Candy Candy Candy

When my first two kids (The Social Guy and The Artist) were little I was pretty controlling of their Halloween candy.  Not only did I limit how much Trick or Treating they did, I had several rules about how/when they ate their candy.

• I was to personally inspect ALL candy before they were able to eat even one piece.
• On the night of Halloween they were allowed to eat three pieces of candy.
• On the morning after Halloween they could have ONE piece of candy AFTER breakfast.
• After that first morning following Halloween they were not allowed to have any candy until after lunch.
• Their daily limit on candy was 2 or 3 pieces.

Here are the Halloween Candy rules I have today:

• Eat it until it's gone.

East Coast Rocks

On a recent camping trip, the kids and I stopped at my sister's house to 'steal' some of her firewood.  We all got out of the truck and I asked the kids to start loading up the wood.  The kids had been mostly unhelpful in getting all our gear ready that morning, so I probably didn't really ask them to load the wood...it was more of an order.

My barefoot kids headed back toward the wood pile, slowly and uninspired.  The Brainiac, youngest of the three, started pouting first and The Artist was not too far behind.

Brainiac: "I don't want to get the wood."

Me: "Get the wood."

Brainiac (whining): "The rocks..."

Me (raising my voice): "I don't care about the rocks.  You should have put on your shoes and socks.  It's your own fault.  Now load up that wood!"

At this time The Social Guy started to throw wood out towards the other kids.  I stomped off back by the wood pile.  I grabbed a piece of wood and then I felt this searing prick on my ring finger.  I looked down and there was a wasp, stinging me:

 

I flicked the wasp off my finger and yelled at the kids, "GET OUT OF HERE! THERE ARE WASPS!  STAY AWAY FROM THE BACK YARD!"

We waited a few moments and I crept back to the wood.  I covered the pile and locked the gate.  My finger was swollen for the evening and we had a mostly uneventful camping trip.

A few days later I was re-telling my wasp story to a friend and Social Guy says, "We told you there were wasps."

Me: "No you didn't."

Social Guy: "Yes we did.  You told us to haul the wood anyways."

Me (flabbergasted): "No I didn't!  I wouldn't tell you to haul wood with wasps!"

Social Guy: "Yeah, Brainiac told you.  He said he didn't want to haul the wood because of the wasps."

Me (finally putting it all together): "Oh...I thought he said 'rocks'.  Wow, what kind of mom do you think I am to have you haul wood by wasps?"

Social Guy: "Well, we were kinda naughty that day."

(To my defense the youngest has a speech impediment that sounds very East Coast...wasps sounded a lot like rocks...very East Coast.)














 

A Conversation with a Teen

This morning The Artist (my teen-age stepdaughter) and I had a conversation that went something like this:

The Artist: "blah blah blah blah blah...."

Me: "I have no idea what you just said.  I wasn't listening."

The Artist: "Good thing you weren't listening."

Me: [was able to contain my hysterical laughter, but did let a small smile out]

You see, we weren't having any sort of disagreement.  She just happened to be having some sort of struggle that she needed to voice.  Kids don't always do or say or act exactly like we want them to - when we want them to.  Hell, there are times when I don't act exactly like I would like myself to.  I try to take the time to understand that my children are people.  They have their own ideas, agendas, goals, and dreams.  Sure there are things I can say to them to 'hopefully' quicken their learning curve, but in the end their choices are just that...theirs.  So the next time your child doesn't do what you want them to, when you want them to - or they let out a little verbal frustration....just remember, they might have plans for their lives besides the plans you have for them.

Green Onions

My older two kids (aka Social Guy and The Artist) are growing up fast. This summer they have started getting more and more freedom and of course more responsibilities too. One of the best examples of a growing experience happened just last week. It was a few days before our family camping trip and we had just returned from an amazing long weekend at a friend's cottage. We had a lot to clean up and a lot to get ready for. Our errands list looked something like:

Get Social Guy a hair cut
Go to Cub Foods and pick up green onions
stop at body shop for estimate
go to the bank
go to Target (just because I like to browse and Target is one of my favorite stores...Did you know they have *everything* at Target?)
stop at the library to pick up a book on hold
pick up flea and tick junk for the dogs at Chuck'N Dons
plan the upcoming menu
double check to see that we have all school materials
dishes
laundry
blah blah blah

So I drove up to Great Clips and asked Social Guy if he needed me to come in or if I could just hand him $20 and he could get his hair cut on his own. He agreed that he could get his haircut on his own, so I dropped him off and told him I would be back.

