Schoolwork

School has been in session for 3 weeks now. I'm glad I check my kids' work, because it makes me laugh.

Samuel showed me a returned test he did really well on, scoring 27/30. One of the points he missed answered this question:
"How might a geographer divide up the earth to study and why?"
He wrote, "A geographer might divide the earth into longitude and latitude to study because he has a test on it."

He made a snarky comment on a test!


Lisy waited too long to do homework. Her Ritalin had worn off. She asked me to help her focus, which I cannot do for her but wish I could. I did try to encourage her while I folded towels and then made dinner. Her assignment was to put her spelling words in sentences. Let's say I began to feel a little frustrated after awhile:

She'd better finish her homework.
You haven't finished your homework?!
Shouldn't you be doing your homework?

It's like she took the words right out of my mouth and placed them on the paper. Sigh.


Benjamin's spelling sentences were more amusing (and less embarrassing for me):

Eating cacti is very unpleasant.
Having superpowers can enable you to break your feet.
Because of your long and boring speech, I'm uninspired.
You kissing a warthog is unlikely and disturbing.
People that are spoiled are always unsatisfied.
            (Dominic and I find this last one very profound.)

Parents Are Scary

The boys are old enough (10 and 11) to think they are big enough to take down their father. What they don't realize is that Dominic wrestled in high school, took Akido lessons on his mission, and is practiced in take-down procedures for work. They didn't stand a chance.

The three of them started wrestling. Dominic used some of his incapacitating moves on his sons. Benjamin wouldn't give up, or tap out, for a long time. Samuel, on the other hand, tapped out quickly. He ran and hid behind me saying, "I never knew Dad was so scary!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When my alarm goes off on a weekday morning, I am not in a good mood. I tend to have very negative thoughts about daytime, school, etc. One morning I was making breakfast for Dominic and Samuel after the elementary school kids (Rachel, Elisa, and Benjamin) had left for the bus. I realized that I felt much better, kinder, and happier once I fully woke up. It was a stark contrast to my initial thoughts of the day. I voiced my observations aloud. 

Dominic said, "Whoa, really?"

Samuel's laugh sounded surprised and nervous. "Note to self," he chuckled, "never wake Mom up. Send someone else in, wait 10 minutes, then talk to her!"

Help I Could Do Without

Makayla: "Mommy, the apple juice was low, so I added more water. Now we have lots!"

Oh no. Really? Samuel had just poured himself more juice, poor kid.

His reaction: "It takes like sour water."

Close, but not quite

Elisa was playing with her toy snake (prize from the dentist). "My snake is a veterinarian. It only eats plants."
"Your snake is a vegetarian?" I tried to clarify, but she didn't notice and kept on playing. So I guess it eats its vegetables while caring for other animals?

"We're going to turts! I love turts," said Makayla.
"Really? We're going to turts?" said Dad.
"No, Daddy, we're going to turts, not turts," said Makayla.
"Turts?" asked Dad.
"Turts!" said Makayla.
"Turts?"
"Turts!"
And they continued like this for 5 minutes, all the way to church.

Making grilled cheese sandwiches with deli meat, I asked Benjamin if he wanted ham or turkey or both. Dominic said, "Hammer turkey? Watch out Benjamin, Mom's going to hammer you with a turkey."

Rachel Loves Pink

After church Rachel came up to me in tears. "My teacher didn't let me choose the pink star. She usually lets me choose the pink star sticker, but she gave me a gold star. She gave everyone a gold star."
"You know," I said, "Some people think the gold star is best."
"But I don't. I wanted the pink star! Pink is my favorite color!"

NO!

YES!

My kids usually like going to the dentist. They like getting stickers, toys, their own mini toothpaste, and even a new toothbrush. As always when we arrived home, I told them to change toothbrushes and throw away the old ones. Four of my children obeyed without any complaints. Rachel came downstairs in tears, holding her old pink toothbrush in her hands. "I don't want to throw it away," she sobbed.

"But at the dentist's office you were excited about your new toothbrush," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but I forgot that I had to throw away my pink one. Can I please keep it?" she begged.

