Ikea and Dragons

For months I have had to pry my laptop out of my youngest hands when I wanted to use it and he isn’t playing video games.

He is reading about lizards, reptiles, amphibians, and every other hairless creature that makes the average person scream.  He is reading about authors who write about lizards.  Nic Bishop is an author and photographer that is his hero.  I tried to find Mr. Bishop at a book signing.  I was willing to drive a great distance for Peter to meet his idol, but no luck.

He is shopping for books to buy about lizards and ultimately he is shopping for lizards.

Every time he asks I remind him we have a dog and hermit crabs.  He keeps asking and so I now say, “sure, as soon as your wife agrees, one day.”

He then began catching all sort of critters in the pond and creek in our backyard

All I could imagine was him

catching flesh-eating bacteria.

Then summer vacation came and I just wanted to go to Ikea.

I am the last person on the planet that hasn’t been to one, (well, not last but last of the people that probably WANT to go.)

The big boys balked at the idea of making a pilgrimage to a store so big you have to follow arrows on the ground, even with meatballs promised.

I convinced Peter to go with me as we needed dog food and this would mean a trip to the pet store on the way.  He asked the employees at the pet store if he could hold some of the critters.

I don’t know how it happened but we both fell in love with the Bearded Dragon hatchling.

I told him we would talk about it but we were on our way to Ikea now.

He called my husband at the office and lobbied for the Lizard for the hour it took to get to Ikea.  My husband discussed it with me.

Frankly, he has been so obsessed that I was getting worried he was getting a little OCD about them.  I was beginning to think it might be a good idea.  After all, I have boys and owning a reptile was inevitable, right?

During the drive I finally told him we agreed to let him get one.

Four hours at Ikea and all he talked about was when we were going to get his new pet and all the ways he would introduce people to his new best friend.

I gave up and at 8:50pm we ran into a pet shop and bought a cute little guy.

We bought most of the the reptile aisle as well.

This includes live crickets, a cricket home, and cricket food, (shoot me.)

This also includes live meal worms that must be kept in the fridge, (shoot me again.)

 Our little dragon is going

to grow to be two feet long!

We will need a larger terrarium and even more heat

lamps and Peter tells me he can walk him on a leash.

I keep telling Peter he wont be walking him on a leash if he doesn’t stop “loving” on him so much.  I told him that the little guy is adjusting to his new home and needs to stay in his cage but I found Peter asleep like this…I should have bought a secret “back-up dragon” just in case.

He is in LOVE.

Abbie, All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing

allthatmakesyou.com

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• Signs of illness in your reptile – what to look out for (cometscorners.wordpress.com)
• Bearded Dragon Cage Types and Requirements (therealowner.com)
• Quite Interesting Actually for Bearded Dragon Cadger Behavior (therealowner.com)

Moment You Realize You Have Done Too Much For Your Kids…

One of the downfalls of trying to be good parent is perhaps you have helped them TOO MUCH.

One of the older boys was voicing great frustration while replacing his shoes laces after I washed them.  When I told him to just try again, (I have shown him how to do it right) his reply was, “I have tried it three times!”

I cannot help but laugh.  I could make a tiered red velvet cake at his age, alone.  I remember my mom handing me the keys to her Mazda when I was eleven and her saying, “Go get some bread and milk.” And I did.  Doesn’t mean that it was right, but I could do it.  He genuinely could not get his shoes laced up.  He was mad and he was mad at me for not doing it for him.

Here I am at a much younger age than my son and I guarantee you I laced all of those shoes.  I mean if I was going to go to school with THREE PAIRS OF SHOES, I had to know how to lace them.  Why did I need THREE pairs of shoes for one day of first grade?

So am I a good mom or am I the dreaded, “helicopter parent?”

I show him, again, how to start the laces.

Has anyone else found boys around twelve to be completely exhausting?  I try so hard to make them try and use their brains and figure things out and to learn to look for what they feel inside is the right thing to do.  They are such a funny mix of little boys and big kid.  They seem to have no common sense.  Is it me or does it seem like we had more commons sense when we were our kids age?  

