Community Service

Last Tuesday, I took my Girl Scout troop to the retirement community where my grandmother lives. We went to a couple different areas of the building and handed out ornaments that the girls had made and candy canes to the residents.

Landon got to wear his Girl Scout shirt for the first time - although when the ladies would ask him if he was a girl scout he very confidently would say "No, I not a giiirl scout, I a boy."

My Grandma joined us in the lobby and walked the halls with us as we passed all of the stuff out. I think the people there really enjoyed us being there and the girls (and Landon) had a pretty good time too.

Houston Snow

Talking Back, Part 2

So, as I stated previously, I come from a family that did not use the term "talking back." But Landon has been getting in trouble in school for talking back [no further detail and the teacher who writes it is gone by the time I pick him up]. When I ask him what happened, he says "I don't know." When I ask the teacher who is there, I get “Well, you’d have to ask Ms Joy, I don’t get in here until 4, so I don’t know.” Thank you for all your insight, as I suspected, the range of talking back is kind of varied depending on who you are.

Not knowing what she considers to be “talking back.” I can only assume he’s doing with her what he does to me, which is that he tells me about not wanting to do whatever it is I have told him he needs to do. He is of course whiney to me at that point, and I spend a lot of time saying "I understand that you don't want to XYZ, but these are the reasons it's important to do XYZ. Blah blah blah, so you have to do it anyway." And he generally says "Ooooooh-kaaaaaaay." And then does it.

So, is he talking back to me when I tell him to do something and he tells me he doesn't want to? And maybe I'm alone on my parenting boat, but I feel like he should be able to tell me how he feels about things he's being asked to do - now, it doesn't mean he's going to get out of picking up his toys or whatever, but I think he should be allowed to say "this sucks" [probably not using those words] because it does suck, I hate cleaning up too - and we can commiserate and then get to cleaning up.

I’m betting this is a transition issue, i.e. he’s playing with blocks, but it’s circle time now, so he’s been asked to pick up the blocks and come to the circle and sit. And he of course doesn’t want to and says so. I can't think of a single adult I know who likes being interrupted mid task to be asked to do something else that someone else thinks is important. Why should it be different for kids? Or are they just not allowed to tell anyone that it sucks? [A side question I have if this is the issue, is whether they are giving time warnings prior to transitions, i.e. Ok 5 more minutes until clean up time, 3 more minutes and everyone has to be in the circle, etc. – because when I do that, I get a lot less resistance to moving on to the next activity.]

Now I understand that the teacher has 16 kids in the class with a teacher and an assistant teacher. And I understand that she can't possibly deal with all the dissenting opinions the way I can on a one on one basis – she’d spend her entire day explaining things and then they’d never get anything done.

So my solution is to explain to him that Ms Joy doesn’t have time to explain why she wants him to do something, but that he needs to do what she says anyway, because if she has to spend all her time explaining why they have to move on to the next activity, then they’ll never get to do anything.

We’ll see how that works.

Oh, and we took toys away from him as punishment, and he was hysterical, we told him if he came home the next day with 2 smiley faces that we’d give them back. And he did. So - I guess we have that option too.

Monthly Newsletter #38

Dear Landon,

Why? Why is 95% of what you say made up of only the word “why”? Why don’t you listen to me when I answer you? Why do you keep asking the same question over and over again when I told you the answer the first time…and the second time…and possibly the third time…before I pretend to strangle you behind your back? Why?

In the past couple days you’ve started asking if things are real or pretend. Is that Santa decoration real or pretend? I’m not really sure how to answer some of them, because to me, if it’s physically there, it’s real, but in the sense that a lighted wire “dein-dein-dur” [reindeer] is not a living animal, it’s not real, but it’s not really pretend either. I hope my answers which vary depending on my mood are not more confusing than they are helpful.

I think this is going to be the best Christmas ever. I probably said that last year, but your face exploded in wonder when we drove through the Christmas light display – 4 days later you were still talking about it, and how the lights on the houses in our neighborhood didn’t exactly measure up to the lights you saw there. Although the lady who loves Snoopy on our street does have quite an exciting display. You helped me decorate the Christmas tree, and are much more excited about your Christmas tree this year than you were last year. You willingly got within a couple inches of a Santa and told him the Christmas tree he was sitting in front of was pretty. We might actually get a Christmas picture with Santa this year if this keeps up!

