Basketball Bishie

Last year, my BFF, Pooh, and her fam came up to Poky for her son, Bishop's, basketball tournament. We went down to spend a teensy bit of time with them.

Same goes for this year. Except this time, all of our kids are one year older, we had two babies to add to our group, and we had two very relieved-to-not-be-pregnant women.

Before the game, I happened to be sitting by where the team that Bishop's team was going to play was hanging out. These boys were talking about their upcoming game. It was hilarious. This was the conversation I overheard:

"Those guys say that they will sink EVERY SINGLE SHOT. I'm freaking out right now."

"How do they know that? They can't tell the future."

"We're so screwed."

It was hilarious. Bishie's team really is fantastic (they ended up winning the whole tournament).

Cazzie, Pooh's hubby, coaches Bishop's team. There he is, on the right, with Bishie right next to him:

In the huddle. Or whatever you call it in basketball:

Caz is sooooo good with kids:

Some action shots of Bish:

Bishie always gives me this totally fake, weird smile when I take pics of him:

To the right of Bish is his friend, Deng. It's pronounced "dang." His family is from Sudan, I believe.

Pooh and I took the kiddos to the upper level stadium seats so that they could run around without getting in anyone's way. It was perfect.

Mikey:

There was a clear plexiglass guard thingey between the seats and a plummet to certain breaking of bones, and Mikey would kind of climb up on the little ledge that holds the plexiglass. You can see it in the picture above. This made the top of the plexiglass be, like, at his eyeline instead of, like, the top of his head. I wasn't concerned about him going over, but Pooh was freaking out about it. She is more vigilant than I.

Pooh's middle child, Judge, was borrowing a friend's cell phone to play games. Apparently, these games were fascinating:

Sadie kept stealing the cheerios Pooh packed for Marlo. Sorry about that, Pooh. I forgot to pack snacks. I had many Bad Mom Moments that evening.

Beautiful little Marlo:

Me and my Main Man:

He was just killing me. He wanted to move and stretch and arch and jump and lean.... it was like an all-evening arm workout. My arms were seriously sore the next day. At home, when he gets restless like that, I can put him on the floor to roll around, but I couldn't do that there.

Pretty Pooh (You can call her P.P.):

Ben thinks I should cut my hair like Pooh's. I'm thinking about it. I'm in a hair crisis right now. I'll have to write a whole different post about it.

Funny story. I finally had had enough of Sadie stealing Marlo's snacks, so I decided to go down with the kiddos and get snacks at the concession stand. Ben was taking action shots of Bishie on the court, so I had to hold Gage and herd the other three down there. Thank goodness Pooh was with me, corralling Judge. I don't think I could have added one more to the mix. Though Judge is probably more attentive (and obedient) than my kids. My kids weren't paying attention, wandering all over, bumping into people.... it was killing me. And it was really crowded. A man saw me struggling to maintain control, and he said, "It's like herding cats!" I've never heard a truer statement. That's what I do all day - herd cats.

Pince

Micah used to put on Sadie's ballet tutus and call himself a "Pincess." (He can't make the "pr" blend.) I was trying to steer him into manliness, so I would usually say, "No, you are a prince."

So now he calls himself a "pince." But still wears Sadie's ballet stuff. But hey, he's stopped wearing my garments on his head as his fake hair, so we're making progress... Baby steps. Baby steps.

It's Potty Time, Excellent!

That's the song I sing to Micah when I make him go potty. The Wayne's World song. But I say "potty time" instead of "party time." Because potty training really isn't a party. I promise you.

Yeah, I guess we're potty training Mikey for reals now. He was acting all ready last fall, and he learned to pee in the potty when I asked him to, but he was just...not quite getting it. He was peeing all over my house. Like, 20 times a day. It was exhausting and frustrating. I kept hoping that he would tell me when he had to pee, but that never happened. And I had a newborn who was having barfing issues. Many things were happening. Then Christmas came and got all hectic and I just dropped it.

