Like a Thief in the Night

Question: Are all children just natural-born thieves? Does everyone's house get burgled on a regular basis ... from the inside?

In this house, nothing is sacred.

No. Thing.

Not pencils. Not toys. Not food. ESPECIALLY not food.

I was not prepared for the amount of food young boys can eat. Teenagers, yes. I buy lunch meat, cereal, and milk by the truckload for the teenagers. But that's so typical, it goes without saying. No one was ever surprised by how much a teenage boy eats.

But it ain't the teens that are killing me.

It's the minions. 

They are 9 and 10, but they eat like 15 and 16. And it's not like I starve them.

They have hot breakfast at least 3-4 times a week.

They have a morning snack at school.

They have a good-sized lunch.

They have a snack in the afternoon. Frequently multiple snacks.

They have a good filling dinner every night.

But apparently that's not enough. Granola bars have a shelf life that can be calculated in hours. I buy about three bags of those Cutie oranges every week. We go through a dozen yogurts in the blink of an eye. And the bananas ....

Oh my — the bananas! Don't get me started on bananas.

But it's not the eating that bothers me. It's the sneakiness.

Every now and again, I'll go comb through their room, and what do I find?

Orange peel on the bookcases.

Granola bar wrappers in the pillowcase.

Candy and cheese stick wrappers under the bed.

An empty bag of marshmallows in the closet.

Squished juice boxes under the chair.

So we decided to get sneaky right back.

We recently purchased a new wireless security system for the rental house we're moving into and the house we are building. And we decided to give it a test. In the kitchen. [Insert devilish laugh here.]

We warned the kids ... we set up a camera on top of the kitchen cabinets that was pointed at the pantry door. They know it's there. And I have to admit, it seems to have cut down on the renegade snacking.

But then we took it up a notch. We put an alarm on the pantry door. 

The first night we armed it, we didn't tell the kids. At about 9:30 ... loooooooong after bedtime ... the alarm was tripped. Loud beeping came from the kitchen. My phone buzzed with the notification. Herb's phone buzzed too. We looked at each other and giggled.

BUSTED!

Enter a wide-eyed nine-year-old.

"What were you doing in the pantry?"

"I thought I heard you guys in there, so I came down to see what was up."

"No way, kid. Not buyin' it."

"No really! I thought I heard you!"

"Good try. Back to bed."

As he walked away, I heard him mutter, "An alarm ... on the pantry. No way."

Yes way.

But you know what? I bought a box of granola bars the other day. It's still there, on the shelf, where it's supposed to be. And there are still granola bars in it.

Maybe ... just maybe ... I'll stop going to the pantry and reaching into a box to find out it's empty. I'll stop going to make a recipe that chocolate chips and find the bag missing. And maybe one day ... a banana will turn brown.

A mom's gotta have hope, right?

Eat well,

DDD

Why I Hate Facebook

Yesterday a friend had posted on her page that her daughter had requested one of those necklaces with two parts. You keep one half and give the other half to your Best Friend! She gave the other half to her brother, who gladly put it on. She was proudly gushing about how close they are, how they really are best friends, and how one day the other will volunteer to be a live brain donor so they can not only be best friends, but also think the exact same thing at the exact same time.

[OK. That last part was false and just a little snarky.]

When I read posts like that, I'm jealous. I soooo want this for my boys. But at this point in their lives, I'm be lucky if they are speaking to each other at the end of each day. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her being happy that her kids love each other. There is nothing wrong with her saying so on Facebook.

I'm. Just. Freaking. Jealous.

So .... last night after I read the post, I commented:

Fast forward to this morning.

[Sunday confession: Herb is out of town with the minions. Sandy spent the night away because he was up half the night working on a school project. So I'm alone in the house on a Sunday morning. Even though I woke up early this morning, I read a novel and drank a cup of coffee instead of doing my quiet time. Then I got on Facebook ostensibly to check on good news from a girl in my boys' school who is fighting cancer, but instead I clicked on my news feed.]

Oh, goody! More people had comments on my friend's post about her kids who are Best Friends! I'm sure others are also bemoaning how their kids should be cage fighting instead of in elementary school. Let me postpone my quiet time again to read these comments, which are sure to assuage my fears that my children will end up on Jerry Springer or Dr. Phil.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Some comments:

"Good raising!"

"That's called good parenting and Christ in the center!"

Crap, crap, crap.

