Kid Talk

Daily Dose of Kids – Birthdays

Holidays, Kid Talk, Pets /

E’s birthday is tomorrow. She will be 7 which seems wrong. She should still be 4. She doesn’t believe me though. This is annoying. Kids should believe me when I tell them important things like this. If she had believed me we could have avoided all of the madness that was today.

E decided she wanted mommy to make the cupcakes for school. She decided this over the weekend and while we did go out to run errands this weekend, we didn’t see anything that looked good for cupcake toppers for her. (Cupcake toppers are especially important for E’s cupcakes because she is like me, she doesn’t really like cake and she cannot tolerate cake with icing AT ALL. So, she wants just plain cupcakes with something “cute” on top and just a little colored powdered sugar on top)

The kids are with their dad today so after I fought the “move in day” traffic on the University and picked up TW at work we battled the horrendous traffic on Archer Rd and went to the Factory Card Outlet. I didn’t have much hope that we’d find something and I was right, not a thing that would work for E. Michaels right next door was the next stop but I wasn’t feeling hopeful because I remembered doing this last year when we were looking for fish to go on top of her cupcakes. Fish are easy but we had to go to 8 stores before we found something that worked.

So, we wandered every aisle in Michaels and began really grasping at straws. “Denise, can you create a rat stencil?” “Who me??? Ha!” “Hey TW, what about finding small markers and sticking one in each cupcake like a candle?” (eye rolling was the response to that) “Do we have to have toppers? Can’t we just buy these mini black velvet marker kits and put one under each cupcake?” “Sigh, if we have to.”

We’d almost given up and I was thinking we were gonna have to use those dumb rainbow rubber balls that we bought last year when we thought we’d never find fish. Ha, look! In the clearance rack! CUTIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! I grabbed a handful and ran through the store in search of TW. “LOOK! How about these!!” “Yes!” So we went back to the rack and chose 20 “cuties”. (Cuties is what E will call these flocked tiny little animals, cutiesssssss is what E says about anything tiny and animal and furry)

Deep sighs of happiness as we checked out. We ate dinner at Falafel King and hit Publix for a cake mix and eggs and whatever else it was TW said we needed and drove home. We checked our RSS feeds. Tried to call the kids’ father (who had called while we were out). Tried to call TW’s mom (who had called while we were out). Home maybe 15 minutes and TW went back into the kitchen to make the cupcakes while I went back to work on my boards.

“Denise! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!” “huh? what problem” “THE DOGS ATE THE CUTIES!!!”

sigh

sigh

sigh

I got back in the car and drove back to Michaels. I got replacement cuties. The cashier cheerfully asked me how my evening was. I growled. I couldn’t help it. Then I felt bad for growling at the poor girl and explained what had happened. She laughed. The cashier 3 rows away burst into hysterical laughter. The other people in line laughed. I growled some more. Soooo not funny.

If the darn kid had just listened to me and believed me when I said she is not going to be 7, she’s just going to be 4 then we wouldn’t be in this situation. We could have sent regular cupcakes and gift bags and all sorts of fun little kid toys to preschool rather than cupcakes with funky tops on them. Next year I’m going to tell her she’s 18 and too old for cupcakes.

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Daily Dose of Education – New Schools

Community Chest, Kid Talk, News and Politics /

All three of the small children started new schools on Monday. All three are attending “magnet” schools that are rather far away. His highness attends a middle school about 15 minutes from here and the girls attend an elementary school that is 20 minutes from here. The middle school has a pretty wide range of kids, in terms of economic and social status but the girls’ elementary school is, well, it is in a minority neighborhood and the majority of students are minority. The magnet students have classes in one building, not in the same building with the “neighborhood kids”. Some of the magnet classes do join the “neighborhood” for specials like PE, Music, etc… There are soooo many things to say about this that I just can’t even start. So instead, I’ll tell you two little stories that were shared by the girls after day one.

RJ is in 4th grade and when TW said “what happened in school today,” RJ said “There was a crime scene at school and there was an outline of a dead body!” It’s hard to know what the right thing to say is when your child makes this announcement on day one at her new school, ya know? TW seemed to manage ok because after a bit more of RJ rambling about this, it turns out this was an actual school activity. No, they didn’t kill anyone in the name of education. It was an observation/detective work type activity of some sort. No real crime, that we know of, was committed. Although, I personally find it troubling that they chose this particular activity for this particular group of kids in this particular school. I am afraid I’m going to have some difficulty keeping my social and class issues to myself…

Then, on the way to school this morning, E (who is in 2nd grade) said that her teacher told her that one year she had a student who would scream and yell and cry and crawl under the tables when she did not get her way. And the teachers finally figured out how to handle that. They discovered that if they quickly shoved something in her mouth, she would stop pitching a fit. Ummm, huh? TW and I were both quiet for a moment. Again, what to say… I asked, “what exactly did they shove into her mouth?” E said, “food!” Oh thank goodness, the light bulb went off and I said BLOOD SUGAR, it was her BLOOD SUGAR. Sheesh.