I was planning to potty train Mikey starting the day after his third birthday, at the end of May. I was getting mentally prepared. But then, last Friday, he told me he wanted to wear big boy undies. And he wanted to pee in the potty like a big boy. I thought to myself, "Ugh. Let's just do this thing."

I'm proud of myself. I've stuck with it for one week now. We're taking it slowly, one step at a time. I was taking him every half an hour for the first few days, and now we're up to about every 45 minutes or so. The first day, he had five accidents, but that number has been getting lower and lower, very slowly.

I've learned that each kid has something that motivates him. I really thought it was going to be candy or gum for Micah, but that hasn't done the trick. The threat of hanging out naked from the waist down is a huge motivator for him. So this is what we do - if he pees in his undies and pants, then he has to be naked until the next time I take him to go potty. OR, if it's time to go potty and he refuses to go, I make him hang out naked. And it mortifies him, so he's working really hard to keep those pants on. Praise is also a huge motivator for him. If it's time to go potty and he's stayed dry, I make a huge deal about it. And he smiles and smiles.

At first, his accidents were pretty big. Lots and lots of pee, all down the legs of his pants. But now, he's starting to catch himself after a few drops. So that's really good. He's telling me when he's had an accident, versus last fall, when he would have an accident and not care and not tell me and run around with urine all over him.

Pooping in the potty is an issue. It was hard for Sadie, too. I don't know why, but they're just really scared to poop in the potty. We started training on Friday, and by Monday night, Micah still hadn't pooped. I think he was somehow holding it all in. We were really concerned about this, so Ben gave Micah a suppository. And the dang kid STILL held it in!!! This is exactly what happened to Sadie when we were training her! Their will to keep that poop inside of them is so strong that it OVERPOWERS even a suppository! That's amazing to me. I do put Micah in a diaper for naptimes and bedtime - I'll continue doing that until he starts waking up dry. So what he's doing is somehow holding the poop in until naptime or bedtime, and then letting it all out. The stinker. (Literally.)

Hopefully, in time, we'll get it all ironed out. I somehow potty trained two kids already, so I know we'll get through it eventually.

The Penguin Thief

Okay. So. Dylan is in second grade. I really, really like his teacher, Mrs. H. She's extremely organized, which I love. I always know what is due, and when. Each kid has a job in the classroom each week. Each kid has an assigned coat hook. Mrs. H has a very straightforward, manageable discipline system in her classroom. She's just awesome.

She does this thing where she gives the kids what she calls "H money." When they're good, they earn a certain amount of "H dollars." Then, at the beginning of each new month, she opens up the "H store," where they can spend their H dollars on toys.

So when Dylan came home last Friday with a stuffed penguin and told me he bought it with his H money, I was like, cool. I knew the drill; I knew this is what she does at the first of every month. I went downstairs to throw in some laundry and clean my room a little bit.

An hour later, Dylan came down.

"Mom," he said, "I need to talk to you."

"What is it, buddy?"

"I stole that stuffed penguin from the H store."

"What???"

"I took it and didn't pay the H money for it."

"Did you not have enough H money for it?"

"I did - I had 11 H dollars, and the penguin was only 5 H dollars."

"So what's the problem?"

"I wanted to save my H dollars for something else next month, but I still wanted that penguin."

I was blown away. My son stole. That's major to me. I never stole anything. Ben had kind of a hard teenagerhood, but he has always said he never stole anything, even during his troubled times.

But I was very, very grateful that Dylan came forward, that he felt guilty and wanted to make it right. I told him we had to talk to Ben about his punishment. I told him he still needed to be punished for stealing in the first place, but that his punishment would have been worse if we had found out about it later on.

Dylan desperately wanted to catch Mrs. H before she left school for the day, but the school was long since closed and locked up by this time.