"No, Honey, you need to use the new toothbrush. You can have a pink one the next time we change toothbrushes." Not helpful. She went back upstairs, weeping and wailing. Awhile later Rachel came back downstairs and found solace from Dad. They agreed that she will use her new toothbrush every night, and her pink toothbrush will be kept for camping trips. Dad even made her laugh.

Benjamin's Imagination

You've heard of Medusa, who turned people to stone? Benjamin kept running away from his sisters, who he called "Me-goose-a's" because, he said, they turned people into stone statues of geese. Makayla really got into the game. She chased him around with lots of giggles.

Oh no! Someone looked into the eyes of Megoosa!

Tonight was Benjamin's turn to teach the lesson for Family Home Evening. He said beforehand that he had it all figured out and didn't need any help. I was very curious to see what he would present to us.

Benjamin started by asking Samuel to read a scripture about salt, specifically D&C 101:39-40: "When men are called unto mine everlasting gospel, and covenant with an everlasting covenant, they are accounted as the salt of the earth and the savor of men." He talked a little about how we are the salt of the earth. Then he segued by saying salt is a crystal, like diamonds. Before baptism we are like an uncut diamond. After we get baptized we start getting refined until we look like a beautifully cut diamond.

Microscopic view of salt crystals

An uncut diamond next to a cut diamond

Wow. He is very creative. Plus, he came up with the analogy all by himself.

Rachel's singing

All my children have loved to sing made-up songs when they were little. Rachel has kept it up longer than the others. The whole first day of our camping trip for her 6th birthday, she sang a tuneless song that repeated these phrases (in no particular order), "Camping, we're going camping, I love camping, camping for my birthday, camping is fun ..."

The next day Dominic took the kids fishing. She happily sang, "Going fishing, fishing for my birthday, going to catch a fish, camping and fishing ..."

Camping can be hot

This last weekend we went camping for Rachel's birthday. While we broke camp, we realized Makayla was missing. After a quick search Dominic found her in the van.

"What are you doing in the van?" he asked.

"Well, you see, it's like this," said Makayla. "The sun is hot and the van is colder."

Where is the logic in that?

Today is Rachel's birthday! It was also Cub Scout Pack meeting, in which Benjamin received his Bear (yay!). They planned to have a group of Native American dancers come and perform. The music was loud, of course. Rachel kept covering her ears and complaining. Eventually she told me, "I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm sleepy." 

I wanted to stay until the end. So, trying to encourage her to want to stay I said, "Rachel, this dancing and drumming is part of your heritage." 

She looked confused and said, "How will that solve my problems?" 

Good point.

Cats can't howl past 9 pm

Samuel's class learned about odd laws from around the country. They each got to choose one to write a story about how that law came about. Samuel chose a Columbus, GA law, which states that cats are not allowed to howl past 9 o'clock pm.

"One day in Columbus, Georgia, a group of reble cats got the idea of howling at 10:00 p.m. Every night it sounded like a nuke was going to hit. Everyone complained. One day the mayor got sick of it and because of the noise; went crazy. The next mayor made a law that cats can't howl after 9:00 p.m. 2 years later the cat rebelion made peace with the humans but kept the law as a cymbal of peace."

I kept his spelling and punctuation. He also drew a picture with a cat and a human shaking their paw and hand, respectively.

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs

One of the toilets got clogged. Yuck. I was in the middle of making dinner when the kids told me about it. I wasn't about to fix it right then, so the girls took it upon themselves to put up warning signs. Elisa put up the expected sign: "Out of order." Later on, when I finally had a chance to fix the problem, I saw that Rachel had also put up a sign that was supposed to read: "Who did it? Rachel did it! Meow!" But Rachel is in kindergarten and sounded out the words she didn't know. Plus, she still mixes up her b's and d's. Her sign actually read: "ho bib it? Rachel bib it! meow!" Have I mentioned that Rachel thinks of herself as a cat?

He has a healthy self-esteem

Samuel came home very excited. "Mom, I saw someone at school wearing a really cool shirt today! It said, 'They told me I could be anything, so I became a NINJA!' "

"Fun!" I said. "I once saw a shirt that said, 'They told me I could be anything, so I became AWESOME!' "

He was not that impressed. "Eh," he said, "I'm already awesome."