That's Enough Already

My poor wife got hit with a sciatic nerve attack tonight and hobbled to the bedroom before we had even tucked the kiddos in for the night. She finished her book during a nice session with the heating pad.

I've been trying to watch Cinderella Story for the past few days, as I never saw it when it was still a big deal. I finally put it on tonight while folding the last of the laundry. Half way through the DVD stopped working. In fact, it stopped working to the point I thought it was going to take the DVD player down with it. I tried it in the laptop but it started making sounds that scared the cats.

I decided to go to bed. There was just enough light coming through the window for me to realize that my wife had finally found a position comfortable for her back. It involved both of my pillows and most of my side of the bed.

99% of the time I would rather sleep on the couch in these situations. My wife's comfort pretty much always wins out. The couch is actually quite comfortable (it helps that I'm so short and fit on it nicely). However, the cats have now awoken from their day of rest and refuse to stop terrorizing me.

Here is a brief list of some of their favorite nighttime games:

• Whine at the door until daddy attacks us with the spray bottle.
• Whine at nothing in particular until daddy attacks us with the spray bottle.
• Play hide-and-go-seek in the laundry that daddy just finished folding and mock the fact that he can't put the laundry away because if he opened ANY bedroom door in the house we would bolt through it and force him to fumble in the dark to find us. Get attacked by the spray bottle.
• Jump on the table until daddy hears us and attacks us with the spray bottle.
• Jump on the counter so we can find something to knock down onto the floor. Once the object is on the floor, wait on the counter until daddy attacks us with the spray bottle.
• Jump onto the rocking chair sending it careening into the wall, startle ourselves by this noise, jump off the rocking chair sending it careening into the wall once more, then run after each other because, well, it's so much fun.

There are a few things I could probably do (instead of whining on our blog), but all I really want to do is watch my darn movie! Plus, many of the things I have to take care of involve opening at least one of the doors. And, as previously mentioned, opening any of the doors at night around here is a really bad idea.

Maybe I'll iron. And find a different movie to watch. And spray the cats some more because that is always a good time.

she turned out to be good for a laugh

Someone I really didn't like in high school but who has decided we are friends on facebook has a series of pictures of her kids on her facebook page.

The first is her oldest petting a goat through a fence.


The second is her daughter petting the goat through the fence.


The third is her youngest boy pushed up to the fence in the stroller watching the goat eat his Cheerios off the tray.


He's slightly(!) offended.


I love it.

The Wheels on the Bus go round and round. So does Justice

Being a big kid isn't all it's cracked up to be.

We got a phone call on Thursday from Jim at the bus garage. I was so excited to hear what he had to tell me about my kid. Turns out there's a new bus driver on the route and he has talked to my son repeatedly about being more quiet/in control of himself/NORMAL on the bus so he (the bus driver) can focus on driving safely.

In fairness to Alex, his ADHD meds don't normally kick in until he's had them in his tummy for 30 minutes and he gets on the bus after 5 or 10 minutes sometimes.

That is all the fairness he got. Upon coming home from school on Thursday he got to sit in his room until I got home. Then the big discussion was had. He tried to blame it on the bus driver being unfair to him. He found out that was NOT going to fly. He cried. He got grounded. For a week.

We've experienced "grounded" before but it's always been kind of a pansy effect. THIS time, he's grounded from ev.er.y.thing.

No TV. No computer. No Playstation. No nuffin'. He's got his room, the stuff in it, occasionally his sisters to play with, books, and puzzles.

He was told he could watch a movie with the rest of the family if we all sat down to watch it. Yesterday he was bored bored bored and asked me if I wanted to watch Harry Potter with him.

Nice try.

I keep feeling bad that this is his weekend. Aiden, who is much better at this part, keeps reminding him that if he's old enough to be doing big kid mistakes, he's old enough to have big kid consequences. He doesn't like it but he's learning something.

PS thanks to Mom for telling him about when I was in trouble on the bus. Really. thanks.

a concert and a stand off

I finally made it through a culture inducing and GPA raising concert. This weekend is the festival of contemporary music at WSU. To kick things off they had the faculty composer's concert last night. This was promised to be extra credit and less than an hour so a lot of our class showed up.

