What was the number one song on the day you were born? Go here to find out! And please share 
Mine was Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me by Mac Davis! I knew every other song on the list for my birth date in the 70s, but not that one!
Keira’s preschool teacher is on vacation for a couple of weeks. We got to school a bit early yesterday because I had to get to work for a meeting, so I didn’t get to see who her substitute teacher was. I also got to school a bit later to pick them up, so I didn’t see her after school, either.
When we got home, I asked Keira what her teacher’s name was. Her response almost left me rolling on the floor!
“I don’t know what her name was. But she had long hair in a beautiful pony tail on top of her head. She had on a pretty purple shirt with sparkly pink hearts and flowers on it and a beautiful skirt. She wore blue shoes . . . shoes that covered her toes, but not her heels . . . kind of like flip flop shoes. But I don’t know what her name was.”
OMG!!! I fear that I am raising the next Joan or Melissa!!!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a bucket of green army men? You know, those teeny tiny 1-2 inch tall green army men in various combat poses standing on those little plastic platforms. (The army men are one of my favorite parts of Toy Story, btw.) My son decided he wanted an Army theme for his birthday party, which is just fine with me. We’ve got a heavily wooded yard, so we figure the boys can play capture the flag and run around in the trees with their little plastic army hats on. We also got this fun pinata shaped like an Army tank. The great idea that the hubby and I had was to fill the pinata with little green army men. So we went to Target, absolutely positive that we’d walk to the toy section, grab a bucket of green army men, and be on our way. Much to our surprise, there was no bucket of green army men. There wasn’t even a teeny tiny bag of green army men! So off to Walmart we went. Again, disappointment.
We were absolutely flabbergasted. Really? No bucket of plastic green army men? “How can this be” we thought?! Back in the day, we could walk 2 blocks to the tiny local grocery store and buy a bag of green army men for a penny! They were EVERYWHERE! Apparently that is not the case anymore. I figured that one of the stores would have them online, so I get online Monday morning and go to Walmart.com. I type in army men and come up with all kinds of movies, video games, even books - but not one single toy! Really?! Off to Target.com and Toysrus.com with the same results. Who woulda though getting a bucket of green army men would be so tough! I even tried Oriental Trading Company - they’ve got tons of crap and an entire section devoted to an army birthday party - they HAVE to have a bucket of green army men! Nope . . . but hey, they do have a 48 pack of green BENDABLE army men. Oh, and did you know that there are 12 items in a dozen? I’m totally serious . . . Oriental Trading Company said so . . . over and over and over. “4 dozen per lot. 12 items per dozen.” I decided to “keep that in mind” as my kids say when they can’t decide which “thing” they want to choose.
I finally give in and google “green army men” - well, you can only imagine what kind of results I got for that! Not the kind of stuff I really wanted coming up on my computer at work. Next I tried army men toys. BINGO! Turns out, there’s actually a Web site called plastic-army-men.com. Who knew?! I also learned that you have many many choices when choosing your plastic army men. You can get men from all the different wars! Really, I just want a package of about 100 plastic green army men - I really don’t care what they’re wearing. I found the 100 green army men package that I was looking for, but the thing is, the company is in Canada. I am not. While I could get a gazillion green army men for $15, the shipping was also $15! Sorry, but not paying $30 for some green army men that had a 2-4 week shipping average and may not make it for the party. I was about ready to give up and fill the pinata with candy (ICK!), then decided to head to eBay, where I of course found tons of auctions for huge lots of plastic army men with all the trimmings. Again, excellent prices - buy now and for only $20 you get over 500 green army men, tanks, and whatever else you might ever want to accessorize them. Oh, and they are BRAND NEW too! Of course, shipping will cost you $20, but that’s OK, cuz look - you’re getting all these cool brand new army men for a mere $20!!! Um, no thank you. So I tried Google one more time. This time I tried plastic army men. Apparently THAT was the magic phrase. I got 5 whole sites this time to try, and I was happy as a clam when one of them, http://www.backyardartillery.com, offered me 100 plastic army men (I got to choose green or tan!) for $6.99 and only wanted to charge me $6 in shipping. And get this, the order will be here in 5 days!
So, here’s to hoping you have GIRLS, because they are much less likely to request little plastic army men for a birthday party. But if you do have boys, you now know exactly what to do and what NOT to do to find those darling little plastic green army men.
This Friday Funny is compliments of a friend that owns and teaches at a Montesorri school. It comes second hand, through a mutual friend.
