Saturday, October 30, 2010

Trick "R" Treat

Just letting you know that today from 12 - 3 PM, Toys R Us is having their Trick "R" Treat.  They have a nice little parade throughout the store and giveaways for the kids.  We've gone in years past and had a lot of fun. 

No, no one asked me to post about this.  I just did because it is a nice, FREE activity to do! 

Have a great weekend!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Trick or treat for all.




My daughter as Darth Vader
 
Kids,

I don't care if you are 6 feet tall or in the 12th grade.  If you come to my door DRESSED UP and are respectful, I'll totally hook you up with some loot.  I want you to be able to continue to enjoy this last little bit of your childhood.  The trick or treat experience should not end at 12. 

Not wanting you to grow up too fast,
Amy
I should share with you that I trick or treated up through 16.  I went dressed.  I'm short, so that wasn't a problem, but I did always go.  No one ever gave me a problem.  Of course, that was 21 years ago.  That could be a big difference between stories going on today and those of :eeek: yesteryear of my life.  :shudder at the use of yesteryear.:

We complain that our kids are growing up too fast, yet we tell them that because they have gotten a little too tall or too old, they can't trick or treat anymore.

Not fair. 

If adults come to my door all dressed up while taking their kids out, I'll give them treats, too. 

Why do we have to have so many dumb rules?  Can't we just let kids be kids for a while longer?  If they are behaving (I've never had one that didn't), why not?  I did have a group that liked my givin's one year so much that they came by and tried to double dip.  I laughed at them and told them good try.  They were cool about it and thought it was funny that I had paid attention.  It wasn't an obnoxious thing that they did.  I may have been one of the few that gave them treats.  Who knows?

So, because it is a hotly debated thing lately, what is your take?  Do you have an age limit or a specification regarding dress/whatnot for trick or treaters?  You know me, feel free to hop on the other side.  It's all good.  Just be polite about it.

Smiles in my day:
-  K- did a quick rebound from the stomach funk and was able to enjoy trick or treating at my parents house this evening.
-  We stopped by the school, picked up her homework, talked to her teacher who knew that K- was going down, and dropped off all the supplies that I had stowed away for the party tomorrow.
-  My brother is getting me an awesome deal on tires for the RAV.  Considering that three of my four tires are plugged, we're just replacing them all instead of just two.  Since I saved the quote from March, he'll be able to hook me up.  Oh, fingers crossed that the manager honors it.  If so, it'll save us roughly $650.00.  My vehicle has big tires.  Expensive tires.  Tires that you have to order.  Rrrr.
-  Punkin' carvin' Friday night.  I have a white pumpkin.  I can't decide what to do with it.  I'm thinkin' fancy.  Hmmm.

Have a great and safe weekend!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

One hit wonder?

It's about puke.  If you have an aversion, stop here.  I promise not to be graphic, though.

I was standing on the counter, setting a ceiling with Christmas items when both my cell and the business phone ring.  I couldn't take the cell call anyhow (remember standing on the counter and up in the ceiling?)  I found that the call on the business line was for me.

It was my mother-in-law. 

K- had a headache.  A terrible headache.  She was crying.  She was not cheerful.  She was not herself. 

Oh, boy.

I talked to K-.  I asked her if her sponge was dry?  (AKA was her brain hurting because she hadn't had enough to drink?)  She said that she didn't know.   I asked her if she wanted me to come home?  "I don't know."  That pretty much cinched it.  The kid needed me. 

I abandoned my ceiling project and passed it on to the very capable Anna, who frankly was rather excited to take the project on. 

After jogging around road blocks and construction, I got to my road to have it closed and a Sheriff shaking his head that I couldn't go that way.  (Paving.)  Crap.  So, I took the long detour and finally got home. 

K- ran to me.  I no sooner got the door open but she blew past me and flew to the bathroom.

The kid made it just in time. 

Whew. 

She laid down for a while, played with Star Wars figures, ate enough Goldfish crackers to swim away, drank enough 7 Up to float away in a gas bubble, had chicken noodle soup and! her tummy is finally not hurting anymore. 

It seems (hopefully) that she had a short lived virus.  Her friend had it today, too.  She didn't make it.  It was at school.  The desk behind K-.  She gave me color details that I didn't need. 

Yuck.

So tonight, we're reading Junie B.'s Shipwrecked.  It's about ships and Columbus and puke.  How could I not?  It just seemed so fitting.

