On a Darker Note

I spent the weekend at Solstice Writing Retreat, which is always a good thing. I love being around other writers - they're my tribe.

Louise Plummer was there, who quickly became one of my favorite people in all the world when I met her three years ago. She told a story about giving someone dark chocolate fortune cookies, along with, of course, dark fortunes.

She and her husband Tom, along with their son, came up with the list, which included such gems as:

• Toe fungus next Wednesday
• Don't bother counting your lucky stars
• Dead man walking

We, of course, could not contain our laughter.

As a writer, I spend lots of time inside my own head. Naturally, the last few days have found me wandering into dark fortune territory.

• Those stars you're seeing? Cataracts.
• Say goodbye to your toaster this week.
• There is a boulder in your future.
• Lucky numbers? I don't think so.
• I'd get that mole checked if I were you
• You're going to regret eating that fortune cookie
• Dinner: what goes down will come up
• Stay home Monday. And Tuesday. In fact, don't go out at all next week.

Try it. You'll be hooked. 

P.S. My son has long held on to the best fortune he ever got from a cookie (dark or otherwise):

A lit candle frightens no monkeys.

What Their Mama Saw

Well, here we go again. I have a freshman, and I have a 5th grader. They're both attending new schools this year. The freshman was nervous about going to high school and the 5th grader was excited about getting his own locker and sitting anywhere he wants during lunch at the intermediate school. When I came out of my room this morning, he was standing in the hallway, holding onto his bangs.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I decided to try out a new hair style for school this year."

"And how's that working out for you?"

"Well, I need them to stick out, not up, but they won't stay."

"I've got something that can solve that." It only took two applications before he realized if he left his hair alone, it would stay put.

Here's what they looked like this morning:

And what their mama saw:

Excuse Me, Your Age is Showing

Today I had the chance to observe a perspective teacher do a counting lesson with a kindergarten class. I remember being a young college student...so fresh, so inexperienced.

So not digital.

She was using the smart board, which, if you've never seen one, is like a giant, wall-sized iPad. In the course of teaching this lesson, she marked and moved things around on the smart board. When she swiped to the next screen, it inadvertently skipped a couple of pages.

"Oops," she said, "J.K."

J.
K.

J.K.?!?

What the? I wondered if the students wondered why she was reciting the alphabet when they were supposed to be counting. In reality, I think it went right over their heads.

But really, has life become so fast-paced, so instantaneous, so digital, that we are now speaking in initials? That we speak the way we text? By the way, does anyone else think it's funny that text is now a verb?

Just to be sure, I asked my 9-year-old if he knew what "J.K." meant. It went right over his head.

"So what does it mean?" He asked.

"Just kidding," I replied.

"No, really, what does it mean?"

"It means just kidding," I said again.

"Oh. Well that's dumb. Why don't you just say just kidding instead?"

Exactly. 

Campaigning

I'm starting to think my 9-year-old has a future in politics -- as long as his platform is built on super-hero Legos. For the past couple of weeks, he has been doing that thing kids do when there is something they really want: dropping hints.

I'm working at the computer when he comes in and says, "Mom, I think the Captain America Lego set is a pretty good deal because it comes with like, 92 pieces."

And I'm too lazy to calculate the cost per piece, so I say, "hmm," hoping that I can just finish revising the current page I'm on.

Another time, I'm painting a piece of furniture in the garage when he comes out to tell me this: "I was just thinking how awesome it would be if I had two sets of the all the Marvel Heroes Legos because then I could really trick them out and even share them with my friends and I was thinking that I could give some to Layton because he is the only friend I have who is REALLY into Legos."

It's a noble and benevolent thought, but those things are stinking expensive, and I'm sweating to death painting a yard sale dresser that cost me less than any Lego set.

Later, I'm battling my wok for homemade Pad Thai when he saunters in and says, "I was just researching the complete Avengers Lego Set and I think it would be a good investment. Plus, they have all these cool details you can add to your Lego guys, and I already have the markers to do it. But I'm going to need some stickers to give Captain America some helmet wings, because, you know, he doesn't come with them."

I fling a noodle at him and say, "You're right. He's supposed to have wings, isn't he?" And then I think what a rip-off it is to pay twenty bucks for a 92-piece set that doesn't even include helmet wings.

