The Mac and Cheese Chronicles

You know those rubber bracelets that Lance Armstrong made popular?  Well the children got some for St. Nicholas Day at CCD, but they aren’t really into them, so they gave them to me.  One says strength, one says courage, another says faith, plus I have a blue one that says "I love My Baby."  Today I am wearing strength.

Last night, the chores took forever.  I think it was because we’ve gone too long with just saying, "go clean up" without following up and giving them the proper training.  At 6:00 I had to stop them so we could have dinner.  Phil called and we all chatted with him, then we went back to cleaning up.  Boo stayed with Bip while I helped Pumpkin Girl.  That girl is a packrat!  She’s squirrelled away all sorts of stuff, some of which I’ve been looking for!  I’m not sure what to do about that. She gets it from me.  I was, and still am, a collector of just about everything.  This morning she was admiring my collection of buttons.  And just this afternoon I unpacked my childhood shadow box.  I haven’t even seen it in years, it’s always been packed up.  The box was labeled "games" so I opened it.  It was filled with all my little treasures.  I remember almost all of them and why they were special to me.  But I think I’m ready to pack up all the little things into a good strong storage box.  Maybe I’ll take a picture of it all filled up and of each little peice and do a scrapbook page about it.  Or maybe a whole brag book size album.  Hmmm.  Anyway, back to Pumpkin.  It’s not that she’s hoarding stuff, it’s that some of it’s not hers to take.  She made off with Philip’s slippers last fall.  He vaguely knew they were missing.  I found them wedged between her bed and the wall.  I said, "Pumpkin!  Did you take Daddy’s slippers?"  She answered, "Yes," so I asked her why.  And she said so sweetly, with those big giant eyes looking at me so innocently, "I like them because they are soft and squooshy."  I laughed so hard I almost cried.  She got him new slippers for Christmas.  I have also found my calculator, Bip’s toys and even school books tucked away in her secret spot.  I don’t think there is any thought of stealing these items, it’s just something that attracts her attention.  Like I said, I don’t know what to do about this.  On one hand, it’s kind of cute, finding the things that she’s made off with.  Such an eclectic collection.  On the other hand, I don’t want her taking things that aren’t hers.  Wouldn’t call it stealing quite yet.  I’ll have to give this more thought.

But back to the chores. It took so long to get all of Pumpkin Girl’s room cleaned up.  I’m hoping that with proper daily maintenance, it won’t take this long again.  Same with the playroom.  Boo’s definition of cleaned up is very different from mine.  (Yuk it up, Mom, I know you’re thinking that it’s payback for years of my sty of a room!)  After I helped Pumpkin, we worked on the playroom.  It was 7:30 by the time it was all done.  They have way, way too many toys and a microscopic room to play in.  I’d love to go in there and just get rid of more than half of it.

Finally all chores were done and ChorePacks turned in.  Into jammies and there was just enough time to watch an hour long video.  I got Bip ready for bed, then got the others a snack, cleaned the kitchen up and then it was off to bed with them.  I was frustrated and tired and still needed to take a shower.

So today’s bracelet is strength.

Morning chores went so much better.  I had to retrain Pumpkin on not spraying the whole bottle of soapy water on to the school table.  Boo needed to work on his sink shining, but all went well.

For me, the Flylady zone this week is bedroom. Bip is usually asleep during my chore time, so I worked for 15 minutes on the children’s bedroom instead.  I unpacked a box and used it for a give-away box.  Then after lunch, I had Boo hang out with Bip while I worked on my bedroom for 15 minutes.  That’s when I found my shadow box.  I also tried a new recipe for dessert called brown sugar pudding.  We’ll see how it turns out.  Right now it looks like a cake floating on top of about an inch of syrup.  Maybe the syrup gets absorbed by the cake as it cools.

It’s only 2 o’clock and I’m just hoping that tomorrow’s bracelet won’t need to be courage.

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Ah, Monday.  It’s like over the weekend, all the good behavior and positive attitudes we developed over the previous week have just disappeared.  Not to mention simple things like the correct way to hold a pencil, why one does not need to look up on the number line to see what 15 + 1 is, and the correct way to write an "f." And most importantly, unless you want to spend the morning sitting in a permanent time-out, one shouldn’t roll their eyes at their mother and say "I know."

Doesn’t help that Daddy is in New York for 3 days.

And why oh why does everything they say have to be the line from some movie?

OK, not all was irritating this morning.  We did get started using "Managers of Their Chores", by the same family that wrote MOTH.  It’s a great system.  Boo had all his chores done before I even came downstairs.  Only problem was, he had swiffered the floor before I had a chance to sweep it. Pumpkin Girl needed some re-training on not skipping a chore card (making the bed) just because she wasn’t in the mood.  She’s only 5, though.  It’ll come.  This was our first day using the Chorepacks, so I’m sure we’ll find little things that need to be ironed out as we work through them.  Someone on the Sonlight Forum asked about this new book and it was kind of cool to be the first one to have read it.  I gave it a glowing review and now several people have ordered it too!   Too bad I don’t get a commission, LOL!

And speaking of the Sonlight Forums, two people I "know" from there are moving here soon.  How fun!  We’ve got a huge homeschooling community on base, but it’s nice to have other Sonlighters here.  I’m sure there are others, I just haven’t found them yet.