Another thing you’re asking is if whatever interests you at the moment is for “for me? Or for little kids? Or for grown-ups?” It’s pretty convenient for me, since I can just say, “oh, sweetie, that’s for grown-ups.” And you put it down and walk away without argument. And I know by writing this down I am tempting the universe to take it back, but between that and telling you something is against the rules and you back down, I am amazed at how easy going you are.

You have decided this month that no matter what I pick out for you to wear to school, you have a different opinion. That’s okay though, because I figure it’s one step closer to you dressing yourself. And that is a fine goal.

I know the “whys” are a phase you will grow out of, and I know you’re just trying to piece together the world around you, so I do try to answer your questions when I can – I just wish you would listen to the answers, before asking the same exact question over again.

Love,
Mama

Talking Back, Part 1

I come from a family that did not use the term "talking back."

So I'm not entirely sure what it means.

Landon is getting in trouble at school for talking back.

So can you tell me what it means?

Is Landon getting in trouble for having and voicing differing opinions?

Or is he getting in trouble for the way he's voicing his differing opinions?

Please discuss, I need the insight.

Thanksgiving wrap up

You know what would be awesome?

If I had taken more than 24 pictures over the holiday weekend.

Or if I had even bothered to remember to bring my camera to the event on my family’s side.

But as it stands, this is our Thanksgiving wrap up. We went up to East Texas on Tuesday night and stayed through Saturday morning.

Landon got some good quality time in riding the horse trailer with his Grandpa Wood.

He helped me make some ornaments for the community service project that the Girl Scouts are doing tonight.

He played a little baseball with a paint stirrer and the tennis ball that hangs in his great grandparent’s garage.

Aaaand we made our annual trip to the Christmas lights you drive through.

On Saturday morning we headed home briefly and then to Lake Jackson for my family Thanksgiving. And here's where I'd have pictures of Landon getting all excited about broccoli at the Japanese steakhouse, or getting freaked out over the big fire. But not only did I not bring my camera, no one else did either. I guess I'm going to have to be more on the ball for Christmas.

On Beyond Bovine #19 – Broccoli

Bet you thought I forgot about this thing?

Yeah, I’m just a slacker. But since we're trying to do more fresh stuff now, I'll probably have a few more of these.

So the alternative title for this post is “Adventures in overcooked broccoli”

Sounds fun right?

I decided to make Beef and Broccoli from a recipe from The Pioneer Woman’s website, although the recipe is actually from someone else.

So I cut up the broccoli (which I keep trying to spell broccoli.)

And the beef (fun tip: put the meat in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to make slicing it easier.)

Also, new to me are these three ingredients – I had heard of but never actually used the oyster sauce and the other two I actually had to go to the local smelly Chinese grocery store to find.

I made the marinade and set the meat in it.

I then proceeded to screw up. I steamed the broccoli entirely too long.

I pan fried the meat - as per the directions, and then added the sauce.

Then I added the over cooked broccoli to the meat and it let out a bunch of water which made the whole dish entirely too watery and there was no thickening it up and every time I stuck my spoon in it the broccoli disintegrated some more and the was like broccoli mush and beef by the time I was done.

That being said - the flavor was right (although I should have added more pepper and surprisingly a little more salt) so if I make it again, I just have to not overcook the broccoli.

This is what we do with stickers now.

My own personal narrator

I’m not sure if any of you are blind. But I have such a great business idea.

Parade buddies.

See – on the one hand, one might think that just because you are blind you might no longer enjoy going to parades, as most of the joy of a parade is in the visual aspect.

But if you took a buddy with you. One who narrates everything to you unceasingly – you wouldn’t miss out on anything.

The idea came to me after taking Landon down the Lake Jackson for the Festival of Lights parade. I had kind of ulterior motives, since I wanted to see the band. Mr. Koch apparently does not age, and Mr. Casey is like 107 now.

