Honesty is the Best Policy

An actual conversation I had this afternoon with Ellie in the bathroom at Jamba Juice (I was not the one using the bathroom):

Ellie: Mom, for some reason it looks like your butt’s really big.

Me: Um…okay.  Thanks for your honesty. *examines backside in the mirror*

E: Mom!  Stop looking at your butt!

M: Well, you said it looked big.

E: It’s not that big.

M: Oh, well, that’s better.

E: Besides, why are we even having this conversation about butts?

M: Um, because you started it?

E: Uh, no.  Your butt started it.  By being big.

I'm definitely doing something right.

Presentations of Pure Awesomeness

We love our local public schools.  We feel like our kids are getting a good education there.  We've had some excellent teachers, and great experiences with the administration listening to and addressing our concerns.  But sometimes we feel like they're not being challenged as much as we'd like.  So a few weeks ago, Chris and I decided to offer an incentive for the girls to do some extracurricular work.  We told them we'd pay them to research a topic and present what they'd learned to us.

Vicki's reaction was pretty much, "Meh."  Of course, she's a busy girl this year and is taking an especially challenging math class, so I can understand her not wanting to fill her downtime with extra work.

Lexi, however, jumped at the chance.  She just spent all her money on an iPod, so she's eager to fill that piggy bank back up.

She spent about a week researching the states of matter.  Chris gave her some advice and a little guidance, but she did the bulk of the work on her own.  Once she was finished with her research, she put together an awesome PowerPoint presentation for us.  I wish I had thought to actually record the whole thing, but since I didn't, here, at least, is the PowerPoint part of it.  She had notes printed out, with all kinds of information for each slide, but you'll have to use your imagination as you watch this (it's a little long and there's no sound, so feel free to skip ahead):



Not about to be outdone by her sister, Ellie decided that she needed to do a presentation, too.  Inspired by the states of matter, she chose to do her presentation on...wait for it...gas.  Oh how I wish I could have included her commentary, too, or Chris's description of her "research" process (essentially, it involved Google image searches, and him asking her, between fits of laughter, "What else is a gas?")  You will definitely want to watch the whole thing on this one:



A few comments: I have no idea what that's actually a graph of, but Chris says she told him, "We need graphs and charts!"  When she got to the "liar, liar" screen, she told us, "This means you should never hold your gas in.  You should always just let it out, or this might happen."

My kids are awesome.

Well...That Was Easy

This evening, over a plateful of hard-boiled eggs, Chris and Ellie had the following conversation:

Ellie: "How come there's no baby chicks inside the eggs when we buy them at the store?"

Chris: "Well, it's because the eggs aren't fertilized."

E: "So, that means there were no roosters around to fertilize the eggs in the chickens?"

C: "Um, yes, that's exactly what that means.  How did you know that?"

E: "Oh, I listened at the door when you and Mom were talking to sissies.  Because I wanted to learn stuff, too."

Guess that's one talk we won't have to have.

This girl cracks me up.

Ask a Stupid Question...

Me: Who keeps tooting?

Ellie: It's me. I have tooteria.

Things to be Thankful For

While going through my file of old emails to our Utah family, I found an account of our first Thanksgiving here in Oregon, back in 2005.  In previous years, we had always had Thanksgiving with one or the other extended family, so this was the first year I'd had the experience of cooking a turkey.  It was definitely an educational process:

The girls watched me get the turkey ready. They were fascinated by the whole thing, until I got the wrapping off. Then I pulled it out of the bag and the "juices" came dripping out and Vicki started screaming, "It's bleeding! It's bleeding!" (She refused to eat any of it at dinner, so I think if I do a turkey again next year I won't let her watch the prep part so she doesn't get scarred for life.)

She asked where its head was, and I explained to her that they cut off its head and neck, and they put the neck inside, and that when I pulled it out she could see.

I was, and I realize now that this was probably not the best idea, referring to the turkey as "he", and just as I said, "they cut off his head and put it inside him", Lexi walked into the kitchen and asked in an extremely concerned voice, "Whose head? Dad's?"

There's probably a really good reason that I don't ever remember watching my mom get the turkey ready on Thanksgiving morning.

Sage Advice

Tomorrow is my first day of school. I haven't been a student for over 10 years.

Needless to say, I'm a little nervous.

When I reminded the girls tonight that I'll be starting school tomorrow, Ellie said, "Mom, let me give you some advice about the first day of school."

