Suburban (in)Sanity

An essential kit for running away when you're 7

Brought to you by my very own precocious 7 year old, who wanted to run away after a disappointment this past weekend.

 

Anastasia's Essential Runaway Kit:

• One fluffy owl
• The Night Fairy book
• Flyte book
• Some Littlest Pet Shop easy reader that she's way too advanced for but asked for for Christmas
• Toys Go Out, signed edition (this represented the majority of the books she received for Christmas.)
• One pink bunny-eared silky blanky with a rattley head, affectionately known round here at these here parts as "Bibi" (pronounced BEE-bee.)
• All packed up in a little red toolbox from the playroom

Hearts broken: 1 (only mine)

Daughters reclaimed before running away into the cold: 1

My secret method for stalling the runaway? Pointing out that it was terribly cold and the pets wouldn't be able to come with (and thus would be home moping because they missed her.)

 

Insulting one's mother...

The other morning, while I was about to make waffles for the ungrateful brats I mean precious wee little ones, the younger of the pair (younger and more attitudinal, it should be said) was being sassy about something. It is a humorous point to the story that I have no idea what she was being sassy about, just that sassiness was directed toward and experienced by me.

So I, being the Infinite Goddess of Patient Mommyhood, gave her an additional chore to do. I have no idea what, some kind of cleaning task in the kitchen that she likely had caused the need for anyway.

And while her Enlightened Sassiness was doing said chore, with no complaints mind you, she said, "Well, I guess that's what you get for insulting your mother!"

Yes, indeed. [1]

[1] You leetle sheet. [2]

[2] Just kidding [3]

[3] Love ya, mean it. [4]

[4] No, I wasn't tempted to tag this post with the Wine category. Nope.

The band-aid thief

 
So I have been sneaking into my daughter's room at night to do band-aidectomies. Someone please tell me I'm not the only one who must do this under cover of darkness, seeing as how she gets herself worked up into a frenzy over the mere idea of a band-aid being removed. She has actually *asked* me to sneak in and take them off while she sleeps.

But it reminded me of the days when they were babies and to trim their fingernails I had to wait until they were asleep, or suffer the torture that is a tiny baby's wail (and subsequent ruptured eardrums and stress levels requiring medical intervention.)

And then there's all the other things we do with the kids to get through these minor medical ... situations. I can't tell you how many funny stories about loose-tooth-assistance I've heard. Shots of whiskey, pliers, tying the tooth to a door and slamming it shut. Eek! I of course rock in the loose-tooth department. Nephew came to the dinner table last summer at a big family gathering complaining because his loose tooth hurt. His mother recoiled. She's squeamish like that. I, being the awesome aunt who is occasionally not squeamish (just never about worms. I'm ALWAYS going to wig out at the presence of worms and worm-like things. Almost had to leave the pet food store yesterday when the person helping us put a nice big see-through box of live bait on the counter so she could help us. I rearranged myself so she was between me and the box so I didn't have to look at it, and then practiced my deep breathing. I survived, you'll be glad to know.)

At any rate - back to me being an awesome aunt. I called him over. The tooth was hanging by a thread. I grabbed a dinner napkin and - DINK! Tooth came right out in my hand. He was thrilled, ran right off to play with his cousins. Sister and I sat in shock for a moment. A tooth was delivered. All was right in the universe.

Childproof caps that aren't so childproof

Anastasia just demonstrated for me her skill in opening the child-proof cap on her antibiotic (for a streplike thing she caught last week that we keep forgetting to give her.)

It's astonishing. It doesn't take her any longer than it takes me. She knows just how to push down at the beginning, then twist. She even did this while sporting a lollipop in the other hand.

Liam can do this too, but you know he's got 2+ years on her (and only figured it out in the last 6 mos.) Um. Eek.

The difference between boys and girls

So we were taking Riley (Anastasia's best friend's big sister, she's Liam's age) to gymnastics the other day. We were talking about types of birds because it was a nice spring day and birds were flying around.

The kids unwittingly gave me a great example of the difference between boys and girls.

We were talking about hawks, and wondering where they live. We decided they lived in the forest in tall trees, then each kid was taking a turn justifying their reasons for thinking this.

Riley went first. "I think hawks live in forest high high up in the trees where they wont' be bothered and they can have their babies."

Liam next. "Yeah. Also, there are a lot of other animals in the forest that the hawks can kill and eat for food."

Ah. Boys. They just look at the world differently.