If kiddos who love each other and buy necklaces declaring that they're Best Friends! have Good raising! does that mean that my kids are the result of bad raising?

If sibling harmony is the result of Christ in the center! who's at our family's center? Satan?

*sigh*

Excuse me while I go eat banana pudding for breakfast ... in bed ... and finally do my quiet time. After which, if I still feel like a crappy parent, I may pop onto Amazon and see if anyone makes a necklace appropriate for my boys. Perhaps one that says...

"I barely tolerate your existence, and would probably choose to never be in your presence again if we were not genetically bound together and live in close proximity. Until such time as I am self-sufficient and of a majority age, I will continue to harrass you, beat you, call you names, make fun of you in front of your friends, blame you for things I have obviously done, and in general make your life a living hell."

I'm sure someone makes that, right?

DDD

How I Met Your Father

Every day, in living rooms and cars around the world, children ask, "Mommy, how did you meet Daddy?" Of course, this is after the idea that Mom and Dad have not always been Mom and Dad has sunk in. Which usually takes a few years and several conversations and a great deal of confusion. I mean, after all, our entire existence is tied to theirs, right?

Riiiiiiiight. 

Anywho....

Well, I'm recording this for posterity, and for my children. And for all those people who have asked to hear our {crazy, weird, ironic} story.

Apologies to My Mother

Moms put up with a lot. And I'm not saying that because I am one. I'm saying that because I have one. Sometimes, it's only in retrospect that we see what little buggers we were growing up. Every once in a while, when I am unselfish enough to let my kids get what THEY want instead of me getting what I want, I am reminded that my mother went through this also.

Although far more often than I do.

So I'm starting a list. A list of things I got mad at my mom for, when it turned out she was right.

A list of things she warned me about, but I did anyway.

A list of things she didn't get to do or have so I could do or have what I wanted.

So here goes.

#1 — Cleaning for the cleaners.

Let's Get Serious: Ernest

[I know my blog is usually funny. But every once in a while, I need to get serious. This is one of those times.]

Ernest came into our lives when he panhandled outside the Georgia Pacific building downtown. Herb would try to help him out when he saw him. At first food only, never money. Because in our white, suburban eyes, people who said they were hungry but would only accept money were suspect.  But whether it was a hamburger or a pair of socks Ernest was always pleased, always happy.

After Wayne Gordon preached a message at Perimeter Church entitled, “Who Is My Neighbor?” Herb and I looked at each other and felt a tug from God. A call to minister to people in a depth of poverty we could not understand. Not knowing what to do and not ready to move the ghetto as Gordon had done, we felt stuck.

Then Ernest was laid heavily on our hearts. We may not be ready to help change a city, but there is a person we know of who could use help. We drove downtown and sought him out, unsuccessfully at first. Then he reappeared outside Turner Field after a Braves game. He lived in a dirt-floor room with no running water just a block away from that temple to baseball, at which I have been known to worship.

I'm a Halloweenie

Getting ready to TorT in the 'hood.

I don't know why I have such an issue with Halloween. I loved Halloween growing up. It was probably my favorite holiday after Christmas. My mother always dressed up like a witch, complete with her front tooth blacked out. She made up special bags with extra candy for my best friends when they stopped by. And my birthday is November 1, so I always had cool, Halloween-themed parties. Frequently friends would come over after trick or treating and spend the night if it happened to be on a weekend. (More on that later.)

[Side note: It was during these trick-or-treating years that I learned to like Special Dark chocolate bars. Back in the day there were not 20 million types of fun-size candies to hand out, so the Hershey's Miniatures bag was a staple. If you liked Special Dark, you could end up with a ton of extra candy without even having to trade for it. Win!]

As an adult, do I love Halloween still?

Um... Not so much.

Throwing in the Towel ... Literally

My husband cleaned up the minions' rooms last night. He got tired of them saying their room was clean and, frankly, it looking kind of clean-ish at first glance, only to find that looks can be deceiving.

These are the clothes that he found under beds, inside bedside table drawers, stuffed behind furniture, etc. [Important Side Note: We washed every stitch of their dirty clothes over the weekend. Or so we thought.]

Clean?

Dirty?

A lot of each?

Big Brothers Rock

I don't know if you've been following the story about Hannah Graham on the news. She is a second-year student at the University of Virginia — my alma mater.

[I say "is" intentionally. I will continue to say "is" until I know for sure otherwise.]