I also thought we’d get to go to the festival itself, but he fell asleep on the way down there, and when I transported him into my parents’ house he never woke up. In fact 2 hours later I was waking him up because we had to leave to go to the parade. 2 hours is a lot of time to waste in your parents home when they’re not there and you didn’t bring anything to do.

He loved the parade. He talked for the entire 2 hours we were there.

And thank God, that we found a place to stand near a woman who probably would have taken him home with her if I would have let her instead of someone less receptive of small people talking to them.

Cake-a-licious

I don’t know if I mentioned it before or not, but one of my birthday presents this year was a set of classes to learn to decorate cakes. I think my mother-in-law could have used more help with the train cake – because I was seriously like no help at all!

The classes were really fun and we learned everything from the little stars you use to cover the character cakes from Wilton to clowns to roses. Um…you should probably not request that I decorate your cake with roses, unless you like roses that look like they’ve been run over by the lawn mower.

Anyway, this past Saturday was my final class. We had to bring in two 8 inch round cakes, and enough icing to ice them and decorate them. Most people brought in yellow cake, but because I’m difficult, I brought in chocolate (I was one of 3 who brought in non-yellow cake). They gave us a choice of fillings, so I use Bavarian cream. The cake was awesome. I told Clint I was bringing whatever was left to work today and he told me no. He said he would eat it – so it can’t be that bad.

It's no train cake, but it's not bad for a first timer. And it matched my kitchen wallpaper...kind of.

And it's tasty too!

Well isn’t that craptacular

I’m working on my positive thinking these days. It is seriously working in parts of my life that I need it to. (Hey maybe you should stop having fake arguments in your head with people before anything actually happens and then when you see them you won’t already be mad at them about the fake argument you had in your head – which never comes to fruition anyway. It’s poisoning your relationships.)

Now, I don’t want to make you think my life is centered around the day care or anything, or that I feel like they should make me feel like puppies and rainbows are coming out of my butt every time I encounter them, but – they have been the brunt of my frustration for the past couple weeks – and I’m not even talking about homework this time.

Last week the day care began reporting behavior in terms of happy faces and sad faces giving one face for the morning and one face for the afternoon. Landon had a REALLY bad week that first week.

• This week he has happy faces across the board, I’m glad the threat of losing his toys works on him and we didn’t have to resort to harsher punishments.
  
  

Yesterday they called to tell me that Landon had an accident and that he didn’t have a change of clothes. I told them I had put a full change of clothes in his cubby. The teacher said it looked like he had already soiled them and they were used, but didn’t know from when and thought maybe they put the used clothes in the wrong place so I never found out about a previous accident.

• I’m lucky my boss is understanding of the fact that after being at work for only 30 minutes I would need to leave for an hour and a half to remedy this situation.
  
• By the time I got there they had located a pull-up for him to wear in the meantime and a pair of pants for him to borrow.
  
  

Yesterday when I picked him up he was wearing a different shirt than the one he was wearing even after I came with the change of clothes. He had bonked his nose on the playground and had a bloody nose which he wiped on his sleeve…I had received no phone call and had just started his laundry before coming to pick him up. Also, they didn’t fill out a boo-boo report.

• I’m lucky it wasn’t more serious and I’m not overly concerned about small mishaps.
  

This morning the person who has the key to the day care didn’t show up for work – or at least she didn’t show up on time. And the other lady who has a key didn’t get there until 40 minutes later than opening time.

• I’m lucky I have a job with flexible hours and an understanding boss – who also happens to be out of town today.
  
  

Once inside the day care, Landon was absolutely appalled that I would not let him just stand outside in the rain, and he was in no way giving in about it, so we stood outside under the awning for a minute before he relented to eating breakfast.

• I’m glad I have a kid who enjoys the rain as much as I do, and I hope that stubbornness evolves into some kind of productive personality trait that will take him far in life.

While this positive thinking stuff is helping my general outlook and mood. I’d like to not have to use it so often.

Worse than the GLITTER!

I picked up Landon from school yesterday only to find out that his homework load is now a daily load, a smaller daily load, but daily, as in given on Monday due on Tuesday, given on Tuesday due on Wednesday...etc. etc.

