...12 hours of intense interrogation! I have heard that other kids ask a lot of questions but somehow, I have to wonder if they ask as many as Katie. Many parents have "quiet time" where no one is allowed to talk. We have "no more question time", when no one is allowed to ask any questions. I don't care if she talks, as long as I get a break from coming up with clever and intelligent, or even well invented, answers!
Her latest queries have been largely about Carrie Underwood. It all started a year or 2 ago when we watched her on American Idol. Katie fell IN LOVE with Carrie. When her first couple of songs came out, "Jesus Take the Wheel" and "Don't Forget to Remember Me", we thought it was great and let Katie continue her infatuation. Well, then comes along the cheating song. I don't know the actual name, but where she "dug her key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4-wheel drive...", (my favorite part being "she's dabbing all $3 of that bathroom Polo"). I'm sure you've heard it if you ever listen to country. Anyway, it's pretty ugly. Unfortunately, by the time that song came out, Katie could instantly recognize her voice, so I had to change the station quick when it came on. Well, all was fine until one day, we are in a pizza joint that had 5 huge TV's, 2 of which are set on CMT. Don't you know, the video comes on. Katie goes nuts! Great. And now the questions begin.
Today, the song came on and I switched the station quick, but she recognized it.
"Why don't we listen to that song?" she asks for the fiftieth time.
"Because it talks about someone being mean." I say. for the 50th time.
Then comes a new question. "Why does Carrie walk funny in the movie (ie. music video)?"
I had to think a minute about that one. I guess she is talking about the bad-attitude-exuding, disjointed-looking-hips-type swagger. As I'm thinking this over...
"You know, mom, like she has to go pee pee!"
I cracked up because that is exactly how Katie walks when she has to go! "I guess Carrie had a little too much juice before she started making the movie!" I reply.
"I guess so," says Katie.
Score one for mom!
Friday, March 30, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
"Oh pitiful...thy name is Micah!"
So, if you haven't been to our house recently, you don't know that it looks significantly different than it did a year ago, as in "pre-Micah-moving-around" time. There are gates on the kitchen entry's (not flimsy baby gates - built in, hinged-to-the-trim-and-made-of-solid-wood gates), new little doors on the entertainment center, closed bedroom doors and empty bookshelves, all of which are screwed to the wall. Baby-proofed is an understatement.
It is interesting, the reactions to the fortressifying (that's my new word) of our house. Most people laugh. Some seem mystified. A couple people, I think, don't think it's fair to Micah! Like his civil liberties are being infringed upon, by his being banished from most of the house. I guess these folks think he should have free reign. They probably think I am too lazy to keep an eye on him all the time. Maybe they assume I fence him into the living room so that I can take naps all day!
I don't really know what anyone is thinking, short of what they say, just like no one should presume to know what I am thinking if they don't ask. But I won't go there today. All I'll say is, if you have a kid like Micah, you will nod understandingly at the "boundaries". If you don't, you can let Micah spend a day at your house, and then you will have no further questions!
ANYWAY, I was leading to this little anecdote. Today, I put up the temporary gate in the hallway so that I could work on the computer and leave the door open and see him while I worked. Micah was very content and occupied with his stack of yellow legos (he only likes the yellow ones this week) and his favorite Wiggles movie. But his innate "I'm losing some space" instinct caused him to look over and see me silently putting the gate up. Let me say, I was working in absolute silence so as not to disturb the serenity of the living room but somehow he felt this happening. So immediately, he runs to the gate and the "mamamamamamama (sniff)" starts. (Another thing about Micah - he always has this little sniff after he says mama. It's quite charming.) I wave and smile from the computer desk and my greeting is not well received. In fact, it all hits the fan. He began crying so pitifully and with so much effort (fake crying requires so much more effort than real crying) that I couldn't help but snicker. His lip could have gotten stung by a bee, it stuck out so far. When he heard me laugh, he turned away and increased his pitch, moving into an injured cry. I went to the gate to attempt to comfort, without giving in to his shameless attempt at guilt. He grabbed my hand and started rubbing his face with it, as if saying "how can you leave this huge, fuzzy head out here alone?" This went back and forth for several minutes, in various forms, but I had decided that I wouldn't take the gate down while he was still throwing a fit because then he'd get his way with a fit. FINALLY, he calmed down and I casually stepped over the gate, back into his world, and sat down on the couch to play with him.