These kids, I swear they will be the death of me. Or maybe it is this school. We didn’t have these issues with Mrs F…

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Daily Dose of Diet – Popcorn

Diet and Exercise, Health and Wellness, Kid Talk /

TW’s least favorite scent in the world is burnt popcorn. Michelle’s favorite scent is popcorn. When Michelle is here, our house smells like cat litter (we have too many darn cats) and stinky dog (we have one who is old and deaf and blind and incontinent but otherwise too healthy to go wherever dogs who are done here go) and popcorn.

Michelle eats popcorn twice a day. It’s her food of choice, which is good since she has two moms who rarely cook. That’s how you know Michelle is living here, the scent of popcorn. When she lived with her dad for nine months in 2003-2004, there was a serious lack of popcorn scent and I was sad. She came back… popcorn scent… life was good. She’s been gone for NINE LONG WEEKS and we’ve made popcorn just twice. I miss popcorn. It masks the scent of the animals and reminds me of Michelle. Oops, I got off track, didn’t I?

Folks trying to lose weight often like popcorn almost as much as Michelle. It’s low calorie and if you don’t smother it in butter or oil or salt like at the movie theater then it’s a pretty healthy choice. And it can be a real lifesaver for folks trying to lose weight who are salty snack addicts like I am. It can also be a lifesaver for people using the WLC because that program is a firm believer in the National Academy of Science recommendations that 45-65% of all calories should come from carbs.

Popcorn is good.

Which is why I said “Ugh, not again!” when I saw this article come across my aggregator. UGH, NOT AGAIN!

Last year when we ran the story about the possibilty of popcorn causing lung cancer in factory workers people zoomed in on the “popcorn” and the “lung cancer” bits and totally missed the “factory workers” part. I had teenagers and dieters in a panic. You’d have thought we were facing a national disaster!

So do me a favor please – if you hear family, friends or coworkers talking about how popcorn can cause cancer, set them straight. It MIGHT cause lung cancer in POPCORN FACTORY WORKERS and if they don’t work in a popcorn factory then they’re pretty safe. If they do, then I’d encourage them to talk to their health care professional and possibly a job placement service.

Thanks, in advance, for any help you can provide me in preventing full scale panic among our people!

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Daily Dose of Education – Homeschool

Kid Talk, Sights & Sounds /

For months now I’ve been reading the homeschool mommies (you can see some of my favorites in the blogroll on the right, just scroll down) talking about their curriculum and school plans for the fall. And they’ve been sort of driving me nuts with this.

Driving me nuts because they have such great plans laid out. They’ve chosen interesting curriculum. They’re excited! I, on the other hand, have one 15 year old, (10th grade), homeschooler who is getting most of her learning courtesy of Florida Virtual School. Sigh.

Part of me loves this, no worries about planning or teaching curriculumn that is just not my strong suit (Maths, Sciences, Spanish) and part of me hates it because these people have COOL IDEAS!

I wouldn’t be sighing so much if Michelle was actually HOME and we were really doing school but she isn’t. She’s doing her schoolwork, some of it, while in NJ but the fun stuff that I’ve planned, (Or Michelle and I have planned), hasn’t started yet because she’s so far away. No daily world religion, no new books to read and write about, no SAT of the day fun stuff and no journaling. I’m feeling totally unfulfilled by homeschooling at the moment and the homeschoolers are making it worse!

You didn’t know that homeschooling was intended to make the homeschooling parent feel fulfilled? Ha, you don’t know much about homeschooling do you (or if you do, you aren’t honest about it then). We’ve only been doing this for about 15 months but I have really loved it, even when the child has driven me crazy with her music or her rambling or her complaints about not getting enough “socialization”. Ha, that socialization in public school is why we pulled her out! 😉

I’ll feel better once she’s home, and I’ll probably overwhelm her with all of these cool things I want to do and she’ll lock herself in her room for a couple of days to punish me – gosh I can’t waittttttttt!

