there’s nothing wrong with kids that trying to reason with them won’t make worse

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Gumper rules the interwebs?

I find it really quite interesting that the very day we finally have the POSSIBILITY of communicating via webcam that the internet became less accessible in your part of the world. And now I understand what Ryan said about there only being one line out of the middle east. How on earth (and why?) did that one cable manage to be damaged? I suppose calling is out of the question since VOIP is the order of the day for most AF bases. Darn. Well, when you get online again I suppose you'll have lots to catch up on!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Cousins are Awesome


Can I fill out another form, please?

I registered the kids today for the 'give parents a break' program offering free childcare once a month for kids of deployed military. I thought it would be easy to stop by the Airman and Family Readines Center and get the referral paper and then register the kids at the Child Development Center (no and Em) and Youth Center (the older 4). It took over an hour to get one piece of paper filled out at the A&FSC because of confusion over who Ben is working for (I dunno, you're working for CE over there, is that your organization?). When I called the CDC the guy told me I HAD to have a LES to show income. It's a free program, no? Whatever, I went home and got online to print out the latest pay stub. By now it was time for Zac to be getting home so we drove down to wait for the bus. Since it was lunchtime I gave Zac and Em some candy to keep them happy long enough to get the forms filled out at the other two locations. (sellout mom!) (also wildly optimistic that some candy would last that long!)

At the CDC it took me quite a while to get the attention of any of the 3 people working in reception, and when I explained what I needed it took another 10 minutes to locate the forms I had to fill out. When I sat in the reception area to fill out my stacks of forms (10 pages to register the 2 little kids) the dude answering the phones told one of the other receptionists to put me in the isolation room. Wha? I'm diseased now? And why can't you talk directly to me, phone guy? Filling out the forms was the typical military forms experience, long and boring and repetitive. Did I mention repetitive? Every time I have to fill out stuff like this I have daydreams of how easy it could be if it was all just digitized. Although I'm sure it would jeopardize the job security of someone who has to create all these !@#$% forms. Ah, government agencies, thy name is the exact opposite of efficiency. Also, I did NOT need the LES, so I don't know why phone dude told me that. I don't like phone dude, can you tell?

Another hour later I drove over to the Youth Center to register the remaining 4 kids. I was worried since the bus would be coming in only an hour and a half and I had the majority of registering to go. Luckily the lady at the Youth Center was efficient, NICE, and didn't care that my kids were putting their fingerprints on her fish tank so we got done and out of there in less than 15 minutes. If I didn't write so slowly it would have been less.

Lesson: Nothing is ever free. It might not cost any money, but someone is sure as heck going to make you work for that 'free' thing. In this case, the price paid was in time running back and forth from 9:30 am to 1pm and filling out umpteen forms.

Don't tell phone dude I still have his pen.

Overheard

When my sister's new baby was blessed the kids, Grandma, Grandpa, and I went down to Salt Lake to go to church with said sister. The building is a lovely old one with weird halls and staircases and nooks and crannies that the kids loved exploring. At one point I was in the hall with No, who had decided that sitting quietly in Sunday School was for suckers, and overheard two newly married men having a discussion trying to plan their home teaching. They were complaining about the time commitments of school and work and how their wives (shocker!) seemed to think they should get some time as well. One of the guys exclaimed:
"It's just too hard to schedule two lives around each other!"
I might have giggled just a little as my 5 other little ones came swarming up the stairs and around me. I am solely responsible to keep all 7 of our lives in sync and so far I'm doing a more than acceptable job. Of course, I may have had this exact conversation with a friend after being newly married myself, so it's obvious that I was not blessed with any foresight during that stage of my life, either.

Going nowhere fast

Since our sitter comes two nights a week I've been making more of an effort to get to the gym. Even though it is possible to take the kids and let them play in the room designed with a kids area, it's just easier to not have to worry about No. That boy seems to think if he can see me he should be held. And while he is helping me to lift weights by lugging around his bulky self, I still need to get some cardio in once in a while. My pet peeve is the hordes of teenaged types who clog up the 'parents with small children' room. Why don't they use the regular gym? There's plenty of room over there! Maybe I'm just annoyed at finally having a place I can work out with the kids, but not being able to use it because of the people not following rules. Oh well, wait another month and all those New Year's resolutions will have died and I'll have the place to myself again.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

How I Spent my Winter Vacation by D

Winter Vacation

“Hooray” it is Friday afternoon and the bell to end school has just rung! My family and I are going to California like we had planned months before.

