Cheap Thrills With Your Almost Teen

Alternate Title: How To Gently Torment The Kid Who Likes To Sleep In

Eight year old: "Max why are you always so grouchy in the morning?"

Max: "Because you guys always wake me up WAY TOO early." (usually accompanied by either a glare, a surly glance, or a heavy sigh)

Other eight year old: "Look! I have a five dollar bill!" (this kid is Queen of the Segue)

Max: "Who gave you that?"

Dad: "We put a $5 bill at the top of the stairs every morning, and the first one up gets it. Didn't we tell you that? We've been doing it for about, oh, a year, I guess. The twins have about $100 each already!"

Max: "Huh? Really? No way! That is SO unfair! And you deliberately didn't tell me, right? That is SO unfair!" (subsides into a gloomy disgruntled silence, possibly influenced by the twelve waffles in his mouth)

All this is accompanied by much general laughter from the masses at the almost total lack of humour on the part of the almost teen. Almost teen finds nothing remotely amusing about this scenario, sadly, but that might be because a wee part of him really does think that $5 bills have been reposing on staircases while he sleeps.

But really, if someone was leaving $5 bills at the top of the stairs, doesn't Max realize that I would be the first one grabbing them? Honestly. Kids these days.

Why I Don't Go To Homeschool Conferences

I'd elaborate but I think this person says it better. In fact, I could say the same about most of the local gardening workshops I've checked out lately, too. I don't need another lecture about composting or how to keep my lettuce healthy, just as I don't want to sit through another interminable discussion on deschooling. Specifics, people, specifics.

That's why I never go to homeschool conferences anymore.

Or garden conferences either.

On the Eighth Day of Advent...

Here is a video that made the rounds a while back, but for some reason (I can't possibly think why because we all love it so much) I neglected to post it. So here it is. A little jingle bell song to start off your Christmas cheer.

St. Nicholas Day

The Perfect Bow

Here are the twins, learning how to tie The Perfect Bow. For some reason they are really taken with the idea of being able to tie The Perfect Bow with their eyes closed but Dominic struggles to keep his eyes closed when things get tangled, so this ensures that he will not cheat. At least, that was FDPG said to him, even though the idea of cheating at tying bows isn't really something anyone in this house worries about.

Ahh, such strange children. I don't get involved in this stuff if I can help it. If they think one can cheat at tying a bow who am I to convince them otherwise?

Instead, being the mature parent that I am, I concentrate on playing silly buggers with them.

Just in time for Christmas! I tell them, you can beautify the many many gifts you have no doubt purchased for me! What charming, adorable, generous children you are!

This little witticism of mine rarely goes over well. Usually I am met with a blank, and sometimes startled stare, as each of them contemplates the worrisome idea that I might actually have Expectations Regarding Gifts and Things.

Then I laugh, doing my best to make it either a) with gay abandon (so they aren't sure if I am serious), or b) with a pleased sort of smugness (so they still aren't sure if I am serious).

Honestly, the things I have to do around here to get a laugh, even if it's my own.

Climbing the Walls

This is the latest Amusing Activity for the twins. They do this while I make dinner. They talk the entire time, too.

Shall I repeat that?

They talk the entire time.

(I don't think FDPG even takes a breath between thoughts)

They are also slightly on the horribly competitive side: if one bumps the top of the doorway the other practically elbows that one out of the way so that they too can try to bump the top of the doorway.





Then I am deluged, yes, deluged, with pleas of this sort:

Mum! Take a picture! Mum! Look! Take a picture for your blog! Send it to Nanna! Look! Look! I'm at the top! Look! Mum!

And so, to humour us all, I often do take a picture. And another. And sometimes another, as each pose changes painfully and sometimes unnoticeably minutely.


Sigh. I console myself with the knowledge that one day, when I am old and gray and the kids live somewhere else, I might look back on these pictures and wish I had taken MORE.