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Daily Dose of Kids – Questions

Foodie, Kid Talk, Questions and Answers, Sights & Sounds, Travel Log /

After dinner at the Cuban Cafe around the corner we walked to the other end of the strip mall and popped into the independent bookstore that TW is always begging to go in. (I don’t generally agree because we spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars that we do not have on books! We just got out of debt and I’m not ready for a $500 book spree yet. Ask me again in a few months).

While in Goerings, TW gathered books for me to peek at and put on our library reserve list (I love my library) and had The Kids’ Book of Questions in her hand. The library definitely wouldn’t have that and you can never have too many question books on the shelf if you work in community and live with the woman who built The Question Library, so I bought it. After that, ice cream. (Ugh, the chocolate dipped key lime pie was not a good idea for me.)

While enjoying the ice cream and driving the kids back to the “blue house” TW asked the kids questions. Of course, the over-used and much-hated (by me) question “If you had a time machine and could travel either back or forward in time, which would you choose?” came up. I groan everytime someone asks that question on a message board. I’d rather have someone ask me if my boyfriend will kiss my stretch marks than hear that question. (I don’t have a boyfriend but if I did, he’d better or he wouldn’t be my boyfriend.)

J of course said he would travel back and take over the world so that when he returned from his visit he would still be the ruler of the world. Typical. Boring. I hate that dumb question.

E would go back in time and see how the dinosaurs really became extinct. (What is it about her and dinosaurs lately, weird and I forgot to show her the cute 3 kid circus dinosaur vblog entry today, darn it) Again pretty boring and typical and I really hate that dumb question.

Then, there’s RJ. She’s 9 and I love her. And she finally gave an answer I adore. It’s even better than Blaze, Debra Ginsberg’s son (Raising Blaze) who wanted to travel through time to the Ace Hardware Store, just because that’s where he wanted to go.

RJ said – she wanted to go back to when the earth was created and find out once and for all whether it was a big bang, evolution or creation or WHAT. Ha, nice new answer. One I’ve never heard. One that’s worth going back in time to discover the answer to.

Gosh I love that question now.

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Daily Dose of Health – Scarlet Fever

1 Comment / Health and Wellness, Kid Talk /

Last week I was reading some message boards, (imagine that), and I ran across a really nice mommy asking questions about Scarlet Fever and I decided right then, I needed to post about this.

What is the first thing you think of when you hear the phrase “Scarlet Fever”? Do you think about all of those books set in the 1800’s where people died from Scarlet Fever? Do you think of Helen Keller? Do you think of that relative who often says “I had Scarlet Fever when I was a kid and almost died”? (My ex, the dirtbag, is notorious for spitting out this little tidbit). If you’re a mom and a doctor mentions Scarlet Fever while examining your young child who is obviously very sick – high fevers, horrid rashes and icky looking throat, then I bet you think of one of those things.

Being the mom you are today, you’d head for the leading source of reliable health information on the web – WebMD and you’d search for information about Scarlet Fever, wouldn’t you? And what would you find out? You’d find out it is strep throat with a rash. Huh? How can that be? Tons of people died from that! What about Helen Keller? What about Denise’s dirtbag ex? How can it just be strep throat with a rash? There must be something that WebMD (and my doctor) isn’t telling me, right?

Wrong. Scarlet Fever IS strep w/ a rash. It’s also something that really does need to be treated and not allowed to run its course or it could develop into a more serious issue. That’s what we all need to wrap our brains around. Scarlet Fever, treated, is not serious. Scarlet Fever untreated, is.

Doctors need to explain that part to mommies when they mention Scarlet Fever. WebMD should do a better job of acknowledging that we’ve read those books, we know Helen Keller’s history and we all have a relative like my dirtbag and address our fears up front so we don’t have to worry and fret that somebody is not telling us the whole story!

Now do you know what’s sort of funny here? I planned this blog piece more than a week ago. This morning, I mentioned on a message board that it was one of the things on my To Do List for the day. And guess what happened – Michelle was diagnosed at the ER in NJ today with Scarlet Fever. I’m not kidding you!

She called me yesterday from Great Adventure to ask me if I was sure she wasn’t allergic to something because she had a horrible rash and Benadryl was not helping. I said she wasn’t, that I knew of, and asked her all of the normal rash questions. (And I considered having her take a photo of her rash and email it to me; I will admit this though my co-workers will spit out their coffee when they read this). I suggested she stick with the Benadryl, grab some anti-itch lotion on the way home and watch it for another day. Apparently this morning she woke with a 104 temp and felt like death warmed over so her sister took her to the ER (no sign of her dirtbag father).