Smiles in my day:
-  K- is feeling better. 
-  Great help at work.
-  A mother-in-law who is now finally putting that spare key that I gave to her on her key ring so that she may use it if she needs.  It will not help her if it is hanging at her home on her key board all of 25 minutes away. 

Have a great puke-free day!

I was rather surprised when . . .

. . . I took K- for an appointment on Friday and Dr. P- asked what she was going to dress as for Halloween. 

"Darth Vader," answers my Star Wars loving child.

She looked at me completely shocked and with a weird, wrinkled face asked, "Really?"

"Uh, yes."

"You mean that you don't want to dress as a princess?"  asked Dr. P- of K-.

"No.  I want to dress as Darth Vader."

"Oh!"

"She's quite a fan.  Her 6th birthday was Star Wars themed."

The doctor kind of chuckled and we all went our separate ways.  What surprised me was her attempt at getting K- to change her mind to something more girlie. 

Now to give K- credit, she did want to be Padme.  I purchased the Darth Vader mask last year after Halloween and she has been jazzed about it up until just recently.  She went through a very short Padme phase, but is now happily back to Darth Vader.

A side note:  Padme is some chick from Star Wars that ends up being Queen Amidala.  (Known in our home as Queen Amadolly because of the Barbie doll we have of her.)  The Star Wars bit is K- and Hubs' thing.  T'ain't mine. 

I admit that the princess thing has never been something that I've encouraged.  People I've known have done the princess thing to the hilt, almost to the point to make me want to be ill. 

I would not and will not wear things on K- that says, "I'm a princess."  Frankly, I think that's a bunch of garbage that we didn't want to feed to our kid and as much as our kid means the world to us, we didn't want her going out into public on her high and mighty thrown thinking that she needs to be treated any better than anyone else.  (No, K- does not live on a high and mighty thrown.)  Okay, it's a fun dress-up thing but a regular thing just doesn't do good things for either one of us. 

I shall step off that soap box now.

We've brought K- up to play with boy or girl toys.  She enjoys boy and girl movies.  She has no problem running with the boys or playing house with the girls.  (Or vice versa with the kindergarten housekeeping area.)  She's happy with a pile of dirt or a pile of rhinestones.  She's thrilled to roll in the dirt or wear a pretty dress.  She reads books that would specifically appeal to boys or to girls.  She doesn't care.  She doesn't see gender in anything like that.  Her world to her is still gender neutral.  We're cool with that.

So, what are your thoughts?  I should clarify that I wasn't offended by the doctor's question, just surprised.  Apparently she was surprised by K-'s answer. Maybe I've lived with her Star Wars obsession for so long that it no longer phases me as odd.

Smiles in my day:
-  Got another tree basically down.  Now if my co-worker hadn't found those extra ornaments that match the tree, it would be done.
-  My mother-in-law had a lovely ham dinner waiting for me. 
-  Hubs stayed home today and slept most of the day.  He's "trying to feel better."  I'm still on the couch.
-  The winds and nastiness that we were supposed to have apparently fizzled because we got some wind and some rain, but nothing tornadic like what they were saying.  "Isobars close, barometric pressure drop and we've seen nothing like this since the Fitzgerald went down in the lake . . . "  The time that the old RAV got hammered by hail and the roof and gutters on the house were trashed was far worse.  Glad that we didn't get it, but geeze o' Pete, it was prediction of Armageddon again.  I wanted to know the CAPE, but they never tell you that.  (My co-worker couldn't find it either.) Thanks to Storm Chasers, I know what people are looking at in regard to CAPE values, but have no idea about the full science behind them.  Numerically, I know when to duck and run.  Still, we are glad that this side of Ohio didn't blow into the Atlantic.

Have a great day!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Tales from the Trenches: Hubs has a cold, K- has homework and I put up a Christmas tree today.

Hubs?  99.8 F fever.  He called me at work to tell me.  I'm happy to report that he will live. 

Yes, he remembered to get K- from school.

K-?  She has homework.  She's floating in the tub right now, then it is flash cards, spelling test and reading.  Whew-boy! 

She's excited because she got one part of her walk-a-thon prizes today.  They ended up getting a double lunch and double recess.  Now to me that seems a little excessive on the food front.  When K- saw me in the hall, she told me about her upcoming pizza adventure. I reminded her to wash her hands and to be mindful of her fill line.  (Pizza and reflux don't go well together when eaten quickly.)  She was thrilled with the extra recess.  That's more my speed.  I would have loved a triple recess, but alas . . . 

