Humor Keeps Me Sane | Mommy Points

May 16, 2008

Passing the Torch, or the Lawn Mower

Filed under: Children, Chores, Humor Keeps Me Sane — Chris @ 10:10 pm

My newly turned nine year old has been bugging me to be allowed to mow the front lawn for a couple of years now. Until this year he really wasn’t tall enough or strong enough to maneuver the lawn mower. And definitely not old enough to make the nice, straight, criss-cross lines that please his father so. I think he believes the neat rows give the impression that the people who live in the house care about their home, in spite of what the multitude of brightly colored plastic toys strewn across the front yard might suggest.

Our unspoken rule of thumb regarding being ready for chores is that you know your child is old enough to do the chore when they no longer want to do it. This is why a 2 yr old wants to sweep the kitchen floor with every fiber of his being, a 5 yr old wants to wash dishes, and a 12 yr old will disappear into the bathroom for an hour after dinner hoping that some one else has done the chores before he comes out.

Last weekend we finally acquiesced and allowed him to mow the front lawn all by himself. I watched while he was doing it to make sure that he didn’t do anything completly crazy like run over the toys and wiffle balls in the yard. And when he was done had to admit that he did a great job.

He ran over to me afterward with a huge grin on his face.

“So, was it everything you hoped that it would be?” I asked.

“Yes! It was great! I Loved it!” he yelled.

My 13 year old son, former mower of the front lawn, laughed, “I used to love it too.”

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February 24, 2008

The Dishwasher

Filed under: Children, Chores, Humor Keeps Me Sane — Chris @ 5:42 pm

Sunday morning my daughter took it upon herself to once again wash the dish that was left in the sink. It was making me laugh because she would huff under her breath about what hard work it was to scrub this dish. Totally acting the part of a tiny martyr. Except no one was making her do it. And I think it is pretty obvious that she loves washing dishes.

Even funnier was later on in the day when she said that she “always has to wash the dishes.”

Also, please ignore my half demolished kitchen in the background. And yes, that IS a harvest gold sink circa 1972. I know. I know. Try to contain your jealousy.

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February 22, 2008

She Works Hard for Her Money

Filed under: Ages 2-4 years, Chores, Humor Keeps Me Sane — Chris @ 10:47 am

This is just further proof of my long held belief that the only people who want to do particular chores are those that are not yet old enough to do them properly. It is a running joke in my house. One of my younger sons will ask, “When will I be old enough to (insert something here like use the snowblower, use the lawn mower, chop down trees with a chainsaw…)”

And the answer invariably is, “When you are old enough not to want to anymore.”

They laugh. But really it is true.

Last night my 4 year old daughter decided she wanted to wash the dishes that were in the sink. She pulled her chair over and intently scrubbed the plate and mug that were in there. In the process using up probably half the bottle of dish soap.

She scrubbed and scrubbed. Working her little fingers to the bone. I don’t think there has ever been a plate and mug so clean in the history of dish ware. In fact, they still had remnants of soap clinging to them. That is just how clean they were.
When she was done she got down from the chair, declared herself the best dishwasher ever, and said that she wished she could wash them every night.

I said to her, “Oh sweetie, you can! Just as soon as you are old enough not to want to.”

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January 25, 2008

Career Choices

Filed under: Children, Humor Keeps Me Sane, On The Web — Chris @ 1:46 pm

This morning when I was checking my email and “working” I came across this article: Ten Jobs You Didn’t Know You Wanted.

I actually only wanted one of them, travel writer. I love to travel, though having children has put a damper on traveling for now. Little kids, long airplane rides, and unfamiliar surroundings do not mix well. A few of my children seem to have inherited the travel bug though, talking about various places that they would love to go and see: the Great Wall of China, icebergs in Greenland (before they all disappear), the Grand Canyon to mention a few. And it is a well established fact that I love to write.

Being paid to travel and write about it would seriously be a dream come true. But for now I will have to be content with watching the Travel channel. That is almost like being there? Right?

Also on the list was something called a Flavorist. That job did not appeal to me at all. In fact, it made me a feel a bit queasy. Flavorists’ creations most often mimic naturally occurring flavors while adding sharpness and robustness, though they create novel flavors as well, particularly for new candies and beverages. So basically they mix chemicals and try to copy naturally occurring flavors, like imitation vanilla, imitation butter flavor, grape flavored candy that doesn’t even taste like real grapes, to mention a few. Um, yuck.

Brewmaster? Yeah not so much.

Sleep Instructor? Really, people need coaching in how to sleep? I ama thinking I could just invite them over to my house and have them run around after my kids, cook, clean and finish my freelance projects. Then they would be exhausted at night and have no problem falling asleep.

It has made me think about the career paths of my children. I always wonder what they are going to end up doing. I wonder how much I should encourage them to follow specific paths. I hope that they find something that they love to do and feel passionate about, and that the passion can translate into a career.

My oldest son has the personality to be a dictator. Hopefully a benevolent one. All he needs now is to find a small country somewhere to run.

My 8 yr old currently says he wants to go to medical school or maybe deliver pizzas. He hasn’t made up his mind yet. Luckily has still has lots of years to decide, because I am not sure how these two loves could possibly merge. But for now I just silently, ok and not so silently, laugh every time he says it.

