The Best Reason to Home School...

Everyone in the Treasure Valley had school today. But when you home school, your mom can call a snow day. So I did.

If the snow looks sparse in these pictures, it's because they were taken early this morning. My kids were outside with the first snowflakes and have only been inside long enough to create several loads of dripping wet laundry and drink our year's supply of hot chocolate.

My favorite part of the day was taking the kids sledding. As Parker started careening wildly down the hill, he called out, "S.O.S.!!! Save our sled!"

Household Conversations

I've overheard the following conversations this week.

Chris (rearranging the dishwasher): "Kids, when you load the dishwasher, please put the tall glasses on this side of the dishwasher, and the short glasses on the other side."

Me: "You're being anal retentive again."

Chris: "No, it makes sense. This side is slightly larger, allowing for bigger cups. It drives me crazy when the kids load the dishwasher wrong."

Me: "I was the one who loaded the dishwasher. If you're going to freak out about it, you can load all the dishes from now on."

Chris: "Children, I rescind my previous comment."

Me: "I rescind my annoyance towards you."


Deacon is singing the BYU fight song. As he gets to the end, instead of singing, "Go, Cougars," he sings, "Go, Boogers!!"

Parker: "Make him stop, Mom!"

Me: "Parker, he's just teasing you. You tease him all the time."

Parker: "But this is different. This is offensive."


Mom: "McKay, for your school assignment you are supposed to draw a picture of a magical place. Can you describe a magical place to me?"

McKay: "There would be small hills covered everywhere with flowers. And on the hills would be unicorns and pink and purple ponies. Bunnies would hop in the grass, and butterflies that aren't afraid of people would fly in the air."

Oh, the girliness.


I bought Deacon socks for Christmas. The socks were a little too big, but I figured he would grow into them. Apparently, I should have returned them.

Deacon: "Mom, why are you putting grown-up socks on me? Don't you know I'm still a kid?"

Saturday Stripper

"I've been a lousy mom today," I confessed to Chris.

"Is it because we had doughnuts for breakfast, leftovers for lunch, and now you want to eat out dinner?"

"No. I wasn't referring to my neglect in feeding my family; I was referring to my neglect of my children in general. I think Deacon has been playing on the PBS Kids website since he woke up this morning--with the exception of the time he watched a movie while downing a bag of Cheetos. McKay was supposed to be grounded until she cleaned her room, but I forgot about that and let her watch a movie. Her bedroom is still a disaster. And I'm not exactly sure where Parker is. He told me about two hours ago he was going to go play with friends, so I have a pretty good idea..."

The door slams downstairs. "Mom...," Parker calls.

"Whew. He's still alive."

Parker bounds upstairs with his friend Kaleb right behind him. "What's for dinner?"

"Shake-n-Take."

I have a good reason for not cooking all day. It's Saturday. But my other reason is that I am in the midst of refinishing my kitchen table. The table's unusable and my kitchen counters are cluttered with stain and sandpaper and other non-edible ingredients.

My family, plus Kaleb, is sitting around a table at Shake-n-Take downing a ridiculous quantity of fries, when Parker tells Kaleb, "I think we're going to have to redshirt Reslon."

Reslon is one of the four boys that make up the neighborhood football "team." Give it three months and that group of boys will make up the neighborhood baseball team, but right now they're still on a football kick.

"You can't redshirt, Reslon," I say.

"Mom, he fumbles the ball all the time." Kaleb is nodding his head in agreement, and Parker is shaking his head at me. Apparently I just don't get it.

We return home to our in-process table. When we first started to strip the table, I suggested we put hand sanitizer on the table. I'd once spilled a blob of it on the table, and it had taken the finish off perfectly. So I spread hand sanitizer all over the table, and it took part of the finish off, but not all of it.

"This isn't working," Chris said, looking at the table. "I think we need something more powerful."

"Are you asking me if you can get a table stripper?"

One table stripper later, the letters "BYU" that Parker carved into the table are gone. So is the glitter glue, the unwashable washable paint, and the spots where our children pounded their forks into the finish. The table is beautiful.

And now I have no excuse for not feeding my family. Except I think tomorrow might be fast Sunday...

Sunbeams

Deacon has been telling me for a month that he's not going to Sunbeams. He loves nursery and wants to stay there. So it was no surprise that today's adventure into Sunbeams involved a lot of tears, meltdowns, and mother-clinging.

But after fifteen minutes of emotional drama, I was able to leave a smiling Deacon behind in Sunbeams. Tomorrow we will be eating Happy Meals at McDonald's for lunch, and the two events may or may not be related.

At dinner tonight, McKay was chattering non-stop about her new teacher and primary class.

Not to be outdone, Deacon piped up, "Yeah, well, my teacher said, 'Be quiet, Deacon.'"