It is Sunday afternoon and my family (not including my dad) was all packed and ready to go. We had a quick lunch and then we all hopped into our huge but cozy white van. The trip to California wasn’t very fun. But n v in the end it was worth it. The first day (of the two day long ride in our car) we, as in my family and I, spent most of the time listening to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on tape. At about 9:00 my mother sighted the Econo Lodge that she had reserved. This hotel was in Elko, Nevada. Our hotel room wasn’t too impressive. It had three queen sized beds and a tiny window seat bed. The room also had a very tiny bathroom. So, we all divvied out the beds. Emma, my 3 year old sister, got the window seat. I got the bed by the heater, my brother, J, he’s 11, and he got to be in the same bed as me. 6 year old Zac got the bed with 8 year old T. Mom got the last bed and 10 month old No got the portable crib. No kept waking us up ALL night. At 6am we went down stairs, had breakfast and hopped into the van for a half a day long drive to Modesto, California.

“Finally!” “We’re here!” “Yay!” At Grandma’s and Grandpa’s we said our hi’s and gave hugs to all our loved ones including Squeaker, my grandparents cat that passed away when I was 6. “I miss him a lot.” My Aunt Naya is finally home from her one and a half year mission in Romania. It was Christmas Eve and all of us were excited for Christmas was tomorrow. We had our traditional Christmas dinner and afterward we acted out our nativity. We were all allowed to open one present; our pajamas. It was hard to go to sleep but I managed it.

“It’s Christmas morning!” It took forever for everyone to wake up then everyone had to eat breakfast and mom had to get the camera. Finally everyone got finished. And yay we got to do stockings. Grandpa was handing out all the stockings. He was hilarious he would say stuff like “miss’s Em Evangeline” which is not Em’s middle name. Now it is time to open up our presents that we got. My favorite present was from Santa it was the only thing I had wanted for Christmas. It was a SCOOTER!

For the rest of the week I rode my scooter around the block, jumped on their tramp, and went to lots of parks. One day we went to see my great-grandparents (they are my grandma’s parents) so we went to Sacramento (that’s where great grandma and great grandpa Broadbent live) it was a long drive. On the way there we stopped at a train museum and spent an hour there. Finally we picked up lunch which was hamburgers! “Yuck” (we had those for the entire trip). When we got there we ate lunch and talked and played in their huge backyard. Finally we got ready to go home to grandpa and grandma’s house. A few days later we had to get packed up and load the van. (We would be driving on New Year’s Eve). So when finally we got home we had dinner and went to bed to have good dreams about our vacation.

Now that’s my story of my winter vacation. And I’m glad I belong in here in my home,. I hope you enjoy reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Friday, January 18, 2008

Yeti

Zac is my child who absolutely loves the snow. When the bus drops him off he rolls (yes, rolls) in every snow bank on the way home. When he finally arrives at the front door he is usually covered in snow, his face and ears totally red from the snow. I'm so glad that he enjoys this weather, because his mother certainly doesn't appreciate it! It's a blessing to be able to see all this magic covering the ground instead of more stuff to shovel.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Help the boy or grab the camera?


I was in the other room folding laundry when I heard No crying. He got himself into the compartment under my desk where the computer lives and couldn't get out. A great example of his mobility being more powerful than his sense of self preservation. Or maybe it's his overwhelming curiosity?

Monday, January 14, 2008

Always gets me down

Monday mornings in this house are usually a little stressful for me. It's the most likely day of the week for the kids to head to school with bed-head and unbrushed teeth. For whatever reason, just getting them to get up on a Monday morning is super-hard and I'm largely unsuccessful in getting them out the door on time.

This morning It took J over 35 minutes just to get dressed. He was the last kid out the door and was surly the entire morning. I suppose I should be grateful that they all made the bus, though.

On the other hand, Monday represents a new start to my week, a new chance to get caught up on everything and start anew. And one day closer to payday!

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Frozen


It's snowing. AGAIN. STOP IT ALREADY! My neighbor, Neil, told me that he's been praying for snow since we need the snowpack in the mountains quite badly. Is it wrong of me to hope that snow stays only in the mountains? Although, if he is going to continue to snowblow my walks and driveway I guess it's okay for him to pray for more snow. It's be nice if I could get to my mailbox, though. For four days the kids and I went out and dug a bit and we still haven't gotten the mailbox to where the mail delivery person can put the mail in it without stepping out of the mail delivery vehicle. Last night I had wild thoughts of crashing the van through the snow bank, but I don't think that would work without taking out the mailbox itself. See? Not quite certifiably insane. Yet.


Did I mention that I'm practicing my polite conversation skills, opening with the weather? Oh yeah.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Radiation


I used to think that the neighbor's black gutters looked. . . different. After weeks of having my own gutters completely frozen solid and the icicles building up to the point it looks like the eaves are bending, I'm thinking his black ice-free gutters look pretty cool. And WAY cheaper than heat tape.

Don't worry, with Dad's help I McGyvered it back up again.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Virtuoso


I don't know which is cuter, that she thinks she can actually play the piano, or that she thinks this is a 'charming' smile.

Not quite tangible

It seems to me that I spend an inordinate time online with nothing to show for it. Here's my solution: time spent online with a demonstrable result.

In addition: Baa

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