In Which I Wax Eloquent About Consumerism

I went south for a few days, on a little apres-birthday jaunt. I even crossed a border into a foreign country - the one directly south of us Canucks. I was hoping to get a little Christmas shopping in, and maybe, just maybe visit a certain Lego store, but, if you ask me that in front of my kids, do know that I will emphatically deny it (they don't read my blog so I can say these things here). And yes, I do that realize there is an online Lego service here in Canada; let's just say that it's not all that enticing to the wallet, when all is said and done. Why didn't I buy stock in Lego 10 years ago?

It's always exciting crossing into the States; not only do I have to explain why I'm not going right on the exact day of my birthday (gasp! the scandal of it all), but I also have to explain how I got the grand old age I am without holding a job title I'm able to spit out in 5 words or less.

"Stay at home parent?" the border guard always asks me (in what I almost always belatedly realize is a rhetorical remark): "So, where are your kids?" And then he/she usually peers very closely at me, until I am tempted to ask if I appear blurry.

Sigh.

Anyhow, once I'd got past those charming, perceptive guards of the border, I was able to shed the bonds of motherhood and really get into the spirit of Discount American Consumerism.

We went to Ross (which exists in Canada in as Winners). I have a thing for nutcrackers (as long as they don't look like athletes or idiots) and I bought a lovely package of them in varying guises: chimney sweep, snowman, jester, Father Christmas, but it was only when I got back to the motel room that I noticed one was Mr America. Forgive me, Gentle American Reader, but the Mr America Nutcracker is not my favourite. The red white and blue flag thing is not a good look - it makes him look a bit washed out. Besides, if I have to listen to FDPG tell me that there are only 23 stars on this flag which HAS to be wrong but why did they make this nutcracker if they knew it was wrong someone should have seen that one shouldn't they where was this thing made? one more time I might scream.

We went to Trader Joe's. I've always had a soft spot for Trader Joe's, it's cheap and cheerful and reminds me of an old hippie store, with all it's economy sushi, goat cheese, sprouted breads, and organic salads. Besides, where else could you buy candies with "natural acai flavour"? I mean, who else but a hippie would think acai berries belong in candy? Ugh. (note to friends: don't be giving me any acai berries for Christmas - ickola)
Nevertheless, I bought a package of these for each of my kids. They come in a cool little tin and they are luridly purple. No one noticed the acai taste at all. Must have been all that sugar.



And with this new craze every store seems to have for selling its own shopping bag (even our library has shopping bags, although they market them as Book Bags) I see Trader Joe's, as is its wont, has upped the ante with cooler shopping bags. They are almost frame-able they are so beautiful. Look at this little number reposing in my kitchen. I love it. And yes, I might marry it I love it so much, Mr Richard Smartie Pants.

And now I see that they've got retro packaging. This baby might just make it onto one of my home made wall signs once we've consumed the contents. Cheap chocolate pudding always looks way cooler in retro packaging - and that is the brilliance that is Trader Joe's: putting (sometimes slightly inferior) alternative products in way cool packaging.

Here is another example: the Almost Oreo. The Christmas Almost Oreo. It has crushed candy canes in the filling. And a gaily striped box without. What's even better: it's cheaper than Oreos. Which made me purchase 2 boxes. So what if it isn't quite as minty as the Christmas Oreo?

Ahem. Yes, I AM a sucker for advertising. Besides, the kids loved them.






I even went to a kitchen store I'd heard of many times on the TV show Friends: it's called Williams Sonoma. It's a vastly over-priced place, where you can purchase small packages of hot chocolate for $20 and teeny tiny little bags of pasta for $18, not to mention horrendously priced dishes, and aprons for $50, but you can also buy way cool baking implements like this one you see on the left. It's called a Backyard Bug Dish. Yes children, with this thing you CAN eat bugs. What's better, they will even taste good. Hardly any crunchy bits, either. The oven temperatures have something to do with that, I think. Melts everything.

See? I baked some here. In chocolate cake batter. Mmmmmm. Chocolate bees. Chocolate butterflies. Chocolate ladybugs. Mmmmm. I can see birthday parties and tea parties in your future, cake tin.