I'm pissed. See, I pick up Landon at 6:15 - And yes, I could pick him up earlier, but he gets mad if there are more the 3 or 4 other kids left when I pick him up - he wants to stay as long as possible. Which, I think, is a sign that he likes the place, which is what I want. We get home about 6:30. I can hopefully get dinner on the table by 6:45. He take for-freaking-ever to eat, and at 7:30 I can finally persuade him to either shower or take a bath. That generally lasts until 8:30 or so, and then we settle in and snuggle and bond and try to get him to settle down enough that he'll be able to sleep.

Oh, and let me explain homework with Landon so you can see why I'd prefer to do it in one big chunk instead of spread out over 4 days. First, I get the paper out of the folder and grab whatever writing utensils we are going to use (I generally go for the markers, because YAY! COLORS!) I sit him down at the breakfast table and show him the homework. I tell him the instructions on the first page. He sits there and thinks for a few minutes and then does the letter tracing with his finger instead of the marker. And if there are multiple pages, we must look at all of them before starting anything. And then he chooses the color he wants to use, provided they didn't give certain color instructions. And then he decides that it's prolly not the best color and chooses another. And possibly a third one. Then he talks about how he holds the marker and who told him to hold it like that. And after a good 7-10 minutes of stalling and coloring waffling, he finally makes his first mark on the page. When tracing letters, he expects some form of applause after each letter. If you don't do it, he will. If he has multiple sheets the second through fourth ones go much faster, because he's already in the mood to make actual marks on actual paper and the assignments take roughly 2 minutes each. So a 4 page assignment takes us 10 minutes + 2 minutes per page about 18 minutes. But over the span of 4 nights, we would have to do the 10 minute warm-up each night giving us 48 minutes. I like my extra 30 minutes. I WANT my extra 30 minutes.

Last night I managed to squeeze the homework in prior to dinner, but that's just because I had dinner ready to go and was just waiting for Clinton to get home to put it on the table. On nights when dinner take a little more prep, I won't have that luxury.

As I read the sheet that tells me what the week is about, I also found that they want him to dress in certain colors on certain days, when I can't even get him to agree on a shirt I pick out for him. And also to bring something pink or that starts with the letter L for show and tell DAILY. I'm picking my battles, I can ignore the dressing in certain colors business and the daily show and tell - especially since it appears that not everyone in his class was participating in that before. So I'm starting with the daily homework crap.

This morning I approached the curriculum director and asked why we were giving three year olds daily homework. And her response was looking at me like I had 2 heads and saying "you don't approve?" And I explained that no, I do not approve. For one thing he's three. And for another, I barely have time to feed him and bathe him before he has to go to bed each night, and God forbid we have something else that has to be done that evening.

Her response was that I could speak to his teacher and ask her to put all his homework for the week in the folder on Monday and we could just do it when we could, and not to stress out about it. That they were just trying to prepare him for public school. To which I said "Yes, but he's three."

So I got about half way to work and I thought I needed to conduct a survey. So I called my friend Myra. She teaches first grade now, but has taught kindergarten, first, and second grade in public schools and taught in at least 2 different area school districts (and other grades too, but those are the ones of interest to me.) And I asked her if she gave her kindergartners homework. She said she did, and I asked how she implemented it. She said she sent it home on Monday and wanted it back on Friday. And there were usually like 4 or 5 assignments that would take 5 minutes a piece. She said she did it similarly in kindergarten, first, and second grades. And I got to work, and my neighbor has a little girl in Pre-K in public school and their homework situation is similar.

I waffled back and forth on how to handle it, but I did end up calling the school, asking to have the teacher call me when she got a chance and then typing out this post to get my anger out so I could be nice to the woman who teaches my kid most of the day. And then I just have to wait for his teacher to get a moment to call me.

