Focus

The long neglected blog returns!

I had a pretty good track record with the weekly blog concept until a couple of months ago when my focus shifted to other projects and obligations.  Each Wednesday passed and I fell asleep thinking if I had something really interesting to write about, I would take the ten minutes to do it.  The daily routine of work, meals, homework, cleanup, and bedtime sometimes lends itself to the mindset that each day is just like the last, and therefore not very newsworthy.  This year I took some clear steps to break that monotony – I just didn’t take time to write about it!

Most recently, I focused my creative energy on my hobby, Mama’s Pockets.  I am having so much fun choosing fabrics for baby slings and thinking about new products.  The time spent sewing requires concentration, but not to the detriment of the little kids, who play at my feet.  Corda picks through my remnants for her favorites and is learning to sew next to me.

I chose the name Mama’s Pockets because some of my earliest memories are of my mom wearing cardigan sweaters that had pockets.  All day long she could be found picking up the treasures that we left behind and sticking them in her pockets as a temporary home on their journey to their proper place.  Pennies, Legos, you name it.  In her pockets they would be safe.  Throughout the day I would reach in and see if she had anything good that I didn’t even know I had lost yet. 

I have friends who pick a word of the year at New Year’s instead of a resolution.  I have used the word focus a couple of times here and will use it as my motivation in 2015.  I will focus my spare time on strategic, manageable growth of Mama’s Pockets.  Here’s to endeavors that bring you joy!

Late night movie review

I am watching The Impossible, the Naomi Watts/Ewan McGregor film about a family's struggle to reunite with each other after being ripped apart by the Indian Ocean tsunami over Christmas vacation in 2004.  Let's just say I will not be sleeping tonight. It is reminding me a lot of James Franco's 127 Hours about the man in Utah who got his arm trapped under a boulder while hiking.  Both movies are so intense in depicting the agony.  You know how you yell at the athletes on TV when they fumble the ball or cheer them on when they catch an interception?  I'm sitting here barking at the characters in the movie when they make boneheaded decisions and rooting for them to make it out okay as if it is happening in real time before my eyes.  I would definitely recommend both of these movies....just not right before your next vacation!

Fair Food

Howdy folks!  I know it's not Wednesday, but by writing this on Sunday we can count it as either late for last week or early for this week.  Six of one half dozen of the other.  My excuse for being tardy is that I wanted to go all food bloggy and share my reviews of the State Fair of Texas fried food finalists (the Big Tex Choice Awards), and we went to the fair on Friday since that was Fair Day.  Yes, folks, in Texas there is such a thing as Fair Day, a public school holiday designed to peer pressure otherwise reasonably financially responsible families into dumping hundreds of dollars on carnival rides and games.  This concept still baffles this Virginia girl even after ten years in the Lone Star State.

Anywho, since the carnies kind of scare me, we like to treat Fair Day as an opportunity for a tasting menu of fried yumminess.  However, there was not much yumminess to be found this year.  Granted, we could only try a few items due to the fact that we had three kids tall enough to ride contraptions that cost five bucks per person, but what we tried was underwhelming.  First up was the Fried Gulf Shrimp Boil.  This tasted ok, but leaving the tails on meant that the eater had to dig them out of the shrimp ball.  Presentation fail.

Second was the Twisted Texas Taco.  I had to come home and look up what kind of meat it was that I consumed.  'Nuff said.  Lastly we got the Fried Sriracha Balls and Chicken Fried Loaded Baked Potato.  There wasn't much difference in flavor.  Both reminded me of baby food dipped in hot sauce. 

It may just be that I am directionally challenged, but I really struggle to find the Big Tex Choice finalists at the fair.  I spend so much time crisscrossing the fairgrounds with the little map turned upside down trying to find the right stands that by the time I get there I am expecting something along the lines of the French Laundry to compensate for my efforts.  If I ever get to run the fair, I would put all the winners in one building in a line to make it easier for foodies like me.

New mom bucket list

Now that I have passed my enrolled agent exams and the bigger kids are all in school, little Wyatt and I have a few more days of mommy and me time with no commitments or obligations (at least between the hours of 8 and 4 each school day).  I go back to work in less than three weeks.  While it is lovely every once in a while to kick back and watch HGTV all day, we want to make good use of our remaining time together.  Besides that, one of the kids told me recently that I should really consider remodeling the kitchen so that it looks more like the ones on TV, so that was a sign that perhaps the Property Brothers need to be kicked out.

In between exams we have done several fun things.  We visited the Magnolia storefront in Waco (from the aforementioned HGTV's Fixer Upper show).  We accompanied Christopher on a work trip to Tulsa.  We walked around the Dallas Zoo a few times when it was not oppressively hot.  We caught up with old friends and made new ones at MOPS meetings.

So, with that, I ask for your best mom and baby bucket list items that I can check off in the next few weeks.  Got a day long Julia Child-esque recipe for me to attempt?  I'm game.  Know of an awesome little shop somewhere within an hour of Dallas that I need to check out?  Tell me about it.  Anything that I can do with a baby as a sidekick I am eager to try.

Easy as pie...I mean bread

I came across this bread recipe with the outrageous and somewhat grammatically challenged claim of being the "best easiest" bread to make.

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2012/11/07/my-mothers-peasant-bread-the-best-easiest-bread-you-will-ever-make/

I had my doubts.  After all, I took Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, at her word when she told me her orange chicken would be just like Panda Express.  (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2014/09/orange-chicken/) It was not.

So, with all the ingredients on hand for once, having recently discovered the bulk yeast bin at WinCo, I set out to make the "best easiest" bread.  It involves no kneading, it bakes in a bowl, and it rises twice.  Unfortunately somewhere between the no kneading and the second rise, I had to go deal with some car difficulties and put a bunch of kids to bed.  I realized that unless I wanted to wait until midnight for my beast easiest bread, I was going to have to pause this process.  I stuck the bowl in the fridge last night and hoped I didn't just waste four cups of flour.

This morning I took the bowl out and split the dough into two halves.  I put one half in a greased Corningware dish as I wasn't sure my mixing bowls would be ovenproof.  Over the course of about 30 minutes it did rise again, so I picked up where I left off in Alexandra's instructions and baked the bread accordingly.  I gotta say, it is awfully good, and definitely easy and forgiving of my haphazard baking abilities.  It's a keeper!

