The Fish Pond

Don't Get Boned

We're sitting outside on our deck enjoying grilling out last night, and Sunny says,

"Dad, is dis hambuwger boned?"

BigDaddyFish and I look at each other - did she say what we think she said?

"Is. Dis. Hambuwger Boned? Did you bone dis hambuwger?" We start to giggle under our breath, because we are twelve year old boys.

"There are no bones in your hamburger, Sunny," BDF tells her.

"NO! IS DIS HAMBUWGER BONED???!??"

A look of realization crosses BDF's face. "Do you mean BURNED, Sunny girl?"

"Yeah, dat's what I said. Boned."

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While you're not getting boned, pop on over to my friend Jodifur's place, where I am making a guest appearance musing over boys. Well, specifically, Little Man.

Starbucks card drawing coming up later today. There's still time to comment if you're interested.

It's Going to Be a LONG Summer

Nemo woke up in the night with a horrible barky cough, and while we were at the doctor this morning getting his croup medicine, the other 3 stayed home with BigDaddyFish. I was gone from home maybe, MAYBE, 1.5 hours. MAYBE.

In that time, the bigs took out every single breakable item from our hutch and spread them out on the table, got into the flour, sugar, and cornmeal cannisters, spread apple jacks, corn pops, and honey nut cheerios from one end of the living room to the other (where they are not supposed to have ANY food), filled up two lead crystal vases with apple jacks, spread sugar all over the floor, took out every game piece from 2 games that were supposed to have been up too high to reach, and Sunny made "chocolate milk" with milk, sugar, cornmeal and a lollipop and spilled it in our front entryway.

In the less than two hours since I've been home, it has been a non-stop fightfest, complete with punches thrown AT ME. I haven't yet eaten breakfast and it's almost noon, and I only remembered the frozen foods I brought into the house but failed to put away, half an hour ago.

Silly me. Today was the first day of summer vacation, and here I was looking forward to sleeping in, to lazy days of popsicles and picnics and the pool. BDF and I stayed up til (ridiculously early this morning) playing Guitar Hero (we got another controller, so I play lead and he plays bass or rhythm) and having a great time. What the hell made me think that just because the monsters lovely, blessed children don't have school or anywhere else to go, I get to sleep in? Who do I think I am?

Why My Eldest is in Some Seriously Deep Yogurt

Trout is in second grade, and in our school that means a fair amount of homework. Each week during reading initiative, she gets an assignment on Monday and Wednesday, and those assignments are due Wednesday and Friday. They usually involve reading some book they send home and answering some sort of questions about what she read in her writing journal.

Tuesday afternoon I asked Trout about her homework, because I knew she hadn't done it the day before. She told me that the teacher got busy at the end of class and never handed the books back out. Because she has a track record of not always being entirely truthful, especially when it comes to getting out of doing something she doesn't want to do, I looked in her backpack for the book, which wasn't there, so I figured she was telling the truth and made her finish her spelling packet and then let her go play.

Yesterday afternoon I was writhing around on the floor exercising my muscles, and I happened to glance under my couch and instead of seeing the metric ton of cheerios I usually see, I saw Trout's reading bag with her books and journal in them.

It's a good thing I was already on the floor or the impact when I hit the ground after my stroke would have done some serious damage.

I called her on the carpet, literally, and demanded she explain herself. She couldn't. Of course she couldn't, she'd just been nailed and she knew it.

Now, I know kids lie. All of them. I did it a ton, too, but really I don't think I did it quite so deliberately when I was her age. And while I know it's normal and I did it, too, it's my job to send the message that this is unacceptable, that if she does this later in life it can lead to fines, imprisonment, and just maybe the loss of public office. And I'm miffed because it's just so disrespectful, and I don't handle that well. So what did I do to her?

The girl down the street invited Trout to her birthday party this coming weekend. Yesterday I marched Trout down to her house so that Trout could explain to both her and her mother why she won't be coming to the party that I'd already said she could go to. She was duly embarrassed. And when I was talking to BigDaddyFish on the phone about it I Emphasized. How. Angry. I. Was. You know, to make a point.

I'd like to say I think this will make an impression, but in reality it will just give her incentive to hone her skills and not get caught next time, right? How would you handle it?