Yep, strep w/a rash. Life is funny. And luckily, I’ve already done the research so I’m not fretting and thinking about all of those folks who died back in the day, or Helen Keller or my dirtbag ex – well I am, but I know those are unreasonable fears that all moms have.

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Daily Dose of Kids – Those Left Behind

Day to Day, Kid Talk /

TW blogged about her nice workday with RJ and I’m glad the normally bouncy, talkative, busy RJ was quiet and sweet but I spent most of the day wondering why it was I had insisted it be RJ who went and the other two who should be left behind.

It started innocently enough, the Starbucks and the Krispy Kreme but I should have known it wouldn’t last when the two staying with me started to cheer because RJ was going to have to do WORK at the office and they were going to have a wonderful, relaxing and FUN day at home with Denise. I hate that sort of thing so decided on the spot that we’d clean the garage – or at least play at cleaning the garage. That stopped the cheering and jeering at RJ’s expense but left me with a 15 minute drive home that I did not enjoy.

E quickly warmed to the idea of cleaning the garage and talked nonstop about just what we would throw away (RJ’s stuff and Chris’s stuff) and what we were definitely keeping (her stuff). J did what J does best and tried to muddle the process by distracting me with some talk about video games that I did not understand. (J and I both need to listen to more Patrick Scoble podcasts because J would definitely be considered a lame 12 year old. We’re trying to make him into a real boy but it’s hard, he has some really weird parents…)

By the time we got home, I was feeling about the way I did when I blogged my symptoms a few days ago and I was regretting the first wonderful Caramel Macchiato I’ve had in days. So, I did what all moms in my position would do – I turned on the TV.

The quiet lasted for about an hour and then the typical, “Get out of my seat!” “Quit touching me!” “I am not stupid!” “I was watching that!” started. Then there was mayhem because J has lost his gameboy charger. It was plugged into the wall in the living room for the entire month he was in Vancouver. I saw it on Monday when J arrived and immediately picked up the gameboy. Where it went after that is anybody’s guess. I helped search the living room for a bit and offered ideas about how to go about cleaning the bedroom that he insists he just cleaned in order to find it but we had no luck.

From there it just went downhill. E decided she needed to talk to me, nonstop, preferably while holding onto my mousing arm at the elbow. When I tired of this, she brought her pillow and neopets plushies down and crawled under my desk with the old, tired, smelly dog and talked to me from down there. J sat in Michelle’s computer chair, the one formerly known as mommy’s, and made his groaning noises for about an hour.

Lunch was only a success because I served Krispy Kremes alongside what turned out not to be E’s favorite soup oh and somewhere along the way, the evil black dog drank J’s hot chocolate from Starbucks and J refused to clean up the cup paper that was all over the living room. Apparently the dog assumed responsibility for cleaning up the cup since he had it last? The Schwan’s guy showed up unexpectedly, (unexpectedly only because I forgot he told me last time he was switching to Thursdays), and saved me briefly with banana popsicles that E has been asking for all week. (The kid is weird, she hates bananas but loves these popsicles and the yellow smiely lollipops skeeter sent us from Hawaii ages ago.)

We never did make it to the garage. We did, however, survive the day with only one 5 minute bout of crying from E when J put his feet in her hair and pulled for a really longgggggg time (according to E). We also never found the charger for the gameboy so his highness thinks that tomorrow we should just go buy another one. Ha! It wasn’t as crazy as Life Aboard the Ark but the next time a kid goes to work, it’s not going to be RJ!

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Daily Dose of Kids – Patrick Scoble (again)

Kid Talk /

Well it’s time to review the latest Patrick Scoble; featuring Microsoft Boy podcast. I was getting worried that the team of Scoble & Scoble were giving up on podcasting because it took so long for this installment to appear. A regular schedule would be nice, boys. You have loyal listeners, ya know. Do you think Dawn & Drew would be where they are today if they kept their fans waiting like this??

So Patrick thinks his pal Drew is lame. Actually he really thinks his pal Drew is just a little kid and it is Drew’s parents that are lame. Makes sense to me, from the viewpoint of an 11 year old son of Microsoft Boy. Heck, it makes sense to me, from the viewpoint of a mom with 6 ½ kids. Honesty is a good thing Patrick; I just hope Drew and his family recognize that when folks start telling them that they were immortalized by your podcast. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe I hope that Drew and his family are a little miffed by your podcast and tell you about it. Because while I think it’s perfectly acceptable to tell your dad that those folks are lame, and even for dad to giggle (again a thing I could have lived my life without hearing) and agree, I don’t really think it was a really great idea for a podcast.