Ben came home and we all talked about it. Dyl was grounded to his room all weekend. Usually, when he's in his room for time-outs, all he does is yell out the door, "CAN I COME OUT NOW??" Over and over and over again. But he didn't push it at all, all weekend. He came out to pee and to eat, and he had his toys and his book in there with him. It was nice not having him ask to play on the computer a billion times per day.

Then Ben took him to school fifteen minutes early on Monday to talk to the teacher. Ben found out that there had been a substitute teacher that day. Sheesh. I don't know what it is about substitute teachers - kids are so naughty. When I taught school, I hardly ever, ever, ever missed work, because there was always a huge fallout if I did. Something major would happen when the sub was there, and I'd have to clean everything up. An example of this is "The Penning of '04." I was gone one day, and one kid stabbed another kid in his hand with a pen. The stabee told his parents, who then wanted to sue the penn-er... It was a huge mess, which I eventually smoothed over, but seriously. Subs spell disaster.

Anyways, the substitute teacher noticed what had happened after all the kids had left that Friday, and she left Mrs. H a note, so Dylan would have been busted, for sure. She was glad Dylan came in to confess. He gave her the penguin back, plus all of his H dollars.

Then, we had him go in and talk to the bishop on Tuesday. He's not eight yet, so he's not officially accountable; however, we wanted to make this a learning opportunity for him. We wanted him to understand the steps of repentance. We wanted him to recognize the bishop as someone who can help you when you're seeking forgiveness for something you've done wrong. And we wanted to reinforce the gravity of stealing - it's not a small-time thing. The bishop was sweet to talk to him; I think they had a good talk - I didn't go into the bishop's office with Dylan, but they talked in there for a good long while.

All along, we've told him that, if we had found out from his teacher what he had done, instead of from him, we would have probably grounded him to his room for an entire week, plus restitution to his teacher and visiting the bishop. We wanted him to know that, though he was still punished for what he did, it was less of a punishment than he would have gotten if he had kept it a secret.

Something my friend Carrie said on her blog keeps repeating itself in my mind. It's one of the most poignant things about child-rearing I've ever heard, and it is exactly how I feel about Dylan. She was saying this of her son: "He's going to be an exceptional adult, but it is going to take every skill I have to get him there." That is soooooo Dylan. He's a toughie, but hopefully with a lot of guidance and love, and sticking to our guns no matter what, we'll get him to happy, well-adjusted adulthood. Hopefully. :)

A Green FHE

I didn't have my act together enough to get my St. Patrick's Day FHE prepared for the Monday before St. Patrick's Day. So, as if I didn't have enough stuff going on St. Patrick's Day, we added FHE to the mix.

First, I had everyone and sit still for like two minutes while I rattled off facts about St. Patrick's Day - stuff about St. Patrick himself, stuff about how it's celebrated in the U.S., etc. etc. Then, I had each person take turns pulling something out of a big green bag. Each item stood for something I had taught them about St. Patrick's Day. The person had to say what that item stood for. They got a point if they got the correlation right. The person with the most points at the end got a little bag of those chocolate coins covered in gold foil.

So, for instance, I taught the fam that St. Patrick was abducted from his home in Great Britain when he was 16. He was a slave for six years until he escaped Ireland and went back to Great Britain. So, I had some handcuffs in the bag. When Dylan pulled out the handcuffs, I said, "Okay, so what happened in the life of St. Patrick that the handcuffs could symbolize?" He got it right off the bat - "He was a slave for six years!!!"

It would have been better to find, like, a little plastic ball-and-chain, but I couldn't find one of those. Anyways, everyone ended up earning equal points, Ben and Dylan because they have good memories, Sadie because Ben kept giving her the answers:

Then we had a treasure hunt, again, reviewing St. Patrick's Day facts.

