This Man is on Fire

Just overheard Sean running through the house yelling, "My hair is on fire!" and then saw him come out of the bathroom a minute later with his head sopping wet. 

"It's fine...it's out now" he told me. 

 I didn't ask.

Good Thing We're Not Dramatic

Ari: "Mom, I need some play food."

Me: " I'm sorry Buddy, I don't know where it is right now."

Ari: " But MOM, Sean and I are playing house. And if we don't have any food, then we have to play that we are DEAD."

Words Can Hurt, You Know

Sean: "Mom, guess what? I like Tinkerbell now!"

Me: "Oh? You didn't before?"

Sean: (GASP) "'YOU DIDN'T BEFORE?!'"

Me: "Well, I'm asking you. You didn't like her before?"

Sean: "MOM! Every time you say that, a fairy just...DIES!"

Healthy Eating

Sean: "Hey Mama, whatcha doin'?"

Me: "I'm making a salad."

Sean:  "Oooh, yum, can I help? Can I pour in the Pop Tarts for you?"

Book Club

"I belong on a farm. I'm never lonesome here like I used to be in town. You remember what sad spells I used to have, when I didn't know what was the matter with me? I've never had them out here. And I don't mind work a bit, if I don't have to put up with sadness." --excerpt from My Antonia, by Willa Cather

Barn Raising

Quote of the Day: "If the Teen Room goes into the hayloft, then I can ACTUALLY say that I was raised in a barn." (cole, age 12)

Chocolate Cake

Mama's QOTD:

"You don't eat chocolate cake because you're hungry.  You eat chocolate cake because you have emotional problems."

Five Year Olds and Manners

Part One:

Reuben (counting to thirty): "twenty-NINE.....one-ty. One-ty one, one-ty two, one-ty three..."

Mama: "Reuben, there is no 'one-ty'. That's what the 'teens' were. You don't have to count it again."

Reuben: "No, Mama, I like it this way. Just don't worry about it. But you'll have to cover your ears in a minute, because the next part is Bad Manners."

Mama: "What do you mean? What is the next part?"

Reuben (shaking his head, horrified): "Oh I can't tell you. Please just cover your ears."

Mama: "No, I'd like to know please."

Reuben: "No, Mama."

Mama refuses to cover her ears.

Reuben: "Okay, but I warned you. One-ty-eight, one-ty-nine....(looks at Mama one last time pleadingly)..."tooty. Tooty-one, tooty-two..."

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Part Two:

Reuben (helping Mama blend home-made refried black beans in the food processor for lunch's 7-layer bean dip): "MAMA! Look! They're not black anymore! Mmmmm.....they look like CHOCOLATE. .....And.....and, they look like something else, too. But I'm not going to tell you what. Because it's Bad Manners."

Heard Around...Trader Joes

Reese: "Mom! Mom! You have to come over here and see this right now! This guy is so old he has SPIDERWEBS on him!"

Quotes

Mama's quote of the day (eating a date): "I would like this better if it came in a Hershey's wrapper."

Cole's quote of the day: "Once I had a burp that was so long that while I was burping I was able to say, 'Be careful, people. Be CAREFUL!'"

How Many Things Are Wrong With This Sentence?

Quote of the Day:

"Mama, when you lay a baby and it's a mom, THEN you can be a mailman." --Reuben, age 4

20 A Day: Day 3

We went out as a family yesterday morning to the library to restock our movie & book shelves (free entertainment) and stopped at Haggen on the way home so Mama could restock a few of the refrigerator shelves. For the bargain price of $25, we bought:

1 can of pine-orange strawberry juice, 3 packages of bagels, 4 pounds of carrots, 3 cucumbers, 1 eggplant, 2 heads of lettuce, 1 package of cream cheese, 3 pounds of tomatoes on the vine, 1 pound of zucchini, 2 red bell peppers, 2 orange bell peppers, and 1 yellow bell pepper (can anyone guess what dinner I'm envisioning?). It felt good to leave the market with an entire twenty dollar bill still in my pocket.

