Diet Police

I am trying to lose weight. I am trying to exercise every day and cut out junk food. My daughter Caroline has been encouraged by her Daddy to be the Enforcer.

I was eating a pudding the other day (so was she!) and she says to me, "Mommy, is that the healthiest choice you can make?"

She's a much stricter Mom than I am.

Shades of Jim

I loved Schoolhouse Rock when I was a kid and I learned a lot from it, so now I have bought the DVD for my own kids. However, there is a significant difference between their experience and my own -- repetition.

Schoolhouse Rock aired only during Saturday morning cartoons and they played only one song at a time, in between the different shows. So you had to be on the right channel and still watching after the show ended.

My kids, on the other hand, can watch it any time they want, over and over, ad infinitum. And the DVD comes with a lyrics sheet.

The Multiplication Rock songs help kids learn their times tables. Mark was going over 3's song with Caroline to see if she had it memorized. He's singing "3x9 is 27, 3x8 is 24, 3x7 is...." and he looks at Caroline for the answer. Before she can open her mouth, Colin pipes up "21!"

Perhaps being a TV addict is paying off after all.

(And yes, Jimmy learned his times tables before I did. Show off.)

Reverse Cinderella

Most children fantasize about fairy tales. A handsome prince sweeps in to take you away from your dreary life. A fairy comes and reveals that the girl in rags is really a princess. This is the stuff of little girls' dreams.

What do you dream about if you are already living in a fairy tale? If my little "child of privilege" is any indication, you dream about being the one in rags.

Caroline and her friend Faith have a variety of make-believe games that they play. They almost never play Princess. Instead they play one of the following games:

• Slave (They are little slave girls who must tend to the sheep in the fields. Periodically, a bad master comes in and beats them.)
• Orphans (They are little orphan girls who must scavenge for food and shelter.)
• Indians (They are American Indians, living off the land, and avoiding the White Man.)
• Poor People (self explanatory)

They never get "rescued" from these situation. It is the act of pretending to be oppressed and impoverished that interests them.

To be fair, they are also fond of "Wicked Sisters" -- a game in which they are wicked princesses who do bad things like put all the puppies in jail.

It's a pretty sweet life when the only poverty or oppression you experience is make-believe.

The Talk

To avoid offending delicate sensibilities, I will refrain from posting the details of my unfortunate (for me) recent discuss of sex with my two children (ages 6 and 4). Suffice it to say that when I was done explaining the mechanics (all the while thinking "why me, Lord?") my children's reaction was predictable.

Caroline said "Ewww! That is so gross!"
Colin, on the other hand, looked like he was thinking that was the most wonderful thing he'd ever heard in his life.

Yep. He's a boy.

Interplanet Janet

Caroline is working hard toward her goal to become a scientist when she grows up. Currently she is working on resolving the issue of past life on Mars. Her original plan was to send earth creatures to the planet that have a higher tolerance for cold than humans to do experiments. I thought that was a creative plan, and very good use of her knowledge of biology, but suggested that robots might be more effective. She is currently working out an effective way of bringing the robot back to Earth after it gathers the rock and soil samples. That's my girl!

Uncool

Last night we watched a cartoon show in which the characters throw a "wild party" while their guardian is away. Naturally, the children were thrilled with the idea and so when they woke up this morning they said, "Mom, let's go have a wild party!"

We ran around the living room singing, dancing, and whooping for a while until I ran out of energy and had to call halt. They were still giggling as I got their breakfast for them. As I handed Caroline her bowl of cereal, she asked "have you ever been to a wild party, Mommy?"

I replied that I had. She scoffed "besides this one?" I assured her that I had been to other wilder parties. "When?" she challenged, "before I was born?" I said that, yes, they had been before she was born and she just looked at me as if to say "yeah, right." I imagine she was thinking that it was pretty suspicious that it happened before she was born, making it impossible for her to verify it. Sure, Mom, whatever you say.

She's only six, and already I am uncool. Rats.

