Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I wasn't sure how to tell you this to your face.  I can't bear to see the crestfallen look or the sadness in your eyes.  So, I've decided to write to you here, on your blog, so you can share your pain with your four followers.

Mom, brace yourself, YOU ARE BORING.  There, I said it.  It's been over a week since the big kids started school, and I miss them every second they are gone, except, of course, when I'm napping.

They are young; you are old.  They are fast; you are slow.  They are funny; you are not all that funny really.  They let me throw their toys; you don't let me throw your kitchen utensils.  See what I'm saying here?

In the week they've been gone, I've had to resort to desperate measures to entertain myself.

The other day when you went to the bathroom and I took off and you came out and were calling my name and you couldn't find me and you started to freak out a little but I still ignored you, I was in my room, teaching myself to read.  It really wasn't that big of a deal once I figured out which end of the book was up.

Remember when you found me and I forgot that I was trying to hide from you?  I was so happy to see you, until I realized that I was still missing the big kids.  

Then, this week, I taught myself to use dining utensils, so I can eat like less of an animal.  Again, you were in the bathroom, and I pushed the kitchen stool over to the utensil drawer, opened it, and took out a fork.  I'm resourceful.

So, anyway Mom, we're only on week two of this school year, so you're going to have to ratchet it up a notch.  I have faith in you.

Love,

Ronan

'Twas the Night Before Back to School

Last night, Daddy and the boys made a back-to-school dinner fit for a queen - pancakes and eggs and watermelon.

Because today is a big day -  Maguire starts second grade.  The boys and Magoo celebrated this morning with breakfast cereal.

And we took our annual back-to-school picture.

To give you a clue as to how far we've come, here's the annual back-to-school picture from first grade...

And from kindergarten...

The start of second grade, I have learned, is way different than the start of kindergarten and the start of first grade.  At drop off for second grade, there was little to no nervousness, just lots of greeting old friends and their parents.  They qualify as old friends when you've known them over a quarter of your life.  There's confidence - including asking the student teacher where the lunch bag bin was, which only caused the student teacher to slightly freak out because she didn't know the answer - and there are a lot of smiles.  There were no sad goodbyes for me, just a quick kiss followed by, "I'll miss you a lot," which, incidentally, made me want to grab her and make a break for it. 

She had a great day, as I suspected she would.  She decided to have hot lunch instead of the cold lunch we'd packed.  She said it was great to see her Spanish teacher, who was very impressed that Maguire could remember so much of her Spanish from last year.  She got a little bored with just talking about what they were going to do this year instead of actually doing it.  She even said it's nice to be in the "bigger kid" hallway (the second grade rooms are in the hallway with the third and fourth grades) instead of with the "little kids" (the kinders and first graders).  

A lot's changed in two years.  I wonder if I'll ever get over how amazed I feel every time I see them grow up just a little.  Doubt it.  I'm easy to amaze, and, I just gotta say, my girl's pretty awesome.  

Love,

Momma T.  

No pain, no gain

Gan screamed a blood-curdling scream the other day, and I panicked.  He is not a crier or a screamer or a yeller when he gets hurt.  He says, "Dang."  That's it.  He doesn't cry for shots; he doesn't cry when he takes a ball to the forehead; he doesn't cry when he falls off his scooter and skins up his knee.

I tore outside to see what was up, because I was pretty sure he had to be half-dead if he was screaming.

This is what I saw.

I took the picture later.  I'm not so cold-hearted as to say, "Hold on baby.  I know it hurts but let me get the camera so I can take a picture of your smashed toe for my blog."

I asked what happened, and Maguire quickly said, "I didn't do anything."  Gan explained, after he caught his breath because it hurt so dang much, that he picked up a huge rock and was lifting it so he could get big muscles like Dad.  He wanted to lift weights.

Here's an explanation in pictures.

He found a huge rock, picked it up over his head, tripped on his feet, and dropped the rock on his toes.  Ryan and I weighed it later - - it weighed TEN POUNDS.  Poor guy.

Here is the torture instrument...next to my lens cap for perspective.

I think he's abandoned his weight-training career for the time being.

Love,

Momma T.

Door County or Bust!!

Nanee (my mom) and I take the kids on a back-to-school trip every year.  We've been to Chicago, Tennessee, and this year, to Door County.  Maguire and Nanee choose the destination.  I'm in charge of travel arrangements.  The boys are in charge of providing humor and, on occasion, frustration of travel plans.  This year's trip to Door County did not disappoint. 

