Our camera is on the frizz (it "eats" two batteries after just a few pictures), and, really, I don't have time to log into my Flickr account and upload photos right now because I'm trying to finish the year's lesson planning before we start school a week today, so a few funny stories will have to do.

Last night, I went to lie down for a few minutes with DS4 at bedtime (because he was Crew Chief yesterday).  I thought I caught a whiff of something, so I asked him, "Did you fluffy?"  He said no, but I asked again, "Are you sure?"  He responded:

"I know when I fluffy because I can feel my bummy cheeks wiggle." 

I still chuckle when I think about that!

Then, there was DD2 when I was putting her down for her nap.  I asked her to do something, and her response sounded like, "Donkey odor...not nice".  It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was saying.  She was saying, "Don't give orders; it's not nice."  See, when she tells me to do something without using the word "please", I usually say, "Don't give Mommy orders; it's not nice."  But donkey odor isn't nice, either -- LOL!   

[I did explain to her, of course, that it's okay for Mommy to give her orders, but not the other way around.]

I just checked Lepidoptera's blog to catch up on her family (and read about the tadpoles, but I didn't quite get to that entry yet), when I noticed that her link to my blog shows the timeframe of my last entry:  1 month.  OH MY.  Has it really been that long?

Well, it is already late, so I am just going to cut-paste-and-quickly-edit an e-mail I sent to my extended family members three weeks ago, when one of my sisters asked for an update on what the nieces and nephews are doing these days (mine are the only ones that haven't graduated high school!).

Saturday night, DD9, DS7, DS4 and DD2 went to Midsummer at the Meadows (accompanied by their parents, of course) and enjoyed riding the rides, eating smoothies, hot dogs, popcorn, and Italian ices (not simultaneously), and playing on the playground.  DD9 particularly liked the “Fear Factory”, although she wondered why they called it that because it didn’t make her fearful.  DS4, on the other hand, looked very serious on the kiddie roller coaster.  DH thought DD2 was too short for the kiddie rides, but Mommy wasn’t so sure, so I stood her up at the measuring spot and sure enough, she just made it!  She got to ride the cars and jump around in the little blow-up house with her big brother DS4.

DS7, when I was making fruit dip earlier that afternoon for lunch at church Sunday, asked, “Next time we have lunch at church, can you make Chocolate Mountain Dew again?”  My reaction was a combination of confusion (knowing I have never made that before and wondering what he was really talking about) and disgust (thinking about what chocolate + MD would taste like together – blecchhhhh).  We quickly realized that he really meant to say “Chocolate Fondue”. 

Yesterday afternoon, DD2 grabbed a bowl of cereal that had been sitting for a while, and started to eat it.  I grabbed it away from her and said, “Don’t eat that; it’s gross.”  She replied, “I want gwoss, Mama.  I want gwoss.”

This morning, I took the kids for pictures.  DD2 woke up first, and before she even found me, she found a red marker and decorated both palms and one forearm with it.  What is it about a pending portrait appointment that makes my daughters want to give themselves a makeover?  [For those of you who haven't heard this story, it goes like this:  when DD9 was 5, our next-door neighbor A (then 6) gave her a haircut a day or two before our family portrait…her bangs were cut down to the roots and her shoulder-length hair was roughly chin-length by the time the little beautician was finished.]  The good news is, all the marker came off.  If it hadn’t, I would have taken them anyway.  J

Just a little while ago, DD4 came up to me to whisper in my ear, like I do to him about every day (“Who’s my favorite four-year-old, loving, handsome…[etc. etc.]…man?).  He got a little confused about my age, though. He remembered there was a 9 in there somewhere, so he said, “Who’s my favorite 90-year-old, loving, beautiful Mom?”

DH and I thought he was going to be finished with our broken-down car on Sunday, but he had an accident and hurt his right middle finger (perhaps a relevant point here is that he is left-handed).  His mother, sister and niece [I wasn't there and he hadn't even called me yet] were trying to talk him into going to get it x-rayed, but to no avail.  He said it really wasn't that painful; mostly it felt "stretched" from the swelling.  When I asked him if he could move it, he said he could bend it in the middle but the tip was pretty swollen, so he couldn't bend the first joint.

