Scooby Doo and Bob the Builder

Scooby Doo Stuff

We don't buy very many movies because in our house, the parents and the children, will watch a movie once and be done with it forever. There are a few that we like and will watch over and over. But that is the exception. I have recently bought a few Scooby Doo movies because I noticed that the kids do not seem to tire of these movies and gripe that they are never checked into the library. This summer we bought a dvd player for the car when we traveled to Maine. We thought this was a good buy because we also travel 170 miles to the Oklahoma City Temple every month and drag the kids along. So we use this DVD player a lot. Well, pretty much the only movies the kids seem to want to watch in the car are our Scooby Doo movies. So I have bought some more and there are a lot more I can still buy. John and I have not watched them all, but we could tell you about every episode because we have listened to them all again and again and again. I even find myself humming the What's New Scooby Doo theme song all the time.

Adam has really enjoyed watching Scooby Doo movies recently. At least Scooby Doo is the only thing he wants to watch right now. The last two times he has watched Scooby Doo I asked him how he liked it. Both times Adam has said that they were scary. The first time Adam said, "The Tiki Wiki made my Scooby Doo run away." The second time Adam said, "That scary bad guy made my Scooby Doo run away."

Bob the Builder Stuff

From Halloween until after New Years my kids are pretty wild. They run and scream a lot more and everything gets broken. They also never go to bed when they are supposed to. This year there has been a new twist in things. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny have found that life is more exciting if they can get Adam to chase them around. To rile Adam up they say, "Adam, Bob the Builder is stupid. Adam, Bob the Builder can't fix it." Then Adam yells, "He is not stupid. Bob the Builder can fix it!" Then he runs after them and chases them all over the house.

Adam bought a Bob the Builder hammer with his birthday money and has been hammering various things around the house. If I ask him something like, "Adam are you putting a hole in the wall?', or "Adam why are you banging on our Nativity Set?" Adam will reply, "No, Mom, I am fixing it."

Gender Idenity (Not For All Readers)

Since I am printing these and keeping them for a journal I am printing something that other people may be offended by. But I have found it so funny that I just needed to write it down.

I recently read some developmental material on three year olds. Adam is now three and I like to read things like that as a reminder every once in a while. This keeps me from being too surprised or alarmed at my children's behavior. One thing that this article mentioned that I did not know was that at three children start to recognize gender difference. When I read that, I thought, well Adam does seem to know who is a girl and who is a boy in our family, but I am not sure he has any idea why some of us are girls and some of us are boys. A few days passed and I forgot all about this with Thanksgiving and everything. Then one evening after Rachel's bath Adam came into my bedroom where I was drying Rachel off and putting some lotion on her before I put on her diaper. Adam asked me what I was doing and I told him. Then he said with surprise, "Mommy, Rachel not have a private." So three is the age when children notice the difference between boys and girls. I did try and explain that Rachel was perfectly normal for a girl, but Adam insisted that private parts just do not exist for Rachel.

Thanksgiving

We have all decided that Thanksgiving is a difficult and not fun holiday. I spent 20 hours cooking and cleaning; the kids disliked all of the food. After the feast and the clean up Kate said to me, "Mom, let's not do Thanksgiving next year-- that was boring." During the dinner, Ruth said,"Is this all that we do for Thanksgiving?" Clearly we had a lot of dissatisfaction. I suppose when I first got pregnant with Ruth I made a pact with myself to not be bothered by what my kids like or don't like to eat. Kids are naturally rude and picky when it comes to food. I actually am not bothered that our kids don't like turkey and squash and pie etc. I never base meals on what kids want to eat. We would all be sick and half starved. But I was so exhausted after all the work (probably from being 7 months pregnant really), and the kids don't really care, so I have concluded that Thanksgiving is not worth it. But we will do Thanksgiving next and year and from hence forth for one simple reason. We are weird enough when it comes to holidays. Our kids don't believe in Santa Claus because Kate decided he could not be real when she was only three and declared that to everyone else and I just couldn't say, "You idiot, Santa is real." I did say, "You are right, but it is fun to pretend." That was not convincing so we have no Santa. We also do not do the Easter Bunny because I think that is lame and could never bring my self to tell the children that a talking bunny hops around hiding eggs for kids. Instead we celebrate Easter as a religious holiday and buy all the loot when it is 50% to 75% off and have an easter egg hunt a week after the rest of America. So we are too weird as it is. If I want my kids to be semi-normal Americans I think that I must keep with Thanksgiving traditions despite objections from the children.