(Let me remind you here that her school experience totals a week and a half. Still, in her lifetime that's more than me.)

"My advice for you, Mom, is: Have fun!"

I think I will.

Honest Reporting

Lexi's homework assignment tonight was this:

Observation (noticing details with out eyes) is very importand in science!  Look around your house carefully.  Write 10 observations that you think most people wouldn't notice about your house if they came over.

Her response?

1. Our walls are messy
2. No fish in the fish bowls
3. Our stairs are dirty
4. Our computer screen is dirty
5. My bed is boring
6. Our room is boring
7. We have 40 light bulbs
8. We have 8 blinds
9. We have 11 doors
10. Our bathroom is messy

Well, then.  Okay.  Thanks for the observations, Lexi.

I take comfort in the fact that she thinks most people wouldn't notice these things about our house if they came over.

*Edited 15 minutes later to add: I am now absolutely horrified that I put this on the internet for all to see.  In my defense: I don't know what she thinks is wrong with the walls; the fish bowls are decorative and hang on the wall and still look cool without fish, the carpet on the stairs is the cheapest variety possible, and I swear it stains if you look at it; yes, the computer screen is dirty; I don't see anything wrong with her bed or their room; I've never counted our light bulbs, blinds, or doors, bus she's probably right and at least these things aren't embarassing (although...40 light bulbs?  Really?); if they picked up their clothes and towels and didn't persist in smearing toothpaste all over the counter and sink their bathroom wouldn't be so messy!  There.  I feel better now.

Blast From the Past

I was looking through some old files on my computer this afternoon and came across a priceless gem called "emails from Oregon".  When we first moved here, in my pre-blog days, I wrote a long email each Sunday night keeping the grandparents and aunts & uncles up to date on all our goings-on.  Once I started the blog the emails became redundant, so I stopped, but I'm so glad I saved everything.  I have had the most entertaining (and non-productive) evening reading back over it.

Allow me to share with you a little bit of what our life was like in 2005:

July 17

• Vicki appeared upstairs, announcing that Lexi was making a mess. I went downstairs to find that Lexi had apparently decided that she was in need of lotion, and finding none nearby, had decided that her yogurt, which, after all, was a pretty pink color, would work just as well.

July 31

• The other day the girls were singing a song from one of them [Veggie Tales videos] called "Stand Up for What You Believe In". There's a part in the song that goes, "God! He's the one who backs you up! He'll stand with you!" Well, they were disagreeing because Vicki thought the lyrics were, "God! He's the one who packs you up! He'll stand on you!" And Lexi, bless her heart, thought it was, "God! He's the one who vacuums up! He'll stand in you!"

August 14

• Lexi is still changing her identity on a regular basis, as frequently as she changes her clothes. This morning before church she threw a genuine teenager-worthy hissy fit while standing in her closet because, and I quote, “I hate these clothes!” (keep in mind that this was just three days after her 3rd birthday)

Sept. 4

• Lexi said our family prayer at bedtime a few nights ago, and asked Heavenly Father to "please bless Violet and Dash, and Mr. Incredible and Elastagirl, and Jack Jack in Elastagirl's belly." while nodding at each of us in turn...Lately she has been talking to me about when she was a grown up. She'll say things like, "When you were a little kid and I was a grown up, I made the bed and you messed it up!" (while, might I add, she's in the process of gleefully messing up the bed I just made), or "When you were a little kid and I was a grown up, I made cookies and you cried because I said no cookies until after dinner." And because I know you all need a good laugh, today in Sacrament meeting, she turned to me and announced, in a very non-reverent voice, "You know, my underwear is on backwards!”

Sept. 11

• Vicki said, “I know something that’s not appropriate for dates with boys.” We asked her what, and she said, in all seriousness, “Showing your underwear.”

Nov. 7

• [Ellie] is so calm, which is really really nice given the level of chaos that we generally have around here. She just observes. I only hope she's not saving up ideas for later that she'll unleash on us all at once. (clearly, she was)

Dec. 4

• Yesterday morning Vicki woke Chris and me up by announcing outside our bedroom door that she was "freakin' hungry".

also Dec. 4

• Lexi's new clothing issue arises each morning when I try to make her wear pants while we take Vicki to school. It's been pretty cold lately, and since we don't park the car in the garage, it's cold in the car. Lexi insists on wearing a dress every morning, only to get in the car and cry because her knees or her "little leggies" are "fweezing". However, when I try to make her wear pants instead of a dress, she cries because the pants "make me look weird".