Once he was home later that day, I asked him some set of questions that led him to say he was not experiencing much pain, but the nail bed was still throbbing.  I chuckled and said, "For the record, most people consider 'throbbing' to be pain -- just so you know for future reference."  LOL

Well, today, the swelling spread toward his palm, the pain picked up just a little bit, and one of his co-workers, Dave, thought he really should have it checked.  Since Dave has been in both farming and the Navy, DH assumes he is familiar with injury and just "grinning and bearing it" most of the time, so Dave's reaction is what finally motivated him to call his doctor.  He went for xrays about 10:00 this morning, but then had to wait all day to hear the results.  He and his friend looked at the xrays and didn't see anything.

He finally received a call tonight:  it's broken in AT LEAST two places! 

I have always teased my husband about being insensitive (that is, not empathetic toward the pain and discomfort of other people), but now we have "empirical" proof!  LOL

Please don't misunderstand me:  I do sympathize with him, although I do find it curious that he feels so little pain relative to the magnitude of his injury.  I think both of us are just blessed right now to be focusing on the fact that things could be so much worse, and kind of taking this in stride -- even finding whatever humor that can be found in it.

-L.

I took DD8, DS7, and DS4 to the library today for the kickoff of ReadQuest, the summer reading program.  They get to do a craft -- this year it was decorating "back sacks" -- and have refreshments (last year's refreshments were much better; this year was just bowls of M & Ms and pretzel Goldfish).  While they were working, I noticed the saying on a little boy's t-shirt:

My parents are exhausted

My first thought was, "We need one of those for DD2!"  She is our resident Houdini; I think she has escaped from the premises more times in the past two months than the other three have in their combined lifetimes.  I also think she has spilled and broken more things in her not-quite 2 1/2 years than any of her siblings have in their lifetimes.  She definitely keeps me on my toes.

Don't get me wrong:  I love her every bit as much as her three older siblings.  She is absolutely adorable, and I love her baby-ish sayings and mispronunciations.  Take, for instance, this past Thursday, when we were eating spaghetti (okay, technically lasagna noodles cut in pieces with a pizza cutter after the noodles were cooked, because I was low on spaghetti noodles ) and meatballs.  She asked for more "eatballs".  I thought that was soooo cute!  Sometimes, when I do something for her, she says, "Oh, dank you!" very enthusiastically, as if it's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for her, which always warms my heart.  She is precious!  She just happens to be a precious-but-curious busy-body that probably has more opportunities to get into trouble by virtue of being the fourth child, and she takes full advantage of them!

Just writing about her makes me tired  -- LOL!

A friend from church in another state, Kelly, is newly pregnant and recently blogged about the strange baby dream she had.   I was about to post a very lengthy comment at her blog, so I decided to post an entry on my blog instead and leave the link at hers.

I conclude as Strem did, that you don't have to be pregnant to have strange baby dreams.  Here's my experience: 

While I was in college, I dreamed that I gave birth to quadruplet boys; named them Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and gave one each to my mother, my two sisters, and my sister-in-law to raise!  LOL  When I related the dream to someone else later, she remarked, "You didn't keep one for yourself!"  I said, 'No -- I gave them to four women who know how to raise boys!"    [Of course, I had no earthly idea at that point, that I would end up raising two boys -- and two girls -- of my own.]

Another night (still in college), I dreamed that I was babysitting a two-year-old boy who was getting too rambunctious, so I opened the top of his head (you didn't actually see gory gray matter when his head opened; it was more like a flip-top on something plastic) and took his batteries out , and then he was very calm...

What on earth did I eat before I went to bed those two nights?!?!

Strangely enough, I can't think of any strange baby dreams I had while I was actually pregnant.  I guess those two took care of it!

