Judge PinkGirl

So we’re watching American Idol. Right before the first contestant began her audition, she informed the judges that she quit her job because that’s how much she believed in herself. She began to sing and PinkGirl turned to me and with a serious and concerned face, she said:

“I think she should get her job back.”

PinkGirl was relieved when Simon called the girl’s boss and asked if she could have her job back.

everything tastes better with chocolate sprinkles on top!

Even tomatoes with cottage cheese. Really. See?

comprehension book?

PinkGirl:  “Mom?  Do you know my comprehension book?

Me:  “Your what?”

PinkGirl:  “You know, my comprehension book, where I write my stories and plays and stuff?”

Me:  “oh.  You mean your composition book.

PinkGirl:  “yeah, that one.”

Me:  “What about it?”

Then I got to hear a story from the comprehension book.

mahi mahi good.

FavoriteSon had a good day. A very, very good day.

First, he caught the only bait fish we got. Which is what the shark hit. The second shark, that is. The first shark was only a baby, so after PinkGirl and FavoriteSon got to touch it, FirstHusband threw it back. The second shark, the one that hit the bait fish, was only about 3 feet long, so we threw it back too. But right after FavoriteSon reeled in the second shark, he had to hand the rod over to his dad because he had to reel up a second line in an attempt to get the mahi mahi that was checking out the activity. (We can’t call it Dolphin anywhere around PinkGirl.)

He got the mahi. And we did NOT throw it back. So FavoriteSon had a little mahi for dinner that night.

We’re saving the rest for later. Not too much later, I can tell you.

We had grilled king mackerel for lunch on Sunday. We didn’t catch that one. It was given to us by a couple who had a VERY VERY good day and caught too much. We just happened to be cleaning our boats right next to each other at the marina. FirstHusband grilled it and, let me tell you. Grilled king mackerel is very, very good. Melts like butta.

summer music

FirstHusband was talking to FavoriteSon about the summer. So far, FavoriteSon is only signed up for two basketball camps. That’s it. So FirstHusband was asking him what else he planned to do with the rest of his summer.

“Idunno.”

“You know, son, your mom is going to want you to learn something.

“noooooo!”

FirstHusband knows me so well. After only a few days of summer vacation, FavoriteSon was required to call his UncleP and set up a long discussed guitar lesson. One week into summer vacation – one lesson down. He’s been practicing the guitar every day. Without nagging. It actually sounds like music when he practices now.

PinkGirl is learning something too. She is practicing her 5 finger piano scales. My goal is to have her playing her scales in all eight keys with both hands – and chords in the transitions. (And no. I don’t know how to play the piano. Just scales and plucking for site reading.)

I want DADDY!

PinkGirl watched a Little House on the Prairie episode for the first time last night. I thought: heartwarming, good life lessons, role models – all that stuff.

But I forgot. Tears. There are always tears on that show. This particular episode built up to a heartrending scene involving a dad, unconscious after surgery and his daughter who comes into the room already in tears, sits on the side of her father’s bed and begs him to live (through increasing tears). WHAT was I thinking? I’M even crying! PinkGirl is sitting on my lap and I’m all teary eyed and she says, in this broken little voice, “it’s too . . . hard . . . to not cry when it’s so sad mommy.” I said, “Look at mommy’s eyes honey.” She turned her little face up to me and, seeing the tears in my eyes, stopped holding back. Tears. LOTS of tears. And here’s what I TOTALLY didn’t think of: “I want DADDY!”

Okay. Daddy is in Virginia. Till tomorrow. Night. Late. After bedtime.

I’m in big trouble. So I say, “Honey, do you want to call daddy?” “no. I WANT daddy.”

Like I said, BIG trouble. Don’t forget, there are tears. LOTS of tears.

I hold her, rock her and finally convince her to call daddy. Poor daddy. He was not expecting this! He’s at dinner at a friend’s house in Virginia. They have an 18 month old daughter, so it didn’t bother them at all that he had to break away THREE times (in less than an hour) to talk to PinkGirl on the phone. After the third phone call and still crying, I have a idea! “PinkGirl honey, do you want to sleep on daddy’s side of mommy and daddy’s bed? His pillow will smell like daddy.” “okay.”

So I surround her with all the pillows I can find that smell like daddy and snuggle up next to her to rub her back while she tries to calm down and go to sleep. “mommy?” “yes honey?” “when you snuggle close, I can’t smell daddy, I only smell you.”

So I retreat to safe distance and within 5 minutes, she’s out for the night.

Now I’m afraid of Little House on the Prairie.

Annual Update

A year? I haven’t posted in a YEAR? How did that happen? Where did my year go? I want it BACK! It was filled with wonderful experiences and we’ve made really great memories, but it was way too FAST!