Discipline

I listen to a lot of sports talk radio.  At least, I think I listen to a lot of it for someone who tries really hard to avoid all athletic endeavors.  I enjoy hearing the analysis, the predictions, the opinions.  This week I have heard variations on the theme of child discipline as it relates to the Adrian Peterson situation.

Let's be clear.  The situation is child abuse.  Whether or not he was trying to discipline, when he drew blood not once, but fifteen some odd times from his son's legs, he was being abusive.  He says he was parenting the way he was raised, and he turned out great, so it must be the right way to go.

I wasn't there, so I don't know if he inflicted this punishment out of anger or frustration.  But, we all reach the end of our patience with our kids, sometimes even before breakfast!  We're all trying to figure out what works the best.  And just when you figure it out for one kid, your next kid has a totally different personality, or your kid gets older and what worked for awhile no longer has the desired effect.

I am the first to admit that my kids rarely do what I want them to do, and it is not unusual for the dinner hour to culminate in a symphony of screams and tears.  But there are options that we should all keep in our arsenal so that we don't lash out with a violent reaction.  Off the top of my head, here are a few suggestions.  Granted, as I type this all of the noisemakers are asleep so it is much easier to do now than in the heat of the  moment when brother 1 is calling brother 2 an idiot and sister 1 is dropping brother 3 and sister 2 is pooping on the living room floor, but let's try.

1.  If siblings are fighting over a toy, put THE TOY in time out.  The top of our refrigerator is the home of many troublesome toys.

2.  For the screaming child: You can scream as much as you want, but you will do it outside.  There's the door.

3.  Instead of yelling commands at your kids, use "when you do this, then this will happen."  For example, when you pick up your toys, you can have ice cream for dessert.  Or, when you finish your homework, I will play checkers with you.

4.  There is a time for whining.  Tell the child that if he wants to whine about something, he can make an appointment at 2:30 am.

Most of these we learned from Love and Logic.  I strongly suggest you pick up one of the books at the library or Google it if you are not familiar with it.

By the way, in my experience absolutely nothing works to make my kids behave in church.  The one place I want them to sit still and try to be holy, they act the worst.  So if any of you have that one figured out, I am all ears.

Work ethic

I overheard a conversation between two HR professionals, one about my age and a supervisor nearing retirement age.  They were lamenting about a particular hire who only lasted a year because he didn’t like the grunt work that was assigned to him.  Then the conversation morphed into an attack on twenty-somethings in general who don’t know how to work, who expect everything to be handed to them, and who want to jump to the primo assignments without putting in the time.

 

Hearing this conversation left me with mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I hated the blanket categorization of a lazy, privileged generation.    Further, I thought it was wildly inappropriate for them to continue the conversation within earshot.

 

On the other, I thought these two HR professionals probably do have enough experience in the industry not only to make the claim, but to provide evidence, that there has been this shift in attitude about work.  We’ve all heard the characterizations of the generations, and my own company spends a fair amount of time studying generational differences to encourage better collaboration and workplace satisfaction.

  

Either way, I am responsible for raising the next generation of workers.  Dodge will presumably enter the workforce (you know, as a professional baseball player) in ten years or so.  Today we are shaping the people who will sell us products, shape policy, heal us, run the infrastructure, and so on.  Just like if you don’t vote you can’t complain about your elected officials, if you don’t play your part to foster independence and responsibility in the next generation, you can’t complain about the quality of young people entering the workforce.  

The phone is ringing

I waited six days for my firefighter/paramedic husband to return from the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.  He will tell you that his efforts, and those of his first responder comrades, were not extraordinary or brave or heroic.  They did the job that they trained every day to carry out.  They answered the call.  The next day they answered another call.  It might not have been of the same magnitude to the nation, but to the family in crisis it was.

The Angels invited him to a commemoration during their baseball game against the Yankees on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  There he met Derek Jeter.  Many will remember Jeter after his retirement this year not for any particular statistic that he accumulated, but for his reliability day in and day out.  He has had an unwavering dedication to his team and the game.  He answered the call.  He never stopped practicing, learning, growing.

Motherhood is our call.  With any luck our on-the-job training will not involve racing into burning buildings, but it will mean getting dirty and running around in circles from time to time.  We are called to be the voice of calm, the dependable one, the one who can save the day (or the science fair project).  One day the emergency might be a crooked ponytail or a sandwich not sliced into perfect triangles.  The next it might be a terrible diagnosis, a lost job, an accident.  Mothers answer the call each time because it is the job we not only have to do, but love to do. 

Our children can’t tell the difference between when we know exactly what to do and when we are making it up as we go along.  As long as we start each day anew with the love and dependability that our children crave, we are succeeding.  You are already your child’s hero, even as you worry each night about the day’s shortcomings.  Over time, the questions and insecurities fade, and a confidence to take on each challenge emerges.  So answer the call.  You are ready.

Vacation

I have mentioned before that people will occasionally call maternity leave "vacation" and that I usually respond with something about how it is not much of a vacation to spend three months in a constant state of semi-awakeness while learning how to do everything one-handed.  Nobody believes me except other parents of multitudes, but this new baby in the house thing really does get easier each time.  I don't remember a single productive thing I did while on maternity leave with Dodge.  It was too much of an ordeal to even go to the grocery store.  By now, I navigate the aisles with 5 kids without much of a hiccup, although we do call it a "girls day out" when just Corda, Mac, and I go shopping (with the baby along for the ride of course).  

On the whole, since I am not working (outside the home) at the moment, I am far busier, or at least more active, than normal.  Instead of sitting at a desk for 8 hours, I have time to do all the other stuff that doesn't get done when I am at work all day, but that work also multiplies.  Instead of cooking and and cleaning up just dinner, all the meals and several snacks fill the days.  Toys that were put away once magically reappear several more times.  Nevertheless, I have been cleaning out closets, studying, failing miserably to install a garbage disposal, and trying my hand at applying for grants for Never Forget Foundation.  I may need to go back to work for a break.

Opportunities to support Never Forget Foundation

Many of you have seen me post about our non-profit Never Forget Foundation, in particular when Christopher visits high schools around the country talking about 9/11 and the skills that students need to develop now to be successful in school and their future careers in public safety, healthcare, or otherwise.  Now that we have official 501(c)(3) status, there are many easy opportunities to help our efforts.  In the coming weeks you will be able to register your Albertsons, Tom Thumb, and Kroger cards to support Never Forget.  In case you don't know how this works, you will simply designate Never Forget as your charity, and then the stores will donate a small percentage of what you spend.  After a minimal effort to register your cards, you can just do your normal shopping and forget about it, but we will never forget your support.  I'll have all the signup details ready soon, so stay tuned.

