Once Upon A Time

On Saturday my kids won two Fairy Tale CD's at my son's preschool carnival. After we got home, I quickly realized that somehow my children have slipped through their earliest years without knowing hardly any of these stories. With excitement, they popped in the first CD and settled in for a story.

One of the first things we heard was a disclaimer about talking to your parents if any part of the story bothers or scares you.

Wha??? What kind of Fairy Tales were these anyway?? It was not what I was expecting, but it did get me thinking.

First up was Hansel and Gretel - The wicked step-mom convinces the push-over father to abandon his children in the woods. First try fails, so he does it AGAIN. The wicked witch turns one child into her slave and begins to fatten the other child so she can eat him.

It sounds similar to "All My Children".

Next on the CD was Rapunzel - A soon-to-be father agrees to hand over his baby to an enchantress to spare his own life. The child is locked in a tower with no way to leave (where was SRS?). The prince is thrown out of the tower and blinded, and Rapunzel is disowned (for the second time) and cast out into the wilderness.

Hmmm...."The Young and the Restless"?

CD number 2 gave us The Frog Prince - A beautiful, spoiled princess meets a talking frog. She lies to him by giving empty promises to get what she wants, and then tries to run away. The princess is forced to be with the frog, and poof, after kissing him, he turns into her handsome prince. Yep, that's reality.

This had to be the beginnings of "The Bold and the Beautiful".

And finally, Little Red Riding Hood - A little girl meets a talking wolf who wants to eat her. The wolf pretends to be the little girl, then pretends to be the grandmother. The wolf did not actually eat the grandmother in this version, but still.....

Forget soap operas, I'm going with "New Moon".

Frankly it's amazing we all grew up unscathed.

It's a good thing they all end in "Happily Ever After".

....."After" years of therapy.

Blog Change?

I'm having trouble keeping up with my blog. Not because I don't want to. Not because I can't find the time. Just because I can't think of a single thing to write about.

So I started looking into the different kinds of blogs I could write to help me post on a more regular basis.

I could do a food blog.

But it would mostly look like this.

So that is out.

I could do a home improvement blog.

But it would look something like this.

So that's really not an option either.

I could do a scrapbooking blog.

But it would look something like this.

Because I haven't had any time for scrapbooking.

I could write a job blog, enthralling you with my passion for education.

But you would look like this.

Guess I'm out of luck.

Happy Moments

In a week filled with pain, tears, and lots of whining, there were still some happy moments. The number one happy moment instigator -- popsicles. I allowed more popsicle consumption in the past week than I typically would in an entire summer.

Popsicle smile

Popsicle tongue

Second to popsicles has been Handy Manny. One minute my son was watching the show, the next minute he looked like this. Handy Manny...Bob the Builder....apparently they are interchangeable.

Spring is officially here when it's time to break out the bubbles. So fun!

A Day With The Dog

We are not really pet people. But we already had the two kids, the house, and the picket fence. So when the dog showed up on our porch last August and refused to go away, we thought, "Why not?"

That is the really nice version. In reality, we tried to make her go away. Then we hauled her into the animal shelter. Then after much talking and debating, we decided maybe having a dog would be good for the kids.

So we brought her back home.

After paying a hefty fee to adopt her.

My friend says that her pets tend to emulate the personalities of her children. This is true in our household as well. Our firstborn is a little, well, firstborn. He's a worrier, an over-thinker, and a little skittish at trying new things.

Our firstborn dog is the exact same way. Frankly, I'm surprised she survived the winter. We tried to lure her into the garage when it got really cold, but she would not have it. She is too scared of people (mainly my husband) and of walking through doorways.

The last time we had made any progress with this dog was on this day.


Until this weekend! This was way more work than the picture shows, but she has a collar, a leash, and is within 10 feet of the scary man!

Doesn't she look SO relaxed to be near him? Someone give that dog some Xanax.

And just for fun....here's the pouting child because he was not getting a turn with the dog on the leash RIGHT.NOW. Someone quit giving this kid the steroids.

MUST.HAVE.SLEEP

And just when we think he's turned a corner...

he turns around and runs back the other way.