Frugality

With Mark out of town, it seemed like a good day for a field trip! My friend Debbie and I decided to take the kids to a store called The Scrap Bucket. The Scrap Bucket sells little tiny bric-a-brac that you can use in crafts and scrapbooks. Decorative paperclips, buttons in funny shapes, alphabets and numbers made of shiny plastic, ribbon -- that sort of thing. You carry around a little bucket to put your selections in.

Certain that Caroline would go hog wild, I put a limit on her. I said I would give her $10 to spend and not a penny more. Caroline took me to heart and went all over the store, carefully comparing prices and adding up sums in her head.

I made my own selections, racking up a whopping $40, but that included two albums, one of which is a baby gift (honest!). Then Debbie and her daughter Ariana made their purchases. Then we sat and tried to keep the boys entertained, while Caroline milled around the store, putting things in and out of her bucket while she made her calculations.

She had made it clear that she didn't want to be interrupted, as it threw her math off, but I couldn't take it anymore. I asked her how much she had in her bucket. Her answer -- $3.75 -- and she fully intended to keep going until she got to $10. If I'd know she was going to be so cautious, I would have given her a $5 budget instead of $10. There were plenty of $1 and $2 items and I had been sure she would blow through the money fast. Finally, I agreed that she could keep filling her bucket until she got to $5 and I would give her the other $5 to use at another store we were going to that day.

None of these items are labeled with their price. The price is listed on the bins they come in. With no scanners, the employees have to look each individual item up to check the price, which gave Caroline ample time to RECITE what each item cost. She was only wrong on one item -- she thought it was 10 cents, but turned out to be 50 cents -- and when the loot was totaled up, her order came to $5.40. If she hadn't had that one price wrong, she would have been right on the money (so to speak).

After we left, Caroline said, "I like that store. We should go back there sometime soon." I think she deserves a return trip.

Monkeys

Caroline came home from school very excited. She told me that there was a fundraiser at school (she has no idea what they were raising money for) and that for each dollar donated, the student would get a raffle ticket. The winner, she said, would get to do one of the following for a day:

Be the P.E. teacher
Have a private lesson with the music teacher
Each nothing but candy for lunch
Keep a pet monkey with her at school

"What the @#%$* ? Who comes up with this stuff?", I thought.

Caroline was convinced that she would win. She wanted to be P.E. for the day. She was already making out her lesson plan. She asked me for money to donate, and I said I'd give her ten bucks. "Great!" she said, "and I'm going to give another $20 of my allowance!" Whoa! Hold on there.

Twenty dollars is a lot of money for a kid who gets $4 a week. She does have that much money saved up, but I wasn't excited about her using her savings on raffle tickets. It seemed an awful lot like gambling to me. As for charity, I felt $10 was more than sufficient for the nebulous cause of "for the school." I have always been proud of her giving heart, but it seemed in this case she was motivated a lot more by the prize than the cause. Eventually we decided that she would spend $5 of her own money and spend some more at the book fair, which would also be helping the school.

But what's up with the monkey? It didn't make sense.

A quick email to the teacher provided the answer. They were doing a fundraiser, and one of the prizes was to be P.E. teacher for the day (who comes up with this stuff?), but she assured me that NO MONKEYS ARE INVOLVED. It turns out that they did a little skit to introduce the fundraiser. "Wouldn't it be great if you could eat nothing but candy for lunch? Wouldn't it be great if you could bring a pet monkey to school?" This led into the concept that this fundraiser could allow you to do something outrageous (be P.E. teacher, principal, or librarian for the day, or get the private music lesson instead of being in class).

Caroline's teacher says that she turned to the teacher next to her and said, "somebody's gonna think they're gonna get a monkey." Sure enough, somebody did. And it was Caroline.

A moment on the lips...

After much effort on my part, Colin is now sleeping through the night in his own bed. He does have a Mickey Mouse clock radio that is set for 5 am. When Mickey "sings" (the radio turns on), Colin is allowed to come to our bed for a morning snuggle.