From what I recall of the study of dreams in Psychology classes (of which -- as many of you know -- I took waaaaaay too many), there are two basic theories of dreams.  One is Freudian, so I won't get into it here; the other is Activation-Synthesis Theory.  Activation-Synthesis makes a lot more sense to me.  It states that neurons in your brain continue to fire, somewhat randomly, while you sleep at night, and your brain takes the various persons/places/events that are brought to mind and tries to make sense of it.  So that's why you may suddenly have a dream that includes someone you went to high school with, someone you may have only known by name and never even met...the neuron in your brain that contains that person's face, fired, and there you have it.

I think because a first-time mommy's mind is preoccupied with thinking about the baby during the day, it makes it more likely that her brain will fire a neuron that triggers a baby thought, and then your brain tries to make sense of it that night.

• DS4, reading from the jar, informs DS6 that he knows how to spell 'applesauce,' but it sounds like something straight out of a commercial:  "M-O-T-T-S, applesauce..."
• I recently had a birthday, toward the end of March.  When we changed the calendar to March on the 1st of the month, my kids immediately noticed my name written in crayon on the appropriate date, so they sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  They sang it practically every day this month, sometimes two or three times, sometimes when they had just sung it and I only left the room to get a pen or something...
• DS6 and DD8 take a once-a-week science class at a local church building.  One day, DS6 arrived home with a small pot in which he had planted a sunflower seed.  DS4 asked him, "Did [DD8] build a flower, too?"
• DS6 asked me how to say 'juice' in Spanish.  I said, "It depends upon whether you're in Spain or Mexico.  In Spain, you say, "zumo"; in  Mexico, you say, "jugo".  DS4 chimed in and asked, "How do you say  'juice' on [our street]?"

First, I guess I must explain what a "crew chief" is.  In our home, each of the children is "crew chief" one day per week.  With this designation comes both additional responsibilities and additional perks.  The extra chores include taking the dirty laundry into the laundry room each morning, setting the table for dinner and helping with dinner preparation, sweeping the eat-in area of the kitchen after dinner each night, and various "go-for" requests from Mommy throughout the day.  The added benefit is getting to choose the video/DVD if one is watched that day, the fruit we eat at dinnertime, and possibly other things depending upon the day, as well as getting "first dibs" on things like treats.

I assigned the kids in chronological order, so DD8 is the crew chief on Monday, DS6 is crew chief on Tuesday, and DS4 is crew chief on Wednesday.  In theory, DD2 is crew chief on Thursday, but she is limited, of course, in what she can contribute.  {I think she did ask me one day, "Croo-chee?"  As if to say, "Am I the crew chief today?"} 

So yesterday was DS4's "crew chief" day.  Although all the kids like the perks of being crew chief and usually respond well to the extra requests made of them, DS4 seems especially enthusiastic about his crew chief day.  I often call him by his nickname and tack "crew chief" right onto it on his day, and his face just lights up to hear it.  He listens to my request and springs into action! 

Yesterday afternoon, he was helping me make corn muffins for dinner.  We ground the corn kernels, then the wheat...added the baking powder and salt...stirred the dry ingredients together...added the milk and an egg...throughout the process, he was acting very much like a drill-sargeant would barking out orders, I suppose, except with happy excitement.

Then I said, "Okay, we need to add 1/4 cup of oil and 3 tablespoons of honey." 

He responded, urgently, "Okay, I'll add the oil and the cup of spoons."

[There needs to be an emoticon for LOL'g...]

DS4 still uses a "w" sound for his r's and l's, and "b" for v's.  It is so cute, of course.  My extended family particularly gets tickled by how he says DVD:  "DEE-Buh-DEE".

Yesterday, we were running a quick errand when snow suddenly began to fall in large "flakes" (what do you call it when a whole bunch of snowflakes fall from the sky in one mass?  Please help me out if you know).  He exclaimed, "Mommy, wook how many snow it's waining!!!"

