Ten pre-requisites for childhood eating habits:

1. Refuse to wear a bib.
2. If no refusal to wear a bib occurs, make sure to get any exposed area covered with food.
3. Never use a napkin even if one is supplied. Your sleeve works much better.
4. Pick at any and all red or green 'things' that mom might try to put in your food.
5. If mom is foolish enough to serve a meal such as Spaghetti-o's (using the term 'meal' loosely here), make sure to get the red sauce in any available crevice.
6. Only eat junk food with enthusiasm. Gripe and complain about healthy food.
7. Make sure you are 'full' after a meal so an hour later you can be hungry and try to mooch junk food.
8. Drop your utensils on the floor at least five times per meal.
9. Dump your cereal at least once a week so mom remembers that you are a child, and anything more should not be expected from you.
10.Make sure to get as much food on the floor as you get in your mouth.

These are just a few of the rules that my children come pre-programmed with. It has become apparent to me that despite my efforts, all of the above will occur at some point during the week. I remember how grossed out I was watching my younger siblings eat and wondering how my mom could stand to let them feed themselves. I now understand that it's not any less gross when you are the mom, you just become immune. Most of the time anyway!

Go get dressed for the day!

This is what I got! That'll teach me not to be specific!

The wet wipe fiend

Step one: Locate wet wipes




Step two: Begin to unload wet wipes


Step three: Go faster before mom catches you!










This is the wet wipe fiend. She will find the wet wipes, even if you hide them. She has gotten them off the table, out of the laundry room and out from behind the couch. She moves at the speed of light and if you catch her in the act, there's no remorse. Just lots of grinning and trying to see how many more she can pull out before I can get to her. It's lucky for her that she's cute. Otherwise, I'd have to ground her. I've even caught her on top of the table, pulling out the wet wipes as fast as she can. I'm not sure what the intrigue is, but she sure enjoys this little game!!

High pitched noises and other observations

My sweet baby girl has learned to make a not so sweet noise. It's this grating, high pitched screech. She makes this lovely sound when she plays, when she's mad, when she's dancing. She just does it continuously. It's lovely, let me tell ya. We are all begging her to stop. The worst is when she does it in church. Nothing like bringing immediate attention to your family.

This noise reminded me of another child who made a similar high pitched screeching noise during my growing up years that I still have nightmares about. (Love ya Lori!!) Yes, my sweet little sister would make this amazingly high pitched noise. I think she and Odessa knew each other in another life. And Lori, loving me like only a sister can, made this lovely noise just to grate on my nerves. It drove me buggy, and she loved it!! (Or so I perceived!) I think she also made this sound at our psycho cat, Muffin. (Ah, now there are some stories! That cat was a nut case!) I truly have never heard anything quite like it, until today. And so it seems that things that drove me nuts in childhood are going to drive me nuts in adulthood as well. Patience is a virtue, right?

Other observations

I determined that my nine year old son should at least understand the workings of a diaper. Seeing as how he proclaimed to me the other day, "But what if she poops or something?" when I left him for fifteen minutes to make a milk run. So I set out to teach him how to diaper Odessa.

After Odessa's bath last night, I made Andrew get a diaper and I showed him how to put the diaper on, then I left him to it. It was funny to watch Odessa, amused that her brother was attempting to diaper her, smirk at her brother and then proceed to squirm. After a couple of minutes and finally getting the diaper on her, I handed him her pants and told him to get her dressed. He got one foot in and then she began to kick her other leg so he couldn't get it in the other hole. Andrew finally said, exasperated, "This would be so much easier if she would just hold still!" Yes, my son, it would be!

I laughed to myself and remembered not too long ago, when he was the squirmy baby and his uncle, just about his age now, attempted to dress him and proclaimed much the same thing! Such is the cirlce of life!

"So, mom, I have a joke for ya!"

That's what Michael informed me while I was doing his hair for school this morning.

"Oh, yeah. What's your joke?" I said. I prepared myself for a really dumb kid joke. Then he told me that he even made it up himself. Uh-oh.

"So, mom, I had another bad dream last night." Long pause. I took the hint.

"What was your bad dream about?"

"It was about you waking me up?" Teehee, giggle, giggle, giggle.

I must admit, it made me laugh. He has a great sense of humor. He wasn't too happy when I woke him up this morning and even informed me he was still sleeping. The great thing about Michael is that he turned something he wasn't happy about into a joke! What a great kid!

Homework

I wasn't a big fan of homework as a kid, and I'm even less so as an adult. I think homework is code for 'busy work so I feel I've done my job as a teacher.' I mean seriously. Some of these assignments are anything but educational.

Andrew brought home a worksheet earlier this week that had a crossword puzzle on it. It had the usual clues on it, but it didn't have any word possibilities like most of his others had. And so we spent twenty minutes trying to figure out the clues before I finally gave up and got online. I found a website that you could type in the crossword puzzle clues, how many letters and then it gave possible answers. I don't even feel bad about it. What was he supposed to learn from a crossword puzzle that his mother couldn't even solve without the aid of the internet? It's just busy work, in my opinion.

Then last night, he brought home spelling words and was whining about having to write sentences. He hates writing sentences. So I go and look at his list and his words are all months of the year and days of the week. Now if the point of writing sentences is so the kids understand the meaning of the words, then that was just busy work. What fourth grader doesn't know what Monday means?

But I think my favorite of the week is the project Lillie brought home. They are doing a unit on plants. Fabulous. But she/I have to do a project. The project paper consisted of several ideas and the kids had to pick one. Well the one Lillie picked, and I can't say I blame her, was a vegetable sculpture. Now please explain to me what carving a vegetable is going to teach her? Other than taking a lot of time, I don't find that terribly valuable when it comes to her education. Fun, yes, educational, not so much.

One of the major disadvantages of having so many children is that I get to do each grade times the number of children I have. The only time I have a problem with this is when they/I have to do homework. Stupid homework!! And here I thought I was done with school long ago. Silly me!

On my mind

Last night, due to nothing on TV, I watched an Oprah that I had taped a couple of days previously. I usually tape Oprah, and then I'll watch a few minutes and if I think it's interesting, I'll watch the whole thing.

This particular episode turned out to be on child predators. I couldn't even watch it. About five minutes into the show, I was in tears. I had to turn it off and I even deleted the episode knowing I would never be able to watch it. But I can't quit thinking about all those innocent children.

I very rarely have a cause or anything that I feel strongly enough to fight for, but this one hit home. So I'm posting a link to Oprah's website which has information on how to contact your senators to pass a bill that will allow more funding to track down these perverts and put them in jail. Please support this bill. Our children are literally our future and we should protect them with everything we have. And hopefully, now that I've shared this I'll quit thinking about it. (Probably just all the hormones!)

Here's a link to write your senators. http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20080911_tows_predators

And here's more info. http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20080911_tows_predators/1