Sunny Says #5,349 (or 7, whichever applies)

Trout and I are going out tonight to a play (to hear Uncle Orca who is playing in the pit orchestra for 1776 at Olney Theatre), so all evening things have to happen early. I look over at Sunny, who has used paper plates, packages of fancy paper napkins, all the baby utensils that aren't currently in the dishwasher, a handful of fresh green beans, and some paper cutouts of Max and Ruby to arrange some sort of abstract art installation all over the kitchen floor. The filthy kitchen floor.

"Sunny! You can't put all these spoons and these green beans on the floor!" I growl exasperatedly as I scoop them up and set them aside for washing.

"I know, Mama. I'm naughty. I like to be naughty!"

Let's hope she outgrows that.

Monday Morning Equation

1 rock + 1 preschooler with artistic ambitions + 1 four month old minivan =

1 furious mom and 1 minivan needing a paint job

She drew on the passenger door, the driver's door, and the rear liftgate. She's damn, damn lucky she's freaking cute.

It actually happened a few weeks ago - it's just taken me this long to calm down and blog about it. We can't afford to paint it right now. It doesn't appear to be down to metal, just to the primer, so we don't think we need to do it right away to protect from rust. It just looks awful.

My four month old minivan.

Sigh.

Sunny Says (I honestly have NO IDEA where she gets these things)

I've mentioned before that Sunny. Talks. All. The. Time. and I have to admit, I don't always listen to what she's saying, mostly because my ears are bleeding. Every so often she realizes this and attempts to engage me in her chatter. This is this morning's exchange:

As she holds rice krispies up to her mouth "You say, 'aren't you going to offer some to our guests?' Mommy."

"Aren't you going to offer some to our guests?"

She reaches out and offers the rice krispies to me.

"No thanks, Sunny, you know I'm allergic, I can't eat those."

"Then you say, 'No thanks, bubble-butt, it's all yours.'"

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This morning she was sitting on our bed as BigDaddyFish got dressed, playing with his Legos (yes, HIS Legos. I am the only family member without my own Legos). I have to brag a little about what she made.

"This is a trashcan in the kitchen."

"This is a couch with lots of stages for people to sit on."

"This is a bed for sleeping."

"This is a little man in a surgery bed, and here's his hat. He can't wear his hat in surgery."

"Nice boat, Sunny." "Thanks! It goes in the water."

Not too shabby for a just-turned-4 year old. Who am I kidding - SURGERY BED? Mind you, she's never had surgery, and the only thing she knows about surgery is my c-sections. She's never seen an actual surgery. How the heck does she know you don't wear your hat during surgery? For the record, she didn't follow a model or directions of any kind for these, they are off the top of her scary little brain.

Sometimes I wonder if she's really my kid. You know, if it wasn't for the whole looks-just-like-my-mother thing.

Out With the Old

In with the new: To refresh, in case you skipped the last post, we're having a birthday party for Sunny on Saturday, and we've been living with a filthy carpet in our family room for decades eons a few years. We had a dog that had kidney disease, and between that and potty training 3 kids who sometimes still have accidents and who eat in that room, the carpet was, in one word, disgusting. Filthy. Nasty. Vile. Putr...okay, that was 4.5 words, but it really was awful. Observe:

and:

We had steam cleaned it periodically for about the first six years, then it started to reek for weeks after we cleaned it, so we stopped cleaning it and resolved (ha! no pun intended) to simply replace the flooring when we left. Originally we were going to put in hardwoods but that's a whole 'nother story, and our budget wouldn't allow for that at this point, since we have so many other things to do, too. BigDaddyFish decided he wanted to have it done before the birthday party, so we called Empire Today.

Empire's commercials are annoying, but effective, and they really DO what they say they will. We called them Monday morning, and the guy was in our living room taking measurements Monday evening. The guys came Tuesday and installed the carpet in that room (which is much larger than it appears) and up one flight of steps in about 3 hours. The price was a little on the high side compared to what I would have done with a local carpet store, but they wouldn't have been here the next day, either, and it was competitive enough that we didn't bat an eyelash.

So, Tuesday we had this:

and this:

and this:

and by Tuesday night, we had this:

I'm kind of liking the room with most of the crap out of it, and I'm thinking of not putting any of it all of it back. The only thing is that without our electronics hooked back up, Sunny sings all. day. long. and. makes. my. ears. bleed. So nobody is allowed in that room with food or drink or shoes on, under penalty of flogging and denial of college funds. I am rotten.

