Thursday, October 29, 2009

From The Backseat

I was driving the kids to soccer the other day. It's already dark here at 6 pm but the field is lit. This is the conversation I heard coming from the backseat:


7 year old big brother: I can see a planet in the sky.

5 year old little brother: Where?! I want to see it too.

Big bro: Oh, too late. It already moved.

Little bro: I can see the moon.

Big bro: Where? I don't see it.

Little bro: Oh, too late. It already moved.


We had a very busy solar system that night.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

First and Last

Today my 5 year old lost his first tooth.

Today was also his last soccer game of the season. Don't worry, he lost his tooth at school, not at the game. He was so proud. He's not a baby anymore.

It was my turn to bring snack for his soccer team. I made cupcakes as a treat since it was their last game. It is amazing how many 5 year olds will drop a cupcake as soon as it is placed in the hands. When I picked them off the ground they looked like they were covered with black sprinkles. Yummy! Good thing I made extra.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Blah Blah

Thank you to Funny in My Mind who gave me this award. If you haven't checked out her blog, you should.




And now to pass it on to some of my commentators who always make my day. Go check out their blogs too!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Nelson Who?

As many of my faithful readers know, I'm taking a Japanese class at the local community college. Yesterday my sensei taught how to make a negative sentence. For example, "I am not a teacher."

Sense decided to play a game where she taped a card with the name of a famous person on the back of each student. Then us, students, were supposed to go around and ask questions. The questions were limited to:

Am I woman?

Am I man?

Am I singer?

Am I an athlete?

Am I a politician?

Am I a movie star?

Sensei had posted lists of famous people in each category. So once you figured out the right gender and category you could go to the list and start guessing names. I thought it was a neat idea. Turns out that underneath this blogging mom, there is an inner golf star trying to get out. I was Tiger Woods. You can see the resemblance, no?

At the end of the game, one person still hadn't figured out who the person taped to her back was. She was at list of singers. But her person wasn't a singer. It was Nelson Mandela. Can you believe someone in the class told her Nelson Mandela was a singer?! I turned to the student sitting next to me and said that, "Can you believe someone thought Nelson..." Before I could finish he said, "Wait, wasn't Nelson Mandela an athlete?"



When I got home and started to tell this story to my husband his reaction was, "Who is Nelson Mandela?"

Really?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

I'm Not From Around Here

It's raining. According to the weather guesser man, it's not supposed to stop raining until about next May or so. I live in Seattle. It happens that way every winter.

I moved here three years ago from New Jersey. It rains in New Jersey. For a day or two at a time. And when it does, everyone goes inside. Or if we need to go somewhere, we get our umbrellas and go.

Not in Seattle.

The rain doesn't stop people in Seattle. No one goes inside when it rains. I even got a letter from the school principal making sure that parents (especially those that moved here from New Jersey) knew that the kids will be playing outside during recess even if it is raining. The school does have some covered areas outside for the kids to play under, but my kids like to get wet. A slide with a puddle at the bottom is irresistible to my 5 year old. So my kids are soaked after recess.

No one in Seattle uses umbrellas. Using an umbrella here is like wearing a huge sign that says, "I'm a tourist."

People don't stop when it rains. They still go jogging. They still bike to work. They still go outside for recess.

Not me. I got all ready to go running this morning. It hadn't started to rain until five minutes before it was time to leave. Then it started. So I took the kids to the bus stop. And I brought my tourist umbrella with me. Sure enough none of the other kids or moms at the bus stop had umbrellas. I wonder if they have some secret duck-like hair that is inbred in the local Seattle population... Running will have to wait until tomorrow or maybe till May.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Places That Start with the Letter "I"

Today while I was driving my 7 year old home from soccer practice he asked me, "Mom, which license plate has black on top, and some white and starts with an 'I' and is a short name? And it wasn't Idaho."

I gave the best answer I could. "I don't know."

"It must be Iran," he said confidently.

"I don't think it was Iran, honey. Do you think it said Illinois instead?"

"Oh yeah, maybe Illinois," he said.

Illinois. Iran. Close enough, right?

Saturday, October 17, 2009

An Expanding Vocabulary

Tonight my husband and I played Scrabble Jr. with our boys, ages 5 and 7. The 5 year old lined up his letters and spelled out the word, "hot." My 7 noticed it and pointed it out. Then he asked, "I wonder if he means hot temperature hot, or hot like a lady hot?"

My husband and I exchanged glances that asked the same silent question, "hot like a lady hot?"

So I asked, "Honey, what do you mean, 'hot like a lady'?"

"You know mom, like a good looking woman."


Now my husband and I knew he knew what he was talking about, but we weren't ready for the 5 year old to join in. "Like a beautiful woman," my 5 year old said.

Then my 5 year added an "E" to his row of letters and said "See mom, now it's H-O-T-E, hottie!"

My husband and I couldn't hold back our laughter.

Vocabulary and spelling lessons all in one night!

This proud parent moment is brought to you Milton Bradley.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Not Sure I Can Do This

I'm feeling a little old lately.

I didn't have a birthday or anything.

It's my husband's fault.

Isn't it always his fault?

He made me get a new cell phone.

I barely new how to work my old cell phone.