Sadie and Dylan were racing all around (Micah fell asleep earlier that evening, so we let him sleep through FHE), trying to get to the clues before each other. They are so competetive:

The treasure was a little plastic leprechaun's pot with three little St. Patty's Day accessories inside:

Sadie got a tiara that says "Irish Princess":

Dylan got one of those bobbly antennae things:

And Micah got some sunglasses, which Ben modeled for us:

Sadie didn't realize that you had to peel the gold off the chocolate coins. I think she thought they were just painted with, like, gold sugar or something?:

So she bit into one and was shocked to taste foil. And dude, I was cleaning up these pieces of foil the whole next day during school. Because I live with a bunch of slobs. It's called a garbage, kids. I was too busy to make them clean it up that night. I should have waited until they came home from school the next day and made them clean it up themselves, but I had some people from the Infant/Toddler program coming over that day and needed to kind of clean the house up.

Anyways. The FHE was really fun - the kids loved it. Did it have any spiritual overtones? Um... no. We could have made it about missionary work, because that is the whole reason St. Patrick's Day originated in Ireland. He converted hundreds of people to Christianity from Paganism. But I just decided to make it a fun night of family togetherness. And that's okay. :)

Day 10...

...of the 31-Day Blog Challenge - a photo of your favorite place to eat.

Yikes, that's really hard. But I'd say the place I love and miss the most is Benihana:

Oh baby. That amazing onion mushroom soup:

The Hibachi vegetables and chicken...

Their salad with ginger dressing.... and their fried rice... ah. Fugeddaboutit. It's amazing. I kind of messed around with some ingredients and figured out the recipe for their fried rice. I make it every now and then when I'm yearning for some Benihana goodness. Benihana is the only place whose shrimp I will eat. And that's saying something, because I really, really hate seafood. But the shrimp they grill... it just tastes kind of like chicken.

I don't even remember the last time I went there to eat. San Diego? Like, four years ago? Sad. And I had a cold, so I couldn't even taste the food. I soooo wish we had one of those here.

If you ever eat there, let me warn you - you will smell like Japanese food for the rest of the night. In fact, plan on washing every single thing you wore in there, plus take a good long shower when you get home. Or you will smell. It's a good smell when you're inside the restaurant, but if you try to go to a movie or a show afterwards, everyone around you will hate your guts.

The old gray mare just ain't what she used to be...

Dude. I have some sad news for you. I found my first gray hair:

Hm. You can totally see the hair on the above picture on my computer at home, but I can't see it here at work. Oh well. It's there. At first, I was hoping that maybe it was just a random blonde hair, but then I showed it to Ben, who has no filter. He started singing the song that is the title of this blog post. Such a sweetheart. :) Never go to Ben if you want to feel better about anything.

He said he wanted "to get a closer look," so he held the shaft of the hair, and I obligingly let the shaft go so he could examine it, and he pulled the freakin' hair right out of my head, along with the follicle. He's all, "Now you don't have any gray hairs!!!" It hurt like a mother. I'd rather have a full head of white hair than have anyone pull my hair out. It hurts. I once saw a preview for "My Strange Addiction" (on TLC, I think?) where this girl pulls her hair out of her head and eats her follicles. I just about vomited when I saw that preview. I obviously totally planned to skip that episode (I have to skip many of the episodes of that show...).

I have a low pain threshold. Which is why I am a fan of epidurals. Yes, yes, yes.

So after I yelled at Ben for pulling out my hair, I took a close-up picture of it for your viewing pleasure:

White. White, white, white. Sad.

I texted the sad news to my family and close friends. My dad texted back, "You get that from your mom. And her mom. And her grandma..."

I texted him back, "Along with restless legs syndrome. And an addiction to Coke."

Dad texted, "Special for you!"

I wrote back, "I won the genetic lottery!!!"

Pooh told me she's had to dye her hair for a few years now because of gray hairs. I asked her how long between the first gray hair and the first need to dye her hair. She said about a year.

Man. I'm getting old, old, old. I'm turning 34 on Saturday, friends. I cannot believe it.