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We took the children to get portraits done at Sears yesterday. Bip went first to prevent him from getting bored and crabby.  He did pretty well until he got tired of being on his belly.  The photographer was trying to get him to laugh, but everytime he would, he’d just wiggle with happiness and then lay his head down on the pillow so we couldn’t get a good picture.  Then I had him positioned so sweetly, hands in front, head up, looking right at the camera and she wouldn’t take the picture.  She kept trying to get him to laugh.  I told her twice just to take the picture.  Finally he just laid his head down and cried.  I could have cried, too.  So he went off to be distracted by Phil and next up was Pumpkin Girl.

She wanted to pick her own background, the blue one with a sort of pastel rainbow.  We put the big number 5 on the stage and she sat down in front of it.  She looked so grown up!  She smiled so pretty and we only had to take one picture.

Then Boo.  He stood up next to the number 7.  He looked stiff and unnatural.  He kept raising his eyebrows and facing the camera, but looking with just his eyes off to the side.  He does this at home when I’m trying to take his picture, too.  Not sure what that’s all about.  FINALLY got a good picture of him.

Then the children all together.  We brought a framed picture of Becca to include in the portrait.  I have seen this done a couple of times and I really needed to include her.  The end result is just wonderful, all four of our sweet children in one picture.  It was a bear to get though. Bip kept tipping over, Boo kept looking at Bip or off to the side, Pumpkin Girl kept frowing and tilting the picture.  We got a keeper, though.

And now the long process of choosing which pictures to buy in what sizes.  Then the other photographer who was there did an amazing thing.  She had made a collage out of the group picture and close up head shots of each child.  Each child’s face was placed in an oval and they formed a quarter of a circle surrounding the group shot.  She offered to scan Becca’s picture and include her little face in with the close ups of the others around the main picture.  It turned out so beautifully and it just brings tears to my eyes to see it.  Our sweet baby, right with her brothers and sister, right where she belongs.

And at the end, I had 5 more points to spend on my package and I just couldn’t get it to work out, so I said don’t worry about it.  Then they offered me a print of the scan of Becca, in an oval, a rose printed on the "mat"  and "A special place in my heart" written on it.

The children were wonderfully behaved the whole time.  Blessings all around.

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I recently found my favorite bookmark of all time. I got it free from the library when I was a kid. I loved it so much that I eventually had to protect it by covering it with clear contact paper. The poem on it is:

Books

I got
Books on the bunk bed
Books on the chair
Books on the couch
And every old where

But I want more books
I just can’t get enough
I want more books about
All kinds of stuff, like

Jackie’s troubles
Raymond’s joys
Rabbits, kangaroos
Girls and boys
Mountains, valleys
Winter, spring
Campfires, vampires
Every old thing

I want to
Lie down on my bunk bed
Lean back in my chair
Curl up on the couch
And every old where

And read

more

books.

by Eloise Greenfield. It has a little picture by Rosemary Wells. If my daughter keeps up her love of books, and bringing them all over the house, I may have to pass the bookmark on to her. Maybe not. Every time we move I think I’ve lost the bookmark, but I find it eventually. Right now it’s on the computer table.

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  Mystery solved!  Bip, VFB*,  popped out his first tooth today!  He’s been such a crabby crab lately, not sleeping well, wanting to nurse all night.  He responded very well to the "happy pills" (Hylands chamomilla tablets) which helped him settle down enough to get to sleep.   Phil thought it could be a growth spurt.  I didn’t think it was. Well, now we know what was wrong.  I let Boo and Pumpkin Girl feel his new tooth.  They hugged him and told him congratulations. Pumpkin said, "Maybe we can give him a pickle."

Boo is growing up so fast, too.  Today he heated up his own corndog in the microwave.  I was nursing the baby so I just told him what to do and off he went.  It’s a big deal to me since I didn’t learn to use the microwave until I was at least 16.  He’s at a fun age.  He is able to do so many things and he yet still has his sense of wonder.  He saw the Donald Duck DVD that came from Netflix the other day and said, "Oh! Donald Duck!  He’s my buddy.  I need to go visit him at Disneyland."

Pumpkin Girl is busy being 5.  She so wants to do everything Boo does.  She was complaining that I don’t let her do the same school work as Boo.  Sorry, sweetheart, but you need to learn to print before you can have a spelling test, LOL!  She sure wasn’t complaining though, when she said she didn’t want to do math and was done with school for the day.  Because she is only 5 years and 2 1/2 months, I don’t require her to have school.  She always listens in anyway and has her own workbooks.  But when she gets tired, I let her be "dismissed" and she can stay in the room as long as she’s quiet and not a distraction.

On a side note – we made shamrock cookies today.  I really hate making cut-out cookies.  My recipe is good, but I hate rolling the dough, cutting the cookies, having them fall apart on the way to the cookie sheet, then those that survived breaking on the way to the cooling rack.  (Yes, mom, you gave me the shamrock cookie cutter.)  I did get a chance to try out my brand new silicone rolling pin. Pumpkin Girl said, "ooo, I like it.  It’s pink!"  It rolls the dough like a dream.  No more sticking! And fast! So now all I have to worry about is the cookies breaking apart.

After all that cooking I did yesterday and the cookies today, I’m not in a mood to cook dinner.  Guess it’ll be leftovers.

  *Very Fat Baby

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