The 3 and 4 year olds were reviewing the alphabet cards on the wall. We all know those, the ones with the letter written incredibly neatly and a picture of something that begins with the letter. When they got to “R” a child shouted out “CD!” Ms. Gisela said that was incorrect because CD did not start with the letter R. She got 30 blank stares. She went on to explain that it was a Record. At the end of the explanation, one of the kids nudged his buddy and whispered to him “I saw one once!”
Just more evidence that I come from the olden days!
I have all kinds of things to say today . . . but not much of it is nice, so I’ll refrain and recycle a previous post
Thinking of Having Kids? Do this 15 step program first!
Lesson 1
Go to the grocery store.
Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
Go home. Pick up the paper.
Read it for the last time.
Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…
Methods of discipline.
Lack of patience.
Appallingly low tolerance levels.
Allowing their children to run wild.
Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.
Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel….
Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
Set the alarm for 3AM.
As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
Go to bed at 2:45AM.
Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.
Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out..
Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
Then rub them on the clean walls.
Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?
Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this - all morning.
Lesson 6
Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a jar of paint, turn it into an alligator.
Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of aluminum foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.
Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.
Lesson 7
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
Lesson 8
Get ready to go out.
Sit on the floor of your bathroom reading picture books for half an hour.
Go out the front door.
Come in again.
Go out.
Come back in.
Go out again.
Walk down the front path.
Walk back up it.
Walk down it again.
Walk very slowly down the sidewalk for five minutes.
Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
Retrace your steps.
Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you.
Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Lesson 9
Repeat everything you have learned at least (if not more than) five times.
Lesson 10
Lesson 11
Hollow out a melon.
Make a small hole in the side.
Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine- month old baby.
 Lesson 12
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s “Noggin”?) Exactly the point.
Lesson 13
Lesson 14
Lesson 15
Yes, IT is done! And do you know how long it took me to unattach and reattach all the springs the CORRECT way? 10 minutes. Yup, 10 friggin’ minutes. After all that crap on Sunday, it took me 10 MINUTES to get the trampoline all set up. No pulling, no dragging, no killing my back, no cutting my hands with rusty spring ends. 10 minutes of mildly stretching springs while whistling a little tune (OK, I can’t whistle - but if I COULD whistle, I certainly would have!).
Anyone who knows me KNOWS that had I been given insructions for this thing, I would have read them all through first before doing anything, and only after reading all the instructions would I have started over at step 1 and begun assembling the trampoline. You see, I’m a technical writer. I write instructions every single day for hours and hours. I would have read those instructions if for no other reason than to make the person who wrote them feel like they’d written something useful 
But I was NOT given instructions (used old trampoline dragged from the neighbors yard) and walking the 20 yards in to the office and turning on the computer to google “trampoline assembly instructions” would have taken an entire 5 minutes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, would obviously have been a waste of time
We’re headed to the mountains to play for the day! The kids have been jumping on the trampoline, so I felt the need to share this previous post with you I’ll post Part Deux tomorrow.
So I bought the kids a trampoline this weekend . . . an old used one from the neighbors. They had a moving truck out front so I asked if they had sold the trampoline with the house or would be willing to sell it to me. They said it was all ours - $50 - woo hoo! The dad who lives there (we’ll call him Jim Bob) and I were silly enough to think we could just tip it up and roll it to my yard. GREAT idea . . . IF we had 4 adults that were over 6 feet tall AND had yards with no trees or hills. When it’s just me and Jason, that wasn’t such a great idea. And I HAD to move it yesterday cuz they are closing on Wednesday. I didn’t ask Jim Bob to help cuz they were obviously busy packing and moving . . . figured they had enough going on. So, Jason, my 6 year old, and I tried semi-disassembling the trampoline . . . no luck. Apparently when you take just the legs off, the thing becomes unround and this freaky shape. So we started undoing some of the springs . . . which was a royal pain in the ass! Cuz once you undo one side, the other side is pulling so tight that you can’t stretch them anymore. ICK! We finally, with the use of a crow bar and bungee cords (don’t ask) got them all off. We totally disassembled the thing and took it to our yard, where