Who is this kid??

So my 9-year-old got all responsible on me. He had come home from school on Friday because he wasn't feeling well and had a stack of homework he was suppose to bring back on Monday. Well, Saturday was crazy, as you can read from the post below and then Sunday he just forgot about it and messed around all day until Sunday night. By the time he remembered, it was time for bed.

Now you may think I am mean, but I am a big believer in natural consequences. And since I had told him earlier he needed to get his homework done and he chose not to do it, then I wasn't going to let him stay up to finish it when he finally decided to get around to it. But, to my complete and utter surprise, this morning when I came downstairs at 5:30 in the morning (because Little Miss has been going through a growth spurt and has decided to keep waking me up anywhere between 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. to eat) there was Big J at the kitchen table working on his homework! He had set his watch alarm for 5:00 a.m. so he could get up and finish it before school. Whaaaat?? After I got over my shock, I was really proud of him for being so independent and taking responsibility all by his own initiative. I have hope for the future!!

Craziest Day Ever. *Edited to add picture*

Yesterday was a crazy day. I haven't had one this bad in a long time. It just happened that so many things ended up being on that day. We started at 8:00 in the morning and got the kids in bed at 9:30. During that time it was go, go, go. We literally had 10 scheduled things to be at, 3 of which we just couldn't do logistically with everything else going on. Even eliminating those 3 things we still had overlapping events. And then of course there are all the unscheduled things you have to get done on Saturdays.

To make it even more challenging was the fact that our second car decided not start. Totally dead. So not only were there all these things to be at, we only had the one car to get there with! JC decided to get our backyard raked (the front has already been done like 5 times already)while I was toting people here and there - 28 large brown paper lawn bags filled and still not done. Whew! And poor Little Miss just had to get yanked around from place to place and basically didn't eat or sleep all day. I'm glad it's over. Too bad Sunday is never truly a day of rest...I think we could all use one!

So my second son has a weird habit. He comes home from school almost everyday with "treasures" he has found. The thing is, it is all TRASH. Crap he's found on the playground or literally in the trash can and for some strange reason he comes home with it. Some of his treasures include: an eyeglass lens, a girl's headband, an arm of a Mr. Potato Head, a bubble wand, an empty Fanta bottle and an empty box for latex gloves. He keeps them all on the headboard of his bed and gets really upset if I tell him to get rid of them because they are trash. What the heck? I am scared he is going to end up like one of those people on Hoarders who thinks everything is a treasure and they live among their clutter and mess to the point they can't even take a shower in their own house because it's filled with 400 empty rolls of paper towels!

A Historical Moment

So today is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. I will sum up exactly what I remember of this day, 20 years ago:

I was 15. My dad was watching the news and my sisters and I were flitting around doing who knows what and he said, "History is being made right now and you aren't even watching!" Then I stopped and watched (for about 20 seconds) people jumping up and down and climbing around on a wall.

Profound, huh? I wish I could say I was so insightful at that moment in time, but yeah, I've got nothing. Pretty much the only thing I think I knew about the Berlin Wall was that there was a Disney movie (I can't remember the title - help me out!) about a true story of a family that made their own hot air balloon to get over it. History indeed.

A Word to the Wise

Now that fall is here, don't forget to practice safe leaf raking:

The One Where I Confess I Think Halloween is Dumb

I think Halloween is the dumbest pretend holiday. Homage to the macabre? Really? I don't like the premise behind it. I don't like the gallons of candy. I don't like all the hoopla about some weird day everyone decides to dress up and beg at doors and let perfect strangers give their children things to eat like that is a normal thing. Bah humbug, I know. I think it is fun only for the fact that I like to see my kids have so much fun. So I pretend to like it for them. I dress up every year. I head up the classroom parties. I take my kids to the trunk-or-treats and trick-or-treating. This year I even took inspiration from my sister and had a Halloween feast of sorts. So, that being said, here are some pictures:

Little J was a zombie thing. I don't know. He always picks the dead stuff - ghost, mummy, zombie. I get creeped out looking at this picture.

Big J was Anakin Skywalker. Only because I won the costume in a giveaway. He wanted to be Michael Jackson because recently he has been thinking MJ is awesome because he got into the Weird Al Yankovic song "Eat It" so I had to show him it was parodying "Beat It" and so that opened up a whole new world. I just couldn't bring myself to figure out a MJ outfit when we had a perfectly good one (and he's loved Star Wars much longer than he's even known about MJ).

Little Miss as the happy ladybug on her very first Halloween.

Little Man as a tiger. Except he wouldn't wear the hat. He held it the whole time instead. And this picture is really about the only picture we have because he refused to be in any pictures.

Me the pirate with a cute little ladybug again.

The "feast." I really just threw together things I already had. Next year will be better! We had "witches fingers" (chicken strips with green pepper nails), "mummy dogs", "eyeballs" (except I was going to make them bloodshot with food coloring, but I didn't have any), "bones" with "blood" (breadsticks shaped into bones with spaghetti dipping sauce), "witches brooms" (big pretzel rods with fruit rollups for the straw), and then the boys wanted to make "spider webs" out of fruit roll-ups, too. Admittedly, not the most well-rounded meal, but it was festive. What was the most fun about this is that the two older boys totally helped make everything and we had a lot of fun doing it together.

All in all it was a hectic, but fun weekend. (Even if I do think Halloween is dumb :-)