His Immortal Soul

I think Mister Man is going to hell.

I mean, we've tried. We're really tried. We go to church every Sunday. Mister Man goes to Sunday school before church. He has his own children's Bible. He's even singing in the youth choir.

But we have a problem. This morning, I asked him to tell me about the picture he was drawing.



On the left, we have the Incredible Hulk. Normal enough for a five year old boy, right? To his right, we have Jesus.

This is where the problem starts. The Incredible Hulk (who has some unknown red substance in his hand, possibly a rock? I was afraid to ask) is fighting Jesus. He's going to kill Jesus, in fact. And up in the right hand corner, we have Spiderman who's mostly out of the view.

Spiderman is going to spin a web around Jesus once he falls down. And you know that he's going to fall down because you see the arrow telling what's happening in the story that is the picture. I'm not quite so sure why the Incredible Hulk looks so happy to be killing Jesus, but I certainly understand the frown on Jesus's face.

I had a little chat with Mister Man to better understand this and then reexplained that while Jesus is killed on Good Friday, it was done by some very bad men, that Jesus allowed this to happen because He was making a sacrifice for us, and that He came back to life on Easter which meant that we are all saved.

Is there remedial Sunday School? Poor kid is really in trouble here.

Oops.

In a way, I'm glad that Mister Man already knows how to read. And he's getting better at spelling. This is not due to the teaching he's getting at the kindergarten he attends through daycare.

I was going through his backpack last night and came upon a short story that the children were supposed to read and then copy onto the back side. Mister Man didn't do much in the way of copying, what with his arm and all, and it's a good thing, too! Hopefully, this didn't sink in.



So how exactly does a dog wage his tail? Is it kind of like fighting a war? Is it a way of paying his tail?

Another Entry

Yep, it's time for me to submit yet another entry for the Mother Of The Year Award. I think I'm the leading contender right now. And this time, I have public verification of my entry, which I think can only help my chances.

Little Miss woke up in yet another lovely mood -- partly due to the fact that my mom was watching the wee ones again yesterday while I was working late and they got to bed late after my mom didn't even try to put Little Miss down for a nap.

Getting dressed was a challenge, but we finally made it through that ordeal with just enough time to eat breakfast before her bus arrived at its new, early time. She was finally in a better mood after breakfast, so I took her picture.



There's my cutie pie. With the horribly messy hair that I swear I brushed and put a barrette in before breakfast. Isn't she adorable?

When she got home, I realized one small thing. Oops, I forgot to change her socks. Getting dressed was not the most pleasant experience, and she really wanted to choose her clothes, rejecting the first two outfits I selected after she had dawdled.

She did choose a cute outfit, but for socks... well, that was where I decided it wasn't worth the battle at the time. I let her put on the socks that she'd picked out of a basket in her room and figured I'd change them before the bus came once she was more tractable.

Except the bus came about five minutes early, and -- shockingly -- we were running late. Instead, she went to school wearing these:



Yep, that would be a Halloween sock and a random red sock. They really are lovely with the handmade beautiful shirt from Karen, aren't they?

Let's get a closer view.



Oh. Yes. The red sock is a baby sock from when she wasn't yet walking. Although she can stretch it to fit on her foot it doesn't stay there long. It quickly starts sliding down. And the other one? That would be a Halloween sock from the Target dollar section from two years ago. It doesn't really fit, either.

Yep, those are the socks she wore to school today. And her teachers see them because they take off their shoes when they do motor room. I can only imagine the tale going around the school today.

Yep, just chalk that up as another winning moment in my portfolio for Mother Of The Year.

Make It Fast!

I've been busy lately -- busier than usual even with work ramping up more than normal given everything happening in the economy and the addition of two major fundraisers for the wee ones' preschool that I've been putting together.

While sometimes I feel like things are sliding, there are also days that I need to recognize that I'm getting stuff done. And that I just need to take a few minutes to focus and get something done.

Today's reminder of things I can get done in less than three minutes:

1) Make breakfast. The wee ones and I can have all our breakfasts complete in less than three minutes. And you know how important that meal is. And since I try to sleep in as late as possible and still make the bus (you might hear a few Hurry up! Drink your milk, the bus will be here in one minute!'s coming from my house once in awhile -- like every twenty-four hours or so). However, because I've made granola in advance, all I have to do is scoop it out with the half cup scoop that lives in the granola container and then plop on some yogurt for Mister Man and I and soy milk for Little Miss. Unless Mister Man wants frozen waffles, which is just as easy.

2) Brush my teeth. Although this is a skill my husband -- and surely others -- can accomplish in thirty seconds or less, it takes me just under three minutes. My toothbrush is one of those cool Sonicare ones that beeps every thirty seconds to remind me to move to a new portion of my mouth. The actual brushing takes two minutes and thirty seconds, giving me thirty seconds to get that toothbrush ready and then rinse and spit at the end. Scratch that, the rinsing puts me over three minutes. I'll just spit and save myself the time.