While it did NOT last less than an hour (1:45) it DID consist of six songs by four different faculty composers. The first one was a computer generated mess that felt like a bad acid trip. Stephanie and I went together; I think she summed up the first number best: "It felt like that point in those movies where you find out your kid is actually an alien and you rethink everything he's ever said to you". yep

The rest of the concert was not quite as bad but it was not good, either. Until the last two songs. These were composed by our professor's husband who looks a little like Liam Neeson (a LITTLE, like they have similar hairlines and both have two ears...). His two songs were not jarring and scary. They were musical and had pleasant feelings attached to them. It was a nice way to round out the evening.

I got home and there is this orange cat wandering around outside our building. It was out there the other night and Aiden said it followed him around while he looked for a Missing Cat poster. It even kept pace. This cat looks like Garfield. A lot. And he's very sweet and has a broken meower so it comes out all sad and pathetic.

I decided the thing to do was (I don't know why!) to let him in the house. But he wouldn't come in. He just kept standing in the doorway with his head cocked like he was deciding. I don't know what his problem was, maybe the two black cats in the kitchen puffed up and Row-er-ow-er-ower-ing at him was part of it. (Crook proved what a pansy he is by hiding behind Jack which I thought was fantastic).

I picked up this cat and set him juuuust inside the door. He would not make eye contact with me, Aiden, or the cats who were spitting at him. huh.

Eventually I put him back out and we closed the door. Our own two cats, who are from the same litter and have always been together, spent the next half hour puffed up at each other and smelling each other and me and the door and everything else.

Aiden says if they start spraying it is my fault.

Thumbs down? No, Fingers down (MY THROAT!)

As Aiden pointed out, we had a great time at Safeway today. But since Aiden is short I don't think he got the full view of what was happening.

We were leaving Safeway trying to get me to class in time, yes. And there was a traffic jam, yes. But FIRST I have to say that the traffic jam was discovered as I tried to run into a black woman with orange hair extensions that made her hair and head HUGE and impossible to see around. Thus, I almost ran right into her. Oops. Luckily, I made a full and complete stop without any insurance claims needing to be filed.

Then it looked like we were inching forward but apparently the big hair head was just adjusting herself. Now I was REALLY close to running into her. And Aiden was running into me. It almost got way out of control. Now I am leaning waaaaay over to see around this orange extentioned woman to see what is the problem.

The problem, beyond the part where Safeway doesn't build their sliding doors wide enough to let two carts through at once, is a little boy. He's just standing there messing with everyone's day.
Mom was dealing with her daughter and procurring a cart while explaining over and over why they weren't getting the car cart.

FINALLY we (us, the orange haired woman, and 5 people behind us) get a visual of this woman. She looks like she is taking her kids' medications for them. The daughter was taking off without mom or brother and yet mom just focused on her son now. I wanted to scream at her when I heard her say, "...I don't know... this is some pretty thumbs down behavior..."

Of course she couldn't get OUT of the way before showing her fantastic parenting skills off.

Oh My

Don't forget to go back and read all the posts you've missed... As for the movie quotes, the leader is in at 2 of 9. Get answering! I swear there will be a prize that will get mailed out sometime after I finally get Kevin and Kirsten's Christmas Present Mailed out. (damn!)

I have a lot of time on my hands tonight as A) I finished my book B) I have a headache and don't want to read textbooks on Public Speeching and C) I wanted to find SOMETHING fun to read.

I did. I have found sometimes I can go from blog to blog by following links and find funny stuff. After all, if I read a blog, and they read the same one, we have a similar sense of humor, right? Yes. Unfortunately this doesn't always work. Sometimes I find people who appreciate the same humor but cannot write anything funny or even interesting.

BUT I found The Meanest Mom this way (thanks Heather!) and now I have found one I may be stalking soon. Anyway, Here's a post from her blog. I find it entertaining as I am sure anyone with kids would. For your pleasure, read the dang link.

Don't Quote ME On It

Awhile back Valerie did a post on her favorite movie quotes. I didn't think I would be able to top that, party because a lot of them are my own favorites. Then last night we watched a movie (we've been watching a lot of old releases since nothing good is coming out) that reminded me of one of my favorites. As I have no homework right now, I am going to compile my own list now.

