Slices of Life, Vol. 32

During the third week of school, Nathaniel came home dejected because his entire class was punished for talking too much in the halls. Their punishment was to forgo recess that day.

Nathaniel: "I wasn't even talking, Mommy."

Me: "I believe you, buddy."

Nathaniel: "Eighty percent of the class was talking, but I was TOTALLY SILENT."

Me: "Well, I agree that it doesn't seem fair, buddy, but if she couldn't isolate exactly who was talking and who wasn't, I guess she didn't have a choice."

Nathaniel: "Yeah, SOMETIMES THE INNOCENT HAVE TO SUFFER WITH THE GUILTY."

 * * * * *

Nathaniel had eaten a large breakfast recently and didn't want to eat lunch before heading out to the Cub Scout Ice Cream Social. However, Nick and Jake WERE eating their lunches.

Nicholas: "Daddy, doesn't Nathaniel have to eat his lunch in order to be able to eat ice cream?"

Grayson: "We'll see."

Nicholas: "SAY YES."

* * * * *

Recently our TableTopic of the evening was, "Name an ancestor you'd like to meet." I explained what an ancestor is, then:

Nathaniel: "I'd like to meet Daddy's brother who died in the car crash."

Nicholas: "Mop and Pop."

Me: "Well, buddy, that's so sweet, but Mop and Pop are alive. An ancestor is someone who died before you were born."

Nicholas: "I know. I DON'T WANT TO MEET DEAD PEOPLE."

* * * * *

When my family was here over Labor Day, my sister and Nicholas were playing "The Quiet Game." It's the best game of all time for parents, in which the players sit still and whoever goes the longest without making a sound wins.

Sarah Ellen: [silent]

Nicholas: [silent]

Sarah Ellen: [silent]

Nicholas: [burp]

Sarah Ellen: "I WIN!"

Nicholas: "WHY? I didn't say anything!"

Sarah Ellen: "You burped!"

Nicholas: "BURPS AND TOOTS DON'T COUNT."

********

That same weekend, my sister was sleeping when Nathaniel came in to wake her up.

Nathaniel: "Sarah Ellen, will you please come downstairs now?"

Sarah Ellen: "Umm …" [Looks at clock, which says 9:14] "I'll come down in 15 minutes. I'll be down there at 9:30."

Nathaniel: [sighs] "Okay."

Then as he heads out the door, he tosses a backward glance her way and says pointedly, "NINE TWENTY-NINE."

********

Every evening on the way home from school, the big boys and I cover Best & Worst. This is their first time to tell me about their day, so each one gets to tell me the best thing that happened during their day, as well as the worst.

Me: "OK, Nathaniel, best and worst, buddy."

Nathaniel: "Ummmmm, BEST was pizza for lunch, and worst wazzzzzzzzz, um, they didn't have any more Wimpy Kid books for me to check out during Library."

Me: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe we can find some at the library this weekend. Nick, best and worst for you, boo."

Nicholas: "Best was pizza for lunch, DEFINITELY. And worst was that my art teacher was out sick."

Nathaniel: "Oh REALLY, Nicholas? Because I would think your worst would be that during Extended Day, you and Whitt got in a fight and you hit him and he cried and then you had to sit out of free play time in the gym."

Nicholas:  [shrugs]  "Nope."

 ********

At supper recently:

Nathaniel: "Where is Allie's birthday party going to be?"

Me: "Storyville Station. It's where DJ had his Star Wars birthday party."

Nathaniel: "Don't remember it."

Me: "Seriously? You remember EVERYTHING. You don't remember doing a light saber battle with Darth Vader and sliding the slide from the main floor to the basement?"

Nathaniel: "Ohhh, THAT place. YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE SPECIFIC."

********

While driving to supper one night:

Nathaniel: "Wait. Didn't there used to be a CVS there at one point? Where we used to pick up our prescriptions?"