We started off by visiting Uncle Tim's Packer House.  I'm a Packer fan, and I live in Minnesota.  My kids teeter between liking the Packers and the Vikings.  I'm doing my best here to show them that Green Bay is where it's at.  

I had to explain what whiskey was, but I figured the trip to the Packer house was still worth it.  They're starting to lean green and gold.

"When it's third and ten, you can take your milk drinkers, and I'll take the whiskey drinkers every time."

Upon arriving in Door County, we hit the sites - including Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant - with the grass roof and goats grazing on the grass roof.  As Gan carefully explained to Ryan on the phone, "They're weel goats and weel grass.  Weel ones."  

We got all nature-like in the Peninsula State Park.  We hiked...and took the path less traveled by. 

We went to the beach inside the park, and the big kids built sand pools that Roj proceeded to destroy.  Nanee and I tried to run interference, but Roj is crafty and used bait-and-switch type tactics with us.  We were out-manned.

We also took "a little bike trip."  One day, we, or rather I, thought it prudent to rent bikes and try to bike to the beach inside the park.  I thought nothing of it, because they said it was only a 5 mile ride in.  We got Nanee and Maguire suited up on a tandem bike, and I pulled the boys in a Burley attached to my bike.  We made it three miles in, ALL UPHILL, before Maguire said she couldn't do it any more.  She was too tired, and her legs were wobbly.  When I tried to offer encouragement, she said, "Mom! It's easier for you to bike this trail because you're not pushing Nanee!"  I nearly wet myself laughing, in part because I had heard Nanee, for a least a mile, telling Maguire she didn't need to actually pedal.  Hilarious.  With my girl, it's all about framing the problem.  

We also saw the bats, oh yes, the bats.  I hate bats almost as much as I hate the squirrels that chew through my plastic trash can.  But my sister said we had to see them fly out of their little home at dusk.  She promised cool.  So, we went to see the bats.  Nanee was not thrilled about the plan, but she was a trooper.  She is not one to miss an adventure.  

  

It's hard to top all of these adventures, but I think I can pinpoint the highlight for Nanee.  It was one morning, as we started our usual routine of playing a game while Rojo took his morning nap.  Gannon looked at me and said, "Mom.  Can you scratch my butt?  It's itchy."  Before I could answer, he looked at Nanee and said, "Nanee.  Actually can YOU scratch my butt with your long finger nails?"  With a smile and a nod, she proceeded to scratch.

Memories.  It was an awesome trip.  Love you Nanee.  Thanks for another great back-to-school adventure.

Love,

Momma T. and the Mighty Murphys

36 Hours of Bizarre

I just got off the phone with my sister who said I had to blog.  Because I cannot show you pictures of the events of the previous 36 hours (they would be too graphic and violent), I'll show you a picture of my sister - - my blog muse for today.

The past 36 hours have been bizarre.  Wednesday night, we got notice that our water was going to be turned off from 11 am to 8 pm on Thursday.  It said to stock pile water in the fridge for drinking and cooking and to fill the tub with water for "sanitary needs."  I had no idea what that meant.

Thursday morning arrived and I was ready.  I filled my tub, I filled a bucket in the sink with soapy water, and there were several containers of water in the fridge.  At 9:30 am, there was a knock at the door.  Mysterious.  It was a water lady - or a St. Paul Regional Water Services worker.  She explained that the water in the tub was to flush the toilet.  I eyed her suspiciously.  She explained that you just have to dump a bucket of water in the toilet and it'll flush by herself.  I nodded, while thinking to myself, "Whatever.  There will just be no pooping for 9 hours.  No problem."

At 11 am, Maguire went to try the sink in the kitchen and Gan went to try the toilet.  They were excited for the water shut off.  It was like serious late summer excitement, you know the kind that comes when you're starting to get bored out of your mind and you've been hot and sticky for three months.  We still had water.  They tried about every ten minutes until 12:30 when we had to take Maguire to Big Cats Camp at the Como Zoo.  We still had water.

At 1:30 pm, the boys and I returned from our adventure, promptly checked our water supply, and, lo and behold, it was turned off!!  Let the party begin!!!  Whoo-hooo!!!