For instance at Christmas they were mad we wouldn’t get them an iPhone, (what planet are they on and if they are telling the truth what planet are ALL of their friends parents on?)  When we explained why and data fees and that twelve year-old kids don’t need one their reaction was, “Fine, then I will ask Santa for one!”

Let me know how that turns out.

Is it because so many things are easier and simple to do that our kids are lacking the daily drive to “make something work?”  What do you think?

– Abbie allthatmakesyou.com

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• I can prove it…I have pictures! (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)

Back Before You Could Just Go And BUY boobies

There is a conspiracy between the generation of women above mine in our family. Truth be told, they were cooler than my cousins and I were at any stages in our lives. They were beautiful and wild and they were becoming women in the late 1960’s and 70’s. My mom and her sisters wore their hair long and drove convertibles and raised hell all over town. The three sisters had six daughters and our grandparents were still complaining about what they had to endure raising “those girls” by the time our generation was old enough to hear the stories.

This is my 6th birthday party.  That’s my mom with the two party horns in her mouth.  Do you see the boys looking at her ?  Do you see all the little girls mad faces?  Yep, that was my childhood.  I was the boring kid wrapped up in a towel in a chair who couldn’t hold her breath underwater.  I had to watch my mom water ski on the top of the waterskiing pyramid. I was the girl who the boys wanted to come and swim at our pool, because my mom was there and she was fearless and funny and even the room turned to follow her around itself.

We granddaughters really just wanted to be just like them. We wanted to iron our hair and wear tight jeans with high heels and go out dancing. We all wanted boys to chase after us and girls to wish they were us. I wanted to have pool parties with the stereo playing outside and wear a crocheted bikini.  We all wanted to be like them.

If we were going to be as cool as our moms and our aunts we were going to need boobies. If we had boobies like them, then we too could command the entire towns attention. If we had boobies like them we could wear a crocheted bikini.

Back then you didn’t go and buy boobies like today. You either had them or you didn’t. You either had them because you were on the heavier side and since boobies are, well, fat or you sold your soul to the devil because you’re a size 2 jeans with a size D cup. These were some mean skinny girls with some giant knockers. I can prove that they worked for the dark side.

Here is my mom at my sister’s birthday party.  I have no idea where my sister is.

(insert an aunt or mom’s name), “Do you know how we all got such big boobies?” This inquiry was always presented to all us cousin girls during our tween years. “Chicken poop. That’s right. We all rubbed chicken poop on them when we were your age. It makes them grow. Its like fertilizer.” Always said in a very relaxed matter of fact way.

They worked for the Dark side.

What makes them really evil?  We had 250 chickens at “The Farm”.

I am very happy to say that my boobies eventually grew in and my sisters grew in so well she even had to have some taken off.  It turns out someone, way back in our family, sold their soul for the boobie gene.  Since I didn’t have to pay for my boobies I wonder if I can get a “belly button restoration” before I turn forty?  I want to wear a bikini again and after my twins (11.5 pounds) and a 10.5 pound singleton (Peter) turned my bellybutton into a cup holder, I think I deserve it.  I also think my mom, (wherever she is) would be smiling and holding up a frozen grasshopper with an umbrella at the sight of her pasty white little girl jumping in the pool in a smokin’ hot crocheted bikini and pinching her nose.

If you enjoyed this oldie read “I may be on the “No Chaperone” list after this one.”

Follow me so I can continue to dredge up all my embarrassing moments.  I need an audience when throwing myself under the bus.

Were your parents cooler than you or were you cooler than your terribly embarrassing parents? 😉

I may be on the “No Chaperone” list after this field trip.

This is the ridiculous story of how I may be banned forever from chaperoning any field trip at school again. It is the story of how when faced with someone’s probable MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT OF THEIIR LIFE I am standing with someone else’s son trying to determine whether to tuck her boobies back in or RUN...

This little corner of the Renaissance festival looked like an Ewok village from Star Wars. There were old-fashioned street vendor carts selling things scattered around. Some were open like the one in the above picture and some were closed like an old-fashioned wagon. This one in particular looked like the fortune-teller’s wagon in the Wizard of Oz. It had a little metal side porch for the person inside to get in and out. It had been raining fiercely and it was letting up. There was a woman who sold perfume in the porched wagon and had peeked her head out the window to see if it was safe to come outside. She then decided to step out onto the metal stoop of the wagon and held her hands to the sky, palms up to determine whether to venture out further.