And you know what sucks? There's nothing worse than getting all uppity and on my high horse and then having the situation resolve itself before I can even hit publish and tell everyone how mad I am! I mean, dude, it's a pretty high horse - it requires ladders and pulleys and stuff. I was finishing that last paragraph when the teacher called me back. I was totally prepared to fight about this with everyone there. She totally understood that our time is crunched, so Landon will now get a week's worth of assignments on Monday. And I think we're all happy all the way around. I just can't believe that we are the only ones with that kind of time crunch in the evenings. Especially since we're pretty lax on the bedtime thing, I mean, he doesn't have a set bedtime, I can't even imagine if I had some 8:30 or 9:00 deadline to put him to bed in addition to all the other stuff we do. So now I'm kind of concerned about the children whose parents haven't called to complain. Because I need something to worry about.

Monthly Newsletter #37

Dear Landon,

I was thinking about at what point I should stop writing these monthly newsletters. On one hand, when you have a baby one day and ask "when did I start talking?", since we didn't manage to fill out your baby book for more than a few months, you'll always have this blog. On the other hand, you're already remembering things. Things like when we went to Pei Wei to pick up food and last time we had a #3 pager and that time we had a #12. Down to the fact that the #3 one had an extra sticker on it. Or on the way home from school when you asked if I remembered "that girl covered in her blood." I did manage to get from you that you were talking about that show with the doctors, so I guess we also have to stop watching Grey's Anatomy in front of you.

This month you started having homework at school. So far, aside from the glitter incident, we've been doing fine with it. We manage to turn it in on time, and we're getting excellent grades - I'm saying "we" because there's no way you could complete the homework on your own. First of all, the instructions are all "Find and Color the capital letter Ns in the picture purple and then find and color the lowercase letter ns orange, and then do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around." They just seem a tad complicated for someone who can't read them. But you do love doing your homework. Even if Mommy and Daddy think it's a bit early.

This was your first year actually trick or treating. Which was awesome. Since Halloween was a Saturday night, a lot of people had parties to go to, so there weren't a lot of houses lit up. But we did go and managed to fill your jack-o-lantern bucket not once, but twice by frustrated door openers who said "there just aren't very many trick or treaters out tonight - here, have 1/3 of my candy." And we met Batman, who told his mother that Buzz (you) were his new best friend. So, all in all, it was a good night. Maybe one day we'll make it down to their house without the costumes.

I don't know when kids develop empathy, but I will tell you that this month you truly showed a caring side. I asked you if we could go through your toys and donate the ones you don't really play with anymore to the kids who don't have very many toys. I had ulterior motives, what with my dining room table brimming with your new toys from your birthday because I have NO place to put them in your room until we clear some stuff out. You take excellent care of your toys, so we get to throw very few broken ones away - and generally the ones we do are the ones that Fiona destroyed when we weren't looking. Anyway, you were awfully concerned that there might be kids out there who don't have toys, and of course you would be willing to give them some of yours. I am blown away by how awesome your response was. Now granted, I haven't actually tried to remove any toys from your closet yet, so we'll see how that goes, but I think once you're reminded about how many toys you have you'll be okay with it.

You also are showing some signs of inner thought. You no longer blankly stare at the TV when you are watching your shows (or as you call them your "movies.") You are giggling at the funny scenes and jokes.

If I had one thing for you to work on it would be this: be less whiney. I know this is my own childhood coming back to haunt me because I was whiney, and I now understand exactly how annoying it was and I promise I have learned my lesson now.

Love,
Mama

Same Song Second Verse

Or bazillionith verse, whatever. I owe you a monthly newsletter, but there was a virus, and an upset stomach, and well, it's hard to type when you spend a day leaning over a toilet. I can't promise when it will be out, but something will. Someday.

I prolly need

Landon has a new catch phrase, when he wants something, he starts his request with "I prolly need."

"I prolly need to put my shoes on."

"I prolly need help."

"I prolly need sumting for drinking."

"I prolly need another popsicle."

And when he starts saying things I always wonder where he picks them up. And then 30 minutes later I find myself saying "You probably need to go wash your hands before you wipe that stuff on my furniture." Ah well, better that than some of the other things I say.

His other current catch phrase is a little less endearing. It's "but I waaant to!" He uses it after we tell him no or that we have to wait for one reason or another. As if to say, "Maybe you people didn't understand, maybe you thought I just haphazardly thought of doing this, and what you need to know is that I am emphatic about wanting to do this."