I promptly realized we do not have a flat spot large enough for a trampoline We found the “best” spot that wasn’t right in front of the storage closet and started reassembling. We’ll have to cut off a couple tree branches, but I’m OK with that We got it “round” and started attaching the springs. I got 3/4 of them done and couldn’t stretch the rest, so decided to put the legs on and get it as finished as I could. Bad idea. When you attach the springs first, the thing gets all contorted and not round (see statement above) and the legs won’t fit in the holes and you can’t rotate the frame. So, undo all springs - again. Attach legs, which is a pain with one person cuz when you lift one side to attach the legs, the legs on the other side fall out. Jason was a great help, really. Keira (she’s 4) not so much - “Is it done yet? When can I bounce on it? It’s REALLY big mommy - how did you get that over here? You should have waited for Daddy. He’s strong and could do it better than you…” Finally got all legs on and it’s round and actually sitting pretty level - wedged between some huge pine trees. Then I hear Keira yell “Jason, don’t swing in to me on that thing!” I yelled across the yard “Jason, get down! Do NOT swing in to your sister on that!” Then BAM - and Jason screams. He was standing half on the swing set with his legs around the new green disc swing thing and apparently “slipped” (whatever!) and swung toward Keira, but his plan didn’t go as well as he thought it would - and he fell half way off the green disc and the other side came up and smacked him in the mouth. Blood everywhere. He totally cut his top lip with those new huge pointy teeth he has - and knocked one of them a little loose! I was SO MAD! Took him inside, the whole time being the good mother I am and telling him that I’m sorry he hurt himself, but I don’t feel bad for him because I told him not to do it and he did anyway and this was his natural punishment for being a pain to his sister. Gave him and Keira each a popcicle - his to use as ice on his lip and Keira to have cuz, well, it wouldn’t be fair for just J to have one. You see, his mouth was dripping blood and I didn’t want him walking to the kitchen to get ice, which would have required him to walk across the freshly shampooed carpet and up the stairs, all the while dripping blood on it, so I sent him around to the garage for popcicles out of the freezer instead of to the kitchen for ice. I know, I’m in the running for the mother of the year award!
Anyway, back to the trampoline - IÂ started attaching all the springs and got about 3/4 finished and can’t even come close to attaching the rest. Can’t stretch them far enough. I endure a dinner of my daughter looking longingly out the sliding glass door and saying “I sure wish I could bounce on that huge trampoline. When is Daddy coming home? I bet he could finish it.”
So I get online today to see what the “trick” is. Lo and behold, I have to undo ALL the friggin’ springs AGAIN! It says to do it in quarters . . . which I kind of did, but not really. So we’ll see if I actually get this thing completely assembled this evening or if my 4 year old will belittle me and tell me how much stronger Daddy is than I am.
I was reading books with my son, Jason, the other night before bed. He was holding a stretchy green ball that has spikes on it (he calls it his sea urchin). He took two of the spikes and pulled them way up high and let the ball hang down. Then he said “Hey Mom - is this what TV’s looked like in the olden days? You know, then they had those weird things sticking up out of them?”
THE OLDEN DAYS?!?! OMG! I remember having that very TV in my house as a child - and I certainly don’t consider myself old!
I picture the olden days as buggies and horses on dirt roads Little House on the Prairie style. Not so much as color TVs with rabbit ears!
I’m just giggling to myself right now. I got my ParentCenter e-mail this morning and the feature of the week was their awesome height calculator. I thought “Cool! I’ve got a pretty good idea what it’ll tell me, but I’ll check it out anyway.”
So I filled out the little form, telling them that my daughter was indeed female, that she is 4, that she is 3 feet 2 inches tall, and supplied the height of myself (5′ 2″) and my husband (5′ 7″) - which obviously were not values that they actually used in their calculation. Upon clicking Submit, this is the wisdom Parent Center imparted on me about the pending height of my daughter:
“Your daughter will likely be 6 feet, 1 inches tall at age 18. This prediction is a “best guess” but it’s still just that — a guess. Based on the formula we used,* there’s a 50 percent chance your daughter’s full-grown height will be within 1 inch (above or below) of this prediction, a 69 percent chance it will be within 2 inches, and an 84 percent chance it will be within 3 inches.”
Now even with the 84% chance of it being within 3 inches, my daughter has a chance at being 5′ 10″ tall! Are you kidding me? Keira has about as much chance of being over 5′ 7″ as I have of stuffing an elephant in my refrigerator! You’ve seen our heights, and I can confirm that of all the immediate relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts and great-uncles, grandparents) on both sides of our families, there are maybe 5 that reach 5′ 10″ or higher.
I’ve always joked that if I was a few inches taller I coulda been somebody Maybe Keira will get my extra couple inches
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