Me?  I put the first Christmas tree of the season up at work today.  I did that while pulling myself out of the remnants of a migraine (didn't go full blown as I was on it with lots of things.)  Still, I suffered from migraine hang over and that made me move slower.  I did get done what I needed to get done and so I'm still on track.

I'll be sleeping on the couch tonight to stay away from the petri dish that I love to call Hubs.  When one is sick, we usually separate in attempt to avoid the plague.  We've done this all our married life.  No use in two losing sleep when one losing it is bad enough.  And yes, I come in through the night and check on him just as I would K-.

Smiles in my day:
-  Leaving the windows open all night, though that could have been cause for the migraine.
-  That K- took the initiative to work on her homework before I got home.  Hubs checked it and it is all good. 
-  Flat [Stanley] is off through the mail system and to [her] next place.  I was so afraid she would be lost or misplaced.  It made me nervous!

Have a great day!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Parental decisions that puzzle me.

Today was K-'s last day of soccer.  (There's a little hooray in my heart.  A break is a nice thing.)  The last day of soccer was pizza party day.  We received 2 - 3 e-mails about it this week.  Never mind that it has been advertised that way since the very first day. 

We had one mother disgusted with her son's lack of involvement in the game.  He wasn't real into it, but soccer is apparently not his thing.  To punish his lack of involvement, she decided to get his team trophy from the coach early and not let the child participate in the pizza party or in their little ceremony to hand the trophies out. 

My heart ached for him. 

He was sitting on his ball by himself until his mother grouched at him that she got his trophy and that he needed to, "Get going."

There was another child that had food allergies to dairy, nuts and egg.  The parents were very beside themselves that an alternative food item wasn't provided for their child even though THEY knew about the party just like the rest of us did.  They hadn't made their needs known to the coach who was apparently supposed to read their minds.  The coach literally learned about the allergy while he was handing out pizza.  The girl was a regular attender.  When you walk to the soccer field we were on, you had to walk past a large sign advertising the pizza place and the fact that the trophies were sponsored by a particular company.  You would almost walk into the sign every week.  Add to that, that we received a couple of e-mails about it.  The coach is very approachable and reachable by e-mail or phone.  He wouldn't have minded the parents bringing it up to him. 

On a side note:  No, I'm not being insensitive about food allergies at all.  Quite the opposite.  If your child has food allergies and the item being served is one that will make them ill, let the host know in advance so that they have an opportunity to have an alternate safe item or just bring something yourself.  My husband's cousin does that for her son and it is no problem.  I'm sure that Janeen carries a larger purse just to accomodate safe foods to be with her at all times for her son. 

The mom was very mad at the coach and so the girl was given a bunch of candy from the concession stand to make up for the parent's lack of sharing.  The coach should not have been punished, but neither should the girl. 

IT TAKES COMMUNICATION, PEOPLE! 

K- did have a great time.  She is thrilled with her trophy and soccer is a favorite sport.  They are working on trying to secure an indoor area for soccer, but they've been having a difficult time doing so.  If they do, I believe that we'll sign up.

So, have you run into weird sports things and odd parental decisions with their kids and sports?  Do tell.

Smiles in my weekend:
-  We've taken my niece's Flat [Stanley] all around with us.  We have a photo album of pictures to send off and I think that she'll be excited.
-  We had a lovely time at the pumpkin patch yesterday.
-  Hubs mowed the lawn for one last time this year.  Because of drought conditions, he hasn't really had to mow it much at all.  In fact, it's probably been 2 months and it wasn't long.  While he did that, I pulled 3 of the 4 tomato plants we had in.  I wrestled and ended up with a driveway full of little tomatoes.  My neighbor came home to a mixing bowl of ripe and a beverage flat full of green tomatoes.  I trimmed up some herbs along the driveway and consider that portion of the clearing task done.  I still have plenty to go.
-  I made the American meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn for dinner.  Not that big of a deal, except that the meatloaf and potatoes were done in two different crock pots.  I love that I could cook the whole potatoes in water that way (never did it, never thought of it-- thanks Nora!) and they were perfect.  Hubs can't have milk in the mashed potatoes, but they were moist enough to not have to worry about extra liquid anyhow.  The skins slid right off, making mashing with the hand masher easy-peasy.  Hooray!

Have a great day!