First, a bit of trivia: According to imdb.com, while filming Stake Out, Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez were having a movie trivia contest on the set one day. Estevez asked Dreyfuss to identify the movie that the line "This is no boating accident" was from. Dreyfuss didn't recognize the quote, despite the fact that he was the actor who said it in Jaws (1975). Deciding that this was too good to pass up, this incident was re-enacted for the film.

Okay, see if you can name the movies these quotes come from:

1. Little Miss "Look at my butt. Everybody, Thomas, Look at my butt". Heart and Souls

2. How dumb do you think I am?
--How dumb is there? Excess Baggage

3. One plus two plus two plus one. (and many other variations of that sequence) Clue

4. I wear a size six but a seven feels so good, I buy an eight. Steel Magnolias

5. That sanctuary looks like it's been hosed down with Pepto-Bismal. Steel Magnolias

6. He's chasing her, you're chasing him, and who's chasing you? Nobody. My Best Friend's Wedding

7. Crème brûlée can never be Jell-O. YOU could never be Jell-O. My Best Friend's Wedding

8. I am removing the superfluous buns! Father of the Bride

9. O-kaaay, he's your baby. Tarzan... the Disney cartoon one.




I will admit, there are a couple of movies that appear more than once.

This is just a random sampling of my favorites, by no means all my favorites. Just that first one sparked me.

Whoever gets the most right wins a prize. I don't know what, but a prize will be found.


Update: Valerie wins since she's the ONLY ONE who bothered to comment. I will figure out a prize of some sort by... Easter. I'm awful. But the Christmas Present still hasn't been purchased or sent out. We thought we had it ready to go but then we changed our minds.

(no more rhyming about that...) anybody want a CAT?

I had to twist Princess Bride to get it to work but I figured it's better than just straight out trying to give away my cat. Maybe this way someone is dumb enough to think the cutesy rhyme is due to the cutesy cat.

Right.

I was laying in bed next to my dear Aiden last night, doing the "what the heck is wrong with that one kid?!?!" discussion as we tried to fall asleep. He is usually the one who can't sleep but had taken two Tylenol PM so he would sleep for sure. I can ALWAYS fall asleep but not if I stay up past that point. The one where you get your second wind and are then wound up and cannot sleep for... ever?

I also cannot fall back to sleep once I actually wake up. In this light Aiden moved the cat box out of our bathroom and into the kids'. I know he posted about it but here's the kicker: I can now sleep, the cats are not climbing on me and clawing me to hold on as I try to roll over. Grrr...

But now they sit at the bedroom door and crrrryyyy all night. I can sleep but AIDEN is kept up all night by the damn cat. Sigh.

It's only one cat that is doing the crying. (guess which one is available.)

Part of the talking last night led to how crazy the cats are (I had been telling Mom about them on the phone). On cue there was the requisite crying at the door. Clearly it's Crook. it went on for a little while and then I got sick and tired of it and barked back at the door.

It shut him up for a few minutes. It also made Aiden re-think being married to me. Luckily he just laughed. In fact, when it started back up after awhile, Aiden barked at the door.

That got him to stop for a bit also but THEN came the running at the door. How do we know he ran at the door? Because he doesn't stop until his head runs into the door. BAM!

They have also managed to jump at the door handle, hit it just right, and get the door open. This was apparently the tactic he chose to employ next. Y'know that cartoon spring sound? Boi-oi-oi-oi-oing! This is the sound our door handle makes when Crook tries to jump it open.

I don't know what happened but I eventually fell asleep. Long after Tylenol PM boy did. And then Ashley came in to tell me she had to go potty.

I wonder what else I can bark at today? I'm that tired.

**This was a lot funnier in my head last night as I couldn't sleep.**

Like Common Sense, Honesty at the Bank Did Develop!

In case I haven't whined to you directly, I am sick. I have an awesome cold that is playing around at coming on. Normally I would be just fine with it not really hitting. But then I have a fever of 102. Awesome.

Because I didn't get out of bed until 11 this morning, Aiden took pity on the kids who had played so quietly until then. He took them out for McDonald's, the library, and Lick's for ice cream. I got to lay on the couch and feel sorry for myself while watching movies and accomplishing NOTHING. It was great.