Although this morning went very well, my children were such busybodies while I was trying to plan the menu for the next week and reheat leftovers for dinner.  DD8 kept following me, playing "Happy Birthday" on a kazoo [note that my birthday is the next one in our family, so the kids have started singing it to me even though it's not for two months]...at one point, she asked me, "Have you ever thought about...?" something, I don't remember.  I replied, "I can't think about anything when you keep following me around playing the kazoo."  All four of them seemed wound up for no apparent reason.

After I told DH about it, he set out to discover the reason.  He asked if they had played outside; the three older ones had, but only briefly since it's so cold.  Plus, we had done some P.E. to kick off school, so it didn't seem like they should be that rambunctious before dinner. 

Tonight, though, as I started driving down our street on my way to some errands, I chuckled as I looked up in the sky:

It was a FULL MOON! 

I put the top section of my hair up in a hairband this morning, but I missed a single, shoulder-length hair.  It kept getting in my face as I was unloading the dishwasher.  I decided that the fastest thing to do was to pluck it, so as soon as I caught it in my hand and determined that I was only dealing with one hair, I did just that.

Right as I was holding it over my head, still attached, DH walked into the kitchen.  As I proceeded to yank it loose from my head, he asked, as if he were distraught, "Do you know what us follicle-ly challenged guys would do to have that?!?!"  I know him better than to think he's the least bit sensitive or vain about his hair or lack thereof, so I laughed heartily as I pretended to find the hair and try to paste it to his scalp...

He does wear hats a lot, but truly, they are to protect him from sunburn in sunny weather and cold air in the winter -- not for vanity.  To show you just how not sensitive he is about it:  when someone complements him on the hat he's wearing, he has responded on multiple occasions, "It's my hair substitute." 

Of course, most people become speechless, not wanting to hurt his feelings (alas, they don't know it's not possible -- LOL).  The best comeback I ever heard was, "Well, it's a good one!"

DD2 just woke up from her nap, and came to me at the computer.  I smiled at her, picked her up, and said, "Is that my ______?" [calling her by one of my many nicknames for her, variations on her name.]  She smiled and shook her head yes.

I then asked, "Where did you come from?  Are you an angel sent from up above?"  She shook her head no.

I thought I was going to choke to death, laughing...

I think it was DD8 that said it, although I'm not 100% sure.  It could have been DS6, but I'm almost positive it was DD8.  She said it either while we were doing her Ambleside reading, or while DS6 was working on his two new phonograms for today by making words with letter tiles (no, I surely did not pay the price you see when you click on this link; I spotted it when CBD had it marked with their "WOW!" temporary, deeply-discounted pricing).  It was one of those situations where the comment is said in all seriousness but is soooo hilarious, so Mom needs to keep a straight face even though she is cracking up inside. 

Nope, I can't remember what she said.  I kept hoping that something would trigger my memory, but nothing did.  Don't you hate it when that happens?!?!

A few weeks ago, 2girlsand2boys "tagged" me with this request:  "name 7 weird and random facts about yourself".  Fairly quickly, I decided that the people who know me best are probably better equipped to say what is "weird" and "random" about me, so I e-mailed Amy, my best friend from high school; Lori (a.k.a. the Other Lori), my college roommate; and DH.  They all responded immediately, but I proceeded to come down with a knock-out cold that didn't want to let up, then it made the rounds through all six of us, so I am just now getting around to posting my facts.  It may take me a little while to "tag" seven people and post who they are, so keep checking back if you're interested.

I will place the lists of weird and random facts in three separate entries.  I will start with DH's list because I seriously thought I might die laughing when I read it.  Truly, I laughed so hard, I became hoarse for a bit!  I will try to minimize the editorializing (primarily, the urge to defend myself ); just keep in mind the old saying "there's your side, there's my side, and then there's the truth" .

Next, here is the list from Amy, who said, "I don't know, I don't think you are weird. I came up with seven but not sure how ‘weird’ they are.”

1) You spent Saturdays in the 80's at the local roller rink.  [I did spend either Friday night or Saturday night at Skate-O-Rama until they closed in 1983, I think it was.  I framed the last ticket.]