Me: "Yeah, but a couple of years ago they changed it, and now it's a fitness club."

Nicholas: "By 'changed it,' do you mean they CUSTOMIZED it? Like painted it and made it all new?"

Me: "Yeeeeees. How do you know that word, Nick?"

Nick: [nonchalantly] "Ehh, I've heard it."

  ********

Jakey's pretty particular about what he wears. He likes to choose his clothes every day (he GREATLY prefers "cock-kees" to denim shorts), but every once in a while, he'll deign to let me choose. Recently:

Me: "Jakey, do you want to choose your shirt today, and do you want Mommy to choose?"

Jake: "Mommy choose."

Me: [delighted] "REALLY? Mommy gets to choose today?"

Jake: "Yes." [Points into his drawer at his orange skateboard shirt]  "YOU CHOOSE ORANGE."

   ********

For those of you who recently asked about funny things my kids say, if you're new to the blog and haven't already read them all, you can catch up on the 31 previous Slices of Life posts here. You know, when you have six spare hours.

Six months come and gone

Six months ago today I stood at the ballpark with my parents waiting for word from Mobile, waiting on the phone call that would tell us that Kathryn, Ben and Harry had said goodbye to Kyser. Today I'll be back at the ballpark for more games, treading that same sidewalk on the same kind of beautiful day, and I can't wrap my mind around the fact that six months have elapsed since Kyser died.

I don't know if I'm more surprised that it's ALREADY been six months or that it's ONLY been six months. I've sort of felt that way every day since it happened. Sometimes it seems like it was just a few days ago that I got the shocking wake-up phone call from my parents, and some days it feels like it was an eternity ago. Regardless, the wound hasn't healed. The pain is still fresh.

What I can say with certainty is that in those six months' worth of days, there hasn't been a single waking hour that Kyser and/or Kathryn, Ben and Harry haven't been in my thoughts. I think of Kyser at totally unexpected times with no apparent triggers for the memory, as well as the ones that are more obvious -- any mention of Mobile, Vanderbilt, holidays, hunting, fishing, driving by any Chevron gas station, seeing any piece of pottery -- and most of the time my throat still gets tight and I struggle not to cry.

I can't think of the dignity of his life and without realizing what an antithesis it was to the indignity of the manner of his death. I can't bring to mind the smile that was ever-present on his face and somehow reconcile it with the fear and trepidation that replaced it in his final moments on Earth. I can't recount how much he had already accomplished in his short life without mourning all he had yet to do. I can't relive the hours upon hours that I spent playing with him and Harry when they were young without grieving the fact that I'll never get to meet the children he might have had.

I know I need to get over all of the bad stuff and just try to remember the good, especially since his four alleged killers are behind bars, awaiting trial. My head knows that it doesn't serve any purpose to get bogged down in the tragedy instead of rejoicing in the glory that was Kyser's life and his now-everlasting life -- but my heart has a harder time getting past all of the gruesome facts. And if it remains this hard for me, how much harder is it, day upon day, for Kathryn, Ben and Harry? Please keep them in thought and prayer.

Six months today. How long will it take?

I'm rising in the polls

Earlier this week, I took the space behind the couch and sofa table (sofa and sofa table? couch and couch table?) and did this:

Through the week, it served as a reading fort and -- let's get real -- a DS-charging and -playing fort. But last night, it turned into a Sleeping Fort.

In the dim light of the den after the house quieted, it looked like the picture above. But here it is with the flash so you can see inside a little better:

Nicholas fell asleep almost immediately, but as usual, Nathaniel read for almost an hour.

I typed on my laptop while he read Boxcar Children #4, and he was thrilled when he asked me to go to the Web site listed at the back of the book and we discovered that there are apparently more than 120 books in the series.

Good to know. That should carry him through Christmas.