Company Picnic

My company held a company picnic this past weekend. And since I'm trying to be more social and meet more people I and 7 other people went with our families. Okay maybe a few more than 7, but not many more.

We bored Landon with eating.

We bored him with a regular moonwalk - "Dis not a castle moonwalk like at my birfday party."

We tortured him with goats - "I want to go at the petting zoooooo!" [We had yet to locate it and so we were like, ok we're looking for it] "But I waaaant toooo." On finding said petting zoo, they handed us a small cup of goat food. And the goats KNEW we had it. So that turned into "THE GOATS ARE GETTING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

We asked about riding a pony - which he had no interest in after the goat attack.

He played on a playground - which we discussed how we could have done that at the park in our own neighborhood. And probably with a lot fewer people smoking within 2 feet of all the 2 and 3 year olds. Although we probably wouldn't have had the chance to ram the pregnant woman with a horse swing. Hey didn't your mom tell you the #1 rule for being near a swing set is to NOT stand in front of the other people who are swinging?

He played in a sandbox. Where he followed a kid around destroying the things he built as he built them.

He rejected cotton candy. And I questioned whether he was actually my child or not.

He ate a blue snow cone - or half of one anyway.

He started getting tired, we rode the hay ride, he snuggled up on my chest and might have half fell asleep, but he was pretty adamant that he wasn't tired.

He fell asleep on the way home with his pirate mask on. Which he "prolly needs a cover for the patch eye."

Pumpkin Patch. Year 3.

I guess the tractor bit the dust, because it wasn't there. But this year, we better understand the "stand here", "sit here", "do this", "do that" commands. Oh, and this year we wore our costume.

And we re-measured.

Here's 2 years ago:

1 year ago:

Aaaand this year:

As you may or may not remember, we couldn't be bothered to look up last year:

And like I said, this year, we follow directions a tad better:


All in all we had a good time.

Tuesday Night's Thinly Veiled Attempt at Trying to Get Me to Vote for Rick Perry

The phone rang Tuesday night at 9pm. And because the shortest person in the house was already asleep, even though I didn't recognize the number I didn't just let it ring like I normally do. I also didn't hang up like I should have. I also didn't just punch myself in the face like I should have, but I guess that feeling didn't actually come until I hung up.

So the lady says she's not selling anything, which isn't actually true because if you consider the fact that when you call people to try to get them to vote for one candidate over another you are kind of trying to sell your candidate, but if you use the definition where I get something physical and have to send them some money for it, then no, she wasn't selling anything. She just had this survey.

And because I'm a sucker, and because I've had jobs where I have to talk to people on the phone and because I know this lady probably gets $10 extra for a completed survey and I know someone who has actually held a similar job and she hated it because people hung up on her. I told her I'd do it. Which I regretted later, but whatever.

So she asks me if I will be voting in the Republican primary in March. And I think "Wait, I haven't even figured out which proposals and stuff I'm supposed to be voting for in November and you want me to think about March?" I'm all "Yeah, I don't know, because I don't know who all the candidates are yet, so I don't know who I'm supporting, but maybe." She asked me a bunch of questions about how voteriffic I am (I'm totally voteriffic, by the way.)

She then says "I'm going to read you a series of terrible things about Kay Bailey Hutchison and you tell me if it will make you less likely to vote for her. Other people are hearing similar questions about Rick Perry." [I may not be remembering exactly how she put it.] And then the questions began. And then she used the phrase "pro-abortion groups." And I should have clicked at that point that this was clearly a Rick Perry ad very thinly veiled as a survey.

And if it didn't click then, it should have clicked when she gave me the next line of questioning. "I'm going to read you a series of wonderful things about Rick Perry and you tell me if it would make you more likely to vote for him. Other people are hearing similar questions about Kay Bailey Hutchison."

I should have hung up. I should have at least asked her to take me off the list when we were done. I'm pretty sure there were none of those other mythical people who got to hear the good things about Kay Bailey Hutchison, or the bad things about Rick Perry.