I'll admit he did add some pretty cool detail to Loki's sword with nothing but a magic marker. And Iron Man is looking fine with his now bright-blue arc reactor. However I'm far more impressed with his campaign strategy, slipping in subtle hints here and working it into the natural flow of a conversation there. Sometimes he's just so in-your-face about it that you can't help but pay attention. But like most politicians, eventually the sound bites turn into rhetoric and you find it pretty easy to tune them out.

Especially when you're the one who has control of the banks.

Drowning

Note to self: put up a Post-it in a permanent place to remind me how busy the last weeks of school are. There are permanent files to file. There are report cards to complete. There are field trips and assemblies to be had. There is testing to finish and there are parties to plan. There are lessons to plan that will keep kids' interest until June.

And then there are the things from the other side of the teacher's desk. There are teacher gifts to remember and thank you notes to write. There are permission slips to sign. There are registration papers to fill out. There are field days to attend and field trips to chaperone. There are lunches to be made, despite noses that crinkle up at the thought of a real piece of fruit. There are after-school activities to drive to, and if I can just hold on for a few more days, they will simply be activities peppered in between the boredom.

Boredom. What's that like?

Do you ever feel like you're drowning in a sea of never-ending stuff to do? Even when there's Nothing to do, there's always Something to do. At some point, I am not going to look tired. People are going to quit telling me I look tired. That will be nice. Today someone told me that I look like a certain, pretty local news reporter. That was very nice. I've seen her on t.v. and she never looks tired.

She's obviously not a teacher.

Or a mom.

P.S. Yesterday my husband turned 41, and concerned for his aging father, my 8-year-old son said "I hope your thumbs don't fall off."

An Object Lesson

When someone is interested in learning about the Mormon church, the first lesson the missionaries teach them is called The Plan of Salvation. In a nutshell, God rejected Lucifer's plan to force us into submission, while taking on the glory for himself. God accepted Jesus Christ's plan to offer himself up as a sacrifice so that we might gain eternal life, while glorifying his Father. When Christ's plan was accepted, we believe that 1/3 of the host of Heaven chose to follow Lucifer and left the presence of God. The rest of us (and by us I mean everyone ever born on planet Earth) chose to follow Christ, and here we are.

Several weeks ago, Jamison learned this lesson in his Sunday School class. He came home and summed it up thusly:

"There was this guy, only I don't remember his name, but I know it was Satan. He had a plan and he wanted to take all of Heavenly Father's stuff. But then, there was another man, who also had a plan, and he said 'I will do it and you can keep all of your stuff.' And that man was Jesus Christ. So Heavenly Father said, 'Okay, let's go with Jesus' plan' and then some people got mad; like 1/3 of them, so they walked out and left with that other guy, you know, Satan."

After explaining this, he ran upstairs and came back down with a box of legos. "Can you make me a statue of Jesus?" he asked.

Dan made a little figure out of the legos and then handed it back to Jamison. "Thanks," he said, "now I can finish my lesson." We hadn't realized he wasn't done yet. He placed the lego Jesus on the floor and then kicked its head off, which went flying across the living room floor. "And THAT'S how Jesus felt when all those other people left with Lucifer! He felt like he got KICKED IN THE HEAD!"

Needless to say, THAT is one object lesson I will never forget.

Want to know the actual and more accurate version of this lesson? Click here.

Valentines and Things of That Nature

Yesterday I decided that Valentine's Day should always, and I mean always be on a Saturday. As my students darted with raucousness from game to game, craft to craft, I kept thinking, Do you know what they're doing in China* right now? Math. And Science. And they're learning how to become CEO's of mega conglomerates who sell heart-shaped junk to Americans!

Also, Jamison wore his new shirt and delivered his heart-shaped box of chocolates, via a friend. The enclosure read, "To McKardy From ???" I know because I witnessed it first hand as I helped with the valentine party in his classroom. I know, I'm a glutton for punishment.