Observations from the past week

1.  Hank continues to be the source of a number of gems, such as "I slept so good I thought I skipped a day."

2.  When travelling, it might be less of a hassle to pack nothing and just buy what you need when you get there, since a certain mega airline never bothers to deliver the luggage with the passengers.

3.  Does Chris Colfer have a twin?  And if so, is he a Catholic seminarian in Texas?  I was seated at a table with this guy and kept wanting to refer to him as Kurt.

4.  My efforts to get Mackenzie to "use her words" instead of screaming are being undermined by allowing her to watch the birth scenes in the BBC series Call the Midwife with me.

Limbo: How low can you go?

“You know, the key with us is we set the bar low.  That way we got a pretty good chance of winding up happy.”

That quote was at the tail end of a video snippet of my favorite author, Michael Perry, explaining his family’s approach to farming, available here: http://video.wpt.org/video/2365286449/

It pretty much runs counter to what we’ve always said, right?  Aim high, set stretch goals, exceed expectations, do your best!!!

He said that with farming, given his travel schedule and unpredictable Wisconsin weather, he’s happy if they can just grow a little corn to feed to the chickens, so his family can have fresh eggs.  Maybe they can raise a few pigs, and take care of the land they own.  He’s not trying to make a living as a farmer, or grow state fair prize winning vegetables.  Low bar = happy with the results.

I think we need to keep most of our bars high – succeed in school, figure out a career path, manage your money, treat others kindly.  Don’t forget about the low bars, though.  The daily successes will give you the motivation to attack the bigger goals. 

What low bar triumphs have you had lately?  Today, I scrubbed a bathroom, made phone calls and typed this while two babies took naps, and enjoyed a healthy lunch with Mackenzie.  All in all, a good morning.

Week 2

Mom.  Mom!  MOM!  Yes, Dodge?  Did you know that the baby is asleep on the bathroom floor wrapped in a towel?  Of course, that's where I left him, and wherever he wants to sleep is fine with me!  Dodge's concern was particularly amusing because at least once a week he wakes up at o-dark-thirty, takes a shower, and then goes back to sleep on the bathroom floor wrapped in a towel.

When he's not dozing on the floor, Wyatt is usually found in his sling, which always raises a lot of questions when we go out.  Everything from "where can I buy one of those" to "can he breathe in there?"  Or, oddly today when he was dressed in a blue and gray onesie, three strangers asked how old "she" is.

The sling keeps my hands free for cooking, and here's a new recipe that I tried today for lunch.  Half of the family appreciated it! 

Mushrooms and Spinach with Couscous

6 ounces mushrooms, sliced and sauteed in olive oil with garlic
Add 6 ounces of spinach, a cup of uncooked couscous, half a cup of water, and a bit of basil.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in 4 ounces of cream cheese.  That's it!

Week 1

Pardon my absence last Wednesday as I was preoccupied with Wyatt's arrival early that morning.  The Friday before that I attended a lunch during which one person recounted a story of working with a pregnant colleague, and during the time they worked together, he would periodically get distracted and comment to her "You're growing a human right now!  Wow!"  Indeed, wow.  

During the time that I was growing a human, I worried about a number of things - people's reaction to a mom of five who also works outside the home full time being near the top of the list - but I worried most about how Mackenzie would react to being replaced as the baby of the family so soon.  So far, so good.  In fact, she has taken on the role of big girl by giving up her pacifier, adding a couple of words to her vocabulary, and drinking from a regular cup all in the past seven days.  She is still taking a long afternoon nap, giving me time to study for my enrolled agent exams.

The rest of us are working on how to function efficiently as a unit.  For example, we have to load the car in a different order now, and so that means people have to be ready to go when it is their turn.  We have to work more on our menu planning to identify healthy choices that everyone will eat so that we don't waste food or time preparing multiple meals.  I'm all ears on suggestions for getting everyone to pitch in with the laundry.  We get it washed and dried, but rarely put away.

More words to come next week...

Recipe of the week

You will thank me for this after you try it....

Crab Boil Potato Salad
courtesy of Food Network's 50 Potato Salads

Mix together:
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup mayo
1 T lemon juice
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Old Bay

Toss with:
2 pounds boiled, cubed red potatoes
1 cup crabmeat

Chill and serve, assuming you don't eat it all yourself while making it.

Truth be told, I never measure for this sort of thing.  In my last batch I forgot the celery, used more lemon juice and less mayo, and had a greater crab-to-potato ratio.  Still great!

Be prepared

“Be prepared” is a motto we hear a lot.  Two simple words.  In every facet of your life, there is something for which you need to prepare.  You’ll need to eat sometime today, right?  Have you been to the store?  Do you have money in your account?  You have a conference call coming up in a few minutes that will last two hours.  Have you been to the restroom and filled your water glass?  Nobody needs to remind you to do little things like this.  It’s automatic.

If you’ve mastered these essentials of daily living and working, then it shouldn’t be difficult to extrapolate these concepts to being prepared for the more challenging curve balls that come your way, but I am seeing a lot of difficulty with this.  Maybe you were never taught how to plan ahead.  As a parent, my job is to prepare my kids for life without me.  Lessons are learned most easily at a young age when the consequences are small. 

For example, I am doing my best to coach the boys through their summer projects.  You might say, but school just let out a week ago, give them a break!  I disagree.  The last message I want my kids to get is that it is okay to wait until the last minute to complete a project when you have the ability to do it now.  We didn’t know how long we might be on the waiting list at the library for the books to come in, so we put the books on hold as soon as we got the assignments.  We talked about how the reading would need to commence as soon as the books come in, because you only get to borrow them for three weeks.  A renewal might not be available since lots of kids need to read these same books.  Since we talked through these contingencies, when the books arrived, the boys were ready to go.  Dodge finished his today and Hank is almost there.  Now we have time to enjoy the summer and maybe even check the books out again in August as a refresher.  Better safe than sorry.  The boys understood all this.  They never complained.  Each morning and afternoon trip in the car this past week has been spent reading.  It was automatic and it made sense.

It’s not so easy to coach an adult to be prepared.  There are so many excuses – I have other priorities, it can wait, I’ll get to it tomorrow, that’s someone else’s job, I don’t like that task, maybe it will go away.  Well, tomorrow is here, and you still have to do what you always needed to do.  Is it going to be any easier now that you’ve waited until the last minute?  Will you have time to do your best?  Do you know how many people are relying on you?  I'm not sure how well Love & Logic works on adults, but we're about to find out.