Renaissance festivals are bawdy by nature and the costumes are made for every size and shape. It is a very “one size fits all” costume assortment. This woman was dressed like a peasant in a long brown dress with a large elastic boat neck and elastic waist. This woman was on the larger end, (I have to say it now so you understand later) she was at the largest end of the peasant dress spectrum. While this boy and I were bee lining it to the porta-potties we were also walking directly towards the bottom of the wagon stoop steps as the peasant lady decides to venture off the wagon and takes one step down and the back of her dress catches on the metal stoop.

The back of her dress catches but she continues the downward momentum but her center of gravity shifts and she is now going face down, feet up SPLAT into a mud puddle…but her dress stayed on the top of the porch. Well, most of it did. The neck was around her ankles. and she was face down in soppy, soft mud.

Do none of the people who work these festivals believe in bras? Is this the hidden underworld of the traveling renaissance people? Is the “Renaissance World” not about history but about women who don’t believe in wearing undergarments?!

I am standing there. This woman is laying there with one boobie off to the side and pointing straight at us and the other boobie is pointing down towards her feet and she lifts her head and spits out the mouthful of mud, (with the same shocked expression and manerism as if socked by a pie in the face) and I just realized this boy I am chaperoning is going home and telling his mom and dad that. “Mrs. ______ and I were alone at the field trip and we saw a naked woman.”

I am frozen. The boy is frozen. We are both frozen with eyebrows raised and eyeballs hanging out. Do I reach down and tuck her boobie that is closest to us under her? Or the other boobie that is further away? Do I lift her up and let her boobies hang where they are supposed to be for all to see? Her head is at our feet and she is looking at me.

I then realize this boy is now going home and telling his parents, “Mrs. ______ and I were alone at the field trip and we saw a naked woman and Mrs. _____ touched her boobies.“ I turn my head and look at this boy just as strangers began throwing their rain coats on the poor woman. Thank God. He and I walked briskly forward to the bathrooms not saying a word.

I failed. I am the girl who if there is a possibility to get a curling iron stuck in your hair it will stick in mine. Like stick “Lucille Ball style” on the top to your scalp and you don’t have to hold it because it is holding onto the roots and is perky like a cartoon curling iron.

Like a cartoon curling iron hidden under a towel turban until you unveil it to the hairdresser for help. Like so embarrassing you have to send flowers to the salon the next day as bribery hoping they forget your name.

Here is a naked peasant woman with boobies trying to run away from each other and I froze. Perhaps when I have to answer for this God will understand. Perhaps there is a “pass” for “curling iron girl” or “exploding egg girl”. For now I will have a moment of silence for “Peasant Woman” and say a thank you for the people who did come to her aid. I bet they never had rotten eggs explode on them and get stripped naked and hosed off in the front yard. I bet they never had to bribe a hair salon.

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/exploding-eggs-and-nakedness/

Related articles

First half of this story from the day before

Chaperoning boys school field trip and the unthinkable… (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)

The exploding egg story

Exploding Eggs and Nakedness…Typical Sunday with Family

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/exploding-eggs-and-nakedness/

Chaperoning boys school field trip and the unthinkable…

Stay with this story until the very end. I don’t even know how it is possible that it is true, but it is. I could not have ever dreamt that a moment this embarrassing wouldn’t happen to me but instead happen in front of me to witness. It was my chance to show the world how to help or assist someone in that instance that they realize that everyone is looking at you, your face is hot and your ears are ringing and it will be a while before you can laugh about it. It takes exactly two seconds for a spectator to laugh I learned, even if on the inside.

It was last fall and I had volunteered to chaperone my twins sixth grade field trip. This was a big day for them as well as me. It was also their twelfth birthday and probably the last time they would actually want me to go on a field trip with them. Their school makes you jump through a ton of hoops to get “permission” to drive yourself, (not drive the kids or ride on the bus with the kids) to a public venue and spend the day with YOUR children. I had to have a background check. Well, the background check, I am assuming, is required if your going to walk around with your children and someone else’s children. Don’t get me started and yes I know that better safe than sorry but by the time I am done “getting permission” to spend the day with my kids I might be homicidal. After what one little boy saw while with me they may revoke my privileges…

It is a windy, cold and rainy fall day in the woods at a…renaissance festival. Let me try to paint a picture…

Like Woodstock Wet

The entire sixth grade gets off the buses and I am assigned my two boys and a handful of other boys to keep track of. This festival is in the most beautiful woodsy setting. The walking paths carve through the trees and there are little clearings with vendors in carts, rides and food. If it weren’t a giant mud-ball it would have been a perfect birthday, day with my boys.