Emptying my cache

I don't have scientific evidence to support this theory, but I'm pretty sure that over the past 150 weeks or so, there's not been a single week in which I haven't posted new pictures of my kids. But for whatever reason, this week just hasn't been conducive to taking pictures ... I've worked late, we've had ball practice and Cub Scouts, and it's getting dark so early now that there just aren't enough moments in the day.

So while I know that there are probably a few people out there -- my sister chief among them -- who were hoping for some dimpled goodness today, it's going to have to wait a couple more days. Today, I just have some cleaning out of the cobwebs to do.

1. It's really unfortunate when you buy a 72-pack of disposable razors at Costco and then you get them home and use one and you hate them. Luckily for me, four years later and I'm finally on razor 67. ALMOST THERE.

2. I am 37 years old, and my favorite sandwich is still a PB&J cut into two equilateral triangles.

3. If you told me to add a layer of sour cream over my peanut butter and sprinkle some diced onions on top of my jelly, I'd tell you to go jump in the lake. But as God is my witness, there's no better companion chip to a PB&J than Ruffles Sour Cream 'n' Onion.

4. Monday night during supper Grayson asked Nathaniel and Nicholas if they knew where Christopher Columbus was from. They both guessed Spain. I said, "Hey. I think I might know. Genoa, Italy?" GRAYSON'S MIND = BLOWN. Yeah, baby. That's right. How do ya like THEM apples?

5. We need to find out definitively who the heck was in charge of getting the Chilean miners out of there and hire him to do something -- ANYTHING -- over here. Talk about underpromising and overdelivering. MY. WORD. I don't know when I've been more impressed.

6. A man once did some work on our house, and when I asked for his number to follow up with him, he gave it to me like this, really quickly: "Eighty-seven, sixty-two, ten-four." And seriously, you guys. I stumbled as I was writing it down on my piece of paper. Have you ever tried to write down a phone number in two digit increments spoken at 100 miles per hour in a heavy Southern accent? I have no idea what's wrong with the more traditional "Eight seven six, two one zero four," but boy he had his number DOWN PAT.

You asked, I answer

Clearly I should have asked you guys a loooooooooong time ago about some blog topics for my tired old blawg. I am SO glad to have some new things to talk about.




Leigh asked: Do you coupon, and what strategies do you use to coupon? Also, do you have any pets?


Nope, I don't. I should. Grayson does the grocery shopping in our family, because he said I always spent twice what I should have back when I did the shopping. Now that he does it, we spend far less money -- but he doesn't have the patience to use the coupons I clip. The exception to that rule is at Costco. If I tuck the coupons in his wallet right on top of his credit card where he can't miss them, he'll use one or two coupons at Costco.


I do have several friends who are such Epic Couponers that they save literally hundreds of dollars a month on their grocery bills. Their favorite coupon sites include Coupon Mom and I Heart Publix. My friend Doran (who is also a faithful blog reader -- Hi, Doran!) does a segment on our local ABC affiliate as "Savvy Mom." She shares tips on how to save money via coupons and other ways (such as Closet Swapping) all the time. You can follow her on Facebook to learn all of her money-saving secrets.


And yes! We have a pet. We have a cat named Scout, who is the only pet we have left at this point. We lost our cat Ellie almost two years ago to kidney failure and our dog Moses shortly thereafter to old age. We mourned both of them mightily, but Scoutie is the best cat we could ever ask for and we're so lucky to have him. His mom was Siamese and his dad a Maine Coon, and he definitely takes after his dad. Most of his life he weighed about 17 pounds, but he's lost three or four pounds over the last couple of years. His whiskers are about six inches long and he has the sweetest disposition of any cat I've ever known. We love our Scoutie!

Amanda asked: Where do you get those shirts with the boys' names on them?


The white ones the kids wear at the beach come from Smitten & Co.

The ones with their names in big letters across the front that usually have a star underneath them come from 3Ts and Me. I adore both of the shop owners, who are always willing to work with you on custom designs and who use the softest cotton known to man.