Grow up! You live in Texas!

For the past several weeks, I had the joy of driving by fields of beautiful Indian Paintbrush wildflowers.  One day I even pulled over and made my kids wade through them for a photo opportunity, which may or may not make its way into a Father's Day gift for Christopher (the kids spilled the beans within about two minutes of said photo session).  Yesterday my flowers were gone.  Mowed down.  Obliterated.  With intense fury I marked my mental to do list to call the city and demand to know why my flowers were chopped down in their prime.

The answer was surprising.  The Parks Department didn't want to mow those fields.  They were forced into it by residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.  I said surely they couldn't have been complaining about those gorgeous flowers, right?  No, they were complaining about more mice and snakes than usual and demanded that the wildflowers be mowed to curb the problem.  The gentleman told me he really appreciated my call because it gave him some hope that there are still residents out there that appreciate the beauty of nature, but for every call like mine, he was fielding ten complaints about the mouse and snake population.  He had already delayed mowing well past the normal schedule because our relatively cool and moist spring has allowed these flowers to blossom longer than most seasons, but finally the resident demands became too much to handle.

Listen, I am as anti-critter as they come.  I don't even like most domesticated animals.  You will never catch me camping, hiking, or swimming in anything other than a highly chlorinated pool.  I like my animals safely contained at the Dallas Zoo.  However, we made a choice to live in Texas, in a suburb, where in the neverending battle of man vs. nature, you are going to lose.  You can't totally dominate your weeds.  You can't make it rain.  You can't determine whether your pest of the month is going to be the fire ant, coyote, rat snake, or armadillo.  You grow up and deal with it.  You accept that for whatever reason, Noah put those creatures on the Ark, and you put out a mouse trap or two if that's what it takes for the community to enjoy some flowers.

Fifteen

Fifteen years ago tomorrow Christopher and I got married.  It was a warm and sunny day in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  I tossed flowers to little cousins who are now in college.  My grandmother lectured me about hills and valleys and bumps in the road.  We went home and wrote thank you cards and finished packing for our European adventure.  Beggars stole the bread off our table in Paris.  We drove overnight on the "wrong" side of the road.  Every honeymoon picture has me in my favorite sweater that I wore for years until it had holes.

We have some pictures but no videos.  No tweets or posts or blogs.  Yet we can remember details from those days more clearly than most others.  The next day that I could recount minute by minute would be Dodge's birth, and then the younger kids.  Our wedding was the birth of our family.

So, go with me here for a minute. If the firstborn is the marriage, did you care for it like the typical overprotective new parent?  Did you buy it a wipe warmer?  Did you call the doctor when it sneezed?  What about now?  How are you nurturing your now teenage baby?  As for us, we will celebrate with Mickey D's and baseball practice....but never fear, mommy/daddy tasting menu lunch date part two is coming up soon.

Baseball 101

I live far away.

I needed to get gas.

I went to a wedding last night.

These are the verbatim excuses that parents on my son’s baseball team gave me for why they were late to our tournament games this weekend.

Did your house move?

Did your gas tank spring a leak and it took you an hour to MacGyverize a solution using duct tape and a wad of gum?

You got invited to a last minute elopement?  How special.

No, of course I did not actually say those things.  Something in me prevents me from doing that.  I did, however, make a scene stomping around the ballpark, snapping at strangers with dogs, crying in frustration, trying to figure out where to get a spare uniform for my second son so that he could be our ninth player, even though doing so would probably get my coach suspended.

You might say that this is just recreational ball, the kids are just there to have fun, don’t take it so seriously.  My response is that this has nothing to do with baseball.  I’m not going to critique how the kids play, who is an athlete, or who has no business being on the field in the first place.  My beef is solely with the parents and the example they set for their sons.

When you sign up for a team sport, you sign up your whole family, not just the player.  You are making a commitment to get your kid the right equipment, get him to practices and games on time, and practice with him at home.  You are making a decision to give up other things during the season, like sleeping in late on Saturday mornings, watching American Idol live, or whatever else floats your boat.  If you have other kids, they are making sacrifices too.  They will have to do their homework in the car, stay up later than they should, or miss a few friends’ birthday parties.

Obviously I think these sacrifices are worth it.  My kid enjoys playing a sport.  He has put in a lot of effort to become reasonably good at it, but he also understands that the whole team needs to operate as a unit for success.  Not a bit unlike the real world.

Would you tell your boss that you live far away, needed gas, or went to a wedding and couldn’t function the next day?  Well, these parents probably would, but that’s beside the point.  Most of us plan how long it will take to get from point A to point B and add a cushion.  We don’t let the gas tank get below a quarter full.  We plan a vacation day after a wedding if we think we won’t be a good worker the next day.  (People who still think they have a “right” to get drunk once they have children in their care might be a future topic of conversation.)

Your actions tell your kid that he’s not a crucial part of the team.  That his activities are not as important as your fun.  That the work the team put in all season, culminating in a single elimination tournament, is worthless.  That you don’t care.  And we wonder why kids are complacent.

Life happens.  Tires go flat.  People get sick.  I’m not saying you have to make it to every single practice or game.  However, if you gave your firm commitment that you would be there, especially for a tournament, then that needs to be your priority.  There are ten other families on the team that could have picked up your kid and gotten him where he needed to be on time if you called.  If you wondered why we all exchanged names, phone numbers, and email addresses in that initial parent meeting, that’s why.

Ok, so now that we all understand how important just showing up is, let’s briefly cover a few other rules you might not know.

1. Coaches talk to umps, not parents.

2. Your league’s rules are posted.  Become familiar with them so that when you choose to yell at the ump anyway, you will at least have your facts straight.

3. You do not smoke at a kid’s game.

4. He may be your best friend, but he’s not mine.  Keep your dog on a leash.

5. We play when it is hot and cold, but usually not when it is raining or has been raining.  Know the rainout line for the field where you will be playing. (Yeah, this one requires knowing where you will be playing!)

6.  Generally speaking, if the coach yells "throw to first" and you yell "throw home," your kid will not make any play.

7. Your coach is managing the clock.  If he calls time, swaps out players, or tells the third baseman to check his shoelaces, there is most likely a strategic reason for doing so.  Ask the coach after the game if you don’t understand why certain moves were made.