I had been well versed the night before on how to “act cool”. I already decided the day would be filled with, “SURE! I will buy that for you, it is your birthday!” I would bump my boy’s status up a notch so that when I was in the drop off/pick up line at school my boys classmates would walk down the sidewalk and give me the sideways deuce with their fingers and a head nod to say, “wassup.” My boys would stop asking me to, “not talk when the car door opens.”

This is how the day really went.

We were wet and cold and muddy. I was in charge of holding everything that each boy bought. If anything that belonged to any of them became saturated with water I was also in charge of carrying that as well. I was to stand outside of all temporary mens bathrooms and wait while a half-dozen little boys continually peed out the sugar products they consumed non stop but not ever at the same time.

This is how it began…

While walking through one of the little clearing the boys stopped to do this…

We actually picked one up for Peter for Christmas. He had been asking for a “horn blower” for years.

While they were all doing this (swapping spit on animal parts) one of my brood announced he had to relieve himself. I turned and said to all of the other boys, “The bathroom is right over there. You all stay right here and you can watch me walk him over and we will be right back.” This is another one of my “I know God has a sense of humor” because of all the kids that this had to happen to he may be the one it would shock the most. He is the kid who is a little extra awkward for an already awkward age of twelve. He’s the one who shuffles when he walks and likes to fake seizures to get out of gym class I’m told. My boys have known him for years and he’s a sweet boy who will grow into who he is supposed to be…if this day with me didn’t ruin him forever.

Part 1 of 2
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Here is the second half…

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/i-may-be-on-the-no-chaperone-list-after-this-field-trip/

Let me know what you think. I am enjoying my first blog. Trying to give people a place to go and read a funny story for a smile or laugh. Follow me with the button above and visit daily after you have read the news on your mobile while waiting for an appointment or the court to empty. Want to give people a place that they can relate to because we are all part of some kind of family All that makes you smile, laugh, love, think, cry and cry laughing.

Thanks for coming by. Its so sweet. I am already loving the WordPress community. Just trying to figure out where I fit in, if at all. Suggestions welcomed.

Bad mom but good sense of humor?

Seriously?! on Sunday.

He thinks the mermaid’s shell bra is muscles.

He cannot see below his chin and I may have told him I made him into the Hulk.

This is why he is making the body builder flexing/Hulk face.

I really, really am a good mom.

“The Place Between Where The Babies Exit Out” -Said From A Highly Intelligent Mom

Mitchell, “You know mom we start health this week.”

Both boys looking back and forth at each other like I don’t know what they learn in health.

Avery, “We need a new binder for notes”

Mitchell, “Yeah, the teacher said were taking a LOT of notes.”

Avery, “Notes about SEX. Everyday, talking about sex, sex, sex, sex.“

Mitchell, “Yeah we need a BIG binder.”

They are smiling so big that they are getting to say the word and that they are making me uncomfortable I just kept cooking dinner so as to not give them any satisfaction.

About a week later…

I’m busy cooking, again. Avery and Mitchell are in the living room whispering and giggling.

Finally, Avery announces, “Hey Mom! (all three giggle) Hey Mom! Do you know what a Fall-la-va-gees is?”

I already know what their working on trying to say even though they are acting, (again) like they are smarter than me.

So I say, “No.” and keep chopping up vegetables.

They continue whispering and giggling and then Mitchell says, “No… not that. It’s called a VEE-C-chay. Do you know what that is?”

Avery is beside himself laughing.

I am not helping them with this one!

I have been avoiding teaching them THIS WORD with the same tenacity I had in avoiding teaching them to open the fridge when they were toddlers and with the same rabid avoidance when everyone else was giving their kids the family internet password so their kids could surf the net. I managed to explain the birds and the bees without teaching a house full of boys THIS WORD.