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Speaking of Sunny, she's had difficulty adjusting to the changes going on around here to get the house ready to sell. Tuesday night I was working on cleaning the kitchen, and she was playing in the living room running around with Nemo and Trout. Or so I thought. Apparently, though, she went upstairs at some point, and for some reason we're still not sure about, emptied 5 water bottles all over Little Man's bed and floor, badly enough that he couldn't sleep in his drenched bed and he had to cram himself in about 3 square feet at the foot of his bed between the bed and his closet because the floor was drenched, too. She had cried about the old carpet leaving, so we had the carpet guys cut out a relatively "clean" piece that was under our table for her to use as a "picnic" mat and she's been carrying it around the house to use it as "her space." Apparently that wasn't enough.

Not the Sidewalk

The school nurse sent Trout home from school with a fever today* so she's sitting on the couch in the living room watching tv. Sunny went outside on our front porch to play with sidewalk chalk and I was in the kitchen making my lunch. Trout was asked to keep an eye on her sister while I finished making my lunch, so that if someone decided to take her we'd at least know which direction to run to chase them.

Nemo abruptly starts fussing a bit, but since he's in the toddler prison playyard, I don't think anything of it, I just figure he wants out, and he'll have to wait because "I AM ONLY ONE MOM! ONE PERSON!" (if I had a dollar for every time I say that I could pay cash for a new house and not have to sell this one) (in Montgomery County, no less).

Sunny suddenly dashes into the kitchen, ditches the chalk in the corner by the table, yelling "Go look at Nemo, Mommy!"

"What. Did. You. Do. Child?"

"Nothing, just go look at Nemo, Mommy!" she throws out as she runs and hides in the corner, impish grin across her face.

The whole time this is going on Nemo's cries have been getting louder and more urgent. I look around the corner at him, and he's got big chalk circles on both cheeks, a wide stripe across his forehead, marks on both the front and back of his clothes, and a decidedly unhappy expression.

"Sunny, you lose the chalk. Your brother is not the sidewalk!" I say as I use a baby wipe to clean his face off.

"I already put the chalk by the table, Mom. The ears! Ears! Don't forget his EARS, Mommy!" she said gleefully as I comforted my son, gently wiping the bluish gray blobs out of his ears.

Nothing a chocolate chip cookie, a timeout, and a game of peekaboo couldn't fix.

Willfull little imp. Poor Trout didn't even notice she had come in the house. And that is a perfect example of the personality differences between my girls.

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*BigDaddyFish and I had a conference today at school with Trout's teachers to discuss some issues she's having. At 12:20 (the conference was 12:30) my babysitter calls to say the school called because Trout has a fever of 101. So now I feel like crap because Every. Single. Day. Trout tells me she has a stomach ache, and Every. Single. Day. I remind her that she won't eat pretty much any fruits or vegetables and doesn't drink enough water, so her stomach hurts because the poop is too hard and hurts going through, and then I make her get dressed and send her to school anyway. So when she said her stomach hurt this morning, I sent her to school as usual. I am a Mean Mean Mommy that way.

Poor thing.

Color Explosion, Indeed

What do you get when you combine a preschooler, a toddler, baby wipes, and Crayola Color Explosion paper?

This:

And of course, the requisite bath afterwards. Fortunately, the wipes created the mess, and the wipes cleaneth'd up.

So how was your weekend?

Overheard in the SickPond

"We need a bed, not a chicken breast." I have no earthly idea what the child was talking about.

"Mom, I can puke in the snow. Puking in the snow is the best." Last night we got basically a dusting of snow, enough to cover the cars and grass and cause school systems traumatized by our last ice storm to cancel evening activities last night. Sunny wanted to go outside, and after this comment I saw no reason not to let her, so I got her all bundled up and sent her outside. She spent maybe a minute and a half outside, then banged on the door to come back in because "it's just too cold for me to be out here."

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Containment, FishPond style:

That's Sunny's bed, with about 4 towels layered on it. She pukes, we take a layer off (or two, if needed), wash them, leave the next ones for the next barf.

We have probably 42 towels in varying sizes in this house, NOT including my predilection toward hoarding dish towels. Anyone want to guess how many times we've gone through all 42 in the last 72 hours?