Later on, when I asked him why he liked her so much, he said, "Well, she is the most popular girl in our class and I am the most popular boy." It's good to know that self-confidence isn't holding him back anytime soon. He also said, "she's really smart and we both want to be scientists when we grow up, and we both have three syllables in our names."**

Back to the party, I was, however, proud of the little game I made up. We played our own version of Minute to Win It, stacking towers of conversation hearts. It was such a hit with the second graders that we played it later at home for family night. Try it with chopsticks. And no, the irony of the chopsticks after my China reference is not lost on me.



*China - I am actually tired of everyone comparing our educational system to theirs. They only educate those they deem worthy, and dictate what they will become. We educate EVERYBODY.

**Update - Jamison just walked in and when I asked him how school went, he said, "McKardy asked me to play with her at recess, so the chocolates must have worked!"

Laundry Day

I usually start laundry Mondays when I get home from work. Today when I walked into the laundry room, I found this cute little paper on the washing machine. "How cute," I thought, "Jamison drew me a picture."

If you look close enough, you can see the words "look on back" with an arrow.

"Even better," I thought again, "he wrote me a little note." My heart melted a little.

Allow me to immortalize his words here:

Dear McKardy, You are a good freind. I realy like you, not as in love you or that would be realy werd. I did my best work on this pictur. It steel probaly is not as good as yours!

Sincearly,
Jamison


The plot thickens.
It's a good thing he's cute, 'cause he sure as heck can't spell.

Would You Trust This Face?

Yesterday, while walking through TJ Maxx, this little boy, in his finest cub scout uniform, looked up at me and said, "I think I need a nice outfit for Valentine's Day."

"A nice outfit?" I said while stifling a smile.

"Well, maybe not a whole outfit, but at least a good-looking shirt or something."

"Why?" (as if I didn't know).

"Because it's Valentine's Day, and I think people should look nice. We ARE having a party at school, remember?"

Uh huh. So when we struck out at TJ Maxx, we wandered across the street to Walmart. We did indeed find a red-striped polo shirt. The thought put into this little item of clothing was something equal to what went into launching the Apollo space mission.

We then found ourselves on the aisle with all the red and pink stuff. The kids each picked out a box of Valentine cards to exchange, and then Jamison wandered a little farther down the aisle to the heart-shaped boxes. The ones with chocolates inside of them. He had it narrowed down to three. The first one was red, with the word "love" spread across its lid. "Hmm. That would be to awkward," he said.

The next box was brown, covered in red and pink hearts. "No, that's still too weird."

He finally decided on the pink one, with little spirals embossed on the lid. Even more surprising, he insisted on paying for it with his own money.

Only eight more years until he's allowed to date. It's going be a long wait.

Ah, We Meet Again

Where, oh where, does the time go? I have got to get back to blogging. Every day, and I mean EVERY DAY, something happens that makes me think that is so going on my blog. So no more excuses, even if they ARE good ones, like having the flu and moving and parent-teacher conferences and a primary program to put on. It's just time to get all the junk out of my head and onto the computer screen.

First, some funny things I've seen:

In my new neighborhood, we're surrounded by farm land. There's a gang of chickens with befeathered heads which make them look alot like Phyllis Diller. This gang likes to strut their stuff up and down the road. Their leader: the blackest duck you've ever seen. His name should be Daffy.

On the same road, there's a statue of a big elk. For Halloween, someone stuck a big black raven in its antlers. Just thought that was funny. I find myself shouting out "Nevermore!" everytime I go past it. And I clearly realize that I am the only person in my neighborhood who gets that.

Finally, a conversation with my son:

Me: Do you know anyone at your new bus stop?

Him: Yeah. His name is Jorge. Which is weird because he spells it with a J but you say it like an H. And you say the G like an H. Spanish is really hard. I wonder how you say his name is English. And he has a little brother named Omar who always rode our bus last year and he was the most important kid on our bus.

Me: Why was he the most important kid on your bus?

Him: Because he had his own seat and it had a seatbelt and the bus driver said his name ALOT. And then when we got to school we all had to wait until he got off and the bus driver would shout okay, Omar and the preschoolers, time to go to school! And I always thought that would make a great name for a movie, you know, Omar and the Preschoolers... kind of like Alvin and the Chipmunks, only Omar and the Preschoolers.

What more can I say?

Irony, Stress, and The Joys of Childhood

There has been so much happening lately... so let me sum up.