On the way home from their 4 hours of fun they stopped at Blockbuster to drop off movies. On the ground Aiden found nineteen dollars. So he turned it in to the people at Blockbuster. He told the kids what happened and why we don't keep the money we find on the sidewalk. They talked about how you probably can keep a dollar because people don't come back for a dollar but you don't keep nineteen dollars because that might be some student's budget for food for a week. Or something. It's all fairly lost on the kids anyway so...

We were talking about it again tonight and I was reminded of a primary activity we had one Saturday when I was little. There were a bunch of different stations or something set up, I don't remember exactly. What I do know is in one room there was a bank set up and everyone was to withdraw one dollar from the bank. And those primary women were baiting us all by handing out TWO to each kid. All the kids were being honest and giving it back.

Then my class got there. We had to have the worst average of all the classes. Maybe it was the age, maybe it was individuals, I don't know, but no one tried to give it back. Our poor teacher had to block the door to the room so we couldn't get out until we gave back our money.

In fairness to myself, I hadn't counted my money, just assumed the bank was doing their job. When it was pointed out to me, THEN I tried to keep it. But I got into that predicament halfway through it. Really.

As we talked about it tonight I laughed and said it was probably a sign of what kind of person I'd be in life. And then I remembered another little bank story about me:

A couple of years ago US Bank made a deposit of like six grand into my account. "all right!" was my first thought. I let it sit there for a couple of weeks figuring whoever DID make the deposit would be sure to notice what happened, the bank would pull the records, realize where it went and fix it. It never happened. Then I was talking to a friend about it and they said that the bank will eventually find it and charge me money for having had it. And apparently if there is money in your account that you don't immediately report as not yours, it's a federal crime.

I don't know how true that all is, but it was scary enough to get me to call my branch. I had to argue with the teller that it was, in fact, not my money. I mean, if they want to gift it to me for reals, GREAT! but I'm not taking it like this. I had to pull up a copy of the deposit slip on the Internet and tell the teller what account it WAS supposed to be in.

He finally got it out of my account. I don't know where it ended up but it is not my fault. I had to go in and sign a paper saying I was the one reporting it.

And then they credited me $5 for the mistake on my account.

It's Now the Kids' Problem

As Holly has previously mentioned our two cats are the best cats ever (can hear me snickering?). I will leave you with a short list of their wonderful, charming attributes:

1. They play in their cat food sending it flying far from their food bowl. And then they whine because their food bowl is empty and apparently cat food on the floor is too good for them.
2. When they are fed and have a full bowl of food, they look down their kitty noses at the kibble as if we were feeding them something from their cat box.
3. The cat box is a toy.
4. Ashley goes to school every day with at least one new scratch on her. This is, of course, not entirely of the cats' doing. She totally antagonizes them, smothers them, or does some other horrible thing to cause such recourse.
5. They climb e-ver-y-thing. If we're particularly lucky, they knock something over in the process.
6. They have have figured out how to get on the kitchen counters.
7. One of them whines at the door to be let out. Constantly. Incessantly. All.of.the.time.
8. The best and sometimes only bed they will sleep on is Holly. And only while Holly is also trying to sleep.

To remedy this last problem we moved the cats' food and water to the hall so we could kick them out during sleeping hours. Because the cat box is in our bathroom (with only an entrance through our bedroom) one of us would have to open the door at some point in the night. We learned this when we discovered cat poo in the kids' bathtub. At least they had the decency to not poo on the carpet.

Well, the cats wised up to our plans. Instead of simply pooing in the cat box once we open the door in the middle of the night, they have realized that Holly is still sleeping at this time and must be slept upon.

NO MORE! I have figured out a way to get the cat box to fit in the kids' bathroom without too much problem. Well, it fits without too much problem. It living in their bathroom could cause plenty of problem. I foresee the kids standing on it, Ashley playing in it (ick, I know, but she's done it before), or the kids forgetting and shutting the door leaving the cats no way to access it.

But I don't care. I don't want my wife waking up at 4 a.m. anymore because the cats are using her as a pillow and she can't fall back to sleep.

I'll move it when company comes over because even though I maintain it fairly well, it is still a cat box. Now I'll just have to remember to remove the cat box and leave a roll a high quality toilet paper in the kids' bathroom when our honored guests (read: 4 year-olds visiting for play dates or Holly's college friend) arrive.