She went missing two weeks ago — Saturday, September 13 — after leaving a house party. Alone.

I don't know all of the details of Hannah Graham's disappearance.
I don't know why no one went with her when she left the party.
I don't know how long after her 1 a.m. text saying, "I am lost" her friends alerted someone in authority.
I don't know how she ended up with a stranger on the Downtown Mall.

Some of these things may never be known unless and until she is found alive.

What I do know is this: alone is dangerous.

My App-alling Life

Recently my youngest, Jordan, had a hissy fit. A good old-fashioned throwdown over his Kindle. Or, rather, over the fact that he no longer had his Kindle.

You see, he had gone into my bedroom — without asking permmission — looking for a charging cord. Instead of asking for help, he decided to unplug my iPhone cord and take it to his room to see if it would work.

It didn't. And he never bothered to return it.

So when he was informed that he would not have his Kindle for a while, he lost his ever-lovin' mind. Bless his heart. 

Your Body Told Me

There are lots of things about parenting that aren't in the handbook. I mean, if there were a handbook. And even if there were, some things just wouldn't be in it.

I learned one of those things from my son's violin teacher. Miss Keiko has no children of her own, but has raised a lot of violin students. Some have been with her for more than a decade. When they go off to college, they still talk to her. She loves that.

Enter Joshua. He started taking lessons with her when he was four years old.

Joshua, age 4, at violin with Miss Keiko

When he was four, her biggest challenge with him was keeping him vertical. He would roll around on the floor, interrupt her constantly, and participate in this stream-of-consciousness conversation that he can really carry on entirely by himself. I don't know where he gets it...Oh, look! There's a birdie!

"We Make a Lotta Rules"

My son looked contemplatively at his lunch today. Then he spoke slowly and thoughtfully.

"We make a lotta rules, don't we?"

I stepped out of the laundry room cautiously. I did NOT want to have this conversation right now. You know the schtick. The conversation bout how rules are important, especially when running a house full of boys, a dog, four cats, and assorted other critters and kids.

About how God gives us rules to help keep us safe and help us make wise choices.

And about how parents are charged with doing the same for our children.

So I decided to tread cautiously.

"What do you mean, buddy? How do we make a lot of rules?"

"Well..."

Titan, RIP, after his swim in the neighborhood pool.

He hesitated.

It's May: Let's Make a Deal

Last year, Jen Hatmaker wrote an amazingly wonderful blog post about being the Worst End of School Mom Ever. By taking off the mask and revealing this about herself, all of the rest crappy May Moms have breathed a sigh of relief, given each other the knuckle bump of solidarity, and aired our End of Year dirty laundry to one another.

It has truly been cathartic.

The one thing that Jen's post did not include was a true remedy for this problem. Therefore, I have a deal to propose. It's a deal between teachers and parents. And if necessary, we can get school administration involved. But let's do what we can to keep them out of it, shall we? This can be our little secret.

It's Da' Bomb

Thursday evening was earth-shaking at our house.

Literally.

My youngest had been out with his dad at a Beekeeper's Club meeting and got home just before 9pm. Older bro was already in bed. In bed, but not asleep.

Younger bro walked into their shared bathroom to get ready for bed and closed the door. Seconds later...

BOOM!

I come racing out of the kitchen and yell up the stairs. "Jordan? What WAS that??"

Mastering the Silent Scream

Last night I learned how to execute the perfect silent scream.

Art credit: unknown

It's not that hard, really. Just watch your child's heart break, then lie on the floor next to his bed and wrestle with God without waking your child.

You see, I have a sweet, funny, kind, loving, tender-hearted 8 1/2yo boy who wets the bed at night. He had no problems learning to stay dry during the day, and actually did that quicker and earlier than any of his brothers. But he struggles with nighttime mightily.

For the longest time, he was OK with it. Not embarrassed. It was just a part of his life. They made pull-ups in his size, so obviously he wasn't alone. We've tried several times before to fix it, to no avail. Alarms, hormone replacement, a half-hearted attempt at chiropractic care. Nothing has worked. So we continued to wait.

But with two weeks of sleep-away camp looming in July, he decided he wanted to get serious about it over spring break. It's just the two of us at home for 10 days, so I've been sleeping on his floor in a sleeping bag, waking him when I hear him stir at night so he can go to the bathroom. Each night before bed, we give this problem over to God and ask for his help. For him to help Jordan wake up, stay dry, or both.