For Pamela

Pamela’s been aggravated with me because she says that I never say anything funny that she says in my blog. She is very funny, and strangely enough she wants to be mentioned in my blog. So here’s a montage of funnies from Pamela.

Seth – Why is it smoky in here?

Me – Pamela’s decided to burn the house down.

Pamela- Yes, I’ve decided to disobey your orders, but burn the house down while you’re here. When you’re dressed in your pajamas. So that we have to run into the street half dressed. Just as the guards are going by. I’ve planned it all out.

Playing Candyland with Seth:

“LOOK! LOOK! I just got all the way to the princess Frostine and then what do I get oh I draw a stupid little card, harmless right?! NO! Now I have to go back to stupid GRANDMA NUT! WHO WANTS TO GO SEE GRANDMA NUT? HER NAME SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. I MEAN SHE’S A CRAZY OLD WOMAN! THE DECK IS STACKED AGAINST ME!”

About having the cats chipped*:

“What do you do when you give them away? You change the chipping address!”

When she’s watching her brothers in the pool:

Me- Where’s Blaise?

Pamela – He drowned. You can’t see him because he sank. Not enough body fat on a two year old to float.

Talking to her friend in Finland:

“K is in the future! And she refuses to tell me what happens!”

*In the EU you must have your pets chipped and the chip holds the name, address, and phone number of the owner.

Crafty Wednesday!

LO design from Best of Becky Higgins' Sketches. I think the colors were too bright, but I had already glued them down. Mistake!

Oh, no! Kylie's Going To Talk Politics!

Well, sort of.

I generally keep my opinions completely to myself. I mean, outside of the Slightly Cracked house (ask my kids and they know I DO have opinions on things, like where your shoes are supposed to go and when bedtime is and that you shouldn't be touching MY stuff!).

My journalism teacher in college said I have a knack for seeing both sides of the issue. Which is wonderful for journalism, not so good for actually living your life.

This is generally why I keep my opinions to myself. I don't have any.

But lately, I have had an opinion and after I read (and left a ridiculously long comment on) Marinka's post, I figured I would share with my loyal readers as well.

Lately, some of the people I know in real life (PIKIRLs we'll call them), have asked me what I think about Sarah Palin. In turn, because of aforementioned ability to see both sides of the damn issue and not make a decision about anything, I usually have to ask for clarification. Do you mean what I think about her governing of Alaska? What I think about her "greenness"? What I think about her stance on abortion?

No. What do I think of her as a mother?

Let me set this straight. I have never met Sarah Palin. As a mother of four children myself, I do not dare to make assumptions about other people's parenting styles. I overhear enough gossip about mothers on the playground that I know I DO NOT want to be THAT gossipy person.

What I do know is that in this day and age in the United States of America, is that we are still making assumptions about women based on their reproductive functions. Would you be asking the same questions if she were a man?

I believe that she should be able to do anything that a man can do. Anything.

A PIKIRL was offended, or perhaps caught off guard by that statement. The PIKIRL said that SP's kids would want for a mother.

I turned to PIKIRL and said, "My mother died when I was a kid. I was raised by a stay at home dad, who was a stay at home dad before my mother died and was able to continue to stay home with us afterward. I DO NOT think that dads are incapable of raising children."

Did I want for a mother? Of course I did. Still do as a matter of fact.

Would it have been different had it been my father that died? Yes. I would have wanted for a father.

Why are fathers less important?

And I do stay home with my four children, because that's what my family considered to be best for us (and my husband has a job that can support us).

Not because someone else said I had to.

Because people like my mother, worked to allow women (and men)* choices. Choices to be doctors and lawyers, secretaries and stay at home moms. Choices like having a family and having a career.

Choices like running for VP.

(Gets down off soapbox and stores soapbox in the attic).

*Ask my dad how many other stay at home dads there were when he first stayed home (early 80s). Yeah, it was just him. Now he's a stay at home grandpa. He made that choice too.

Getting Shot

Conversation in the bedroom one morning:

Dylan: Mat asked me to go shooting with them next week.

Me: Mat, the German? (don't think I'm being racist, it's sort of how we classify our friends in an overseas lifestyle - and he really is German. Well, sort of. It's kind of complicated. But German is the best description.)

Dylan: Yeah, Mat and Yoshi. (Right, that's not really his name, but it's something really close and he kind of looks like him. Yeah, that's right. He's a green dinosaur and my husband wants to go out shooting with him. I suppose a duck hunt gun will be involved.)

