My Smarty

So Curly came home with an in-class assignment she had done. They are working on a unit about frogs and she had to illustrate 3 words that rhyme with frog.

The first picture was obvious. A grayish looking cloud that no one could deny was "fog."

The second, a brown, long, rounded off rectangle, so clearly a "log."

But the last one stumped me. It was a square, with another square in front of it that was divided up like a checkerboard.

"Curly?" I said "Can you tell me about this picture and how it rhymes with frog?"

And she looked at me, with her face saying "How could you not know that?" and her voice saying "It's your computer."

Still dense I said "How does computer rhyme with frog?"

She laughed "Not computer! BLOG!"

That's my girl!

Oops

What happens when your mom is blogging, you left an orange marker out and you are too busy playing the Wii to stop and figure why your 2 year old sister is touching your back:

Oy

How do I, as a mom, keep my childhood social anxieties out of my kids' social lives?

This is something that I struggle with and an excellent example is currently underfoot.

Curly has a friend who is currently not feeling very friendly. Yesterday Curly came home and said that Friend wouldn't say "bye", wouldn't wave and crossed her arms and turned away when Curly spoke to her. She was hurt and confused, but said to me that she hadn't done anything to cause her friend to be upset. I am well aware girls can be this way and was sure it would blow over overnight.

Forward to this morning and Friend doesn't want to get together for their usual play date after school. She's "too tired", a story I don't buy. I think she doesn't want to play and the adult in her life is trying to be socially appropriate with the tired excuse.

I do not think it is in my child's nature to be purposely mean. I guess all moms might think that, but I just don't believe it. I can't imagine Curly having done something to warrant this on purpose. I think this is either all a misunderstanding OR Friend feels like being mean. I don't know. But I have had a stomach ache all morning and I feel ready to cry. They were such good friends. How could this be?

See, I was always taught to be nice. And I am. But I took it too far as a kid. I never made waves. Never spoke up. If someone asked me for money for a soda I would give it to them, even though I knew, despite what they said, they would never pay me back. I wanted them to like me. I wanted to be friends and I thought being nice was how to get friends. If someone was mean to me, I internalized it and found fault within myself.

So when Curly has these issues I have a 3 part problem:

1) I flash back to how I was and I don't want that for her. I want her to be able to look at her friends and say 'What the heck is the matter with YOU?" I don't want her to be like me, trying to curry favor all the time.

2) My normal Mommy desire to get to the bottom of it and fix it.

3) The fact that I know I must allow her to navigate through these things somewhat on her own.

Sometimes, being a mommy sucks. This is one of those times.

Who needs Mother's Day?

StinkyMan: Mommy! Guess what?!

Mommy: What?

StinkyMan: I love you!

I'm telling you, that's the stuff that makes it all worthwhile.

Good Mommy Dinner

You will notice that I capitalize Good Mommy. That's because she is a different mommy than me. Good Mommy is fun. She is not the one who makes the kids pick up their toys, or brush their teeth or the one who says "No" to dessert. Good Mommy is more likely to bake a cake for no reason. Good Mommy plays 17 rounds of Disney DVD Bingo without complaining. Good Mommy chases kids around the house for fun instead of corralling them for bed. I am Practical, Everyday, I Have 4 Kids and I Have Lots of Things To Do Mommy. Good Mommy is far more relaxed.

Good Mommy visited at dinner time last night. She shooed the kids out of the kitchen and made a fun dinner. It was a big hit with the kids and so easy. Thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Claudine (http://www.simplyclaudine.blogspot.com/) for the idea.

Start by cutting hot dogs into pieces. Break some long noodles into about thirds. Thread the noodles through the hot dog pieces like so:

Then throw the hot dog and noodles into boiling water for around 8 minutes or so:

When they are done you can serve your kids hot dog spiders for dinner!

You can cook up extra noodles and add either pasta sauce or cheese to complete your spider meal.

My kids thought these were great fun, although there was some debate about whether they were spiders or octopi. They ate them happily and have already asked to have them again.

Good Mommy will be back soon with more hot dog spiders. Because that is what Good Mommies do.

LadyBugs

StinkyMan and Curly spent their late Saturday evening and early Sunday morning catching and releasing ladybugs. It was such a sweet, simple thing, so indicative of the long upcoming summer days, that I just stood and watched them for a long time. They would search carefully and when one of them would find one the other would come over and admire the catch. They were always very careful not to hurt the ladybugs, going to far as to place the bugs back on leaves in the bushes and not on the grass so "no one will step on them".

But Sunday morning, for whatever reason, a particular ladybug caught my son's special attention. He put a leaf and some grass in a cup and gently placed the ladybug in there. He named her Josie and he took that cup EVERYWHERE for a large part of the day. Josie sat on the table next to him during lunch. Josie watched "Wow Wow Wubbzy" with him. Josie even went potty with him.

I tried very hard to convince him that Josie was a bug and would actually be MUCH happier outside than inside, but he didn't believe me. Josie was his new companion. I said ladybugs prefer the yard to the living room. No deal. I said ladybugs like the sky, not the inside air. No deal. I said that I thought Josie might miss her ladybug family. And he said "Mommy, she loves me."

Yeah.. Argue with that. I couldn't. So Josie lived inside for the day. By bedtime we found her abandoned in the pantry. I guess StinkyMan left her in there when he went to get a snack. We waited for him to ask for her for bedtime, but he didn't. So once he was asleep, we set his beloved Josie free, in the bushes of course. I didn't want her to get stepped on in case we needed to try to find her back today. So far he hasn't mentioned her. But I'm ready to go hunting when he does.

Little Orphan Peanut

Let me preface this by saying 2 things:

1) My clothing organization for Peanut is a mess. She doesn't have a real dresser, only a changing table with some space underneath that is not really conducive to clothes storage. It is hard to find her clothes if you don't know my current method of organization.

2) Husband is really, really good with the kids. Really good. This is in no way a bash. Just a funny story.

So today I had to go to Curly's class to teach art. I was gone an hour and a half. To Husband's credit, both StinkyMan and Peanut were dressed when I came back. They had been in their pajamas when I left. And I was far too busy looking at the bump next to Peanut's eye from yet another coffee table meets face incident to notice specifically what she was wearing.

It wasn't until much later that I realized I had no clue what the heck she was wearing. I had her come over so I could take a closer look.

Somehow, some way, Husband had found the donation pile...clothes for Freecycle or Goodwill or something. Peanut was wearing little baby boy overalls, size 6 to 12 months as shortalls and a faded old t shirt underneath that she wore last spring.

The sad thing? They fit her! She looked really cute in those overalls, er, shortalls and old shirt. I cannot get over how tiny she is. She did look vaguely like an orphan, in her boy clothes, messy hair, black eye and dirty face, but those overalls will make it back into rotation as little shortalls for the warm weather. The shirt and the black eye, however, need to go.