Experiential learning

I have just recently noticed this odd behavior Anastasia has with movies and shows she watches. She seems compelled, almost driven, to experience something similar to what she is seeing on the TV. So, for instance, last week when she was watching Sesame Street Visits the Fire Station (a video I highly recommend as it's still interesting lo these 3 years later...) I discovered she fished the fireman's jacket out of the bottom of the dress-up trunk to wear while watching the show.

When watching Sabrina the Animated Series, it was lip gloss.

But the real problem came when she was watching Cinderella. Because she needed to mop. Just like, you guessed it, Cinderella. With water and everything. Have I mentioned how the family room floor is carpeted? Thick shag carpet. Wall to wall.

You know they're not sick anymore when...

Anastasia had the flu last week. Yes, the real one that's called influenza, the one that kills some tens of thousands of people each year, that one. Yikes. Luckily hers seemed a mild case. I was surprised at the contrast once she got better, though. I knew she was better when she argued with me more-or-less all day on Thursday. Mostly about the mop. Mean mommy wouldn't let her mop. More on that in the next post.

Go ahead, you figure out how to answer these questions

I don't know why, but this week Liam is just full of "where did all the people come from?" kinds of questions. It's killing me. We are lapsed (really seriously lapsed) Catholics and don't do much God talk, but I do like to point out that there are different things that people believe. Grandma and Granpda believe that Uncle PJ lives in heaven now. Mommy's not really sure there is such a place as heaven, but it sure sounds nice, a nice safe place where you can be happy and together with people you love (except this one incongruous thing about heaven that's always bugged me - you couldn't be with the non-dead people you loved! At least not until they die.)

Anyway - so tonight had me explaining in rough outline the concept of the big bang. A big huge mass of matter. Kerplouie. Many gazillions of years (he often uses the term "googol plus" to refer to one, followed by one hundred zeros, plus. Or infinity plus.) Some of the dust made earth, the moon. He helpfully filled in that some must have made the sun, jupiter, and even <snicker if you're my husband> uranus.

And then the mix of elements on earth (I introduced him to the concept of "primordial soup" - it was a banner day in motherhood for me) eventually led to conditions that were right for early living things to start coming into being. Then those evolved into larger things, which became larger things, then those larger things climbed out of the water, etc. etc.

This was after, mind you, we had the conversation about who were my parents, and who were my parents parents, and who were my parents parents parents. My family tree can be traced back to the 1300s in England, so this could get lengthy. I switched it around and ran from the big bang instead.

Anyway - what else would you add to a curious kid looking to unlock the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

Toothless McCoy Breaks My Heart

I noticed today that Liam's OTHER top tooth (not the front one, but the next one over to the right in this picture) is gone. Just gone. It has been loose, but...gone? Of course, it's some kind of sick irony because that front center tooth is just dangling and looks crazy all crooked. So, of course the one that was straight but loose *next* to crazy crooked tooth falls out.

The worst part?

We asked him when he lost it, figuring it happened sometime today - like maybe 10 minutes ago or something. No, no. Liam can pinpoint it exactly. It happened on Saturday.

Today is Tuesday.

WHAT?

He says it happened while eating a tasty Jimmy John's sub. He says after he bites into things with his teeth, he always checks it to see if the loose ones are still there, and that one went missing while we were driving to a birthday party and he was chowing down some sub. Four Days Ago!

Upon further interrogation, I mean gentle prodding to figure out how we managed to miss this momentous occasion - the fifth lost tooth - Liam tells us that he just didn't know he was supposed to tell his parents about it when he loses teeth. Huh? Like the ruckus we raised with each of the last teeth wasn't a dead giveaway, not to mention the hour we spent combing the beach to try to find the first lost tooth, which come to think of it, was also a victim of the sub sandwich. Note to self: Get Liam another sandwich so we can get rid of that front middle one at long last. But seriously, doesn't he know we have the Tooth Fairy's phone number? How does she know to drop in if he doesn't mention anything? Do you have that Parent of the Year Award over there? Go ahead and pass it my way.

Which got me wondering. Did we put each and every lost tooth under our pillows? Did the tooth fairy come each and every time? I grew up in a family of 5 kids. That's 100 teeth. That's a lot of teeth.  Gross.

One less tooth in the world

We just hope the other falls quickly, summer teeth are not attractive.
[1]

[1]Summer teeth = You know, some are here, some are there. It could be worse. We could live in West Virginia.