First of all, irony. Irony is one of those great writing tools that authors use to tell a story. O Henry was one of the best. Remember the guy who sold his gold pocket watch to buy his wife some combs for her long hair? His loving wife sold her long hair to buy him a chain for his pocket watch. That's irony. I've had real-world experience with it this week.

The house I'm currently living in has a nice, empty, upstairs family room. As long as we've lived here, I've wanted a table and chairs for it, where I could sew, the kids could do their homework, and it could generally be used and abused while my nice dining table was left alone. Last Wednesday I finally found such a set. I brought it home and immediately started sanding it, picturing it in a lovely shade of spa blue. While sanding it, I got a phone call. It was the real estate office (yes I'm living in a house that's up for sale). They wanted to schedule an inspection -- the house was sold.

Irony.

In a further twist of events, we started looking for a new place to rent on Friday. We found one on the first try. And it has room for an extra table. The owner wants us to move in on October 1. That's in two weeks if you haven't heard. The buyer's son/agent told me today that his parents are willing to let us stay here until May 1 of next year. But we really like the new place.

That's not exactly irony... more like stress. Final decisions will be made in the next day or so. There will be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, for sure.

On the bright side, upon seeing the possible new digs, my daughter Jessica came home and immediately started packing up her bedroom. Had I known that this was all it took to get her to clean her room, I would have threatened to move a long time ago. If we don't move, she's got the cleanest room in the house. Now THAT'S irony.

In other news, I took my son Jamison to the dinosaur museum on Saturday. His chosen souvenir was a sandstone "rock" from which one must dig the bones of a tiny T-Rex and then put the skeleton together. Yesterday as he was "digging," he exclaimed with much enthusiasm, "Hey! I found the crotch!"

Ah, the joys of childhood.

Flying Shoes and Motherhood

So my son is on a big kick lately that he is going to invent flying shoes. He's serious.
"Do you really think I can do it Mom?"
"Wouldn't it be cool if I invented them as a little kid?"
"I could get to the bus stop in a microsecond!"

I, of course, am nothing but supportive.
"There's nothing you can't do if you focus."
"I would be so proud to be the mom of a kid inventor!"
"Why don't you just fly to school?"

Today he came in and immediately told me of all the naysayers out there. "Michael said you're just saying those things to be nice."
I wanted to punch Michael in the nose. He'll see what flying shoes look like then.
"All the kids at the bus stop laughed at me and said it was impossible to invent flying shoes."
Those bus stop kids? I'm not sure what their biggest ambitions are at this point, but I'm sure it involves manipulating their way into the latest DS game.

I am not going to dash the dreams of my seven-year-old, no matter what his dreams may be. I get to foster and support and nurture and encourage him because THAT'S my job. And if and when you commute to work in your flying shoes, you can thank me for believing in my kid. Everyone else can take the bus.

The Cheese Touch

If you don't know what the cheese touch is, you've obviously never read the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books. In the book, there is a piece of moldy, stinky cheese left on the playground. When one kid touches it, nobody wants to get touched by him, thereby receiving the "cheese touch." The only way to avoid getting the cheese touch is to have your fingers crossed at the very moment your assailant tries to touch you. My kindergartners drove me a little nutso trying to pass the cheese touch from one kid to another.

But in the middle of summer, when your 7-year-old is bored, it's fun and easy to oblige. We chased each other around the house the other night, trying to give (and avoid getting) the cheese touch. There are only four people in our family, so we have unlimited potential of getting it. When I tried to give it to my husband, Jamison yelled out, "NOOOO!!!! He's lactose intolerant!!"

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

I have a six-year-old son and I swear the reason he was born is to keep me entertained. Here are a few nuggets from the past week:

We had lamb chops for dinner on Friday. My daughter wanted to know what a "chop" was. The boy wanted to know if there was such a thing as donkey chops.

The other morning my husband asked him if he slept okay. His answer: "Yeah- until I woke up."

We had art night at school on Wednesday. He left in search of a friend to play with. He came back a few minutes later and I asked if he found anyone to play with. "Just my teacher," he replied, "and she's too big to play with."

After being asked by his father several times to do his chores, he... ahem, released some gas and said, "that was my ANGRY fart!"