, I came home and medicated myself with tequila. I'll let you know on Tuesday which part Monkey Boy will be playing.

Strep is BACK in the House

Monkey Boy has strep again. Satan failed to notice that he was running a fever and had a sore throat during his visitation weekend, so he took Monkey Boy to the mall and swimming. Great. The good news is this bout of strep isn't as bad as the last one. His fever isn't that scary high fever. The bad news is he's out of school during a major standardized test and will have to make-up two days worth of testing in just one day.

On a more upbeat topic, my garden is looking gorgeous. I planted a small herb and tomato garden this year and already have flowers on one of the tomato plants. I added new cushions to the swing in the arbor and the confederate jasmine in just starting to bloom. And the converted grill works great!

Go over to my sis-in-law's blog and tell me what you think of the header. I created it out of a photo I took of her horses.