I'll stop now.  There's plenty more where this came from, though.

Maybe you don't think my kids are as hilarious as I do, but I can't stop laughing.

Some Things Really Shouldn't Be Named

One of the best things about visiting far-away family is telling stories about my kids.  Yes, my relatives all read the blog, but I don't blog about everything, and my kids are, honestly, complete weirdos, so there's always plenty to tell.

Yesterday while hiking, the story of Ellie's foot came up.

See, a few weeks ago Ellie discovered that she has some warts on the bottom of her foot.  Gross, I know, but it happens.  And, since this isn't our family's first experience with foot-warts, I know that they will eventually go away on their own.  Or we could cover them in duct tape for a few weeks, and that would get rid of them.  If only I wasn't on vacation and therefore too lazy to bother with the duct tape cure.  Maybe when we get home.

Anyway, I digress.

Ellie has apparently named her warts.

I swear I am not making this up.  You can't make stuff like this up.  If you ask her, she'll happily (and rather proudly) tell you all about it.  Their names are Bob, Bobby, and Timmy.  Timmy is the tiny one.  Bobby used to be named Tarzan, because he looked like a target, but now he doesn't anymore, so now he's called Bobby.

Where she comes up with stuff like this, I will likely never know.

My kids are weird.

No "Ifs" or "Ands", Though

This morning I informed Ellie that she would be showering after swimming lessons.  Knowing full well that I was going get an earful of why she didn't really need to shower today, that perhaps some other day, sometime in the vague and distant future would suffice, I added, "No ifs, ands, or buts, Missy."

She looked at me and very sincerely said, "Okay, Mom.  I wasn't going to say 'if' or 'and' anyway.  I might say 'butt', though, because it's more fun to say than 'bum'."

Alrighty, then.  As long as we're clear on the shower.

Pure Awesome

I have the two cutest nieces on the planet.  They just "published" a story, which made me laugh until I cried, and which I absolutely have to share with a larger audience.  It is the best thing I have read in a long, long time.

So, without further ado, please redirect yourselves to my sister-in-law Emily's blog, where you can read what she very appropriately described as "a Salvador Dali painting with princesses".  Enjoy.

Some-Kind-of-Colored Small Fantasy Creature

Update: I think I was tired when I posted this last night.  "...asked what Daddy fun things was going to do..." makes no sense whatsoever!  I fixed it so I am no longer being publicly humiliated, but I left the phrase here so I can laugh at myself anyway.

Last night at dinner we were discussing the girls' and my upcoming trip to Utah.  We're going for a girls' week with Grandma and Grandpa E. (he's an honorary girl for the week...or something.)  And Chris is staying here alone.

We were talking about all the fun things we want to do while we're in St. George, and someone asked what fun things Daddy was going to do while we're gone.

Vicki said, "Oh, he's just going to eat junk food and watch junk shows."

Chris said, "Junk shows?" (probably thinking, rather accurately, that I'm the one who watches junk shows; Glee, anyone?)

And Vicki said, "Yeah, you know, like 'Blue Elf'."

Silence.

Blue Elf?

"The one you were watching that one day?  Where it was kind of like deja vu?  And they're on a spaceship, with a guy with an H on his head?"

And Chris almost fell out of his chair laughing.

She was talking about Red Dwarf.

Evil Genius at Work

We're all about responsibility around our house.

We like the Love and Logic parenting method.  We give a lot of choices, mostly things along the lines of, "Do you want to wear your coat, or carry it?"

Under no circumstances do we carry the coat for them.

I volunteer at the girls' school a few days a week, helping make sure kids are in their uniform, and providing them with acceptable clothes to change into if they're not.  We have a clipboard that we use to write the names of the students who aren't appropriately dressed each day so the school secretary can call their parents.  Ellie comes along for the ride.

Yesterday morning we were finishing up and ready to head to the office.  Ellie bounced toward the stairs, grabbing the clipboard on her way and announcing that she'd carry it.  So, realizing that it would complicate my life (and it's all about me, isn't it?) if I made her put the clipboard down so she could put on her coat, I told her I'd carry the coat upstairs.

She stopped mid-bounce and looked at me with a shocked expression that quickly turned to one of triumph and glee.

"Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! [imagine, if you can, the most evil laugh a five-year-old is capable of] I got you to carry my coat!"


Wearing the coat instead of carrying it

Kids These Days...

The other day I came across my old camera.

Unfortunately, I came across it during a fit of early spring cleaning, during which I was getting rid of anything I hadn't used in the past six months.  The only exception to the rule was things that I hadn't used in the last six months but knew for a fact I would be using again soon (summer clothes, for example, fall into this category.  Maternity clothes do not.  FYI.)

I haven't used this camera in probably the last 8 years.

And it seems highly unlikely that I'll be using it again anytime soon.

I got this camera for Christmas during my freshman year of college.  It came with me to London for Study Abroad in 1998.  Together we went through 12 rolls of film in three months.  It has held, quite literally, a lot of memories.

I waved it excitedly at everyone in the room.  "Look!  It's the camera I took to London!"

Chris said, "Throw it away." the big meanie

And Lexi said, "Cool!  Does it have any pictures on it?"

I guess a roll of film is a hard concept to grasp for a person who spends all her time with a camera taking pictures like these:

******
What are some other things kids these days will never understand?

Our Own Little Peggy Ann McKay

We've had a mysterious illness in our house the last couple of days.  It seems to flare up whenever the subject of something which could potentially be perceived as unpleasant by an 8-year-old comes up.  Church, for example.  Or school.

But not so much when going sledding or playing the Wii are mentioned.

Funny how that works.

The thing is, we're on to her.  She may think she has us fooled, what with all the sympathetic hugs and the "I'm so sorry you're not feeling good.  Maybe you should go lie down", but she's wrong.  In fact, I've discovered as a parent that the believability of a medical complaint is directly disproportionate to the number of times that complaint is expressed within an hour.

And also to the degree of bounciness in the child's body as they issue the complaint.

But I'm never telling my kids this.  The last thing I want to do is teach them how to be better liars.

Making Lemonade

This evening on the way home from dance class we dropped Lexi off at her friend's house for a sleepover.

Ellie was aware that this was happening, because Lexi hasn't talked about much else for days.  But when the friend's big sister took Lexi's place in the car, with a pillow in tow, it dawned on Ellie that everyone was having a sleepover but her.

But, of course, my children are calm, rational people, so we were able to discuss the matter in our big girl voices and without tears.

Yeah, right.

What actually happened is that she wailed and sobbed inconsolably for a minute or two before gaining enough control to hear me when I reminded her that sometimes she gets to have playdates and her sisters don't, and sometimes they get to have playdates or other things and she doesn't.  "That's just life," I said.

And she said, "Oh, yeah?  Well, life is dumb!"

******

My original plan was to end the post there, because it's funny, but in the time since then, Ellie has decided that it's okay if Lexi has a sleepover with Anya and Vicki has a sleepover with Kate, because she's going to have a sleepover with no one!!!

She dragged her sleeping bag and the elephant tent out of the garage and has cleared a spot in the horribly messy bedroom so we can set it up for her.  She's going to camp out on the floor and have a fabulous time, and she says being by herself isn't going to be a problem at all, because she'll have her stuffed animals to keep her company.

After the "life is dumb" comment, I asked her if she thought all of life is dumb.  Her first response was a very stubborn "Yes!", but when I asked if life is dumb when she's playing with friends, or reading stories with Daddy, or eating yummy food, she had to admit that it's not.

And apparently that's all it took tonight to turn her lemons into lemonade.

It's good to remember that yes, sometimes life is dumb, but most of the time it's actually pretty awesome.

And, of course, sleeping in the elephant tent, even by yourself, is way cooler than sleeping on a dumb old bed.

The One-Upper

You know those people whose stories can always top yours? The people whose labor is always just a little longer and more painful than yours, or whose crazy relatives are always just a little crazier than yours?

Apparently they start young.

Yesterday Ellie decided to get a snack of cheese for herself and her friend. This involved slicing it with the extra-sharp slicer, the one that once caused me to lose a small piece of my thumb.

I was upstairs wasting time Christmas shopping online when I heard the scream. It was the kind of scream that tells me something is truly wrong, not the kind of scream that tells me someone’s sisters are "out to get them".

I found Ellie sobbing halfway up the stairs, cradling her left pinkie finger in the other hand, trying valiantly through her pain and fear to keep the blood from dripping onto the carpet. Her friend was behind her, full of concern.