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January 9, 2008

Learning Through Mindless Television

Filed under: Ages 10-12 years, Children, Chores, Humor Keeps Me Sane — Chris @ 11:07 pm

I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but tonight I was watching the show Wife Swap with my older children. The premise of the show, for those of you who haven’t seen or heard about it, is that they take two wives/mothers and have them swap families for 2 weeks. Of course because it is television they take volatile people who are complete polar opposites and put them together.

Tonight’s show featured a really strict, chore loving family and a messy, dirty family wherein no one did any housekeeping.

My children were fascinated by the show.

(They were also fascinated at how rude and what poor language the people hurled at each other. Egads, it was bad. I’ll admit here and now that I find the occasional use of a good swear word to be called for, but never, ever directed at someone personally. And certainly not a whole string of them in front of my children while being filmed for national television! But I digress.)

When the show first started I had asked them which family they thought we were more like. My older two children immediately said “The chore family! We have to do chores!” But as we watched the show they slowly changed their minds. They decided that we were a combination of both families. We did chores, but still had fun.

When the new wife at the clean family decided that there would be no more cleaning, my kids were incredulous. “But why not just clean up after yourself? It doesn’t take that long!”

When the new wife encouraged them to just leave their messes laying around and not clean up their dishes after eating, again my kids said, “But why? That is just gross!”

I was incredulous, who were these kids and where were my children?

But the funniest part happened at the very end. The messy father asked the clean father if he felt bad making his kids scrub sinks. My kids were laughing. And my oldest son said, “Gee, he is making it seem like cleaning the bathroom is child abuse!”

I laughed with them. I guess being “forced” to do chores hasn’t scarred them in any way. Or at least not in any negative way.

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November 21, 2007

Can you tell she has older brothers?

Filed under: Children, Humor Keeps Me Sane — Chris @ 8:38 pm

I was sitting in the dentist’s office this morning reading a Dora the Explorer book to my daughter. There was a part where it showed a big net that Dora had to cut through. There was a little rhyme to help figure out what tools you needed from Backpack.

I don’t remember the exact rhyme, but the word had to rhyme with “quizzers”

To me it seemed obvious that Dora needed her scissors.

But without skipping a beat my daughter yelled, “A JACKKNIFE!”

When I corrected her and said no Dora needed scissors, she scoffed and said, “How will scissors ever cut through that rope!”

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November 20, 2007

Thankful Turkey

Filed under: Ages 2-4 years, Children, Humor Keeps Me Sane, Just For Fun — Chris @ 10:08 am

My daughter came home with this yesterday afternoon, a thankful turkey.

Don’t you love how conspicuously absent her entire family is? She is thankful for the tooth fairy (even though she has not ever lost a tooth), Santa Claus (well, who wouldn’t be this time of year), Miss Eileen (the lady who reads story time at the library), and puppies in the sky.

Yes, puppies in the sky. I really have no idea. Though I suspect it has to do with us laying on the grass and looking at shapes in the clouds. And we had recently read the book It Looks Like Spilled Milk I tried to find a link for the book but think it must be out of print. It is an adorable book about finding shapes of things in the clouds.

Of course when I picked her up she refused to say what she was thinking and kept saying, “Puppies in the sky!” in a baby voice. Because we all know how kids like to make you feel like you are the clueless one.

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November 13, 2007

Mark this Day

Filed under: Children, Humor Keeps Me Sane, Keeping It Real — Chris @ 6:00 pm

Today is the first day of the season I have threatened to call Santa Claus and tell him to lighten his load and forget about stopping at this house, because only naughty children live here. And they deserve coal, or actually their mother deserves heating oil for putting up with them, it’s cold out!

Of course I live with wise acre children who are much smarter than I was at their ages. I would have been quaking in my tiny Mary-Janes at the prospect of Santa not coming to my house. But no, not my children. (more…)

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November 10, 2007

Thoughts on Being Thankful

Filed under: Children, Humor Keeps Me Sane, Just For Fun, Keeping It Real — Chris @ 11:09 am

This year I was supposed to do Thanksgiving for my husband’s family. My sister-in-law ,who usually hosts Thanksgiving dinner, is a nurse and was scheduled to work that day.
With a kitchen half way through a renovation and only one tiny little oven. I had wondered aloud if anyone would mind just having cold turkey sandwiches. There is not much oven cooking that can be going on, at least not the sort that holidays usually require. Let’s be honest here, cooking is not my strong point anyway. I don’t particularly enjoy it. Throw a wrench in the works and something that is merely tolerable becomes an outright nightmare. (more…)

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October 22, 2007

Orchard Road

Filed under: Children, Humor Keeps Me Sane — Chris @ 10:39 am

We are off to pick the apples
The wonderful apples of Fall
We’ll fill our sacks right up to the brim
With apples some big and some small
If ever oh ever an apple there was, our sack will hold it because because
because because because because because…
because of the wonderful things we can bake with apples!

Okay, so I lost the meter and rhyme on that last sentence. And probably frightened you with my sub-par stealing of song lyrics.

But now you know what I will be doing today. Yes, picking apples. A frighteningly large amount of apples.

And if my preteen children continue with the eye roll and attitudes I will also be singing LOUDLY while I do it.

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