8. Bring a cooler with ice, even if it is a cold day.  When your kid catches one with his nose, you’ll be glad you had the ice.

9. Get out of your car and watch the practice or the game.  You’ll learn the rules of the game and figure out if your kid and your coach are a good fit.

10. Take your kid to see the pros and semi-pros play his sport.

Stuff someone should have told me a long time ago - part one

1. Make your own laundry and dishwasher detergent.
2. I didn't need calculus, but more classes in languages, negotiation, and standing up for yourself without getting fired would have come in handy.
3. A year long family membership at the zoo costs about the same as an action figure or doll for each kid but won't break as easily.
4. Step away from the book store.  That's what the library is for.
5. If you still have cable like I do, call the company every three months.  They will give you some kind of discount if you ask sweetly.
6. Baking soda and vinegar can fix a lot of problems.
7. Pets are more work than kids.
8. It took four kids to get one who needed or wanted it, but now I truly appreciate the pacifier.  She can keep it until high school as far as I'm concerned.
9.  Pack your lunch.  It makes the occasional lunch out seem like a big treat.
10.  I spend more and waste time when I try to save money using coupons.  Just go to the discount grocery store.  It's all the same underneath the packaging.

Fundraising

This one is late because 1) I'm as guilty as everyone else for shamelessly plugging various fundraisers, and 2) I'll probably generate a lot of ill will for slamming my school.

Over the years I have sold cookie dough, magazine subscriptions, raffle tickets, wrapping paper.  Just this week I used social media, word of mouth, handouts, and begging to get people to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings, which generously donated 10% of their proceeds from the day (not just based on the sales of the people who brought the ticket, but for all their tables!) to support Dodge's fundraiser for ALS.  I've also tried to support other people's fundraisers as much as possible - Girl Scout cookies, restaurant discount cards, Rangers ticket deals, car washes.  It's a game we all play - you support my kid, I'll support yours.

I don't mind any of this kind of activity.  If I don't need wrapping paper, I don't buy it, and I don't feel guilty about it.  If you don't like wings, I don't begrudge you for eating at home.  However, I do find the following scenario annoying, to the point that it made me envious of my homeschooling friends who probably don't have to deal with this kind of convoluted extortion.

For Field Day, which for some odd reason is always held on a muggy day in May instead of a pleasant March day when the weather in Dallas is near perfect, we had to bring plain white Ts for each kid to be tie-dyed.  Had I been smart, I would have found classmates roughly the same size as my kids and pooled money to buy the multipacks of undershirts, but instead I am now the proud owner of one pink shirt (Dodge), one purple shirt (Hank), one blue shirt (Corda), and 9 extra white shirts.

The kids are going to be exercising really hard in the humidity, so they are going to need lots of ice and coolers and water bottles and towels and sunblock and hats.  Should I forget this, I have been given 4 notes, 3 emails, and a 1 robocall.

However, Field Day is not really about exercise or three-legged races or a freebie day at the end of the school year.  No, it is a fundraiser for the PE department.  So, each grade has been assigned snacks to donate to the school, and those snacks will then be SOLD BACK to my kids when they get hungry, and the proceeds go to the PE department.  Yes Mom, you will be paying twice for those Cutie oranges and vegan granola bars.  My kids are well aware that Field Day is an opportunity to eat all day, and they are asking for money for tomorrow's festivities.  On the way to school Dodge asked me to please go to the bank today and get singles as an advance on his allowance so that he can buy snacks (ummm....did you clean the bathroom or do dish duty or put away your laundry or practice your instrument this week?).

I know I have no grounds for complaint because I chose not to be on the committees that make these decisions.  That's fine, and I'll probably even dig up a few dollars so the kids can get their snow cones.  However, in the future, let's simplify.  Let's just say that if the PE department needs $1000 for X, Y, and Z, then let's collect donations or get Sports Authority to sponsor us.  Let's keep the fun days and the fundraisers separate.

Pennies

There's really nothing better than a penny to a kid, right?  I used to collect pennies when I was little.  I had a book where I could store one from each year.  I also loved to save enough to be able to wrap them in the 50 penny rolls and trade them in at the bank for "bigger" money.  Just the right size for a small hand, a different color than the other coins, feeling rich if you have a whole bunch.

As we drove home tonight, Corda was admiring a penny.  She asked me many questions about where it came from, how many it would take to buy an airplane ticket to visit Grandma, and so on.  The conversation meandered to other topics.  Then I hear choking from the back row.  Oh yeah, the same girl who was calculating compound interest for her piggy bank just could not resist that shiny coin and decided to see what would happen if she tried to swallow it.  Fortunately it flew out and it was just a brief scare for both of us.  "Mom, can I get unbuckled?  My penny is on the floor!!"

Dragons

It's still Wednesday somewhere, right?  Maybe on that second earth they found earlier this week?  I won't bore you with the details of caring for a toddler who has been sick this week (lesson: might as well stick it out at CareNow for the 3.5 hour wait when the ear infection is first suspected or else your kid with a high tolerance for pain will go undiagnosed but cranky for a week).  Instead, my Wednesday Words for the week are to slow down and do something one on one with your kid every once in a while.  Hank really wanted to show me a YouTube video about dragons.  I figured it was a 4 minute Pokemon dragon something.  Oh no.  One hour and thirty-six minutes of quasi-documentary/infotainment that he saw once, memorized as gospel, and now needs to preach to the world.  It is a rare thing to have this almost eight year old beg to sit in my lap and watch something, so we did.  When I visited his school today, I saw that he used dragons as the topic for his weekly writing exercise too.  As I type, he's wearing his Spiderman costume and doing the play-by-play of a dragon battle that only he can see.  An hour and a half well spent to see inside that little guy's world.

You can't unsee that....

Since moving to Texas in the spring of 2004, I have always looked forward to the arrival of the bluebonnets.  It's my favorite color.  Ordinary medians suddenly become things of beauty during my daily commute.  The weather is neither too hot or too cold.  I have a couple of favorite fields where we go each year and let the kids run around, and I attempt to get at least one good shot of all of them looking at the camera at the same time.  I stalk the weather reports and figure out the best day in a three week window when it will not be too sunny, windy, or muddy.

All of that is ruined now, because I came across the tumblr site pooping on bluebonnets.  Thanks, internet, for permanently etching that phrase in my brain.

Thanks for the help, I think.

As a parent, when do you want help and when do you find it an intrusion?