Watch out, Sunbeams, we've unleashed a cyclone.

Lack of Exercise

I exercise everyday. I feel the need to brag shamelessly about that. For thirty years of my life I exercised pretty much never. Not to say that I didn't try every now and again. I went to a yoga class once five years ago. When it started to get hard, I lied down on my mat and took a little rest until class was over. And I occasionally would read books about people exercising, which is kind of like exercise osmosis. But I never exercised consistently until last year.

About a year and a half ago, I noticed that my stomach was really sticking out, so I thought as any rational person would--I probably had a tumor growing inside of me. I went to my ob/gyn, convinced that she would find my tumor, cut that mass out of me, and I would leave her office a skinnier woman. Unfortunately an ultrasound revealed that all I had growing inside of my stomach was fat.

Which is why last January I made a New Year's Resolution that I would exercise everyday. And I have. (Totally bragging again.) In a seriously sick and twisted world, I have actually come to ENJOY exercising. I like getting all sweaty. I like ignoring my kids for 45 minutes every morning. I like singing along to awesome music from the 80's and 90's as I lift weights and glide on my secondhand exercise equipment. I like seeing myself progress. When I started lifting weights I could only bench press the bar, but now (control your jealousy) I'm bench pressing fifteen pounds. Oh yeah.

Which is why I am seriously bummed about a little incident last night, I would like to call "Kodie running into her cedar chest in the dark and injuring her knee." I was in bed, and I was thirsty. I got up to get a drink. Being considerate of my husband, I didn't turn on a light. That was pretty much my downfall, (literally), because thirty seconds later my knee collided painfully with the cedar chest at the bottom of our bed, and I was rolling on the ground crying in pain.

My husband, being considerate of me, began laughing. "That cedar chest has been there for three and a half years. How could you run into it?! There is at least a five foot path around it!"

He is, of course, right on both accounts. I would have probably hated him for life, but he made me breakfast in bed and cleaned up McKay barf four times today, so he is back at the top of my favorite people list.

Now, here is where the story gets weird. Since I am incapable of bending my knee without pain, I realized that exercise was going to be out of the question tomorrow. This really bummed me out. (That is the weird part.) I should be excited because I have a lot to do tomorrow. Like laundry. Today my family was so desperate for clean clothes that Deacon ended up wearing McKay's socks to church, and Chris told Parker that a pair of too little cotton shorts were boxer shorts. (They weren't.) So a little extra time in the morning should be seen as a windfall to a woman whose family is doing without the luxury of clean underwear.

But I didn't feel excited, I just felt bummed, until I happened to glance at my kitchen counter. I cheered up considerably when I noticed all the Christmas gifts my neighbors had brought me that afternoon--cookies, fudge, chocolate covered pretzels, homemade hot fudge sauce, and chocolate cream cake. Just to be polite I tried all of their gifts, and they were delicious! And then, because I felt like I should probably eat something healthy, I ate half a container of guacamole with chips.

Which brings me to the moral of this story--let your light shine before man, even if he's half-asleep in your bed. Trust me, your knees will thank you.

Something Royal

This morning I am trying to make breakfast while McKay is rollerskating around my kitchen, occasionally crashing or running into me. It is driving me crazy.

"McKay, could you please not roller skate while I'm trying to make breakfast?"

"But, MOM, I'm practicing for Cinderella on Ice."

Before I have time to counter this statement, she turns to Deacon. "If you could be a little more royal, you could be the prince."

"Yes!" Deacon exclaims excitedly.

"First you have to wash the Cheetos off your face."

I assume the Cheetos and royalty problems were overcome, because soon I have McKay crashing into me on roller skates, and Deacon crashing into me in socks.

"Enough!" I shout. "You can practice after breakfast."

McKay turns to Deacon, "Next time we practice--try to be more royal."

Being Parker's Mom

The sun has mostly set, just a sliver of light remains in the sky. It's the time of day where people have turned on their lights, but not shut their blinds. I am spying on my neighbors, as I walk down the street, looking for my son.

Before I see him, I can hear him. "That's not fair! We were going to punt!"

Yep, that's my boy.

Before he sees me, his friend spies my approach. "Parker, your mom's coming."

Parker glances at me, and then urgently yells, "Hurry, guys! One more play!"

I wonder how they can see the flags in the dark, but it becomes apparent that the flags are really just a formality. In a rush of energy and testosterone, all four boys pile on one another. Somewhere at the bottom of the pile I'm sure there's a football.

Parker walks home beside me, the ear flap on his winter hat half torn off, giving me a play-by-play of the game. "I really need to work on my running game. I'm practicing every night, but there's only so much time..." Daylight savings time has been a real hardship on Parker.

We arrive at the house. "Here," he says, placing his moist mouth guard in my hand, "you really need to wash this. It tastes disgusting."

Yep, that's my boy.