Scoble took some hits on his blog for encouraging his son to label his friend and their parents lame and for encouraging Patrick to count off his games and his wonderful “toys” while comparing them to those of his friends. I am sure that Scoble did try to impart some wisdom to his son about folks actually earning their toys and that he did try to explain that not everyone can or should have the best, new gizmo (or all of the best new gizmos). We just didn’t hear it, I’m giving Scoble the benefit of the doubt; surely he tried.

Unfortunately, I think that if he did try, he probably didn’t get anywhere. It’s difficult for parents like Scoble to impart such lessons to their children nowadays. Parents who live a relatively “privileged” life pass that along to their children and it’s virtually impossible for children to comprehend the differences between the classes. I know this from personal experience.

As mentioned, I have 6 ½ children. 3 ½ of those those children would immediately realize that while Drew is lame (and so are his parents) he isn’t all that different from them. They actually have to wait for new toys and they understand that their moms aren’t made of money and Xbox games don’t grow on trees. The other 3 children are clueless. So clueless that one of them has decided her father and his family are “poor” because it cost so much money for them to take a trip to Japan over spring break. Those 3 have no concept of poor and it isn’t the age factor that is causing the confusion, it’s the class they spend half of their time living in.

I wish Scoble luck in trying to impart some lessons regarding class structure in America, it won’t be easy and I do hope he’s starting now – maybe making Patrick earn a bit of money toward a 360 would be a good start…

And Scoble, if you need help coming up with topics for your podcasts with Patrick, there are all sorts of interesting question libraries that will help. You did a better job of not asking about summer vacation but it did slip out when you ran out of topics. Or you could ask him what he thinks of Bush’s nominee for Supreme Court? Or maybe you could ask him about drug use in his school? You could even ask him more about the bass guitar? How about MTV, does he watch it? Have favorite shows? Vjays? The topics are endless –  try some of them!

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Daily Dose of Music – and Silence

Kid Talk, Melissa Ferrick, Pet Peeves, Sights & Sounds /

For years I worked from home and insisted on doing so without music in the background. The TV was fine, it wasn’t a distraction. I even spent a couple of years looking forward to working with MTV’s The Tom Green Show and Loveline (I miss Dr Drew and Adam!) in the background. And then there was the .wav fixation, that lasted for all of about 3 minutes. But other than that, silence was my preferred work environment, (or as much silence as you can get with a house full of kids and animals).

That’s all changed and I blame Michelle. She came home from school one day in April of 2004 and never went back! Along with all of the craziness that comes from having a teenage daughter home all day and attempting to home school her and work at the same time, I somehow acquired a need for music while I work! I didn’t even notice it had happened until she went to NJ for the summer and the silence surrounded me!

Well wait, that’s not really true, I knew something was missing when she left but assumed it was just “her” and not the more specific lack of music. I realized it was the music that was missing when I landed on the Yahoo Launchcast Radio page after exploring Yahoo 360° for my boss.

Before I knew it, I’d programmed my own channel, (which I don’t really like because it won’t let me program down to some very specific artists), and then all of a sudden I was listening to the Melissa Ferrick Fan Station all day long while I worked. Ah ha, so this is what was missing! It wasn’t Michelle – it was Melissa and Ani and MUSIC!

And so, all was right with my work world – except for an overabundance of Indigo Girls and Bitch & Animal and a curious amount of Dar Williams (Who may be from the Boston area, (like Ferrick), and may be a folk singer, (like Ferrick), but is really not the same TYPE of musician as the majority of others on the Ferrick “fan station”. Yahoo has created some interesting play lists, that is for sure!).

But alas, something bad happened today – I ran out of “free” airplay and am now floundering around wondering what to do. Do I pay the ghastly $2.50 a week in order to hear too much Indigo Girls and Bitch & Animal? Do I muddle through with a station that I’m really not enjoying? Do I track down a radio station that might be better? Do I grab some CDs and try and find some routine of changing CDs so I don’t find myself listening to The Other Side or Massive Blur over and over again?

I have to do something! I can’t sit here in silence, Michelle will be back in a week or so and we’ll be back to music all day and then I’ll struggle to get use to that all over again.

Kids are trouble.

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