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Showing posts from May, 2009

Law School, Schmaw School

When we first decided that we were going to do the Law School thing many of our friends and acquaintances (online and off) were quick to jump up and offer their opinion about the hardships of such a course. One woman went so far as to say that her husband and her were the only surviving married couple out of his entire law year. We hesitated. It wasn't sounding pretty bad. We had had a very rough year just before we left and were (I'll admit to you all) seeing a counselor. Was law school really the course we needed to take if we were to save our marriage? Well, we decided to try our luck with this first year and see what became of it, if it was horrible we'd quit and go back to engineering. We were, however, banking on a couple of things when we made this decision. 1) Law school couldn't be as bad as a war-time stint in Iraq. Could it? 2) Ralexwin had just endured more than his fair share of mathematics and physics, surely another type of thinking couldn't be that

Also On Friday

So yesterday I told you that it was a big day for my littlest one, what with it being the last day of school and all. Well, I was a bit ticked off by the end of the day as well. Do you want to know why? Of course you do, that's why you're reading. My 6 year old son was sent to the office on Friday. That really bothers me. First off I was not informed (not a new occurrence , which I could go on and on about) and second of all it's the last day of school! Who sends a kindergartner to the principal on the last day of school! You might be wondering what caused him to be sent there? He threw a toy. Sounds a little over board? I know it does, but I really wouldn't put it past his teacher and that's what gets me the most. No, no, that's NOT what gets me the most. What gets me the most is that it was the last day of school and my little boy came out of school and informed me that he couldn't go to first grade until he started acting like a first grader. Hmm , I won

The Last Day of Innocence

Friday was a very important, very sad day for me and my baby... and he didn't even notice it. Poor thing slept right through most of it. It was the last day he will ever be 'alone' with me. Why? Because Friday was the last day of school and by the time the kids go back to school I will have another munchkin to take care of. I think he's starting to pick up on all of this though. Maybe because I can't keep up with him the way I used to, but he reacts very strongly to any signs of affection given to me by any other family member. Even Ralexwin. The munckin man will glare at them and hit at their bodies and throw himself in their direction and holler "NO!" This morning he went so far as to squeeze Ralexwin's face as hard as he could (right after I got my good morning kiss) it was a very aggressive little move. So now we have been talking about "sharing loves." His sister and I sat with him for a good ten minutes and traded kisses between the thr

Speak and They Will Listen

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Just a few today: Me: It's very frustrating to me to not be able to put on a shirt, I mean look honey it barely fits over my belly! 6 year old son, sitting on my bed one morning: Mom, I think you should see the doctor about that. You should get that baby out of you. ------------ My daughter after I licked my thumb and went after a chocolate streak on her face... in the middle of the church sermon. "What are you doing!!!?" Me: "Shhh, honey, I'm just trying to get some dirt off your face." "With your spit!?" Me: "Well, what else do I have? You want it off don't you?" I go at her once more. "Stop it Mom! That's disgusting!!!" ------- All the kids and me in bathroom. 6 year old boy: "Mom, where's my tooth brush?" Me: "It's in the drawer." 6 y/o: "No it's not." Me to baby: "Do you know where your brothers tooth brush is?" Baby nods. Me: &q

The Predatory Nature of a Fish

Cosmic Question #Whatever I'm On Do sharks growl? Or make some sort of noise before the attack? Or are they a 'silent killer?' I think the answer to this might forever decide whether I swim in the ocean.

The State of Poverty

So I've got a bit of an issue... I'm poor, as most of you know... and when I say poor I mean the no cable, no Internet , no Bath & Body Works, or movies out once a week. I mean the 'can't afford a babysitter', 'contemplating selling a car' (and possibly some extra body part I might not be using) sort of poor. I'm the kind of poor that you're paying for poor. Why is this--you may wonder? Well law school is expensive and they have this silly rule about people not working while attending said academia. My issue is this, when one with a large family (like mine of 3 1/2 kids) is on food stamps the government sees fit to give you more than enough to get by. No, no more is an understatement, they see fit to give you so much that any honest person would feel as if they are somehow ripping off the tax payer. Case in point: Me... I checked my account balance for food stamps today and I have.... are you ready? $963 waiting for my use and that'