I guess asking the government to add themselves and their marketing campaigns to the do not call list is kind of futile, isn't it?

Tidbits

* But not the pineapple kind.

* Landon has started saying "Talking is too hard." He says it when he is thinking faster than he can speak and his words are just not coming out. I keep telling him to just slow down and think of what he wants to say and then start talking, but he's not that keen on waiting.

* When I get on the Intranet at work, this chick shows up. Does she seem kind of creepy to you? Or is it just me? Or is it because she comes beside words that basically say "Big Brother is Watching You."

* Some genius at work, who shall remain nameless, mostly because I don't know who it is, who probably sits in an office with a door, decided that the cubicle farm was too tall and the facade of privacy is apparently too much for us lowly cubicle workers, so in a few weeks I'll be in a short cubicle where everyone can see my every move. I hope my cube neighbors like to see me pick food off my boobs after lunch and then pick my teeth.

* Landon has begun talking about his next birthday party. And the monkey cake it will require. And how he will eat it and it will be yummy. He actually began talking about the monkey cake a few weeks prior to the train party, but I squashed his little hopes and dreams like a bug, because I had already bought the train mold. And I am evil like that.

* In a couple weeks I'm starting a cake decorating class, that my in-laws have given me for my birthday, I think it'll be fun. I'm guessing after taking that class, she's going to want more help on the monkey cake than I was able to give her on the train cake. You know, like more than sitting there watching her do all the work.

* The good news is that I finally figured out how to throw an awesome minimal preparation party (Hello, Moonbounce Guy? Yes, deliver here please.), which means I can work on the monkey cake for hours! Also, balloon lady is so not necessary and also too expensive.

Jury Doody

Last time I was summoned for jury duty I worked for a company that did not pay me while I was out. I was ticked. And then I was picked.

They have you call the night before and maybe you'll be let off the hook, and I was not. I headed in, and luckily I live in a less than urban county, so I didn't have to pay to park or anything. I took my book and read A LOT. I listened as they called 30 to 45 people at a time and directed them towards a court room.

I was in the last group. I seriously thought I had a chance of going home - or back to work, but probably home.

I was the second person in that group. And the the DA guy starts his schpeel. They start with person 1, and determine whether they like person 1 or not and then move to person 2, and so on until they have 12 people that both sides agree on.

The case was about a felon with a gun. Felons can't have guns, so his mere possession of it was the crime, not that he did anything with it. So the questions ranged from "Do you live in this guy's neighborhood?" to "Can you think of a scenario where you would give the guy the minimum 2 years, and can you also think of a scenario where you'd give the guy the full 10?" Person 1 was either REALLY good at faking stupidity, was really stupid, or there was a language barrier big enough that the DA, finally frustrated by rephrasing the question 3 times, and her giving conflicting answers, he just gave up and wiped her off the list.

Everyone told me to just be super opinionated and I wouldn't get picked. But they didn't ask me any really opiniony questions. I mean I guess I could have been all "10 years!!! No tolerance!!! Maximum sentence!!!" But I can't be like that because I am rational and I don't lie well. So yeah, I got picked.

After 2 days of testimony in the guilt/innocence phase in which the poor defendant's lawyer threw him under the bus. "Yeah, he had the gun." We came back with a guilty verdict pretty quickly.

1 day of testimony in the sentencing phase, in which the defendant's lawyer again proved her incompetency. She spent quite a bit of time establishing to us that the guy's Mom knew him. And we were left to determine his fate, but not until the next morning. The next morning we gathered in the room and were told to wait. As it turns out he took a deal for 5 years. Which is kind of sad because if he'd stuck with us, we were buying his story of the events (took gun from unstable friend, separated the clip from the gun [corroborated by police], had lost a friend in a gun fight a year before, etc) and we were leaning towards giving him just 2.

After the trial the lawyers came by the jury room to talk about any questions we might have had or the process in general, and the lawyer for the defendant asked if there was anything she could have done to improve, and we all kind of looked at each other. The jury foreman finally told her that maybe she shouldn't admit her client is guilty in the guilt/innocence phase.

