Katie's School Paper on New Year's Eve or How My Children Are Determined To Make Us Look As Bad As Possible In Public

Compare and contrast your New Year's Eve traditions with those in the story.

(I've put Katie's answer in descending order for maximum impact.)

My New Year's Eve Tradition

3. I stay up late
2. I stay home
1. I drink!


I asked Katie why in the world she wrote, "I drink!" She explained that she gets to drink all the pop she wants, and that it is her favorite part of New Years. She claims that she's never heard of adults referring to imbibing too much alcohol as "drinking." She claims that she figured her teacher would know that she meant, "I drink orange soda," and so she didn't feel the need to elaborate.

The fact is, though, that I drink=I like pop is self evident to nobody but Katie. I can only guess what her teacher must think.

In the car this morning

Abbie, to me: The stench in the air is what makes my breath so stinky!

Yes, she really did say, "stench."

My gift to you (sort of)

I believe that podcasts are one of the greatest gifts God has given to housewives (aside from grace, and children and that kind of stuff.) You can listen to them on headphones (so you can actually listen to them, because your children aren't trying to scream over the radio. They are talking in an excessively loud voice, but nothing unusual, and the younger ones still don't understand that the slight movement of your finger is you turning the volume way up to drown them out. Also, you don't have to worry so much about the content of your podcast. I once forgot myself and listened in the car to an entire interview on NPR with the creator of The Wire. Never again. The questions Claire spent the next three days asking me were way over my pay grade.)

Another benefit to podcasts are that they make cleaning fun! A dirty bathroom all by itself is a horror, but combine an amusing little show on headphones with a DVD of Bear in the Big Blue House for the kids, and you have an hour of actual enjoyment. The fact that it ends with a toilet that doesn't make you gag just seems like a bonus!

Finally, podcasts are (for the most part) free! A little sprinkling of fun, a dab of actual...you know, smart-making stuff, the headphones for privacy and peace.....and it doesn't cost a dime!

My only problem is that I burn through my favorite podcasts at an alarming rate. I was seriously bereaved when Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) cancelled his radio show - that was an hour of podcast a day that I could count on being amusing and sometimes even, um, you know....smart-making. I have discovered something that has just blown me away, though, and I feel the need to share. Dr.Peter Kreeft has a podcast!

I have a couple of his books, but I've never actually read them. His name vaguely makes me think of Kraft, and any association with mac and cheese at this point makes me slightly nauseous. I found his article about his daughter's brain tumor very helpful, I think I may have even linked to it from here at the time, but for some reason I never looked into the guy any further.

Well, his talks are a revelation. His podcasts are the recordings of live talks he has given around the country, and he is an excellent speaker. If you are looking for a mental pick-me-up, this is the place to find it. Check it out (you can also find these in itunes by searching for "Kreeft" under "podcasts." Please, you will be so glad you did.

(By the way, this guy is a philosopher. I hesitate to mention it, because I'm sure some people will hear that and think, "Eh." But he's easy to understand - even for a woman who has spent the past 8 years allowing her children to wear mismatched socks. He surfs! He loves CS Lewis and Tolkien! He's a Redsocks fan! Nothing scary here. :)

Insofar as we think about the method, we're not doing it. Insofar as you think about what notes you are playing, you're not playing them. Total self-forgetfulness, total honesty and total love is the most effective apologetic.
Peter Kreeft

Found objects

Discovered laying around the kitchen:

Beth's paper from school
Imagine you are at your best friend's house and he or she won't share a toy with you. Write a letter to try and pursuade him or her to share.

Dear Ehen,
Can I share a toy gun whith you? We could play star wares and pretend to shout bad guys. We could pretend to be in dinisor time and shout dinisores. We could pretend to be in a forest and shout pretend tigers and liones. It could be fun!
Your friend,
Elizabeth

Katie's notes to herself
QS for (her student teacher)
1. Do you have a pet?
2. How old are you?
3. Are you going to become a teacher?
4. Do you have an older sister?
5. Do you have a younger sister?
6. Do you have an older brother?
7. Do you have a younger brother?
8. How many is their in all including you in your family?
9. Do you like teaching?
10. Do you like answering questions?
11. Is their a pacific subject you want to teach?
12. Do you get to grade papers?
13. Do you like telling us what to do?
14. Do you like our class?
15. Do you like reccess?