At 2:15, Gannon pooped.  I figured that the Lord hates a coward, so I armed myself with the bucket full of water.  I lifted the lid, and I poured a little in.  Well, let me tell you, a little doesn't do it.  I poured a little more, starting to feel a little nervous about the fact that Gan's excrement was, slowly but surely, getting closer and closer to my kneecaps.  I told myself, "Be brave! Be bold!" like I tell the kids when they're nervous about something.  I mustered all my courage and dumped the whole bucket in there.  What do you know!?!  THE TOILET FLUSHED!!  Of course, it didn't flush until Gan's poop was floating way too close to the top of the toilet seat for my liking, but it flushed nonetheless.  A success.

At 2:30, the water was turned back on.  Huh.

At 4:30, we carried out our original "no water" plan and went to the local pool.  The big pool was closed for lap swim, so we planned on hanging out in the kiddie pool with all the slides and basketball hoops and the like.  The best laid plans....   Some kiddo threw up in the kiddie pool and we had to get out for 25 minutes for the cleaning.  "No big deal!" I said.  We'll just proceed with the plan and have hot dogs for dinner a little early.

At 5:05, we get in line to get our hot dogs.  I order, and I then listen patiently while the concession lady tells me that they're out of hot dogs, pizza, and everything else resembling a meal, except for two cheese-filled brats.  I said, "I'll take 'em!!"  The kids were starving at this point so I handed over the morsels.  Magoo and Gan took one bite, said they were gross, and proceeded to eat a bag of potato chips.

At 5:20, the kiddie pool opened up again, and Maguire and Gan headed back in.  I turned to look at Roj, only to find that he had bitten the end off a cheese brat, eaten it, and was licking the cheese that was dripping down the side.  It was a cheese brat popsicle.  Yummy.

Everything went pretty normally last night, and then the bizarre started again today at 1:00.  We dropped Maguire off for her last day of Big Cats Camp and the counselor told us that they were feeding a zebra to the tigers today.  Maguire explained that they had made a cardboard zebra all week.  They were stuffing it with meat and throwing it into the tigers lair.  She begged us to stay and watch the carnage.

So we hiked into the zoo, stood at attention while the sacrificial zebra was carried into the tiger's lair.  Then we waited, breathlessly, with all the Big Cats campers....

The tiger approached.  We held our collective breath.

The tiger knocked the head off the zebra, pushed it over and stole the meat out of the cardboard butt.

There's just so many things in this blog that I have the feeling I will never, ever say again.

Here's a little something to wipe the disturbing images from your mind.

It's been a strange, strange 36 hours.

Love,

Momma T.

Chairman of the Board

Roj got a promotion.  He's big-time now.  Got an office with a view, an assistant, a phone to bang on, a big desk - the whole works.  He's gonna make the big bucks and buy his momma big diamonds because he's that kind of guy.

He's so big-time that he refuses to wear a suit to the office.  It'll intimidate all the other people who are not quite as big-time as he is.  His assistant has to wear a suit, though, because he's not big-time like Roj and, therefore, not quite as intimidating.  His arm is in the picture below, catering to Roj's office needs.

Okay, so maybe Rojo and I just went downtown to have lunch with Dad when the big kids were staying with Grandma and Grandpa, but Roj can dream right?

Love,

Momma T.

Weird A@# Tea Party

What do you do when you're a seven-year-old girl, with only brothers, and you really, really want to play tea party?  How do you convince your four-year-old brother to stop playing with Ben 10 alien action figures and play tea party?

My girl can answer those riddles.  You throw a, in my words not hers, "Weird A#@ Tea Party."

 A Weird A#@ Tea Party is one where, instead of treats, you serve Ben 10 alien action figures.  You pretend they are "croquets," by which I think she meant to say "croissants."

My girl asked me if I wanted a double cappuccino (they're Starbucks regulars and know all the lingo - I am a weak, bad, pathetic mom without coffee).  I said, "YES!!!"

This is what I was served....

The Starbucks lover in me felt shame that I had to explain to her that cappuccinos come in cups.  Again, I think "cappuccino" was a substitute for "croissant."   The Mom of Boys in me wondered if that Ben 10 alien action figure was put together correctly.  He appears to be missing parts.  Oh well.  Not my issue.

Anyway, the Weird A#@ Tea Party was a huge success.  There were lovely toasts about brotherly/sisterly love.

There was peace and quiet for well over an hour.  They were clever, imaginative, and very kind to each other.

But I still think the whole idea of using alien action figure parts as snacks was a little weird.

Love,

Momma T.