Breakfast: Omelettes with sauteed mushrooms, sauteed sweet onion, and cheddar.
Lunch: Bagel sandwiches with cream cheese, tomato, cucumber, shredded carrot and mustard, and juice.
Dinner: Hamburgers (Birthday leftovers again) and pasta salad.

Start of Day: $45
End of Day: $20

**************************
Quote of the Day:
"When Ari is a toddler, I'm going to teach him. I only like babies. I don't like toddlers. Toddlers get into your stuff and mess everything up. I just like taking care of babies" --Smack-In-The-Middle Reuben, age 4

The Earth-Conscious Family

Mama's quote of the day (during a discussion about ecology and how even humans, yes, are 100% recyclable): "Mama's in the 'reduce' stage so she can be reused again!"

Clarity

During school today:

Mama: "Okay, for Bible time we are going to read the passage where Satan tempts Jesus. 'Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."' (luke 4:1-3)

Cole: "Wait. I don't know who the devil is."

Mama: "Satan."

Cole: "Who is Satan again?"

Mama: "He's like the biggest bad guy. He's the one that is fighting against God."

Cole: "OH! OH! I remember him! We saw him on Oprah!"

Mama doubles over and tries to be nonchalant about it.

Cole: "Remember? We saw him. I know exactly who he is. Remember? He was walking on the air between those buildings."

Mama (using her arm to hide her hysteria): "Um, that was someone different. That was Criss Angel."

Cole: "Wait. So now there's TWO bad guys?!"

April

On month four now of thrice-weekly visits to the chiropractor. Little time for anything else...well, other than cooking, potty-training, and washing dishes. We are plugging away at our schoolwork; dissected owl pellets on the dining table last night with the older three after Sean went to bed. Switched math curriculum (from Horizon to Singapore) and Cole is saying (so far) that he likes it much better. Having fun learning Latin verbs, and making up our own (English) madlibs in our spare time to cement the ideas of nouns and verbs. Taking walks to clear Mama's head. Washing machine has been broken for two weeks now, I've spent nearly $100 at the laundromat and there is dirty laundry EVERYWHERE. Packed 5 boys and as much dirty laundry as I could fit around them into the Volvo this morning, drove the minute and a half to the laundromat and discovered that they are closed on Thursdays. Which wouldn't be quite so sad of a story if I hadn't done the EXACT SAME THING LAST WEEK. It's possible that there is a neural connection missing in my head. Hmm. Not willing to switch laundromats because mine uses cards, I've already started one and I don't need more than one laundry card floating around my kitchen. We made an outing out of it anyway and spent a bunch of time wandering around the grocery store; picked up a few things for dinner but forgot the salad dressing. Have just enough balsamic vinegar in the bottle to mix some up.

Weather is nicer and boys are dying to be outside. The only complication is that outside = dirty clothes and I'm not sure there are any clean ones left. Appliance repairman just called and said my machine is completely shot...apparently a nail pierced a hole in the washtub...is that any surprise?

My favorite romantical quote from my spouse this week:

"Baby, one day this merry-go-round will stop. We'll puke, and then we'll get back to our lives."

_____________

While packing @! loads of dirty laundry back into the kitchen this morning, along with three bags of groceries:
Mama: "Boys, this is the loading zone. Please, unless you are helping unload, please move out of the way so the rest of us can get through. REUBEN. Scootch out of the way PLEASE."
Reuben: "BUT I WANNA GET LOADED!"

Waiting

Quote of the Day:

"I'm just sitting around waiting for the future to arrive." --Cole, age 8

QOTD, Take Two

Another Quote of the Day:

Reuben: "Mom, do I have to wear shoes outside?"

Mama: "YES."

Reuben: "But I might kick someone."

Money Talks

Quote of the Day:



Cole: "Dad, can you hear me growing?"

Justin: "Yup. It sounds like a cash register."

Assembly Line

Quote of the Day:

"Mom--do babies come from factories?" --Reuben, age 3

Thank You, Wipeout

Quote of the Day:

"This looks like a banana hammock" --Reuben, age 3 (holding up a sliver of sauteed onion)