(These questions, by the way, aren't for a school assignment or anything. Katie just wants to know. She's left plenty of space for more questions should she happen to think up any more. I hope the student teacher is provided with supernatural patience.)

Romance

Happy St. Valentine's Day! We are all sick here, so we kept things pretty low-key. I made chocolate-filled pastries for breakfast (which the kids hated) and a flourless chocolate-hazelnut cake with coffee ice cream for dessert (which the kids hated), and Chris whipped up some perfectly cooked delmonico steaks with a rosemary wine sauce for dinner (which the kids hated), so I would say that V-day around here was a success.

Claire began the day by inventing a song that has stuck in my head all. day. long. The lyrics are (frighteningly) as follows:
The girlfriends! And the boyfriends!
They love each other!
They love each other, and they marry each other!
Oh the girlfriends and the boyfriends!

Later that afternoon, Chris and I took advantage of a quiet moment to exchange cards. Every year we just write little letters to each other for Valentine's Day, so we both read our cards and then met in the middle of the kitchen to give each other a hug. As I went up on my tiptoes to give my husband a little kiss for Valentine's Day a voice suddenly piped out loudly from the bathroom beside us.
"I'm going to make a poopie!" yelled Abbie.
We paused, then smiled and rolled our eyes at each other before I went up on my tiptoes again.
"It's a big one!" immediately came that distinctive little voice, "Wow, it's pretty stinky in here!"

It was very romantic.

On top of everything else, poor little Lucy is very sick. She hasn't been sleeping well, and the poor thing has just been exhausted and frustrated all day. So here's a parting picture of tired little Lucy, asleep in her highchair just before dinner.

Notice, as well, how I've subtly managed to place that gorgeous flower arrangement in every picture? Chris very much so surprised me with that, as we usually really only do the card thing. (The flower delivery guy was impressed as well, I could tell, since he came to the front door: the door we never use because the path that leads to it was long ago reclaimed by the - muddy- earth, and the wooden steps that connect to it are, besides shedding half of the peeled white paint, warped and sagging, preventing the screen door from latching. So this man, in order to present me with this huge bouquet of flowers, had to stand on those rickety steps while I first had to kick all of the coats into the living room to access the door, and then had to un-do the bungee cord that we've tastefully employed to keep the screen door from flying away. I'm guessing that he was thinking the flower-money would have been better employed on other things, perhaps a bungie cord that doesn't clash with the decor. I was just happy with the flowers, though!)

Here you go, Andy!

Chris had his first cooking class, "knife skills" on Monday but he had to miss it. It was really a shame.

He missed the class because he sliced off the top of his finger while chopping herbs.

And actually, the herbs aren't supposed to be chopped at all - lightly pinching the stem and running your fingers down it cause the thyme to simply fall off in perfect little flakes.

So, it was a real shame that he missed that class.

The jury (me) is still out on whether he needs to go see a doctor or not. The top of the finger wasn't technically severed; it is still hanging on by a thread, like Nearly Headless Nick's neck. Part of his nail came off, but it is still attached to the flap of rogue skin hanging off of his finger, and that seems.....uh, not ideal, in my opinion. The attendant at the gas station claims that Chris doesn't need to see no stinkin' doctor, though, so what do I know.

In any case, his brother naturally wants to see the wound. Every single picture I took is fuzzy, for some reason, but it gives you the general idea. Hope you're impressed, Andy. As to everyone else, you might want to avert your eyes.

There is charisma, and then there is scary, sold-your-soul, mesmerizing charisma. You decide.

Beth loves words. She loves learning what big words mean, and integrating them into her vocabulary. She also just loves the way some words sound, and she'll often repeat new words to herself over and over as she is doing chores, just for the pure joy the sound makes.

Yesterday, as she was doing her homework she began to repeat something over and over. "Barack Obama," she said. "Barack Obama. Barackobama. Barackobama."

"Where did you hear that?" I asked her.

"On the news. I think it's the name of some guy. Is he the new president?"

No, I told her, he isn't. At least not yet. Beth lost interest and went back to her homework, until a few minutes later I heard it again. She couldn't help herself.

"Barack Obama," she said as she scribbled the answer to a math question, "Barack Obama. Barackobama."

She likes what she sees

Abbie, to her reflection in the mirror:

You are golden!

I am golden!

I love you, golden girl!

She then blew herself a kiss and wandered away.

There really is such a thing as too much self-esteem.