I must add one funny note at the end. John said how much more he appreciates Halloween in comparison to Thanksgiving. Halloween is easy to set up and clean up and you get a weeks worth of candy. Thanksgiving is difficult to set up and clean up and you get a weeks worth of Turkey. Which would you choose?

Who in the World

Johnny : Kate I am going to tell you a joke. Knock, Knock.

Kate (with a tone of exasperation): Who in the world is there!!

A Thanksgiving Dinner to be Thankful For

John, my husband, was thinking about what he would like for Thanksgiving Dinner this year. This is the Menu I received from him.

Dinner

1. Barbeque Pork Ribs
2. Cheese Fries
3. Banana Nut Squash (mashed) (He means mashed butternut squash)
4. Emerald Salad
5. Milkshakes

Dessert

1. Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream
2. Cream Puffs
3. Magic Cookie Bars

He wrote it down on my Thanksgiving shopping list and labeled it food to be thankful for.

Hmmmmm........ Maybe for Fathers Day.

Adam

While I was preparing to make grilled cheese sandwiches I had the grill heating on the counter. Adam climbed up to watch me as he often does. He looked at the grill and said, "It's hot." I said yes it was and he should not touch it. A moment later I saw Adam jump back and grab his mouth. I said, "You didn't just put your mouth on the hot grill did you?" Adam said, "It burned me." I handed him a glass of water and left to set the table. I heard Adam crying to John that he got burnt and John saying something a long the lines that he should have obeyed his mother, but that he was sorry that he was hurt. Adam sounded rather distressed so I got him an ice cube which he stuck onto his chin. Apparently, he had rested his chin on the hot grill. I didn't worry too much. But then he asked for another ice cube just as we were sitting down to dinner. I brought him the ice cube expressed some concern, but said that he should have obeyed and not touched the grill. Adam very defiantly declared that he had obeyed because he did not touch the grill with his fingers. Well, the poor guy has a big popped blister on his chin that will take a few days to feel better and we hope that he doesn't get a scar. I guess I will have to be more specific in the future and mention that you should not touch hot things with any of your body parts.

This just reminded me of another Adam story. A few days ago while I was cleaning the bathroom Adam wandered in picked up the bottle of Ammonia water and in a very serious voice said, "Mom, this is poison. You should not drink this." I assured him that I was only planning on using it to clean with, but thanked him for the advice and concern.

The Hand of The Lord

We had to have our circuit board on our furnace replaced. Unfortunately, the circuit board is not a cheap part. It was going to cost about $350. We got this estimate about two weeks ago, but it wasn't until Saturday that we were notified that they could replace it on Monday. I looked at our account and knew that it would be very tight, but if I spread the bills some and bought nothing we could manage with only having to put the weeks gas on the credit card. I then looked through the cupboards and freezer and wrote out a menu for the week where we would only need to buy bread and milk and $1.50 more in groceries until payday on Friday. Today, the repair man came and put in the new circuit board. When he was finished he said, "I have good news for you. The part was still under warranty, so you only need to pay for the labor." That was only $140. We know that the Lord really blessed us in this, and we are very grateful for His hand in our lives.

SOOO CUTE

To tease Adam several of us have asked Adam different questions about what Bob the Builder can and can't do. Adam pretty much believes that Bob the Builder can do anything. At lunch the other day Johnny asked Adam if Bob the Builder could kiss Rachel. Adam responded with a yes he can. Johnny then asked me the same question. I said no way-- only mom and dad can kiss Rachel. Johnny asked if he could kiss Rachel. I said that only Rachel's family could kiss her. Johnny asked if Adam could kiss Rachel. Rachel then turned toward Adam and started smacking her lips at him in a kissing way. It was just sooooo cute

