Sleep-overs

I am so done with them.

One friend I had to take home at about 3 am because she was scared. Six months later she tried again and I had to stay up with her half the night because she was scared at our house but also scared of getting in trouble if she went home in the middle of the night.

Another friend has slept over about four times over the last year and has wet the bed EVERY time. I resorted to making her sleep on a shower curtain but she still manages to get just enough urine on every blanket and pillow that I have to wash everything. We finally said no more, but she keeps begging Lily and forces Lily to keep begging us.

Then, the best of all. The boys had a friend over. And he had diarrhea. In the bed. In the middle of the night. And he didn't tell us. Neither did the boys, until the next evening when Eliseo mentioned that he'd woken up and his knee was all wet and he thought he'd had an accident but, whew, it wasn't him, it was just that Friend had gotten diarrhea on his knee. This fact was somehow, inexplicably, such a relief to Eliseo that he suddenly remembered to mention it so long after the event. Then I, myself, had to go search and sniff out all the soiled places and bedding and do about 1000 loads of laundry.

And I was so hoping that 2011 would be the year when, at the end, looking back on it, I wouldn't have anything embarrassing or disgusting to remember.

Rune

constantly startles and amuses me with quirky quips.

I've mentioned this before in a post about how he reduced me to hilarity for days over an Earnest P. Whorl comment while I was lecturing Eliseo.

Also memorable was his monologue on the unbearable unendingness of kissing in the movie Jane Eyre.

And recently...

I'd made dill pickle soup for dinner, a new recipe, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Rune commented on the way out the door to scouts that he wanted me to leave the soup out so he could eat more when he returned home. While he was gone I decided that there was just enough soup left to scrape a second dinner from and so callously put the soup away rationalizing that he would probably eat some sort of unhealthy junk at scouts (I was right-brownies) and so wouldn't miss the soup. Later, in the before bedtime rush to get a drink of milk, I asked the kids who liked the soup. Rune replied, "I did, I would've had more but you squashed that dream." I realize it can't possibly be as funny in the re-telling, but his dead pan voice without a hint of trying to be dramatic, and throwing out that piece of English language in the middle of pouring his milk as if it was a rational response to my putting soup away when he'd asked me not to....well, it had Grant and I giggling and joking about dream squashing well into the night. Which is about 10pm in our world.

It's quite possible that it is not really that funny and that Grant and I are just hopelessly mired in the mundane landscape of parents who never get out.

My kids

requested to eat the testicles from the jack rabbit that Grant and Alma killed the other day. They were not forced or coerced in any way. The only thing that upset them was that one jack rabbit does not yield more than two testicles.

P.S. It's okay if you're grossed out.

Another example

of the hilarious brilliance in Lily's songwriting.

So far this song is untitled.

She was born like an artist. Raised like a hound.
She always shines bright. Never hides her colors.
Glides like the wind. Floats like a feather.
And always shows her colors of her Land.
She jingles with the bells. Makes the rainbows shine.
And has the colors of the wind.
She can be an artist, she can be a hound.
But she keeps her colors bright.


What I want to know is who is this song based on? Some figment of Lily's imagination? Or is she writing about herself (she does fancy herself an artist after all)? In which case I'd really like an explanation for the raised like a hound part. Not to mention what zoomorphic trait does she imagine a hound gives to this artistic girl who jingles with the bells and makes rainbows shine?

What do you do with neighbors who

refuse to take your homemade Christmas treats delivered to their door in the holiday spirit by your cute and guile-less eight year old daughter?

At least they didn't scream at her but merely sent her packing with a curt, "No thanks, we don't need any."

It's surprising how much it smarts to be disliked so vehemently.

Grant and I are both really un-festive when it comes to putting up Christmas lights on the house. As in, we have never done it and have never wanted to. I really don't know what Grant's reasons are, but for myself it is the frigid weather. I'm already so cold inside the house that I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would purposely go outside the house for hours to do a project when they don't have to. Eliseo, however, is dying to have Christmas lights on the house and has been trying to convince us for days that it is a worthwhile effort. When I picked him up from Scouts tonight he tried a new plug.

Eliseo (pointing to a festive house): See! We need to do our house like that. It's just so....attractive!

I really can't convey it in writing but the way he pronounced the word attractive is still making me laugh. It was a convincing enough argument that I may let him have a go at it himself and see what he comes up with.

Ode to Winter Hatred 2011

When Hell freezes over

It really will be

Hell.