I led her into the bathroom, where we rinsed off the blood so I could assess the damage (not too much, thankfully, despite all the blood). As Ellie hyperventilated at the sight of so much red washing down the drain, her friend calmly offered a few sympathetic words of comfort:

“It’s not so bad, Ellie. One time I had a paper cut, and it was so much worse than that.”

It's Not the Same Thing

Last night at dinner, Ellie was wondering something.

She wanted to know if we had "the princess diarrhea".

Having never heard of that particular ailment (and, as a side note, I'm thinking diarrhea is one of the most un-princess-like things a person can experience), I asked her to repeat herself.  While trying desperately not to crack a rib from holding in my laughter, because she was quite serious.

She still wanted to know if we had "the princess diarrhea".

But this time she clarified for me.  She was wondering about that show, where the girl doesn't know she's a princess, and then her grandma tells her.

Oh.

She meant The Princess Diaries.

Talking the Talk

About three weeks ago, while on our way to Lexi's dance class, we somehow got to talking about twins.  It was just Lexi and Ellie in the car with me, and they wanted to know the difference between identical and fraternal twins.  We're trying not to sugar-coat anything in our family, so I explained that a sperm comes from the dad and the egg comes from the mom, and when they meet, sometimes the egg splits into two.  When that happens, you have identical twins.  But sometimes there will be two eggs, and if they each are met by a sperm, you'll have fraternal twins.

By this point, we were at the dance studio, so I thought the conversation was finished, but as we got out of the car, Lexi said, "Mom, I was wondering.  If the egg comes from the mom and the sperm comes from the dad, and the baby grows inside the mom, how does the sperm get to the egg?"

Oh, boy.

Considering the fact that we were about three steps from the door of the dance studio, there wasn't time to go into any sort of detail.  Besides, I'm pretty sure the parents of any of the other girls in the class (who range in age from 6-8 years old) wouldn't have appreciated me going into that sort of detail, anyway.  So I told her that that was a really good question, but there wasn't time for me to answer it right now, and could she remind me later when there was more time?

Of course, she didn't.

But we knew it was time anyway.

Time for The Talk.

Such fun.

We had The Talk with Vicki when she was about Lexi's age, and it went fairly well, all things considered.  After sitting in serious silence through the majority of the discussion, her only real reaction was, "Ew."

Lexi's turn, yesterday evening, also went well, but it was more fun.

We couldn't get her to say any of the names for private body parts (which I am purposely not naming here, since I can only imagine the Google searches that would end up here if I did) - she preferred to keep her face buried in her hands during that part of the discussion, even though we teased her by saying things like, "nostrils", "elbows", and "armpits" to try and make her understand that we were just talking about body parts.  Didn't work.  At one point, while we were talking about how boys have a [certain body part], she said, "This is just disturbing."

But she was really interested in the location of ovaries, and how that whole process works.  I got to stand up and do a lot of pointing through my jeans.  And she was somewhat relieved, it appeared, to understand that the eggs inside of moms weren't the size of chicken eggs.

It will probably be about three years before we'll have to have The Talk again, but I think it will be even more fun with Ellie, since she's already shown us that she has absolutely no problem with saying the names of boy or girl parts.  She announced to us at the dinner table one night, much to her sisters' horror, that her friend Timmy* has a [boy part]!  And she's seen it!  While they were going potty!  Isn't that cool!?!

Being a parent is fun.


*name has been changed to protect the innocent.  Although I'm fairly certain the innocent's mother will read this and know exactly who I'm talking about.

Extra Shiny

This evening Chris took the older girls to their church activity.  This is our usual mid-week bath time for Ellie, since her big sisters are gone and she can play in the tub for a long time, instead of having to hurry so we can get everyone clean before bed.

Once she was in the tub, I decided it would be a good time to sit down and read.  I could have been doing the dishes, but that's no fun.

I got a little caught up in my book, apparently, because the next thing I knew the water was draining from the tub.

"Wait!" I hollered.  "Don't drain the tub yet!  We still need to wash you!"

And she hollered back, "It's okay, Mom.  I already did everything you usually do in here."

Somehow, I didn't think her doing it was going to be as effective as me doing it, but she was clearly so proud of her efforts that I knew it was going to have to be handled delicately.

"Um, how about I just do it over again, just to, um, make sure..."

"Oh, okay, Mom, you just want to make sure that I'm extra shiny?"

Yes, that's it!

She's extra shiny