Saturday, December 31, 2011

Markers and Memories


You expect 2 year-olds to suck on markers--heck I might even expect a 3 year-old to suck on markers.  At some point though, you've gotta stop.  I would have thought at 10 we would be past this stage, but apparently we're not.  I'm trying to decide if the feelings of disgust in myself are warranted though.  Here's why: if I wasn't so lazy I probably could have prevented it.  I'm going to confess--I walked by the pile of markers for days (yes, that's a plural) thinking to myself, "I should pick those up or Aaron is going to draw all over _______" (and every time I walked by I thought of a different object that he would write on).   Did I ever exert the 20 calories it would have taken to walk over to the markers and pick them up?  Nope.  Well actually, in the end I did because I got to clean up the markers AND his face.  The good news to this story is that the only casualties were Aaron's mouth and a few markers.  The computer made it out unscathed (which in the past hasn't always been the case), and the carpet fared well too.  Whew!


Now for an "awe how cute" story.  Aaron loves Disneyland.  Husband has videos of our last trip on his computer, and apparently Aaron went looking through the computer for something fun to look at.  When I walked in, he had moved the office chair into the kitchen where the computer was, unplugged the iPhone that was syncing (ha ha ha--I'm laughing only because it wasn't my phone), and was watching a video of himself riding the Buzz Lightyear ride.  He was doing this while playing with a Buzz Lightyear light up toy.  It was so precious.  It made me want to grab his headphones and head off to the most magical place on Earth.  Even if that did mean I had to ride the stupid steamboat 400 times!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

"Meyyows"

As a kid did you ever take a marshmallow and squish it between your fingers to make it like taffy?  Aaron has somehow figured out the speedy way to do this.  I'm not sure how he figured it out (it must have been one of his siblings--it's always their fault), but he likes to microwave marshmallows.  So I went to the store yesterday and they had these HUGE marshmallows on sale for 99¢.  Daughter had just had braces put on, so I was a sucker to get them for her (even though she can't eat them...didn't really see the logic in that one).  So the Little Monster saw the "meyyows" (as he calls them), and he wanted one.  He got a plate out and brought me the bag.

I must have been in a delusional state of mind, because I knew how this was going to end--which was messy.  He had eaten his dinner (in just shy of 45 minutes...yay), so what the heck.  He takes the gigantic meyyow over to the microwave and wants me to start it.  At this point I'm more than willing to do it myself because it would be a total disaster if he started working the microwave to cook his own marshmallow.  Can you imagine the clean up on an exploded marshmallow?  Anyhow I carefully watch the meyyow and pop it out when it's almost ready (no need to take any risks), and hand it over to him.  He goes running through the kitchen with it, and starts to play.  In my wishful thinking I hand him a wet washcloth hoping that this time he'll use it instead of his pants.  Nope.  Gotta use the pants.  Meyyow eating has to be 100% supervised because, well...duh.

Aaron has strategically placed himself so that he can see his reflection in the sliding glass door while he's eating his meyyow. So there he sits for the next half an hour, making funny faces at himself in the door, stretching the meyyow and smearing it all over his pants and the table.  Awesome.  Because I made him stay sitting down while he at his meyyow, the mess was contained, and a quick strip of the pants and a LONG time with his hands under hot water to dissolve the sugar, he was on his way, leaving me to scrub down the table!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Slamming doors

In our house slamming doors is a good thing and a bad thing.  Side note--it's ALWAYS a bad thing when your typically developing teenage does it (not that two of mine would EVER think of doing that).  While a slamming door may indicate the mood of most people (including my other children), when done by Aaron, it's a different story.  To every door-slam there is a silver lining--so the good news first: the best part about Aaron slamming a door is you know either he is in a room or he has just left a room (which is also good because you know he's in the house).  The bad news is: he is either in a room or has just left a room--which generally means there is trouble brewing.  Which brings me to this evening.

A door slammed.  Of course it was an upstairs door and I was downstairs.  I knew Aaron had just gone upstairs, so I ran up there to see where he was (by the way--I hate having stairs--I was hoping I would get in shape, but no dice--turns out if you send your kids up and down the stairs to do things for you the whole exercise thing doesn't work).  His bedroom door was open and he wasn't in it (bad news).  My bedroom door was closed (potential bad news), but after a quick sweep of my bedroom, bathroom and closet (because he now thinks is fun to hang out in there) I determined he wasn't in my room (more bad news--but good news at the same time because that means he wasn't ruining MY stuff).  I start questioning myself that he did in fact go upstairs, and thinking that I'm hoping I'm not going crazy--which despite my denial, I think most people know the truth.  Anyhow, just as I'm determining that I may be crazy, the little monster walks out of his sister's room with three pieces of candy.  I said, "where did you get that candy?" At that point his selective-hearing-sister comes running out of the room she was in and swipes it out of his hands so fast he didn't have time to put a death grip on it.  She's irritated because he stole it, I'm irritated because I didn't know she had it (otherwise I would have gotten to it first), and Aaron is irritated because she ripped it out of his hands.  I'm laughing on the inside because this incident solves a mystery that I've been facing the past couple of days.  There have been candy wrappers on the floor around Aaron's computer, and I couldn't figure out where they came from.  Now I know.  The next time my daughter is out of the house Aaron and I are going to take a field trip into the abyss also known as her bedroom.