It is now out of my control as apparently the big boys have learned the proper term for what we WERE calling “the place BETWEEN where babies exit out”.

I have one more day until they hear the word again from their new health class at school. I have one more day until I hear them squabbling and calling each other the “V” word and giggling…BUT FOR TODAY I say, “No. I have NO idea what you are trying to say.” I then exit the room and join JR in another and we whisper and giggle.

Do you think WordPress would actually “Freshly Pressed” a post about the benefits of NOT teaching your child the anatomically correct names for body parts? I guess only if the person doing the choosing was the mother of multiple boys.

Said from a mexican restaurant men’s bathroom, “What did we ever do to you mom?!”

 I am amazed at how primal it is for little boys to be distracted by a pretty girl.  JR was working and I was left with the three boys and Peter’s little buddy.  It seemed like a perfect night out for mexican food with four little boys and me.

The entire time all the boys are enamored with two teenage blond girls two tables away. We are talking giggling, whispering, red faces and a “This is the best lunch ever…we get to look at them while we eat!”  

They all get up to use the restroom and when they walk back to the table, I have the two girls sitting in our booth!  Bahahahaha!  Mortified, Avery and Mitchell run back to the bathroom.  Peter and his little buddy leap into the booth next to me and bury their faces in the seat while making embarrassed chuckles and squirm.  Avery and Mitchell keep calling me from the bathroom asking what they did to her to deserve this. When they finally come back, the girls have returned to their own table and Avery asks, “So did you ask them how old they are?” I answer, “18” and Avery (12 years old) with huge disappointed sigh says, “Crap, I was hoping they were like 14.”

Before you think I scarred them for life, they really did find it very funny.  They are pretty shy boys and the girls very sweet and it was fun for them, (mostly me).

Seriously?! on Sunday

Things I find in our house?????!!!! Before I called the “911 emergency child psychiatrist line” after seeing this I asked the boys, “What exactly is this supposed to be?” Peter’s reply, “Oh, that’s a trauma surgeon fixing that dude.” Those are my light up tweezers. So glad they are “saving lives”. For all of you who have ever wondered… raising boys is a totally different ride than raising girls!!!!

Barber missing fingers wielding scissors…

I‘m new to WordPress and I’m trying to post a quick story every day that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.  A story that you can relate to because we are all part of some kind of family and community and life is funny and wonderful.  Please check out my other posts and if you like them click my “follow” button top right.  Come and read me after you have read the news or while you are sitting in the car pick up/drop off line or while sitting on the side of a practice field…Story below.

All that makes you… 

https://twitter.com/#!/allthatmakesyou

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/

Avery and Mitchell (our twins) were ready for their first “real” haircut at a barber shop. I took them to this great place with an old barber pole so I could get pictures of them next to it. I had heard horror stories of kids screaming when they saw the scissors so we had a talk before about how the barber will only cut their hair and it doesn’t hurt. It is the same way we trim fingernails and not fingers.  They were so young I knew I could bribe them with a lollipop if they were good and didn’t cry.

The time came to put one of them in a chair, on the booster and with the cape on. I held the lollipop in front of him and smiled very wide so to set the tone of how NOT scary this is.

Here comes the barber with big silver scissors and prosthetic fingers. Uh huh….like rubber fingers, on his hand and they had turned orange, (I’m guessing from using chemicals for disinfectant.)

I’m trying to not look. Be cool. Normally seeing someone with a prosthetic is not a big deal but he is standing there with scissors and to two, two year old it looks like he accidentally cut off his own fingers!

I am trying so hard to act like this is not happening and trying to distract the boys from pointing and screaming. I am waving the lollipop and saying, “look what I have! When you all done you can have this! I have a FINGER….I MEAN lollipop when you are done!”  Then, “He’s almost done with your FINGER…I MEAN HAIR!…”

I turn into Elaine from Seinfeld or Old Christine whenever I get nervous. I could not stop saying finger. Their eyes followed his hands everywhere they went and I finally just unwrapped three lollipops and stuck one in each of our mouths.

(I am reworking my first weeks posts during the weekend.  I will have new posts during the week until I figure out my rhythm with WordPress.)