On Sunday I took a load of CDs, a baby, and a five year old to Half Price Books.  It was raining.  I had the baby in the stroller, the five year old trying to push it, and a crate of CDs in my arms.  There was a man standing outside the door who made no attempt to open it for us.  I did a one-legged flamingo move to balance the crate, pull open the door, and get the stroller and girls inside.  He looked at us but did not help.  I was a little peeved that it did not occur to him to open the door (I would not have expected or wanted him to carry the crate).

The day before....we're at a baseball game and the baby crawled under the bleachers and found someone's trash to nosh on.  I took the trash from her mouth and walked it over to the trash can maybe 10 yards away.  She screamed.  Other mothers took pity on this poor, dirty child abandoned under the bleachers and they tried to console her.  When I got back I was a little peeved that people were touching my kid and in their actions indirectly saying that I was not doing a very good job at keeping my kid content and safe since she was crying and I was not with her.

So who is the hypocrite?  Me for being annoyed at both situations?  Probably.  Do I want help or not?  Is it fair to want help only on your own terms?  How do you decide when and how to help others?

Friday, March 28, 2014

I get a lot of "How many kids do you have?!?  And you work?  How do you do it?"  Well folks, I think I do it the same as anyone who has one kid or elderly parents or three jobs, or four dogs, but you can judge for yourself based on a typical day in the life....

6 am – Alarm goes off and New School on 105.3 The Fan is covering college basketball.  Ugh.  Boring.  Snooze.

6:34 am – Last possible moment to wake up and get out by 7.  Contacts in, pajamas that double as gym clothes still on.  Wake up kids who haven’t been playing Minecraft since 5 am.

7 am – Impressed that the boys got the trash out with one reminder and Corda remembered her shoes (we have issues with that).

7:37 am – Drop off Mac.  “Forget” to take the pacifier out of her mouth at day care.  Will probably either be lectured about that later or the pacifier will somehow disappear.

7:45 am – Drop off bigger kids.  Make 8 point turn to get out of the teacher parking lot because I long ago gave up the fight against the parents who park in the circular drive.

8:10 am – Park in garage near gym door so that I don’t have to walk through the office lobby in pajamas.

8:11 am – Make several trips between 5^th floor gym and 15^th floor property management office because my badge won’t open the gym and the various reprogramming efforts and replacement badges are not working either.  I guess this is my workout.  Pushing elevator buttons and keeping calm with property management counts, right?  Not sure how many partners see me with my Fort Worth Cats baseball cap on.

8:51 am – Shower and dress. 

9 am – Sit on gym floor and act professional on conference call because there wasn’t enough time to get upstairs.

9:45 am – Show up at my desk fashionably late.  Work.

4 pm – Explain to a coworker that it is not mean to take my younger children to watch my older child play baseball.  I think they’ll make it.  They might even learn something about teamwork, effort, goodwill, or, if they are not interested in the game, how to occupy themselves while getting fresh air for two hours.

4:15 pm – Contemplate how many errands I can get done before picking up the kids without being late vs. after getting the kids without hearing the chorus of “I’m starving.”

4:20 pm – Head to garage.  Hear Pompeii on three different radio stations while avoiding Katy Perry songs.

5:05 pm – Arrive at the good Walmart.  Go for spinach and come out with groceries for the weekend because I am on a roll.

5:42 pm – Arrive at Boys & Girls Club for the boys.  Hank is in the middle of a book about the history of the Rangers.  Dodge ridicules him for reading about a team we don’t like.

5:56 pm – My side of the conversation goes like this: “Be nice.  Don’t call your brother that.  You know he is not dumb or blind.”  Arrive at day care.  Girls are ready to go.  Mac has pacifier.  Her teachers are getting soft like me!

6:00 pm – Corda criticizes me for being the last parent to arrive.  Sings Let It Go, even though she has not seen the movie.  Explains that she learned how to tie shoes.  Yells at her brothers to stop talking about Pokemon so she can talk about her day. 

6:25 pm: Stuck behind four car accident.  Kids 1 and 4 are asleep.  Corda is still talking about friends, tornado drills, library books, what day it is, and how to spell made up words like “yellowteen” – a number that is also a color!

6:35 pm – Stop at Walgreens to pick up pictures for Hank’s science project.

6:43 pm – Drop off Hank two blocks from home to run the rest of the way for his exercise.

6:45 pm – Arrive home, start laundry and dishes left over from yesterday, and fix dinner (shrimp and spinach salad).

7:20 pm – I am the only person who spills something during dinner.

7:30 pm – Prep food for tomorrow.

7:45 pm – Decide to do the elliptical.

7:47 pm – It is brought to my attention that the baseball uniform for tomorrow is still in the dirty clothes.  Get off elliptical, step on little green army men.  Start more laundry.

7:50 pm – Bath time for girls.  Opt for sit-ups while they splash.

8:05 pm – Notice several more teeth that Mac is getting.  She goes to bed without a fuss.  Good baby she is.

8:15 pm – Hank picks 42 for movie night.  He spends the next two hours playing Minecraft instead of watching.

9:00 pm – Get emails about requests for calls over the weekend.  Wonder if I should schedule those during the baseball games or the birthday parties.

10:11 pm – Work on a project that others didn’t want to do.  Brownie points for me?

11 pm – Lights out.

2:10 am – Lights on.  Baby awake in the middle of the night for the first time in months.  Goes right back to sleep with some milk.  Check for sleeping locations of other children in case we need to evacuate in an emergency – Dodge and Hank in their own beds (very odd) and Corda on the downstairs couch (her new thing).

5:15 am – Alarm for hubby to get up for work.  Consider elliptical.  It will still be there in a couple of hours.

Winging it

When people ask what I do at work sometimes I say that I am not a lawyer but I play one at the office.  (You remember "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV.")  It's easier to say that than to get into the roles and responsibilities of TQ vs. GCO vs. any number of other EY-specific acronyms that many of us lifers can't even remember and others couldn't care less about.

I can think of a lot of other jobs that technically I am not, but I get to play from time to time - baseball coach, accountant, mediator, taxi driver, teacher, cook.  But no, this blog is not about under appreciated parents who juggle a bazillion different responsibilities and someone manage to end the day with the same number of children that they started with when they woke up.

I have had my current job or one basically similar to it for the past 15 years.  I started with a college degree in political science because people told me in sixth grade that I liked to argue too much, I should be a lawyer, and if you want to get into law school you should major in political science.  I didn't question any of that or waver at all until faced with the reality of at least three more years of school, incredible amounts of tuition, and no income.  I made the rational decision to work for a couple of years before committing to law school.  Guess what?  I didn't even have my first paycheck before deciding I wanted to keep working and not become a lawyer after all.

