The end of a conversation about workplace and playground politics...

dh: Well, if you are HAPPY, then that's all that matters. That's all there is.

me: Exactly. And...if you are NOT....then, well......knit another row.

Lupines

This is so weird, I can post on the blog from my phone if I choose ' edit html' but not if I just choose new post. Wtfever..... These lupines are pretty though.

Bringing up geeklings, episode n+1

C: Mom, what's 68?

Me: The percentage of data in a normal distribution that is within plus or minus one standard deviation of the mean.

C: I have no idea what you just said!

A: Mom, is that really true?

Me: Of course. I would never lie to you....about math.


The funny thing is that it didn't occur to me what she was really asking about until I contemplated telling this
story to a class.....i bet if I told it they would remember that 68%...

Test

got a new fancy phone and trying to see if I can update the blog directly from it. Seems to work but it's fairly awkward.

misc. cuteness

So i had to go to a meeting about C's school last night and T. was whining that i was leaving -- "I want to go too!"

"Boy." says C. "You do NOT want to go to a meeting. The adults talk and talk and talk and nobody actually does anything and at the end you don't even get a lollipop!"

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T. this morning: "Mommy look! My hands are smiling!"


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little gardeners

Eight years

Today it is eight years since Nicolas was born. Happy birthday sweet boy....words seem, as always, so inadequate.

I'm not sure these pictures are any better though....this year his tree looks lovely because his dad gave it a very thorough and attractive pruning.
This thorough pruning was necessary because the poor tree is under severe attack from a nasty pest known as oystershell scale...and indeed i have doubts that the tree will live through it, applications of caustic pesticides notwithstanding. Sigh. Well, we will try our best, and that is all we can do.

a post about nothing, and a cute story

I say i am going to post more but then i find i do not have time, or much to say besides whiny rants. By the way i am feeling much better about the previous issue since my mother's ire has now gone on to other things. It always does, and cycles back, and whatever.

Today is the first 'snowy' day of the year, though it is not truly snowy as there is almost no accumulation. Snow flurries blowing all over, though. Really feels like winter....it is so dreary and grey. I went to the gym in the morning & i have my lamp on & i am taking my vitamins (which my mother informs me that i am taking too much Vitamin D as they just changed the requirements back down, since it causes kidney stones, or something. Must look into that one of these days.) Not feeling terribly chipper but not feeling that bad either -- at least not down like these kind of days used to make me feel. After all, i have on great lipstick, so how bad could i feel? It is early in the winter, yet. We will see.

Yesterday i made some good progress on knitting Chloe's horse sweater & am really in the final stretch now. I could finish this week, if i keep knitting. So at least ONE Christmas gift will be done in time.

Here's a funny story: I was pulling spring bulbs out of the garden this weekend, and the kids were digging in the holes i was leaving behind. The ground was already partially frozen (broke a shovel, goddamn it, but at least it was not my favorite one) and the boys were absolutely amazed at the ice -- you know, those spiky bits of ice that form underneath the mulch late in the fall. I remember loving playing with those as a kid too. And they were digging for earthworms, of course. I said 'i don't think you will find very many, it is pretty cold already.' But they did find some.

M: Look! I found a worm! It is a big daddy one!
C: Look, boys, i got one too! I found the little baby one!
T: But where is the mommy one?
C: Oh, she's probably out shopping.

whine rant, i shouldn't post it here.

My mother heard some guy talk on the radio about his new book about cancer so she called me & left a message "i heard such-and-such a dr talk about such-and-such a book and he says that if you don't eat green vegetables you will get leukemia. It is your responsibility to change C.'s eating habits so she eats vegetables otherwise she will get diabetes AND leukemia. I am very concerned about her health." Then when i got home with them (this was Wednesday) she jumped immediately on me (in the 10 minutes i had before i had to leave again for work) and is telling me that it is my fault, that she will get sick, that the only thing to do is to deny her all foods except fruits and vegetables because then she will be hungry enough she will start to eat them and blah blah blah. Of course in that 10 minutes i also lost my temper and yelled at C. for making a noise and confiscated her toy catalog and sent her to her room screaming. Apparently the useful thing about having kids is that you can take your frustration out on them and they can't do anything about it. Because for the kid, it can be framed as a righteous punishment (for interrupting and making a tiny noise) whereas if you take your frustration out on an adult, it has consequences. Me, i'm a great person.

OK, yes, it is a problem that C. does not eat fruits & vegetables. Yes C. is a fat kid. Yes, she has miserable dietary habits and is very stubborn. We have forced her to eat vegetables & then it is a huge drama to get even one bite down & she literally makes herself throw it up. And yes if we gave her nothing but fruits & veggies eventually she would eat it because she was hungry. But i do not believe this would translate into her EVER eating them when there was anything else available, and i actually believe it WOULD translate into her hating vegetables for the rest of her life. Which would do much more harm -- because when she is older she will be making her own food choices.

However, even if she never ate a vegetable for the rest of her life, i do not believe this means she would DIE FROM LEUKEMIA. Sure she might, but SO COULD YOU. Who the hell says something like that to someone who already had a kid die? Oh i forgot, that one doesn't count, silly me. UUURRRRGGGHHH. Now i just want to cry again.

Fuck this. I am going to go to the gym and run really really fast for a long time until i no longer care anymore.

funnies

OK, not so good with posting on the blog. I am back to writing-a-post-in-my-head-and-never-posting-it. Sigh!

But i had to get some of these down from this week:

T. on monday, when i picked them up from preschool: "Mommy! You made me a dangerous sandwich! Don't do that again! It's DANGEROUS!"

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C. on A.'s 18th birthday: "i want to get A. a real birthday present, i never got him a real present before. A video game, with tanks in it. He likes tanks. It has to have tanks, and turkeys...gobble gobble...gobble"

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me, trying to round up screaming little kids: "C! Stop it right now! Stop being a chicken! STOP!"

C, crestfallen: "You mean i can't be a chicken ever again????"

me: "um...well, at least not until tomorrow."

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We were in the car, stopped at a light next to a big billboard which featured the singer Rhianna dressed up in some kind of barbed-wire bondage gear.

T: "Mommy! Look! There is a bad person!"

Me: "What? Oh, uh, yes, she does look kind of scary in that picture."

T: "Mommy! She gonna steal our car!"