2) You have the nickname "Lodi" because that is howyour nieces and nephews used to say your name.  [Now they are all in their 20s, so they call me "Aunt Lo".]

3) You love, love, love Hall and Oates.  [I did back then, for sure.  And Journey.]

4) Your car mysteriously caught fire in your driveway.

5) Your husband has "another woman" and you sent pictures of her to your friends so we can laugh at how ugly and undesirable she is.  [All humor aside, I am trying to back DH up on his new hobby.]

6) You lived in a fixer-upper; just as you got it "fixed up", your husband decided he wants to move.  [It's true.  I cooked without an oven for 10 months.  Good thing I'm a Crockpot Queen, huh?] 

7.  The phrase "tent camping in Cuba" is a perfectly logical response to a perplexing question.  [This is a long-standing joke between Amy and me.  One time when Amy and I were a team for Pictionary, one of us (I think it was her) couldn't figure out what the other person was drawing, so she announced, "Tent camping in Cuba."]

She closed by saying, "If I thought you were weird then I'd have to be weird, too. I prefer quirky."  I wrote back that I'd rather be called "zany".  Which leads me to the other Lori's entry list...

Now, here is the other Lori's list.  I don't know why she didn't make it to 7; we lived together for two years in college, so she should have been able to come up with 143.

1)  You used to talk in Spanish in your sleep.

2)  We once buried you in boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts.  [This was after a fundraiser gone awry.  See, Krispy Kreme misunderstood my order and made too few boxes of donuts, so they had to make more while I was already at the store...meanwhile, a lot of people left the pick-up point because I was late (this was before we all had wireless phones, of course)...so then we ended up with way too many boxes.  So my roommate and a few hallmates decided I should lie on the floor, where they dropped about ten of the remaining KK boxes on me and took a few pictures, which we dubbed "Death by Donuts".]

3)  You once had to find your own birthday party after a lengthy scavenger hunt.  [Uh, yeah, thanks to Lori and our friend Shari.  They left rhyming clues hidden all over campus.  An adventure I'll never forget.] 

Even though Lori did not come up with a list of 7 things, many years ago, she paid me one of the highest compliments I could ever receive:  she called me her "zany yet caring roommate".  I haven't forgotten that, either.

For dinner tonight, I made Chalupas in the slow cooker.  It wasn't a very hard recipe, but even if it had been, it would have been worth it just to hear the way DS3 enthusiastically announced, "Cha-WHOOP-ahs!" 

But the story doesn't end there.  As I was reading to DS3 and DD1 at bedtime, DD8 came up the stairs and said, "[DS6] says we ate cappuccino for dinner -- is that right??"  Of course, I responded that it was not, to which DS3 responded enthusiastically, "Cha-WHOOP-ahs!"