The Bars That Hold Us

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The baby figured out how to climb out of the crib finally. So we did what any sensible parent would do in such a situation, we took down the side rail. He hasn't slept very well since... And the room has seen better days... But the most priceless of all moments in this entire thing is his brothers reaction to it all. We get decidedly dark pleasure out of telling our 6 year old to go clean his room, only to wait patiently for the blood curdling scream. I know, I know what kind of parents find that amusing, but really he brings it on himself with the way he reacts to everything. Anyhow, we've cleaned the room out to the bare necessities--which doesn't seem to be empty enough--and the munchkin man is still terrorizing his brother. "Mom, he's pulled all the clothes out of the dresser!" "Mom, he took my sheets off my bed." It's great, it's priceless, and it's insanely frustrating. I keep reminding myself-- this too shall pass. I'm right...

Summer, Summer, Summer Time

One more week of school for the munchkins and then it's parenting 101 all over again. It's amazing how much you have to reinforce things once they come home. "Yes, the sun is still up but you are 6 and bedtime is still 7PM." "Yes, your friends can all have sleepovers, but you are 7 and your mom is paranoid." "I know that the neighbor gets ice cream cones at every meal, but I want you to learn healthy eating habits so you can only have one a day, okay." "The computer is not the only form of entertainment available to you this summer, please we have a half an acre... go outside!" I'm sooo looking forward to it all. Ralexwin has also dubbed this our 'Walden Pond Summer' which translates (to me) as we are dirt poor right now so buying anything remotely frivolous--this includes Pampers instead of Luvs--is out of the question. I in turn have said, "Fine, Walden Pond Summer it is. So does that mean you'll be around everyd

Midnight Screams

After a rather early evening last night, Ralexwin and I crawled into our respective sides of the bed and prepared for a restful evening. Little did we know that we were in for a long night. At approximately 1:15 AM the 6 year old boy child came barreling into the bedroom screaming bloody murder. It was a scream of such magnitude that it ripped us out of our sleep as surely as a man with an automatic weapon would have. And all I can really say as to how it made me feel was... Holy Spotted Bovines people I nearly had the baby! I crawled through a muck of dreams and subconscious super natural battles to the reality that faced me and I'm pretty sure that I screamed as well. Ralexwin , however, in an incredible feat of parental instinct and supreme level headedness swept out of the bed and scooped the child into his arms. Where the poor thing sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes before we could get anything out of him. It's still a little unclear as to how much was his imag

I Dreamed a Dream

Cosmic Question #4 This one is a query from a friend of mine--I've been asking around about these questions--and kind of goes with the hearing impaired question. What do the blind dream about? Or at least how do they see what they are dreaming? Or what is it seen as? Or, whatever. Good question, thanks Steph.

WisdomWins

Metaphors, analogies and other such words of wisdom that our family lives by. "Computers are like flowers, you have to be very gentle with them or they will break." "Food is not a toy. It is a tool that helps keep our bodies strong and healthy." "When the rake hits you back it's called a 'natural' consequence." "There is no bad boy inside your head that tells you to make bad choices. There is a wonderful boy inside your head that is having trouble controlling himself." "Milk is like bone food." "If you don't want an apple then you're not very hungry." "Sometimes what you want and what you get are two entirely different things." "Beaten paths are for beaten men, but the road that is rough is reserved for the tough."

That Was Totally Wicked! (Star Trek Rocks My World)

Saturday post here everyone, a big deal around these here parts since today is Ralexwin's first day of summer vacation. Last night we went out to "celebrate." We caught a showing of an excellent movie. I wrangled him into taking me to Star Trek and I can tell you... WOOHOO! That was the best movie I have seen in a long, long time. J.J. Abrams needs to keep it up with the movie making. I'm giving it a 5 out of 5 here people... it was that good. Honestly if I really must tag one person I'd say that Leonard Nimoy was the weakest character in the whole thing and that says ALOT about how good it was overall. I dreamt about it all night last night and now I can't wait for someone else to go see it so I can talk about it incessantly. So any other Trekkie Nerds out there who've seen it yet? I'm dying to talk it up.

