Month: March 2006 (Page 3 of 3)

Last night I told John that soon he could be a big boy and use the potty, and then he wouldn’t have to wear diapers anymore.

“No thank you,” he said, “I like diapers.”

What?

Why is it that parents on tv never lose their temper?

Like Caillou’s Mommy always calmly asks Caillou to pick up his toys, and never gets annoyed that he whines all the time. How does she do it? Oh, yeah. She’s a cartoon and she has a writer who writes her like that. Little kids don’t want to watch real Mommies on tv–they already have one like that. What kind of ratings would pbs get if they showed real Mommies who yell and get annoyed and put their child on time out for whining? Not very good in the 2-3 year old bracket, that’s for sure.

I need a scriptwriter, or a cartoonist. They could write me nice mommy lines, like, “What have I told you about leaving your toys all over the house?” and the nice child would say, “I’m not supposed to.” and then the cartoonist would draw that child putting away their toys. How lovely that would be.

Instead, we live in non cartoon land, where a trying to be nice mommy has to take a SCREAMING child out during sacrament meeting, and because sitting him on the couch and talking to him wasn’t working, I went out to the little foyer and stuck him in there. He, not about to be quiet, pounds on the glass, screaming, “LET ME OUT!” at the top of his lungs. Some lady said, “That’s about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!” Well, it’s not so cute to me, sister–I’m thinking. His nursury leaders were standing right there, and said, “I’ve never even heard him talk, let alone cry.” I guess it’s a realization for all of us.

And nice mommy may know what to do with two girls who constantly tell each other how much they dislike each other. This one took those two girls, taped their wrists together (now, don’t get all ‘child rights’ about it, it was that low-tack blue painter’s tape, it didn’t hurt them), and sat them down and said, “Now, I want to hear you each say 50 nice things about each other. Go!”
Yeah, I definitely need a good script writer.

I was going to come up with some cute Dr Suess like poem about my life, but don’t have time.

Oh look at this house.
Who lives here, a louse?

We should clean up,
Said Sally, the mouse.

Clean up, I say!
Clean, Clean, all day!
Don’t let those kids get in your way!

We can clean up the dishes, the sink, and the wall.
We can pick up the shoes that are strewn down the hall!

If only we had a maid, says the mouse.
Then someone else could clean up this house.

Ok, I’ll stop.

Natalie is a finalist in our school storytelling festival, so I’m off to the assembly at school. She’ll also tell tonight at the parents’ assembly, but I’ve got to perform with the Tab Choir in their concert tonight, so I guess Ryan will be going with all the kids (he’s awesome!).

More later!

Ok, here’s the later update. Natalie did very well telling her story. She doesn’t have it quite memorized enough (we didn’t know she was going to tell for the whole school until they called last night), so she stumbled a bit and left out a bit, but I’m so proud of her. She did great! She told Pigs a plenty, Pigs galore, one of our favorite stories.

(Here’s an ironic aside here, John is sitting on the floor ripping apart a pop-up book. That’s our love for literature shining through in our children.)

Yesterday I tried to make the most of my visit to the school. I had to do playground duty for an hour and a half. Not wanting to be watching my own kids climb all over the playground for that entire time, I got a babysitter for them (yes, sometimes I’m with-it enough to actually plan ahead).
–So, I went a few minutes early and got all of Jenna’s Kindergarten Registration papers, which I filled out on the playground.
–I also dropped off my note for Dads and Donuts (which is this Friday-ugh) at the office to be copied.
–While I was doing my playground duty, I stepped in to the Lunchroom to say hi to each of my kids, and to embarrass them in front of their friends (not really, I’ve been there enough that their friends know who I am, even if I don’t remember who they all are).
–And I walked around watching kids play. When’s the last time you ran around screaming just for fun? I can’t remember ever running around just for fun, but I probably did run Ramona style and play tag and all that when I was in elementary school. I do remember playing “Charlie’s Angels”, though. Now that was fun. I only had a few kids come up and tattle on other kids, and I had to go and talk to one girl about being nice and not hurting people’s feelings. Wearing the lovely orange vest and fanny pack, and being oh, so stylish, I walked around in awe of those kids and their energy. Why don’t we have energy like that? Oh, yeah, pregnancy, childbirth and raising children. That’s right.
–When my sentence, I mean volunteer time, was over, I went with Megan quickly to the Book Fair, which was going on in the library. Megan’s friend, who had been trying to hand out money at the lunch table, was there with her debit card. When I asked her why she had a debit card, she said, “Oh, my stepdad gave it to me and said to spend it on anything I want.” Does anyone else see the problem here, or am I just being extremely old fashioned in my thinking that 10 year olds are not old enough to manage a debit card?