The Nightmare

Last night John and I had the same nightmare, otherwise known as a slumber party. We had 8 giddy, obnoxious girls at our house for 15 hours and they only slept for 5 of those. We learned a few things from this nightmare. First, our own kids are really pretty good. And secondly some change in friendship needs to be made. Let me explain. A few of the girls ( all nine years old) talked about boys and making out and and their complete crushes. Well, boys and crushes are okay. But nine year old girls talking about wanting to make out sets off an alarm with me. I do not remember girls in fourth grade doing that. Most of the girls I knew in fifth grade that talked like that were sexually active in middle school and did not graduate from high school. So of course I am worried that not only do I have little girls talking about making out in my home, but that the other girls seem to look up to these girls and think that they are funny and interesting. Well that was only part of the nightmare. We had a girl from a rather unstable family home that was in constant need of attention from the girls and the grownups. The girls did not use normal voices either. Everything they said came out in shouts and several of them would be shouting at the same time. It did not seem to matter how much we told them to use quiet or even just normal voices, the shouting did not cease. We would have let them talk after we turned the lights out, but since talking meant shouting at 12:30am we had to sit in the room until they all settled down and went to sleep. That was around 1:30am. We thought that they would sleep in until 8am, but they were up and shouting at 7am. Then by 7:30 they were asking for breakfast in rather rude ways. We made a big breakfast with eggs, sausage, home fries, and pancakes and they ate it all up accept for a few eggs before John and I could get breakfast. At least we fed our little kids along with these girls. Then they hung around until 10am and we were relieved to see them go away. Of course it wasn't long after they all left that we had a talk about girls who talk about making out and the future sorrow they face no matter how fun and cool it seems now. We also had that talk of why we should choose good friends and how to go about being kind to our old friends while looking for new friends. One thing that was nice is that neither Ruth nor Kate joined in any of the bad things. In fact, Ruth seemed rather embarrassed. Maybe it was only because they knew Mom and Dads eyes and ears were there. But that is why Mom and Dad need to have eyes and ears available at all times. I think that sibling eyes and ears can help too. Anyway, we don't want to have anymore big sleepover parties. We have all been zombies all day.

That Thing That We...

As I was curling my hair (For some reason funny things often seem to happen while I am curling my hair. Maybe it is the kids way of sabotaging my efforts to look decent.) Kate came into my bathroom and said, "You know that thing that we keep boogers in?" Already I am completely lost. When did we ever keep boogers or have a thing to keep them in? "What?!!!" I say. "You know that blue thing that we keep boogers in." I am still lost, but I think I must wait for some explanation. Maybe this is some kind of joke, I think. "Well," Kate continues, "Johnny is trying to squirt the boogers out at me!" Okay, stop. This is weird. Kate does seem to be serious. "What are you talking about. Have you been saving your boogers in something." "No," Kate says, "It is that thing that we keep boogers in." "Kate we do not keep our boogers!!!! We throw our boogers away!!"I earnestly declare. "Mom, well Johnny is squirting boogers at me from the blue thing." "Kate are you joking? Are these real boogers?"I ask. "No, I am not joking they are real boogers." Well I am completely baffled and utterly disgusted. Did they get something from school as a Halloween thing to shoot boogers from? So I reply, "Well, we are not suppose to save boogers. You better throw that away immediately!!!" Kate stares for a moment and asks, "You want me to throw it away?" "Yes, Kate. That is disgusting!!!!" "Okay, Mom," she said and left. I then finished curling my hair and had a sudden realization. That blue thing that squirts boogers is probably the nasal syringe. When we have used it for boogers we would have rinsed and drained it right away. Later that night after John and I were in bed, I told him this story and he went and checked the trash can in the girls room and sure enough there was the nasal syringe sitting on top of a bunch of papers.

Order of Ownership

The kids have some unspoken rules of ownership. Ruth believes she owns anything that Kate is holding and that she can just take it right out of Kate's hand. Kate generally agrees to this. Kate thinks she owns anything that Johnny is holding and that she can take it right from him. Johnny generally agrees to this. Johnny thinks he owns anything that Adam is holding and that he can take it right out of Adam's hand. Adam doesn't usually agree to this and screams a lot. Adam thinks that anything Rachel is holding or has he really owns and that he can take it away anytime. Rachel agrees to this arrangement completely and with out question. So actually everything belongs to Ruth. So John suggests that we just make a rule that everything belongs to Rachel so that every kid gets a turn to own each toy.