Yesterday we made the executive parental decision that the little guy was done with the prescription Tylenol with codeine. Five days on around-the-clock codeine seemed like a lot, plus it was messing with his, ummm, elimination system.

Turns out tonsil-free throats don't listen to parental decisions. Also turns out our punishment for that decision was to listen to that tonsil-free throat scream at 11:52 p.m.

And 1:15 a.m.

And 4:51 a.m.

For 35 minutes.

We did find out from our son, however, this very important piece of information, "NO! TURN IT OFF! I'M ALLERGIC TO LIGHT!" So THAT'S been the problem these last four years. Good to know.

At 5:30 a.m. I finally tucked him back in bed (the living room floor), and I crawled back in bed (the couch) and started to drift off, when I heard more crying because his nose was stuffy and he couldn't breathe. So to the chair we went for some quality sleep rest staring out the window at the psychotic blinking yard light.

A few minutes later my son was sleeping. Then giggling. Then laughing. Wha??? It would have been stinkin' cute if I wasn't so sleep deprived for being up all night. He literally laughed so hard in his sleep that he woke himself up. Then he looked up at me with those big puppy dog brown eyes and said, "Mom, I was dreaming."

Me too, honey. Dreaming of SLEEP.

And Tylenol with codeine.

Day #3

I took to the Surgery Center a child who had a nasally, low, "cool-dude" sounding voice. I came home with a child who is sporting squeaky, girly sounding talk. Granted, he no longer resembles someone with a terrible cold, but I'm not too fond of three octaves higher either. I'm somewhat hopeful that it is because his throat is sore, but not holding my breath.

I did not think it was remotely possible that my son could ever get tired of TV and popsicles, but alas, it seems we are close to that reality. He only wants to do anything that involves running, jumping, or somersaulting - all taboo activities according to the doctor.

On a positive note, the little guy is being showered with gifts and get-well wishes. My sister-in-law brought a balloon and my mother-in-law gave him a glow stick/flashlight/whistle thing (wha????). One guess as to what he does with the combination of these two gifts......yep, the poor balloon is being beaten to death, and of course, this involves much running around the house. *Sigh*

I literally just pulled my son into my lap and said, "Just because you had surgery does not mean you do not have to obey me anymore." His reply: "Yes it does!"

It is going to be a long week.

Progression of a Tonsillectomy....

....thankfully, from a parent's point-of-view, not a medical view.

This face about says it all. The poor little guy asked questions the entire 30 minute drive to the surgery center, but did not cry at all. However, as soon as we hit the reception desk, the big crocodile tears started flowing. Big, silent tears, thank goodness. Here he is getting dressed for surgery.


Oops. Apparently EMT training did not prepare daddy for putting on a surgery gown. Let's try this the other way.

He is not completely convinced that reading a book will make everything all better, but dinosaurs do help a tiny bit.

And then something magical happened. The nurse anesthetist came in and talked to us and soon he was telling her how "Whoop! My tonsils are going to pop out!" Oh, how I WISH I would have a picture of him skipping down the hall with the nurse for surgery prep.

If only he would have come skipping out of surgery. He looks so peaceful, but don't let him fool ya.

Imagine lots of crying and moaning and tag-team parenting. Followed by zombie-like sleep. Ahhhhhh....drugs.

And finally -- home. This is his new favorite spot, propped up in bed with lots of pillows, hours of movies, and armed with popsicles.

A Little Bit of Prophecy

A few weeks ago my children attended their great-grandfather's funeral. He had been in a nursing home the past four years, and wheelchair bound the entire time. This is the only way my boys remember him.

This week my 4 year old's preschool class went to a local nursing home for an Easter egg hunt. My dad picked up my son from preschool and asked him about his day. The conversation went something like this:

Grandpa: "How was your day, buddy?"

4 yo: "Great! We went on an Easter egg hunt!"

Grandpa: "Oh yeah? Where was it at?"

4 yo: "At the nursing home."

Grandpa: "How did you get there?"

4 yo: "We rode a bus!"

Grandpa: "Did you visit any people at the nursing home?"

4 yo: "Yeah, but grandpa, I think a lot of them are about ready to go to heaven."