3) Plug in my phone. That, of course, assumes that I can find my charger. But when it starts dinging angrily at me, reminding me that I've pushed it to the limits and I really ought to charge it in case there's a school or daycare calling with an issues, I need to listen to it the first time, not the twentieth, and go plug it in. And yes, it's plugged in right now. And it didn't even power down before I did it. Yay, me!

4) Fill up my water bottle. Along those same lines, there are times that I get involved in something and just don't take the time to fill up my water bottle. Like right now, as I can feel the back of my throat slowly turning into the Sahara and my fingers swelling due to dehydration. And yet, there is a 40 ounce water bottle (that I generally refill three to four times... when I think of it) sitting ten feet away. Excuse me a moment as I go get a drink.

Ok, I'm back. Let's continue with the list.

5) Put on makeup. I'm not that high maintenance. I can do a reasonable day job in less than three minutes. In fact, I did it yesterday morning. As I should have been walking out the door to presidents' council. Just because I am a mom -- and one who works from home two days a week -- that doesn't mean I need to look like one. I need to model myself after those ladies who lunch who drop their kids off at our daycare. Ok, maybe not. But let's at least make sure they don't turn their noses up at me, shall we?

6) Create my to do list. I know I function better with a to do list that reminds me exactly what I need to get done each day. I feel better when I can erase things from my oh-so-sweet-best-gift-ever-from-my-SIL purple dry erase board as I complete each task. That way I don't forget to do things like ummm address the envelope to the Flyers for the donation request or write my letter for the PTO newsletter or any of the other things I should have done yesterday but forgot about.

7) Download pictures from my camera. Ok, this should take me less than three minutes to accomplish. If I did it on a regular basis. Right now, I have photos from January on the camera. I've been uploading directly to Blogger from my camera, shame on me. I'm one bad drop away from losing great pictures. Maybe I just need to add that to the to do list that I've yet to write.

8) Make a difference. Again, this is something that I could so do in way less than three minutes. I told our parent liaison that I loved her shirt on Tuesday, and you should have seen her beam. That was ten seconds, max. A friend of mine is going through a rough patch right now. I sent her a happy little card. Between writing it out and addressing it, I am sure I got a big grin without spending three minutes. And I know I can use all the smiles I can get.

9) Delete five emails. It's possible that my email inbox(es) is(are) overflowing. If I don't get to an email right away, it sits there. Forever. I have some emails that were once relevant but no longer are. And since I have so many in there, I don't even know what I need to pay attention to and what I can safely ignore. And so I keep pretending they aren't there. If I take three minutes a day to clean some out, I'll be back to a manageable amount in no time flat.

10) Go visit a new blog. Ok, that's assuming that the blogger has a reasonable length post. There are so many fun blogs out there though, and I know I can't visit them all. But if I can at least get to some of the ones I enjoy reading and some of the blogs belonging to people who show me some comment love (see, more reasons not to lurk!), that is a lovely way to destress.

Well, that was a half hour of my day. I've got forty-eight more of those yet to go. But right now... I need to run. I have a to do list to go create. And erase.

What else can I (or you) do in under three minutes?

Anyone Wanna Take Over?

Seriously. I'm failing at this whole motherhood thing here, obviously. (Can you tell it's been a long two days?) You all know that we've made three trips to the ER in the past three months -- or you should if you read the blog anyway!

Yesterday morning, we went to get Mister Man evaluated by an orthopedist. The good news is that the growth plate is not displaced. Since it's clear, it isn't visible on the X-ray. However, you can see a ton of swelling and blood in the area which indicates a broken growth plate, so they treat it like a break.

In our case, that means that we return to the orthopedist in two weeks. I made the appointment for March 31 at 9:15 -- Little Miss is on the bus and on her way to school and Mister Man doesn't have to miss school. Perfect. Oh. Except that I forgot that I had agreed to watch a friend's daughter from 9:10-10:40. Apparently I'll be calling tomorrow morning to reschedule that.

Mister Man does have a full cast now. And since yesterday was St Patrick's Day, he choose to get a green cast. I thought it was pretty cool. When we go back, they'll take that cast off, do more X-rays, see how his pain level is, and evaluate from there.



After I looked at this picture, I realized that I had announced almost three weeks ago that Mister Man needed a haircut. Yep, it's even worse now.

Instead of taking Mister Man to Costco to get the waffles and bread that we were out of that he so desperately wanted for breakfast today and then to his preschool to drop off the boxes of Scholastic Books I had in my car from my trek to the warehouse on Friday, we got his hair cut. I will admit that it looks much better now.