I pulled into the auto body shop. Walked in and talked to the receptionist. She told me to hang out for a bit and one of the estimators would be with me in a couple minutes. After a few moments the estimator, The Artist, and I walked out to the car where he looked it over and took notes. The estimator told me to wait there and he would have my estimate ready in just a few minutes. The Artist noticed I kept looking over at Cub Foods, which was right next to the auto body store.

The Artist, "Do you need something from Cub?"

Me, "Yeah." *at that moment wishing The Artist was more like Social Guy and would be able to run over there and get those green onions for me.*

The Artist, "I could go over there and get what ever you need?" (Yes, she said that as a question.)

Me, "wow! That would be cool. I need green onions. Do you know what green onions are?"

The Artist, "No, but you could describe them to me."

I went ahead and tried my best to describe to her what they looked like and where they would be in the produce department. I handed her $20 and said, "Thanks!" A few minutes later she comes back. She's looking pretty proud of herself and hands me the bag.

The Artist, *in a beautiful, happy, sing-song voice* "These are the green onions, right?"

I look inside the bag....nope. I smile at her and say, "No, these are collard greens."

She was disappointed and mad, more at Cub Foods lousy produce labeling then at herself. I didn't show her the ribbon on the collard greens that said 'collard greens'. I did look at her with a huge smile and said, "Hey, I've never cooked these before. What an adventure! We'll go home, look up a recipe, and try them out. How cool!"

So that night we added a couple things to the list:
look up collard green recipe
make collard greens

The Artist grew a lot that day due to a mild mistake and our whole family tried something new AND loved it! Collard greens will become a new family favorite food and story to remember :)

Tiaras and Tutus~
The MFP

The Third Child...

We have three beautiful children together:

Mine: The Social Guy [The Oldest] - He can talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere (and I am NOT kidding). He remembers faces and names, unlike his mother. He will make friends no matter where he goes. He loves, loves, loves people.

His: The Artist [The Middle Child]- She has the most amazing stories in her head. She can take you on the adventure of a life time without you ever leaving the living room or backyard. She can write them or help you act them out, even at the grocery store.

Ours: The Brainiac [The Baby] - He can figure out how anything works and will tell you how he could make it better. He is happiest in the garage or working with Legos thinking up his next greatest invention. Oh, and he has a really weird East Coast accent.

The three of them are a great mix and most of the time they make a beautiful blend of oil, herbs, and vinegar (in no particular order). But sometimes they separate and it makes parenting their different styles difficult. So one of my favorite things to do is to take them camping. It's a few days when the "Olson Family of Five" is nothing but a perfect blend.

Some of our frequent places to visit are the MN State Parks. The State Parks are usually very clean and quiet, enough privacy and enough running water. We like to hike and "rough it" (rough it = double decker air-mattress for me and hubby, nice sheets, three room tent, mini tents for the teens, organizers, flat top gas griddle, gas grill, gas burner , adapter for the car battery to run plugged in appliances (yes I 'could' bring and run my microwave), reclining chairs, mp3 player and little baby speakers....I think you get the picture.) for as many weekends as we can each summer. Unfortunately we were only able to go family camping once this summer. But, there are so many blog-able events that happened over the weekend you can expect a few blogs this week :)

Seeing that the kids are older (15, 14, 8), they got a lot more freedom this year. The teens went to the showers by themselves. All three kids took the dogs for short, but adventurous walks throughout the park. Our requirements were simple: stay together and bring a walkie talkie.

Then there is the Third Child...
Considering his age, he was probably allowed the most freedom of them all...

Eight Year Old, "Hey dad, I wanna make a fire."

Dad, "ah...no? I paid $4 per tiny bundle of wood and you are not making a fire at 3:00 in the afternoon."

Eight Year Old, "but dad, I really, really want to make a fire. You always make log cabin fires and I wanna build a tee-pee fire."

Dad, "You can make a fire closer to dinner time."

Eight Year Old, "but-sep-for [except for] I wanna make one now."

Dad, "Fine. Go get your own wood and you can make a fire."

Eight Year Old, "All the wood is too big for me to carry."

Dad :::hands Eight Year Old a saw::: "Okay, go saw it into smaller pieces."

Fifteen Year Old tunes into what is going on, "WHAT!?!?! Did you just give the Eight Year Old a saw? AND tell him to go cut his own wood?"

Dad, "Yeah...so?"

Fifteen Year Old :::silently thinking::: "what the FUCK are you thinking?"

Fifteen Year Old, "You never gave me a saw at eight!"

Mom, "oh, you don't even remember being eight."

Fifteen Year Old, "wow"

***Hours later Eight Year Old starts fire with Dad's $4 per "small" bundle of wood***

And of course we didn't give The Oldest Child, aka The Social Butterfly a saw at eight! He would have sawed his finger off while talking to the people at the next camp site...

Tiaras and Tutus~
The MFP