I'll Fly Away, Fly Away, Fly Away!

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Cosmic Question #3 How do flies get on the ceiling? Do they fly up to it and then flip over really quickly or do they fly to the wall and then walk up to the ceiling? OR do they kind of fly in an ark that ends upside down? Can flies fly upside down? And why are bugs so attracted to light? I mean if we're going to explore this subject than we might as well cover all the bases.

Small-Town USA

I've been meaning to do this for a while but have been rather lazy about it... so finally I got off my couch and made you a video of what it means, exactly, to live in Small Town, USA. It's a rather long, loud video but I've made comments in the middle that you won't ever get to hear unless you listen to it. If you live in my small little town I'll save you some time by saying that this video takes place on a Monday at noon. Otherwise enjoy. So if you were in a non video mood I'll tell you... these are the tornado sirens that are tested every week. The first time I heard them was about a week (well less than a week) after we moved here and I knew exactly one thing about tornadoes--they are funnel shaped. Well, okay, two things--they aren't hurricanes. You can imagine the predicament I was placed in when on a bright sunny day in mid August these blaring sounds began emitting in the air around me. Was there a tornado? Did tornadoes come out of the clear blue s

Creepy.

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This is Creepy Cigar Smoker. He likes to hang out at the park across the street--directly across the street. Every day for as long as I've lived here without fail at 3pm- ish he shows up, smokes his cigar and listens to the radio for at least an hour. You can imagine how freaked out my neighbor and I are by him. But from what we've picked up he's not allowed to smoke in his house so comes to the park. What I want to know is why can't he smoke on the other side of the park... away from my house and my children. My neighbor used to stand at her window and stare at him in the hopes that he'd move on... no luck. Some friends of mine and I were playing a game recently where you had to answer the random questions on the cards (anonymously), one question was, "Who is someone you run into frequently but wish you didn't?" My answer was Creepy Cigar Smoking Guy. I want to put a sign up in my yard that says "Go smoke somewhere else!" But I won't,

Reading and Sound

Cosmic Question #2: How do the hearing impaired learn to read? I'm not trying to be rude, I'm really curious, because if you think about it how did you learn to read? I learned through connecting certain symbols (letters) with sounds my throat, and then my mind, would make. So does someone who is hearing impaired, and I'm talking severely enough to not be able to hear at all, have to hold their hand to someone else's throat and mouth? Like Helen Keller? It would be rather rotten to not be able to read in this world, especially if you were missing one of your senses on top of it. I can't imagine how frustrating it would be, but then again I love the written word. So taking the power of literacy away from me would be as bad as taking one of my five senses. Anyway, I was mulling that over the other morning and decided it was a perfect cosmic question.

The Garden

So we've planted some things in our little plot of land, maybe I'll even get some pictures uploaded one of these days and show you. As it stands, though, I thought I'd share with you the process thus far. Step One: Deal with the large piles of leaves, twigs, trimmings and such that have amassed since last fall. This was accomplished by scaring the living daylights out of cannwin one cool spring afternoon. As I stood in the kitchen doing whatever it was I was doing I looked up to see great flames heading skyward from my backyard. Next image was of my 2 year old running towards them, I nearly had a heart attack. It turns out that ralexwin had decided to burn the stuff down to a fine ash, as instructed by our gardening friends, and thought it best to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Step Two: Fine ash thus created. We waited for our friends to come over and tell us what to do next. Ralexwin got impatient with this and planted corn seeds. Again I'm in the ho

Helium and Other Floating Gases

Cosmic question #1 How is Helium affected by gravity? It doesn't seem to be at all, I mean you stick a bunch of Helium in a balloon and away it goes! So how? Ralexwin says it's like oil in water... oil is still pulled downward by gravity yet because it is lighter than water so it floats. So, following that thought process, if you take oil out of water then oil falls. Okay, I get that, so if you take Helium out of air does Helium fall? And has anyone ever tried that? It's one of those questions I come up with every once in a while that people look at me and say, "Where the heck did that come from?" I don't know, but it's bothering me now.