What job could I do that would pay a decent salary, give me flexibility to raise a family, and not require any additional letters after my name?  Well, for me it's a sort of paralegal, risk manager, trainer, number cruncher.  If I had to, I could probably think of a more eloquent way to express that on a resume.  But for now, I'll be happy that I have the opportunity to keep winging it here until I figure out what I really want to be when I grow up.

That's the advice - find a place to work that is big enough that your role can morph over time as you discover what you like and what you're good at, because there are very few people who ever figure that out, let alone at 22.

Lobster

In my first WW blog I mentioned Julie and Julia, which is just a thoroughly enjoyable book and movie, foodie or not.  I love the lobster killing scene especially.  Does that make me a bad person?  Oh well.  Making Julia Child’s lobster thermidor is not your usual weeknight endeavor.  Between finding the lobster, cooking and cleaning them, trying to make sure you’ve kept the right internal organs, and assembling the dish, you’re talking about several hours of work.  (I’ve done it twice without ingesting enough of the wrong internal organs to suffer any adverse consequences, so I don’t worry about it too much.  I mean really, who has time to perfectly distinguish between sand sacks and coral matter?)  So this weekend rent yourself a copy of the movie, sing along with “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads, and enjoy some buttery goodness.

Serves 6

Tools and Ingredients

·         Covered, enameled or stainless steel kettle with tight-fitting cover or stainless steel saucepan

·         4-cup enameled or stainless steel saucepan

·         1 1/2-quart enameled saucepan

·         Wooden spoon

·         Wire whip

·         3-quart mixing bowl

·         12-inch enameled or stainless steel skillet

·         Shallow roasting pan or fireproof serving platter

·         3 cups dry white wine or 2 cups dry white vermouth

·         2 cups water

·         1 large onion, thinly sliced

·         1 medium carrot , thinly sliced

·         1 stalk celery, thinly sliced

·         6 sprigs parsley

·         1 bay leaf

·         1/4 tsp. thyme

·         6 peppercorns

·         1 Tbsp. fresh or dried tarragon

·         3 live lobsters, 2 pounds each

·         1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms

·         1 Tbsp. butter

·         1 tsp. lemon juice

·         1/4 tsp. salt

·         5 Tbsp. butter

·         6 Tbsp. flour

·         1 Tbsp. cream

·         1 Tbsp. dry mustard

·         2 egg yolks

·         1/2 cup whipping cream

·         4 to 6 Tbsp. more whipping cream

·         Pinch cayenne pepper

·         4 Tbsp. butter

·         1/3 cup cognac

·         1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Swiss cheese

·         2 Tbsp. butter, cut into bits

Directions

Steaming the lobsters: Simmer wine, water, vegetables, herbs, and seasonings in the kettle for 15 minutes. Then bring to a rolling boil and add the live lobsters. Cover and boil for about 20 minutes. The lobsters are done when they are bright red and the long head-feelers can be pulled from the sockets fairly easily.

While the lobsters are steaming, stew the mushrooms slowly in the covered saucepan with the butter, lemon juice, and salt for 10 minutes.

The sauce: When the lobsters are done, remove them from the kettle. Pour the mushroom cooking juices into the lobster steaming juices in the kettle and boil down rapidly until liquid has reduced to about 2 1/4 cups. Strain into the 4-cup enameled or stainless steel saucepan and bring to the simmer.

Cook the butter and flour slowly together in the 1 1/2-quart saucepan for 2 minutes without browning. Off heat, beat in the simmering lobster-cooking liquid. Boil, stirring, for 1 minute. Set aside. Film top of sauce with the cream.

Split the lobsters in half lengthwise, keeping the shell halves intact. Discard sand sacks in the heads, and the intestinal tubes. Rub lobster coral and green matter through a fine sieve into the mixing bowl, and blend into it the mustard, egg yolks, cream, and pepper. Beat the sauce into this mixture by driblets.

Return the sauce to the pan, and stirring with a wooden spoon, bring it to the boil and boil slowly for 2 minutes. Thin out with tablespoons of cream. Sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon fairly heavily. Taste carefully for seasoning. Set aside, top filmed with a spoonful of cream.

Sautéing the lobster meat: Remove the meat from the lobster tails and claws, and cut it into 3/8-inch cubes. Set the skillet with the butter over moderate heat. When the butter foam begins to subside, stir in the lobster meat and sauté, stirring slowly, for about 5 minutes until the meat has turned a rosy color. Pour in the cognac and boil for a minute or two, shaking the skillet, until the liquid has reduced by half.

Final assembly: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Fold the cooked mushrooms and two thirds of the sauce into the skillet with the lobster meat. Arrange the split lobster shells in the roasting pan. Heap the lobster mixture into the shells; cover with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with cheese and dot with butter. The recipe may be prepared ahead up to this point and refrigerated.

Place in upper third of 425-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until lobster is bubbling and the top of the sauce is nicely browned. Serve immediately on a platter or serving plates.

Timing

Let’s summarize the past week.  Mere hours after I published my last Wednesday Words, in which I was so proud of my car for coasting across the 200,000 mile mark, someone’s momentary mind farkle resulted in said car landing in the repair shop for the next week (maybe two, based on the last call from the insurance company).  I was patiently waiting at a red light, but the person behind me was not fully concentrating on the task at hand and crashed into me.  I am fine, and my car really didn’t look that bad off, but even a minor fender-bender can result in some hefty repair bills.

This unfortunate turn of events made me think it might be a bit unlucky to gloat about my worldly possessions in my WW blog.  So, I didn’t talk about the accident too much until dealing with the associated appointments made it necessary to take a day off of work and explain my absence.  I accepted a fair settlement for my inconvenience, aches and pains, and missed work on top of the repairs and rental car that will be covered.  Guess what?  The next day the radiator on the other family car goes kaput (the mechanic described it as “hanging on by a paper clip”), and the settlement check is freakishly close to the radiator estimate.  Luck?  Coincidence?  Provision?

So, Mr. Red Suzuki loses focus and hits my car, but has insurance that pays out the extra amount needed to pay for repairs on a different car the same week.  It is not so often that one can connect the dots so neatly.  Usually life is more like Jeff Goldblum’s chaos theory in Jurassic Park: “A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine.”  In other words, everything we do impacts everything else, but the distance, time lapse, and intermediary steps make it very hard to see the big picture.