The phone that I had for the last two years.

It took me one year just to get comfortable checking the voicemail.

Seriously.

For the first year, my friends knew not to leave me a message. I never checked it.

My husband would pick up my phone every once in a while and say, "did you know that you have a message here?"

"Oh?"

He would retrieve the message and listen to it and then say, "This message is a month old!"

"Oh."

Now I have to start all over with a new phone. More buttons and icons and things that I don't even know the names of. I feel old... help!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A Quick Geography Lesson

Yesterday my 7 year old asked me, "Mom, where's Argentina?"

"It's in South America."

"Oh, that's the license plate I saw yesterday with daddy" he said.

"Really? Daddy said it was Arkansas" I replied.

"Yeah, that's what it was."

Pause...

"Mom, Where's Arkansas?"

"It's in the middle of the United States" I said.

"Oh."

Geography lesson? Check.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Already??

In August we went back to school shopping. I bought my second grader several pairs of pants. He is a little hard to shop and he hates shopping so when we found a style that he likes and that fit him, we bought 3 pairs in different colors. He wore a pair this morning to school.


Notice anything?
You can see the tops of his socks!
Did I mention that I bought these pants in August? And that I bought 3 pairs?
That's it. No more food for him!

Friday, October 9, 2009

What Do You Do?

Last night my kids' school had a movie night. My kids watched 2 minutes of the movie and ran around for the remaining 1 hour and 58 minutes.

I chatted with a few other parents that also made the mistake of attending this event. One mom I had met briefly last summer when our kids were in swimming lessons together. Now our younger boys are in the same kindergarten class. She asked what I do for a living. I explained that I'm a "stay at home mom." I hate the word "housewife." She talked about her job as a police office in the domestic violence unit. She had a lot more to talk about than I did.

Then I chatted with another friend who had recently hurt her feet and hadn't been able to walk for the last week. What happened to her? She was out in a boat with her husband and it capsized. She swam to shore and her husband couldn't make it. He was hanging on to part of the boat. She ran across a shore covered in oyster shells and cut her feet pretty bad. Then she got another boat and paddled back out to her husband and brought him back to shore where paramedics where waiting. They were both treated for hypothermia and she needed 10 stitches in her feet from the shells.

What I had I been doing in the last week? Oh, nothing, just listening to school nurses and teachers lecture me about pencil tip erasers.

And just to update my faithful readers on the pencil tip erasers (because yes, there is always an update). Today my kids built a mini golf course out of hot wheels tracks. They decided you have to purchase a ball to use on the course just like at the real mini golf place. And what does one use to purchase a mini golf ball? Why, a pencil tip eraser of course!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Eraser Saga Continues

Today I had a message from the school nurse on my cell phone. My kids were fine. She was calling to tell me what a bad parent I am.

My 5 year old was in her office this morning because he put a pencil eraser up his nose and couldn't get it out. Luckily the nurse was able to get it out. But as the nurse said, kids shouldn't be putting things inside their noses. Apparently I'm not good at teaching this lesson at home. Ya know, because I'm busy showing my kids great places to stick pencil erasers.

In case you have missed my previous posts about pencil erasers (and yes, there are more than one) you can catch up here, here, and here. To summarize earlier this school year my 7 year old son stuck a pencil eraser in his year and it involved a trip to the school nurse, the ER and the ENT. Oh, and now we have a collection of pencil tip erasers and a cup full of pencils without erasers.

When I got home there were two messages on the machine. One from the nurse (I assume she had tried to the house number first). And another from my son's teacher. Apparently the teacher didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to let me know what a bad parent I am because when I returned her call that was all she had to say.

So whenever you get invited over to dinner at the Cookie household please make sure you bring your own pencil tip eraser for some after dinner fun of "where can we stick the eraser this time." And be forewarned that if you don't bring your own, you might to get a used one.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Where Does He Get It From?

This afternoon my 5 year old came up to me and said, "Mom, my teacher says I'm very smart."

I smiled and started to say, "She's right, honey."

But before I could finish my 7 year interrupted by saying to his brother, "You get it from me."

Another proud parent moment.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

New Baby Gag Gift?

*Warning* Put down whatever you are eating before reading.

This post is a little graphic. Not for those with weak stomachs.


I found this new idea for a baby gift while I was reading new blog.



Cute, huh? Until you find out what it's made out of.

Placenta.

gags

I first found it at Antoinette's blog, Inner Medley. Go check it out. (She promises it's not gross every day.)

And if you have to order your own pattern, or you just can't believe that this is real, you can check it out here.

Am I the only one totally grossed out??? Sandy, do you sew?

Friday, October 2, 2009

Find a Penny Pick It Up

Yesterday I took my kids to Target. In front of the store my 7 year old son found a penny. He picked it up and looked at it closely. Then he said to me very excitedly, "Wow mom! This penny is from 1971! That is really old."

Yup, that's sooo old.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Hugs and the Flu

Yesterday while I was on campus walking to my class there were a few tables set up with signs and balloons and such. One was sponsored by "Campus Events" and had a huge sign that said, "Free Hugs." Next to it was a smaller booth. That booth had a box with a sign that said, "Free flu care kits."

Get your flu kit and your free hug at the same time. Very efficient, no?