That was county, I had also received a summons for the following week for the city. Which I thankfully was NOT needed for - although they still made me show up at 8 and then come back at 9 to tell me that.

On Tuesday I will report again for the county. At least this time, my company supports the system and believes in it, and will pay my my normal salary for the days I am on Jury Duty. I just hope I don't get picked again. It was pretty sad to know that guy essentially gave up 3 years of his life on a bluff.

Shimmery Dog Poop

Landon has successfully transitioned to his new class at school. He's calling it his "big kid class." Some things are different. They potty on their own, and apparently no one writes down when or what occurred in the toilet - which is fine, I mean, I'd kind of like to know when he poops, because he doesn't do it often, but in his old class there were days when he had 9 times on the potty listed and I was kind of beginning to wonder if he did ANYTHING else, at least now I won't know. I'd kind of like to know when he poops, because he doesn't do it often, and I feel like maybe I should be on top of that - but I can get over it. They start having Spanish class and individual computer time. And then there's the homework.

They give him homework. Because 3 year olds get a "sense of responsibility" when they turn their homework in each week. Um...no. They're 3. They are not the ones who remember about doing homework nor are they the ones who have to remember to bring it in on time. If that were true, Landon would also remember to bring his sheet and pillowcase every Monday, but he has spent several Mondays with a naked pillow and no top sheet for his nap. So no. I do not buy this responsibility of 3 year olds and homework business. It's just something else I have to do (not the homework - because I will not be doing him homework, not now, not ever, but sitting with him, reading him the MULTIPLE STEP instructions and making sure he doesn't get distracted by something shiny.) Can we just stop pretending this is an ivy league prep school?

Plus - the TIME. People, I work for a living - that's why he's there, I drop him off at 6:30 am, I don't pick him up again until 6:00 pm. We barely have time to eat, shower, brush our teeth, and spend a little quality time with each other, and now at least once a week, I have to spend my quality time doing what the people at his school could have done with him and he'd have learned it just as well. It kind of makes me want to teach him my personal time management technique which was always "do your homework at school if at all possible." Seriously, if I can finish my math homework during lunch or study hall (preferably not in the 5 minutes before said class began - or you know - maybe I'm wearing my historical revisionist hat (it has feathers!)) Then I did. And then when I got home I could ride my bike or whatever I was into back then - math is probably not a good example, as I always had teacher who spent about half the class lecturing and gave the rest of the class to start on homework - but the point is that I tried to finish it there so as not to taint my free time. Unfortunately they put his homework in a folder out of his reach, so I doubt that when everyone is play he could just be all "Hey - I'm gonna do my homework now," and go get it oh and never mind that he can't even read the directions yet.

They're not hard assignments, and it's not really a big deal to me, or him, I mean he loves learning. BUT the first assignment involved picking certain letters out of a group, tracing them, coloring, and cutting and pasting. I'm just glad I felt compelled to buy the safety scissors I bought him a few weeks ago - or we wouldn't have even been able to complete the assignment. The one he has to turn in tomorrow involves glitter. GLITTER. specifically white glitter. Which I read and said "well, they can bite me, it will be whatever color glitter I happen to already own." And I may have said it in front of Landon, and part of me hopes he repeats it, which means he won't, so I'm good.

GLITTER, people. If I wasn't a hoarder of all things crafty and a Girl Scout Leader, I might not even own glitter, which would mean I would have to go out and BUY glitter for this assignment, an assignment I'm not sure I believe in, in the first place, and now that I think about it, I'm afraid I took all my glitter to my parents' house so my mom could make ornaments with Landon and Zoey last year and yeah - I'm pretty sure I was obstinate and said I was not willing to take said glitter back to my house, that she must be the keeper of the glitter...so now that I'm thinking about it more, I'm going to have to go buy glitter for this stupid assignment. GAH.

And it's less about having to buy the dang glitter and more about the mess. Because you see, we'll have to use more than necessary, and then it will get on the floor and then there will be vacuuming and wiping and I'll be finding glitter in my kitchen for the next 17 years.

I guess at least the dog's poop will be fun and shimmery in a day or so. So that's something to look forward to.