FavoriteSon is 10, almost as tall as me and we currently wear the same size shoes. I do not have tiny feet.

Trivia Question: Do you know the difference between a Nike tennis shoe in a kids size 5 1/2 and the same Nike tennis show in an adult size 6? (see below for the answer)

The doctor says if FavoriteSon keeps growing at this rate, he will be about 6′3″ when he grows up. That’s two inches taller than his dad and . . . a lot taller than me. He likes school, but has his moments. He’s finally adjusting to the fact that he is really good at math – a real bummer for him because until recently, he hated math. He was still very good at it – he just hated it.

Weird. (in the voice of Krunk, from Disney’s Emporer’s New Groove).

He has a split personality when it comes to his little sister. Sometimes he is the most patient, kind and understanding big brother on the face of this planet and sometimes (like 30 seconds later), he will pretend to spit on her head just to freak her out.

While he’s on the brink of responsibility, I find myself muttering things like, “I am not a 5th grader” the night before his science project is due as I sit next to him at the kitchen table while he types at the laptop. (Use the home keys, please, FavoriteSon)

It was his idea to do a devotion every night before bed and he NEVER wants to skip it. I feel like a total bum when I suggest it due to a late bedtime. We use a great devotional book called, “The One Year Book of Family Devotions, Volume 1.” After that, I read out loud for a few minutes. Recently, we’ve been reading poems from Jack Prelutsky’s book, “Something Big Has Been Here.” One of their favorite poems is:

“I Wish My Father Wouldn’t Try To Fix Things Anymore“

My father’s listed everything
he’s planning to repair,
I hope he won’t attempt it,
for the talent isn’t there,
he tinkered with the toaster
when the toaster wouldn’t pop,
now we keep it disconnected,
but we cannot make it stop.

He fiddled with the blender,
and he took the clock apart,
the clock is running backward,
and the blender will not start,
every windowpane he’s puttied
now admits the slightest breeze,
and he’s half destroyed the furnace,
if we’re lucky, we won’t freeze.

The TV set was working,
yet he thought he’d poke around,
now the picture’s out of focus,
and there isn’t any sound,
there’s a faucet in the basement
that had dripped one drop all year,
since he fixed it, we can’t find it
without wearing scuba gear.

I wish my father wouldn’t try
to fix things anymore,
for everything he’s mended
is more broken than before,
if my father finally fixes
every item on his list,
we’ll be living in the garden,
for our house will not exist.

PinkGirl. As her teacher, Mrs. Kindergarden says, PinkGirl is so . . . PinkGirl. I know exactly what she means, but let me try to explain. During our parent teacher conference, Mrs. Kindergarden told me that sometimes, when she’s tired, she asks PinkGirl to sing a song during circle time. PinkGirl sings original compositions. They don’t rhyme, they don’t end and they are very detailed. Not a lot of repetitive lyrics. Mrs. Kindergarden says that all the kids pay attention to these endless musical stories of inspiration. I’m not sure if that’s going to be a good thing in the long run. PinkGirl already sees the world from her perspective of center of the universe. It’s going to be interesting when she meets another aspiring actress and singer who wants spotlight time.

So that tells a little about PinkGirl’s creative side. Her analytical side is unique as well. We were at Disney Quest at Downtown Disney this summer. It’s a 5 story arcade and one of the most popular things to do there is ride the virtual roller coaster. First, you program the computer with all the things you want your roller coaster to do (drops, barrel rolls, etc.) and then you get in this big red barrel with a video screen inside and ride your custom coaster. So. We get to Disney Quest and the first thing PinkGirl does is walk up to a big cutout of Genie, from Aladin to see if she is tall enough to reach Genie’s hand. If you are tall enough to reach Genie’s hand, you are tall enough to ride the virtual roller coaster. You guessed it. Too short. By about a half an inch. Mom deals with the tears and pouting while dad and FavoriteSon ride the coaster and then we go up to the 5th floor to have a snack at the Cheesecake Factory. Half an hour later, PinkGirl says, “Come on, we have to measure me at Genie.” I say, “Honey, we already measured you, you were just a little bit too short.” She looks at me with that teenager, “duh” look that is bound to be commonplace in my future, rolls her eyes and palms up, says, “Mom. I just aa-ate!” So we measured her again. Still too short. PinkGirl. She is so . . . PinkGirl.

Trivia Answer: $20.00

the imagination police

“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Momma.”
“What honey?”
“Momma . . . “
“PinkGirl, what is it?”

silence

“I forget.”
“Okay, tell me when you remember.”
“kay”
“Hey mom.”
“Yeah.”
“I standed on my head in Tumble Time today.”
“Cool! Was that what you were going to tell me before?”
“When?”
“Never mind.”