Yoshi. Stolen from Wikipedia.

Me: So you're going to go shooting with the Germans?

Dylan: I haven't decided yet.

Me: That sounds like a really horrible set up. "I'm going to go shooting with the Germans." Really it should be, I'm going to go get shot at by the Germans. That's what your grandfather would have said, anyway.

Hippies Are Like Jeans

This was actually supposed to post on Tuesday. But the whole family was a little distracted by some newborn twins.

I’ve wanted to do a post about laundry for some time now. I’ve written it up a few times, but the problem with the subject matter is that it’s just not that interesting. I mean, really, would I get into the double digits in comments on laundry? Probably not.

So instead, I’ve decided to share a piece of my childhood with you and if laundry 'happens' to come up, all the better.

My parents were hippies. Now, I didn’t grow up on a commune, and really they’d probably be called rednecks today (but my mother would be rolling in her grave to be called a redneck, so we’ll stick with hippies). We grew a lot of our own food, ate very little meat, hung our laundry to dry, and, at one time, had our kitchen sink outside. My mother made a lot of our clothes, while holding down a full time job. My father stayed home with us and helped us get by on a secretary’s salary.

Now, how does this differ from growing up on a farm you might ask?

We lived in Houston. Seriously. I grew up IN THE CITY.

Oh, and my husband and I met in 7^th grade. Yeah, I’m THAT redneck hippie.

I HATED growing up like that. I hated the little things; like that my friends had dryers in their homes and didn’t use their clothing as a “natural barrier” to the neighbors’ yard. You see, I already had a very bad case of anxiety disorder. This didn’t help things.

Note to other parents out there: If you have a particularly anxious, shy child, you should ALWAYS do things to make them more of an outcast. They will be bullied get beat up crawl into a shell and die grow stronger because of it. And write about you on their blog share their issues with the world love you for it anyway when they are grown.

Do you know how long it takes for clothes to dry outside in Houston? DAYS! And when they finally do, they are all crisp and crunchy. Skinny jeans take an hour to put on in the morning.

So, I have decided to hang my clothes to dry outside. Now. Despite my childhood. It’s a “green” thing.

Dylan now hates it (did I mention the crunchy clothes?). He thinks that I’m making everyone suffer because of my childhood.

Maybe I am.

Wanna send me your laundry?

The 'rents back in the day (before my birth). I don't have a wedding photo of them, they TOTALLY looked like hippies in that one. In this it's just my dad trying to not look like a hippie:).

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Post...

You are not going to believe this.

I couldn't make this up. I'm not that funny.

Do you know how long the gestational period of chinchillas is?

111 days.

We've had the chinchilla for 86 days.

I think you know where this is going.


Yeah. That REALLY happened.

No wonder she was so angry and mean. I was also angry and mean when I was pregnant.

Now there are 3. We didn't even want ONE.

And, yeah, hell yeah I told the girl's mother!

So I can milk chinchilla guilt for the rest of the time we are posted in the same place! I may very well follow them from post to post so that I can continue to milk chinchilla guilt for the rest of my life!

When Being Open Backfires...

We've always had a fairly open house. We teach our children the correct anatomical names for their body parts and don't balk when they use them.

Unfortunately, between ages 3 and 4, all of my children suddenly became obsessed with their "private parts".

Seth was at home with me all the time, so I just tried to explain to him that his penis was private and for him only. It seemed to work. (All except for making Ms. J. uncomfortable whenever she came to dinner. But he kind of had a crush on her, and three year olds aren't that great at picking up women.)

With Toby though, maybe he's more obsessed, or maybe I'm just at my limit (which would be awful because I'll soon have another 3 year old boy).

A while back, Toby said, I have a penis. Do you want to see? (He actually says this quite often, it's my response that was different.)

I said, No, I do not want to see your penis. No one is ever going to think your penis is as fabulous as you think it is.

Dylan told me I was being harsh and mean.

Then one day I overheard Dylan say, Your mother is right. No one is ever going think your penis is as fabulous as you think it is.

Small victories.

I have a fear though. Toby goes to preschool. I know one day I will pick him up and his teacher will tell me "Toby showed us something today." And for the split second before she tells me I will be thinking "Please, oh please, oh please, NOT his penis." Then she will say, "His penis."

And I'll just sink into the floor.

Because for all my "openness" with my kids, I am not the least bit open with adults. And I honest to goodness have no idea how to handle that.

No thanks, I'll just die.