This morning around 3 am, Colin crawls into bed with me and says "Mickey didn't sing, but DON'T look at the clock." Apparently, the kid doesn't know how to lie!

Unfortunately, I was half asleep (make that 98% asleep) and I murmured "just this once." He immediately fell asleep next to me (with his fingers firmly grabbing my hair -- my hair is his comfort blanket. Ack!), but suddenly I was wide awake. I immediately carried him back to his own bed, which he didn't protest, as he was sound asleep.

So here I am, blogging at three in the morning, because I know that with three little words I have just undone weeks worth of work.

Loose lips sink ships, and I am sunk.

Yummy Snacks

I told Colin that we would be "babysitting" Faith's fish while she was away for Spring Break. He was very excited and said that he would take good care of the fish for her. "And," he pronounced solemnly, "I won't eat them! 'Cause I only eat dead fish."

I'm sure that will reassure Faith tremendously.

Don't Go Breakin' My Heart

Keeping track of Colin while picking up Caroline from school is hard. Colin delights in losing himself amid the chaotic throng of children milling in the school yard.

After the umpteenth time I yelled "COLIN!", I grabbed his hand and pulled him along beside me. "Let go!" he demanded. I explained that I wanted him to stay with me so that he wouldn't get lost in the crowd. "Mommy!" he said angrily, "you are breaking my heart!"

Love hurts.

Very Literal

At music class today, the class was making a "map." Each child was asked where they would like to go. One little globe-trotter said Telluride. Another said she wanted to go to a friend's house. Colin said he wanted to go over a bridge. "OK," said the teacher, drawing a picture of a bridge on the map. "What's under the bridge?" Colin looked at her with a puzzled expression and said -- "air."

Imagine that.

Math Genius

I've been working with Colin on the concept of "more than/ less than." He can identify all his numbers, but he really doesn't understand the amounts that they represent. So I was demonstrating with fingers. Holding up two fingers on one hand and three fingers on the other, I asked "would you rather have two pieces of candy or three pieces of candy?" He replied that he would rather have three pieces of candy. "That's right," I said "because three is MORE THAN two. Now, would you rather have seven pieces of candy or nine pieces of candy?" He promptly replied "seven." "No," I said, showing him the numbers on my fingers. "Seven is LESS THAN nine, so wouldn't you rather have nine pieces of candy?" Colin said "If I eat nine pieces of candy, I will get sick!"

My Life With Socks

I had a nightmare about dryer lint last night. I'm not kidding. In the dream I started the dryer without putting the lint screen back in and there were mountains of dryer lint blowing out on me from the vent. This is the kind of life I'm leading. Enemy #1 is dryer lint.

But my life does not revolve around dryer lint. My life revolves around socks.

Making sure they have enough socks.
Making sure their socks are clean.
Sorting and pairing socks.
Identifying whom the sock belongs to.
Making sure all socks fit.
Making sure that socks purchased are seamless.
Cutting down the seam on socks that were not as seamless as advertised.
Picking up socks that have been discarded throughout the house.
And picking grass, woodchips, or other offending objects out of socks so that they can go back on the foot of the person complaining about their socks.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of my daily sock activities.

Power Sticks

Colin picked up a stick as we walked home from dropping off Caroline this morning. When we got home, I reminded him that sticks weren't allowed in the house and asked him to leave it on the doorstep (with the large pile of other sticks!).

Colin protested that this stick was special and should be allowed inside the house. I repeated the rule -- "no sticks in the house."

He argued that this was a "power stick" and it would protect the house from falling down. I repeated the rule.

He insisted. I repeated the rule.

Finally, he put the stick down, carefully leaning it against the wall, separate from the other sticks. He then pronounced that the stick would still be able to protect the house as long as it was touching the wall.

Who needs an insurance policy when you've got Power Sticks?

Oldie But Goodie

Following in the footsteps of thousands of children before him, Colin made a joke at the dinner table last night.

When Mark asked, "who would like to say Grace?" Colin promptly replied "grace!"

The cult of childhood marches on.