And don't you know, he strolled back over to his yellow legos, sat down with his back to me and picked up right where he'd left off, without so much as looking at me! Anyone who says that babies don't try to manipulate adults has not met my kids! Maybe we have a unique gene for that but I am convinced that they both came from the womb with that instinct fully developed!
Oh well. What can you do.
It is interesting, the reactions to the fortressifying (that's my new word) of our house. Most people laugh. Some seem mystified. A couple people, I think, don't think it's fair to Micah! Like his civil liberties are being infringed upon, by his being banished from most of the house. I guess these folks think he should have free reign. They probably think I am too lazy to keep an eye on him all the time. Maybe they assume I fence him into the living room so that I can take naps all day!
I don't really know what anyone is thinking, short of what they say, just like no one should presume to know what I am thinking if they don't ask. But I won't go there today. All I'll say is, if you have a kid like Micah, you will nod understandingly at the "boundaries". If you don't, you can let Micah spend a day at your house, and then you will have no further questions!
ANYWAY, I was leading to this little anecdote. Today, I put up the temporary gate in the hallway so that I could work on the computer and leave the door open and see him while I worked. Micah was very content and occupied with his stack of yellow legos (he only likes the yellow ones this week) and his favorite Wiggles movie. But his innate "I'm losing some space" instinct caused him to look over and see me silently putting the gate up. Let me say, I was working in absolute silence so as not to disturb the serenity of the living room but somehow he felt this happening. So immediately, he runs to the gate and the "mamamamamamama (sniff)" starts. (Another thing about Micah - he always has this little sniff after he says mama. It's quite charming.) I wave and smile from the computer desk and my greeting is not well received. In fact, it all hits the fan. He began crying so pitifully and with so much effort (fake crying requires so much more effort than real crying) that I couldn't help but snicker. His lip could have gotten stung by a bee, it stuck out so far. When he heard me laugh, he turned away and increased his pitch, moving into an injured cry. I went to the gate to attempt to comfort, without giving in to his shameless attempt at guilt. He grabbed my hand and started rubbing his face with it, as if saying "how can you leave this huge, fuzzy head out here alone?" This went back and forth for several minutes, in various forms, but I had decided that I wouldn't take the gate down while he was still throwing a fit because then he'd get his way with a fit. FINALLY, he calmed down and I casually stepped over the gate, back into his world, and sat down on the couch to play with him.
And don't you know, he strolled back over to his yellow legos, sat down with his back to me and picked up right where he'd left off, without so much as looking at me! Anyone who says that babies don't try to manipulate adults has not met my kids! Maybe we have a unique gene for that but I am convinced that they both came from the womb with that instinct fully developed!
Oh well. What can you do.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Have you ever lived...
...in the middle of road construction? It is a funny thing. When we bought this house, they were just putting out the orange barrels on the state highway that our neighborhood is off of. Now, 3 years later, we are still dodging those barrels. I've only hit one, but apparently everyone else has too because there is a growing barrel-cemetary on one side of the road.
Anyway, I am always amazed at the progress. They don't ask me how I would do it. But if they did, I would have some great ideas. The funny thing is, every time I pass the giant paving machine, it is stopped. I don't think I have seen it move more than a couple times in 3 years. I know it moves slowly, but it is truly stopped every time I pass it. Yet, somehow, I come back out on the road a couple hours after seeing it stopped and they have paved half a mile. And the machine is stopped again. There must be little paving elves that only work when no one is watching.