This meant that we didn't have time to get to the preschool, so Little Miss rode the bus home, and then I drove Mister Man to school. With Little Miss. Who was in desperate need of a nap. We didn't get home until after 2, although she went straight to sleep without a peep. I had to wake her up at 4 to go to the chiro after Mister Man got home, and she was still exhausted. I think the haircut could have waited until Friday, now that I think about it.

Today was Day 2 with the cast.

While I was putting Little Miss on the bus, Mister Man spilled his chocolate milk. Onto his cast. Into the hand part of his cast. And he sat there crying until I came in and heard him. Yep, just sitting in the milk pooled into chocolatey lake in his lap and cast. And yes, this is my intelligent child.

I then spent the next twenty-five minutes using my blow dryer for the first time in weeks. I used the cool setting in an effort to dry out the padding in his cast. The triage nurse at the ortho (who I'm sure will know me by name soon at this rate) said that they didn't need to see him to check the cast unless he had done something like dunked his cast in the bathtub or something where water got down into it. I'm dubious, but I tried to get it dry. Here's hoping he still has all the skin on his arm when they take it off in T-13 days.

He did have a good day, though. He's really into having everyone sign his cast -- including total strangers who have been indulging the little imp. We're using a green marker on the green cast. The majority of his daycare class signed, and apparently everyone in his preschool class signed. There isn't much room left!



When he got home today, the broken record went back on.

Don't lift that with your right hand.

Do not pick up that greasy food with your right hand.

Don't touch that dirt with your right hand.

Please use your fork to eat your dinner and not your fingers.

Don't keep banging your cast on the wall.

You can't run with your cast. Walking only!

You can't jump on your bed with a broken arm.

You can't push yourself up with your arm. You can't bear weight on it while it's broken, Sweetie. Please try to be careful with your broken arm so it doesn't get worse!

At least I didn't have to tell him to stop hitting his sister with his cast, right?

Then there's Little Miss who was completely overstimulated by my parents and is still overtired from the weekend spent with my parents with no naps and late bedtimes, screeching in her room that she wants to get up and that she wants Mommy to sleep with her (which I never have so I'm not sure where she got that idea). Fifty minutes.

Anyone have a bottle of wine they can share with me?

Tasty Tuesday!

It's somehow Tuesday again. While we did some cooking last week, they frequently included recipes that I've found on TMTT, so I'm not reposting those! At the end of winter, I tend to start making a lot of soups, and I made one of my favorites this week.

It's easy, quick and the wee ones even like it (so long as I use soy milk for Little Miss and skip the butter at the end!). Whenever I make it, I always have to save some to send home to my mom, too.

Corn Chowder

Ingredients:

2 oz turkey bacon, chopped to matchstick pieces
2 T olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, diced
4 1/2 c milk
4 c. frozen corn
2 red potatoes, chopped
3/4 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 T butter, unsalted

Directions:
Makes 8 generous servings of soup

Add bacon and olive oil to heavy stock pot and cook bacon about 10 minutes until crispy.

While bacon is cooking, chop onion and celery. Add to the bacon mixture and stir to get fond off bottom of pot.

While this is cooking, chop the potatoes and put 3 of the 4 c of corn into a measuring device. Add the potatoes, milk, and 3 c of frozen corn to the pot and stir.

Bring to a boil, the simmer while covered for 10-15 minutes. Use immersion blender to blend a bit but not too much, or remove 1 1/2 c of the vegetables and use blender to puree before returning to soup.

Add the remaining corn and stir. Add the salt and pepper, as well. Add the pat of butter and let melt atop the soup, then ladle out and enjoy!

For more yummy stuff, check out this week's Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace!

Thanks, Dad

Genetics are key. We all know that. Some traits are environmental. And there are some that are a combination of both.

For me, I know my sense of humor comes from my dad. I'm still trying to figure out whether it's nature or nurture, but I finally found out that not all people enjoy this humor. I was in high school when this dawned on me. Since then, our humor has been a great way for my dad and I to bond.

Oh. You want to know how I figured out this little gem?

Sadly, I still remember what brought this eye-opener to bear. We were sitting in our basement, and my parents had friends over, including their daughter who was my sister's age.

My Dad: So M (my sister) is now working for Byerly's. She's been doing a really good job there.
Other Dad: Really? That's great to hear.
MD: Yep. She started out as a bagger, but they moved her to the frozen yogurt stand because she was so great with people.
OD: You have to be awfully proud.
MD: Oh, I am. I am. If she keeps this up, if she keeps working hard and does such a great job, one day she might get promoted to the produce department.
OD: Oh? That's a step up from the yogurt stand?
MD: Of course! One day, she might even be top banana.

The silence was deafening. Except for my dad and I chortling. I still think it's funny.

And now I've just lost every one of my blog readers, haven't I?