Links to those shops remain in my sidebar if you ever forget who they are and need to link to them!




Joan asked: With a lot of the boys' clothes personalized with their names, do you hand down those shirts to the others? 


No. I have no problem with it, but they only want to wear shirts with their OWN names on them. I can understand that, so it doesn't bother me. They get two short-sleeved shirts a year and one long-sleeved one per year with their names on them. (Light green ones are coming this Fall!) You see them pictured a lot here because they are usually their absolute favorite shirts of the season. As I mentioned a minute ago, the shirts are ultra-soft, and they usually choose them first thing out of the clean laundry pile. I bet Nathaniel will grow out of the idea in a year or so, so I'm enjoying it while I can. When they get a little older, I plan to have a friend make a light quilt for each of them out of their favorite shirts, and some of these will no doubt make the cut. 


There were a lot of other great questions, and I'll be coming back with answers to them over the next couple of weeks. Thanks again for asking!

Things I hate: at Ballard Designs

So when I asked you for blog topics you'd like to hear about recently, my friend Walt (who used a pseudonym, but I'm PRETTY SURE it was my friend Walt) suggested a post about things I hate in my porn one of the home catalogs I read, in lieu of the regular posts in which I list the things I love.

And at first I was all like, "How on Earth am I going to find things I hate at Ballard or PB?" Turns out, it wasn't that difficult after all. Let's go!

I hit the jackpot for the first time on page 4 when I saw the Rooftop Finials ($39 to $79). I may be speaking as a parent here, but ohmyword they look like trouble.

I look at these and see my boys grabbing them and using them as weapons, as replacements for their light sabers. Plus, they look a little phallic. Never a good thing on a sideboard, in my opinion.

Same goes for these Mercury Glass Finials ($19 to $49).

Christmastime is a completely inappropriate season for phallic decorating. Valentine's Day, MAYBE, but you're still pushing the limits of good taste, people.

Next I came upon the Wooden Crowns ($79 to $89), which just look like mutated forms of coral to me.

I just feel in my heart like the Wise Men really would have done better.

Now. I'm not against animal print. I AM, however, against animal hide that isn't oversized for proper scale to your room and therefore looks like roadkill dropped right into your foyer. Like so:

LAYERED ROADKILL, NO LESS. For only $449. And if the cowhide weren't rough enough, they have what they term a "Zebra-shaped Rug," about which the only thing I can say is, Yes, it is, in fact, zebra-shaped.

Still, at only $199, you might consider it a steal next to the cowhide version.

Onward! It goes against my nature to rail against a catalog I love so dearly, and yet it must be fulfilling some kind of long-latent need. The time has come. I'M ON A ROLL.

The next item to pop up on my radar was the Niles Double Coat Rack ($179). What problem could I possibly have with a coat rack, you ask?

IT HAS NO DOOR. Perhaps that comes on the $999 version. The lines on it are nice and everything, but EGADS, how quickly would that thing get piled up and overflow? If I had that thing standing in a mammoth foyer like the one in the catalog, it would soon look like every closet in our house had thrown up on it. Trust me on this. I live it every day of my LIFE. That foyer is so big you should just go ahead and build a freaking closet in it, BY THE WAY.

Okay, I just have a few more. Faux Mike Coat Ornaments. DO I EVEN NEED TO COMMENT?

Fine. I bet they smell like my bunny fur coat from the 1980s, like a wet cat. They look like tiny little Chewbacca jackets hanging on that poor Christmas tree. Hardly a bargain at 6 for $20.

At first I wasn't sure about the Fresh Cedar Alphabet Wreath ($35). I mean, the price isn't bad. But after about 30 seconds, I realized what was bothering me about it. It reminds me of The Grinch.

Decision: The only letter that would look good as a wreath is O.

And last but not least, the sweet Montresor Deer ($169 to $199) greeted me toward the back of the catalog. Okay. They're cute. They're seasonal. They're weather-resistant.