And off she goes, singing to herself, clueless to the fact that she still didn’t tell me something she came all the way upstairs to tell me. She’ll be back.

Anyone with kids has had this conversation – maybe even more than once. Why get irritated? It will just happen again. That’s what kids do. Besides, someday, I won’t have these conversations anymore. She’ll be grown up, having a conversation in her own house:

“Honey?”
to which her husband will reply, “Yeah?”
“Hon?”
“What?”
“I was thinking . . . “
“What?”

silence

“I forgot.”

She’s four (and a half) and she’s gonna make me tired my whole life. Good thing she’s my daughter and I love her and her brother more than chocolate.

He’s not any better at the conversations, just different:

“FavoriteSon?”
nothing
“FavoriteSon?”
nothing
“Annakin Skywalker?”
“Huh?”

These two are so different. FavoriteSon, nine plays Star Wars with Star Wars toys, Pokemon with Pokemon toys. When he was younger, he played Toy Story with Toy Story toys, Tarzan with Tarzan toys, you get the idea. PinkGirl, his sister, can set up an elaborate diorama and construct a story line that has Buzz Lightyear marrying Cinderella in front of an (interactive) audience which includes all the characters from every Disney cartoon ever made. Left alone, you can hear FavoriteSon, the resident representative of the imagination police, saying, “PinkGirl, you can’t do that.” to which PinkGirl will reply, “Yuh Huh.”

He has no authority here.

Chicken Girl

The things we do for our kids. Cub Scout Camp Out. In August. In Florida. Two weeks after hurricane Charley. After spending three days with no power – experiencing no air conditioning, we are going camping for two days. In a tent. With no air conditioning. In hurricane season. It will rain. FavoriteSon, my little scout, we love you.

PinkGirl is THRILLED. “YEAAAAAH, we’re going CAMPING!!!!” Please, oh please, oh please, oh please let us get a campsite close to the bathroom. Wait – that means we hear everyone ELSE going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. sigh.

For all the complaining, we really do have a great time together. All the sand and sweat and sand (did I mention sand?) we can take are worth the smiles and memories we all make.

FavoriteSon is in FOURTH grade. When did THAT happen? He loves his school, likes his teacher and does his homework without nagging (so far). Coolest kid EVER.

PinkGirl wakes up full of information. Tuesday she woke up and TALKED. And talked and talked and talked. Finally, she sighed, raised her hands to the air and said. “I’m out of words now.”

On Sunday – out of the blue, she wanted to watch Disney’s Robin Hood. For three days, she’s said, “Mommy, I’m . . . who’s dat Robin Hood girl again?” “Maid Marion, honey.” “Oh, yeah, I’m Maid Marion. Daddy, you Robin Hood, FavoriteBrother, who are you? Mommy, you the chicken girl.” For those of you who’ve not watched Robin Hood lately, “Chicken Girl” is Maid Marion’s lady in waiting. Don’t EVEN call me chicken girl next time you see me or I will tell PinkGirl you want to be . . . I’ll think of someone you don’t want to be.

A Puddle of Goo and Potty Training

9 and 3 years old. So far, the parents know interesting stuff, so there’s some amount of listening going on.

FavoriteSon is GREAT one day . . . a big puddle of goo the next. One day, he’s capable of normal conversation when things don’t go his way . . . other days, he just . . . makes this noise. It appears the goal is “crying” but he’s just not that convincing. Especially when he can stop on a dime and ask for something in a normal tone of voice. Impressive, but we don’t fall for it. Bummer for him.

Actually, FavoriteSon is showing more signs of developing character (good character) every day. He’s nice to his sister (most of the time) and much more patient.

PinkGirl, on the other hand. . . not so patient, and while she’s definitely developing character, we’re not so sure which character. Today she’s . . . hmmmmm, today, she was Cinderella, Pocahantas, Little Red Riding Hood and Mary Poppins. She can change identity within seconds. Of course, she can change YOUR identity in seconds as well.

Today was a BIG day. For months, mommy and daddy have asked PinkGirl if she would like to try “stinky in the potty.” Tonight, she went into the bathroom and went stinky all by herself. She also had a dry diaper this morning, so she’ll be sleeping in big girl panties tonight! No diaper for bed! Two major accomplishments in one day!

PinkGirlisms: “I’m Mary Poppins, but my “nick knock” name is PinkGirl” Who knew?

PinkGirl’s latest thing: When she wants to do something (or get something), she raises her eyebrows as if the coolest idea is coming along. Then she asks for what she wants and follows up with the reasoning, ” for safety.”