What about this?  Yesterday the boys were delayed in getting back to the Boys and Girls Club from a field trip.  As a result, I had to leave, pick up the girls, come back, get the boys, race to practice, arrive an hour past the start time, and not feed anyone until after practice was over.  Was this a random inconvenience?  Was it intentionally designed such that we would miss some yet unknown disaster, interaction, or opportunity?  What butterfly flapped its wings and why?

As one of my baseball dad friends often says… go marinate!

Mileage

Since today is Christopher’s birthday, I definitely want to wish him a happy day and upcoming year.  But first, here is a note on another birthday of sorts.  My trusty car (can you call it a car when it seats 7?) will hit 200,000 miles today.  It is a 2004 Acura MDX that we bought used a few weeks before Miss Corda was born in 2009.  It was the newest car I had ever owned.  Someone had maintained it perfectly.  There were no scratches, no stains, actually no evidence that anyone had ever driven the thing other than the 69,000 or so miles on the odometer.

Before I got this car, I never had a clicker to unlock the doors.  I thought I had a major malfunction the first time I accidentally turned on the seat warmers, and I jumped out looking for a fire under the car.  I felt pretty cool way up high looking down on the commuters around me.  The car was so quiet and smooth!  

With two boys and a baby girl in the middle and back rows, soon the Cheerios and graham cracker crumbs began to pile up.  Several baseball tournaments in the mud left their mark.  There was that time the lady leaving Sonic was too busy drinking her Route 44 to notice my massive vehicle and bumped into the side of us.  Add another kid, more backpacks and permanent markers, and the Acura is definitely not new anymore.  The charger doesn’t charge my cell phone.  The seat warmers don’t warm.  The A/C doesn’t reach the back row.

It is still the perfect car for me.  I grumbled after needing to dump most of a paycheck into it last week for brakes and various other necessities that I can’t even begin to describe, but that’s what you do when you love and need something and want it to stick around for 200,000 more miles.

Hmmm…sounds a bit like marriage.  Everything starts off new and fancy, and through the day after day grind you invest time and energy so that it will keep on going.  So, on his birthday, while I can’t buy a bunch of fancy presents due to the aforementioned repairs, I do wish my bubbly hubbly the very best day ever.  Here’s to 79 (more) years together. 

Back in 1983...

Corda and I celebrated birthdays this week.  My kids are 10, 7, 5, and 14 months.  I wonder how much of their daily lives they will remember once they get to my ripe old age of 36.  I am so old that it was literally only a couple of days ago that I realized I was turning 36 and not 35.  I lost (gained?) a whole year somewhere.  I hope that they will forget the times I yelled at them and forgot to do things I promised.  Besides forgetting my age, I have forgotten most of the little details from my childhood.  Here are a few of the memories that have stayed with me.

I remember attending morning preschool at Little Elves in Manassas, Virginia.  There was one time when I had to come in face paint, probably Halloween.  My teacher commented on how cute or scary I was, and I promptly got shy and tried to rub it all off.

I remember getting chicken pox in kindergarten and spreading it to other kids in my class.  (Sorry Sudley Elementary!)  I also remember there were three Jennifer B’s in that class. 

This is the year Uptown Girl by Billy Joel came out.  I thought this was the best song ever.  I sang it all the time like little girls today sing Katy Perry songs.  I also had a thing for Culture Club - Karma Chameleon.  I was allowed to listen to it but not see the album cover.  My older sister Elizabeth was in high school, and I can picture her cassette tape collection on the wall of her room: the Police, Duran Duran, Billy Idol, the Eurythmics, Tears for Fears, Rick Springfield.

When I was in first grade, my brother had to have surgery.  My mom took me to the neighbor’s house at the crack of dawn to get a ride to school later while the rest of the family was at the hospital.  Despite the fact that her sole job was to get me to school on time, the neighbor got me to school very late.  Class was already in session and I needed a note from the office.  I didn’t like having that tardy on my permanent record. 

I remember an icy Christmas Eve around that time when we went to church and came out to find the car frozen over.  Someone had to use a lighter to melt the ice enough so that we could unlock the doors.  This struck me as very resourceful and a better use of a lighter than smoking!

At the beginning of second grade, I took some placement testing to see if I could move up to third grade.  The test administrator asked me if I liked my pencils sharp or dull.  I said that it didn’t matter and I never really thought about it.  She said that I needed to decide what kind of pencil I wanted to use because if I was distracted by anything I might not do well on the test.  I remember thinking that if third grade involved weird questions and mind games like this, maybe I didn’t want to go!  (I do not recall what kind of pencil I ultimately used, but it must have been okay, because soon enough I was packing up for Mrs. Quell's class.)

Our report cards had a box that a teacher could check to request a parent conference.  My second grade teacher checked that conference box to start this process of moving me to third grade after the first six weeks.  At the end of the second/third grade year, I took that report card and scribbled out the conference requested box because I didn't want anyone (college admission officers? my future children? Congress?) to think I needed a conference for disciplinary reasons.  Later on, I decided that wasn't enough, so in my best Ms. Bell handwriting I added a note that said "We think Dianne should be promoted to third grade."  See, I've been like this forever!!

Speechless

Statements and questions to which I had no logical or smarty-pants responses last week…and only some of these were from my kids.

 I have to go outside because I need a stapler. (What other office supplies are we storing in the yard?)

We are the A-Team. (I really liked MacGyver a lot more.)

Did I mention that I am very famous? (If you have to mention it…)

I don’t know what I meant when I wrote this sentence, so can you tell me what I meant? (Biting tongue because you outrank me…)

How long does it take to destroy a light bulb? (I know you have to come up with a list of activities that take one second, one minute, and one hour…maybe you’ll get creative points for this one.)

I can’t eat dinner right now because I didn’t die yet. (I’ll make zombie food next time.)

If you had read the book you would have been able to tell me how to describe the character. (True, but you would only know if I was doing your homework correctly if you also read the book.)

We need a team of lateral thinkers. (Why did my eyes just move sideways like I was preparing to cross the street?)

If we start at 9 and end at 9:50 that will be 45 minutes. (Fuzzy math)

 I need to Google how to sleep. (Start by walking away from the computer.)

I might need to make you a new debit card because the expiration date stopped working. (I might need to find a bank that doesn’t mess up my life on a whim.)

This is a small, intentionally Christian college.  (Oh, I was looking for an accidentally Christian college.)