Fiddle Dee Ha Ha

Annie and Ashley have fallen in love with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame".

They sing it in the car.

They sing it in the shower.

They sing it in their beds after we've yelled at them to shut up and go to sleep.

Always the singing it. ALWAYS at the top of their lungs.

Today we were driving and Annie decided to mix it up a bit. It was like listening to a Little People CD only not.

She worked her way through "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", "The Wheels On The Bus", and some other songs. Then she got to the one about meeting a bear. I don't know what it's called.

Annie did the singing and Ashley did the echo. At one point we got to "he sized up me" and Ashley echoed with "he sliced up me". And then to complete the thought: "I sized up him"..."I sliced up him".

I don't know what they sang after that because we were laughing so hard.

Annie also has a book from her school library right now called "'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving". At one point Farmer McNugget says something about the turkeys being 'filthy beasts' who will be hacked up into Thanksgiving Feasts.

So today is a day I will hide all the knives and just rock in the corner until all the cutting danger is over.

The Art of Racing In The Rain

Garth Stein is a wicked man. He wrote this book which I thought sounded like a good idea whilst standing in front of the new book section of the public library last weekend.

Then I read the flap inside the cover. Okaaaay, it's about a dog's life and the end of it and his attachment to his family.

And it made me CRRRRYYYYY!!!!!

I don't think I have actually tears-running-down-my-face cried at a book since I went through my Nicholas Sparks phase.

Even if you don't want a good cry, the book is a good read. There's a lot (LOT!) of Formula One racing references but it's still worth it.

Excellent metaphors are made.

Heart stings are pulled.

I'm high on this book right now. I just finished it. I started it this morning.

A Grand Sense of Injustice

I have re-discovered what I can get my kids to do for a book to be read. Thus, we have been reading more books. Rather, we have been reading books more often; today we read the same one 3 times already.

Annie chose "The Sneetches" for her book. In case you are unfamiliar, The Sneetches are a group where some of them have stars on their bellies and some don't. The star bellied have long established the stars on thier bellies make them better.

I love reading Dr. Seuss out loud so I don't tend to spend a lot of time lingering over the pictures of the pages. So here I sit trucking along through the "stars upon thars" when up drives Sylvester McMonkey McBean with his peculiar machine. ON go the stars!

Now, the racial profiling is harder to dish out when you can't determine who it should be served to. So the solution is easy (and lucrative) for the Fix-it-up Chappie (McBean again, in case you missed it). He invites the Sneetches who had stars at the first to go through his star OFF machine.

They do and the whole thing leads to the Sneetches spending all of their collective money, becoming so interracial you can't even call them Cafe Au Lait, and a picture of Sylvester McMonkey McBean driving away from the Sneetches' beaches with bags and bags of money.

At this point Annie has had a few concerns about the treatment of the plain belly Sneetches. They started with the plain unfairness and went on to question the slide being on the star OFF machine but the star ON machine just booting them out to land on their bums. When we read that Sylvester McMonkey McBean is driving off with their money and we view the picture of the spent Sneetches and the money loaded car, she is full of indignation. "He just wanted to take all their money!" she asserted.

I think she might try to take up a collection for fair treatment of Sneetches.

Maybe we will try Mrs. Piggle Wiggle instead

Aiden took Alex on a "man date" last night. They see very little of each other since Aiden started working so they went to re-connect. It was great to see them come home laughing about stupid boy things. Aiden came in the bedroom and wanted to know when Alex's sense of humor became so *ON*. They were in the shoe department at Shopko looking at shoes, I know, big shock! Aiden pointed out some Hannah Montana shoes to Alex and said they were totally him. Alex said they are more Aiden than him. But then Aiden pointed out some sparkely ones and said those must be for Alex. He just laughed along and said "yes, those are TOTALLY me". He is so funny.

Annie is learning to hold her own in the sarcasm riddled house. A couple of months ago we were in Ellensburg doing the Dad's weekend drop off and there was, as usual, a lot of people in the parking lot. What is it about McDonald's in Ellensburg that attracts that specific type of people in such great numbers? Yes, there are 'normal' looking folks (after all, we were there to add to the normalcy. ha!) but there's always such a high percentage of those people. In Moscow we refer to them as *da da dun dun dun da dun duh dunnnn* (think dueling banjos) and everyone knows what we are talking about. In Ellensburg it's just MORE.

Anyway, there was this woman in knit shorts that were riding so far up I think they were actually lodged in her intestines, and she was NOT SMALL. I know I'm not small. I wear appropriate clothing, I think, for my size.

Aiden and I are so not the epitome of what things should be but we have a great time making snarky comments about strangers. Sometimes it's kind but mostly we're snotty. One of our favorites is "the sad part is they looked in the mirror this morning and thought: I look GOOOD!"

So this woman was walking to the door and we were looking for a place to park. As we drove by I said "oh, that's hot" ala Paris Hilton. Annie asked what that means. Um, it means Mom better watch herself better. I told her it means something is hot; like a stove. She said that must be why that woman pulled her shorts up so high; she was hot.

I about peed my pants.

So today Annie brought me an Amelia Bedelia book to read. I made her read it instead. I know I have read them to her before but she never really paid any attention, I guess. Since she was reading it she had to actually pay attention to the plot. It was the one where Amelia Bedelia is on her first day of work as a maid for Mrs. Rogers who has to be absent and tells Amelia Bedelia to just do exactly what the list says. So she starts with "changing the towels". She can't understand why or how exactly she is to do it so she takes scissors and she changes them. Then she has to draw the curtains. Annie didn't know what that meant so I told her. She said "she's going to DRAW them, Mom." Sure enough, she gets out a pad of paper and draws those curtains.

We turn the page and see that Amelia Bedelia is to "dust the furniture". And she's in the picture looking at a box of Dusting Powder from the bathroom. Annie sees what is coming, turns the page to see the maid on the couch DUSTING the furniture ("in MY house we UNdust the furniture" Amelia Bedelia says) and before she even reads a word on the page she looks at me and says

"That woman should have hired someone with a BRAIN!"

a couple pages later the chicken gets dressed and the meat fat gets trimmed (think brick a brack). Annie looks at it and proclaims "she's an idiot".

Before you judge me know this: I love that my kids get sarcasm and wit. Life is so much more fun this way.