But I'll be darned if I'm gonna spend all of November and December being startled as I pass by my back door by seeing two life-like deer who look like they're begging to be let in out of the cold. And I'm QUITE sure Grayson would quickly tire of me yelling at him thrice a day, "HONEY! LET THE DEER IN!"

Uncomfortable truths, vol. 3

1. I've very recently become a total weirdo about shaving my legs. My whole life -- dating, engaged, married -- I've always felt like a couple of times a week or -- at most -- every other day, was sufficient. All of a sudden, I can't STAND myself if I go a day without shaving them. That's backwards, right? I've been married for 15 years and NOW I care if I have smooth legs? I have no explanation for this.

2. I have a list of Daily Blogs and a list of Weekly Blogs. There are 45 blogs on the Daily list and 63 on the Weekly list. My blog metrics tell me that the average person spends one minute and 53 seconds here every day. I'm a fast reader, so it doesn't take me that long to read an average post on a blog, but I probably spend a minute and a half on each one every day. That means a little over an hour each night is devoted to reading other people's blogs. I'm sure those numbers put me squarely in the corner of "TOO MANY" for lots of you out there. For me, it's just a pleasure. It's the flip side of giving other people something to read; for that hour or a little more each night after the kids go to bed, I get to catch up on what everyone else is doing.

3. The change of seasons can be sudden around here and can revert just as quickly for another few weeks. We keep the kids' out-of-season clothes in big Rubbermaids in our attic, so they're pretty hard to get to on a moment's notice. Invariably, I have to run into Target to get Jakey a couple of pairs of pants at the beginning of Fall just to get us through that first cold snap, because I'm too lazy to pull down the attic stairs, go up there and find the right Rubbermaid. I know it's kind of an unnecessary expense (although I won't call it a waste of money), but each of the last three Falls I've done this.

4. I have a terrible memory. I mean, I can rattle off things like Brad and Angie's kids in birth order MaddoxPaxZaharaShilohKnoxandVivienne, and I can remind you that Friends aired from 1994 to 2004. I cannot, however, list six current members of Congress or tell you the years Carter served as president of the United States. I am bothered by this phenomenon. And yet I am powerless to do anything about it.

5. When we make plans to go to a party at a friend's house and pay a babysitter to stay with the kids, if the party starts at 7:00, you can count on us to ring your doorbell between 6:57 and 6:59. Fashionably late? NOT US. (As a matter of fact, we'd prefer that your party start around 2:00 in the afternoon and go straight through 'til midnight.) If we're running REALLY early, we'll stop and top off our gas tank so as not to arrive while you're still in the shower, but if you're hoping your guests will give you a few extra minutes to pull things together, you'd best not be inviting us. Because we aren't Those People.

6. Nicholas smells his fingers a lot. When I ask him why he's smelling his fingers, he answers, "I dunno."  It makes me feel like he's done something terrible with them and is checking them out to see if there's a trail of evidence, but I can't prove that's what he's doing. So until I can catch him doing something nasty, I can't do anything about it. Right? Puh-leeze don't suggest that I smell them myself. THE THOUGHT MAKES ME GAG.

7. On Saturday the boys spent a good amount of time in the sandbox. They got so dirty, in fact, that a bath was mandatory when they came back inside. Mandatory. This is what the tub looked like when we drained it afterward:

You have my permission to throw up.

Technical advice from a completely non-technical person

First of all, I'd like to say THANKS to all of you who suggested blog topics in your Comments on the Target post last week. Some of them are things I never would have written about because I would have thought nobody cared, but then again, I don't know why that would have stopped me. Many of them were great and I'll be using them as inspiration going forward.

Second, it was nice of you to request MORE of some of the things I already write about. That makes me feel like there's already something for everyone around here, and I can kind of just keep doing what I've been doing, and you're likely to be okay with it.