Here is one of my great, economical tips, for all the paving workers who I am sure read my blog on their lunch breaks. When there is that line of dump trucks lined up in front of the paver that never moves, why waste the man power of having someone wait inside each truck. Why not have a couple drivers that leap-frog between trucks. Then the other 8 drivers could do something productive instead of sitting in their trucks, waiting for their turn to dump asphalt into the paver that never moves. How about putting our street signs back up so that folks can figure out how to get to our house? Or maybe, push the dents out of the barrels in the cemetary? Anything but just sitting in the dump truck line.
Well, there you have my 2 cents. Hopefully, they will finish the road, at least the part in front of our neighborhood, before Katie learns to drive. Otherwise, they will need to buy a lot more barrels!
Anyway, I am always amazed at the progress. They don't ask me how I would do it. But if they did, I would have some great ideas. The funny thing is, every time I pass the giant paving machine, it is stopped. I don't think I have seen it move more than a couple times in 3 years. I know it moves slowly, but it is truly stopped every time I pass it. Yet, somehow, I come back out on the road a couple hours after seeing it stopped and they have paved half a mile. And the machine is stopped again. There must be little paving elves that only work when no one is watching.
Here is one of my great, economical tips, for all the paving workers who I am sure read my blog on their lunch breaks. When there is that line of dump trucks lined up in front of the paver that never moves, why waste the man power of having someone wait inside each truck. Why not have a couple drivers that leap-frog between trucks. Then the other 8 drivers could do something productive instead of sitting in their trucks, waiting for their turn to dump asphalt into the paver that never moves. How about putting our street signs back up so that folks can figure out how to get to our house? Or maybe, push the dents out of the barrels in the cemetary? Anything but just sitting in the dump truck line.
Well, there you have my 2 cents. Hopefully, they will finish the road, at least the part in front of our neighborhood, before Katie learns to drive. Otherwise, they will need to buy a lot more barrels!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The best parenting advice I ever got was...
...to never try to reason with a child! That is a fruitless waste of time. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by that. You will always come away looking like an idiot!
Case and point. Tonight, Katie was planning her next birthday party (which doesn't come around again until September, which she knows, but still feels compelled to plan for almost daily) in great detail.
She asked if Lucy (her cabbage patch doll) could come. "Of course." I reply.
"But she can't have cake." says my brilliant child, with whom I don't try to reason.
"Of course" I say, thinking that at this moment, she is living in reality and acknowledging that Lucy is plastic.
And then she says, "Only pie. She can only have pie. Cause I'm the boss of her."
I say, "Of course."
What more is there to say to that? I wonder if I will be able to have cake, because quite frankly, I wonder if Katie isn't just the boss of me sometimes. Then again, I might rather have pie.
Case and point. Tonight, Katie was planning her next birthday party (which doesn't come around again until September, which she knows, but still feels compelled to plan for almost daily) in great detail.
She asked if Lucy (her cabbage patch doll) could come. "Of course." I reply.
"But she can't have cake." says my brilliant child, with whom I don't try to reason.
"Of course" I say, thinking that at this moment, she is living in reality and acknowledging that Lucy is plastic.
And then she says, "Only pie. She can only have pie. Cause I'm the boss of her."
I say, "Of course."
What more is there to say to that? I wonder if I will be able to have cake, because quite frankly, I wonder if Katie isn't just the boss of me sometimes. Then again, I might rather have pie.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Kids are so funny..
Today, Katie was particularly entertaining as she played with/bossed around her friend Trevor. I have to share part of the conversation I overheard. I noticed that the gate in the chain link fence was open. I asked them if they had opened it. They were both surprised to see that it was open, to which Katie exclaimed, "That must be how the bee got in the backyard." (We have a problem with bees living in the front of our house.) Trevor cleverly responded, "And that bird." Katie said, "No silly, birds just fly over the fence."
I'm a little afraid that the short bus will be making a stop in front of our house next year!
I'm a little afraid that the short bus will be making a stop in front of our house next year!
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