Well, then DD1 added (what she thought she heard DS3 say, I assume):  "Poopy." 

~~~~~~~A really good punch line would be nice here, but I have suddenly come down with a head cold and am too busy sniffing and sneezing to think anymore than I just did.  All I can think of is my standard, "Never a dull moment with four kids under age 9."     So readers, I leave it up to you to fill in the blank. 

I don't know if he was inspired by the little boy that visited our church from out of town the week before, or if it was because the bright blue suit jacket hanging in his closet caught his eye, but DS6 suddenly decided to really dress up for church last Sunday.  He never wants to because he hates tags and collars.  It was like pulling teeth to get him to wear a dress shirt, vest and tie for the first Mom Prom he and I attended two years ago.  Trouble was, the jacket he spied was about a size 2, so the end of the sleeves came up to his elbows!

DH insisted he could not go to church like that, and DS6 was upset.  When I found out about it, I told him there was another jacket in the closet that should be his size, and I found it.  At first, he didn't want to wear it because he had his heart set on that bright blue jacket, but eventually he warmed up to the idea.

He looked quite dashing in his black dress pants and neutral print jacket...okay, so he still didn't wear a collared shirt; he tried one on but started fidgeting, so he put on a t-shirt with large horizontal blue, black, and white stripes that I didn't think went, but his dad thought it was passable...and, although he dug his dress shoes out, he somehow ended up wearing his lime-green Crocs.

Sunday -- DD1 keeps asking for more "doup" (soup), which keeps tickling my funny bone!

Monday -- DS3 announces, "I am going to get my nest egg [we literally keep his money in a large plastic egg that used to house a kids' meal toy] and get a quahtaw -- the biggest quahtaw I can find!"  [My response was something like, "I hate to break this to you, Bud, but all quarters are the same size.]

Thursday -- DS6 is racing through his Math-U-See worksheets.  He even asks me to time him, and we discover that he is taking about 1 minute, 20 seconds.  DD8 excitedly says, "He might make it in Guinea's Records!"  [It was very hard to keep a straight face and agree with her, when I wanted to ROF LOL'ing.]

Friday -- we six are at DD8's AHG troop's family campout; DH leaves me in charge of DS6, DS3, and DD1 at the fire pit while he tries to locate one of DD8's Crocs (it came off her foot, and one of her friends took off running with it, and somehow lost track of it).  The two boys have just eaten their S'mores, and I am in the process of roasting my marshmallow so I can have one.  So I position myself between the fire pit and DD1 (who wants to get too close to the flames), trying not to burn my marshmallow.  Next thing I know, I see that the entire bag of marshmallows -- courtesy of DD1, of course -- is spilled on the grass behind me.  The father at the campfire was cracking up at my comments as I "dusted" the marshmallows off and put them back in the bag, like "Well, my mother always said you had to eat a pound of dirt before you're 17" and "My sister-in-law would just say, 'Kiss it up to God' and proceed to eat it!"  Meanwhile, DS3 was "helping" me pick up the marshmallows by picking them up and shoving them in his mouth because he thought I wasn't paying attention...

You will notice from the timing of this post that I did not stay overnight at the family campout.  I brought DD1 home, which I planned to do anyway, because she was running off in the quasi-dark, toward the woods, toward people's lit Coleman lanterns, with no fear whatsover.  Tomorrow morning the sun would be out, of course, but I would still be busy chasing her all day.  So DH and I decided that she and I would visit tonight, then come home. 

Good night,

Lori.

After church Sunday, we decided we were going to eat at a restaurant (since I had been too busy preparing to start school, to fix anything).  In the process of deciding where that would be, DS6 said, "What about the place with the blueberries in front?"  I started racking my brain, "Blueberries...", thinking of places like Bob Evans and Perkins that have the display cases of desserts, muffins, etc., out front near the check-out counter.  But blueberries??  Finally, it dawned on me, "You mean Olive Garden?"  He said, "YEAH!"  I informed him, of course, that the picture on their sign is of grapes, not blueberries.  It's funny he thought of blueberries before grapes, because with the price of fresh blueberries being what they are, we eat about 10 times as many grapes as blueberries...

DD1 loves for me to read to her, which we do before nap and bed every day.  She announced that she wanted to read "ah-knee", which at first I could not figure out.  Then I realized she was talking about the Winnie the Pooh book, because what is Pooh's favorite food?  Honey! 

Last night at bedtime, DD1 and I were sitting in the rocking chair along with Elmo (the one we own that is as big as her), one of our "catterpillows" (a multi-colored flat pillow that's a catterpillar), two quilted blankets, and "beah" --a small stuffed bear named Baby Pookie.  But she wasn't satisfied and kept calling "bunny".  She does have one little stuffed bunny, but she isn't very attached to it and I had no idea where it was.  Finally, DD8 walked by and said, "She's calling for pony".  A-ha!  DD8's pony, which DD1 has fallen in love with, is comparable in size to Elmo.  So there she and I sat, surrounded with Elmo, pony, catterpillow, and two blankets (I did sneakily set down Baby Pookie).

More later -- we started school yesterday, so I hope to report on that...

-Lori.