So I'm the LAST person who should be giving anyone out there computer or technical advice of any sort, but I noticed in the Comments on that same post that many of you either don't have a Twitter account or have one and don't use it. Since it's become my favorite form of social media, it occurred to me that I might give you a few notes on it, as well as how to customize your Internet browser to improve your overall Internet experience.

Don't click away yet. Hear me out.

First of all, you can create a Twitter account and never Tweet. You can set one up just to be able to READ Tweets, which is really the fun part, anyway. Second, unlike Facebook, you can follow anyone who has a public profile, even if they don't know you. That means you can follow artists, actors, celebrities, musicians … and you get their funny little thoughts and even their brief conversations with other famous people as they Tweet back and forth to each other. I think that is all kinds of fun. I highly recommend getting a free account, and if you think you won't ever check it, that's where my Big Tip of the Century comes into play.

Set your home page for your Internet browser to be multiple pages. If you're using a current version of most any mainstream browser (Safari, Firefox, Explorer), you can easily do this. (And if you're not using the most current version, you should definitely upgrade.) What is your home page today? Your e-mail log-in page? CNN.com? Some default Microsoft home page? Time to upgrade!

1. Think of four or five Web pages that you visit every day (or WANT to visit every day but don't because it's too much work to to go your Favorites menu and pull down to all of them). For me, they're my Yahoo! e-mail log-in page, my blog, Facebook and Twitter.

2. In your browser, open up the first one, the one you'd use most often.

3. Then, in Internet Explorer, for example, go to your File menu at the top and pull down to New Tab.

4. Surf to your next site so that it shows up in the newly opened tab. Repeat until you have as many tabs open as you'd like. (Some people have 20 or more. I like the simplicity of four with a fifth that serves more of a Surf/Search function.)

5. Once you have all the tabs open to the pages in the order you like them, go to the Tools menu at the top and pull down to Internet Options. (Again, these are IE instructions, even though I use Firefox, myself. Instructions are available for all browsers through a simple Google search, and video tutorials are even available on YouTube if you want a video step-by-step.)

6. Under the General tab there's a setting for Home Page. Click Use Current. (You should see your multiple addresses appear.) Click OK.

You're done! Now each time you launch your browser, those tabs will all load. That means that Facebook and Twitter would always open up when you check your e-mail or whatever, making it VERY easy to check in on them periodically. Setting up multiple tabs as my home page totally changed the way I use the Internet, and now I can't imagine doing it any other way.

Like I said, I use my four main tabs all the time, and I have a fifth tab that launches blank. I use that tab for surfing to other sites I use regularly but don't want to permanently be part of my launch process. Sites like CNN.com, weather.com, the ballpark, dictionary.com, my work e-mail, movietickets.com … I navigate to those kind of sites from that fifth tab nightly.

So there you have it: technical advice from a technical idiot. But I hope it helps revolutionize your Internet experience like it has mine. AND FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE GET ON TWITTER!

Didn't see this one coming

OK, so this is weird.

So far, only one of the three Target gift card winners has contacted me about her gift card. I'm linking to the post in which I announced the winners again here so that they know they've won and will hopefully get in touch with me.

However, if I don't hear from them by Wednesday, I guess I will draw again!

I'm a bad, bad mommy

I mentioned recently Jake's love affair with the letter J. He could basically perform an entire Sesame Street episode as a one-man show: Introducing the Letter J, with Jakey.

So he loves to sleep with the letter J written on a little piece of paper, and he's very protective of the letter -- whether he sees it on TV, in a magazine or on a random piece of paper.

And sometimes it's fun to mess with him, like trying to appropriate the letter J for myself. Because God forbid anyone else in the world CLAIM HIS J.



Twice he's broken down in tears because I told him it was My Letter J. So really, I went easy on him in this video. But PEOPLE. It's a letter on a piece of paper. I have to set SOME limits for this child, right?