Quality Time

With the older two children safely (?) off at camp and Julie running off to help at Girl's camp for the day, I had the opportunity to spend quality one-on-one time with the youngest.  This started with her reading Mad-Libs to me while I found something to eat for dinner.  (She had already had something to eat at Grandma's.)  While we picked strawberries in the garden, she explained her dislike for grasshoppers (they have creepy eyes) and spiders (some are large and poisonous, and Grandma is afraid of spiders and there was this movie that her friend had seen...).  She also explained how she and her siblings had "discussions" about whether or not some strawberries were ready to pick or not.  (Julie ended the discussion by determining the "white part" microscopic and that the berry was in fact ripe enough for picking.)  This was followed by a dissertation on animal cruelty supported by a recitation of key plot points from Black Beauty.

When we finished picking berries, we went inside to sweep the floor.  While I manned the broom, she explained how she would have shared her Reese's peanut butter cups with me, but she only had two.  And "they are sacred."  We then took turns doing Mad-Libs as I tidied up the kitchen and made popcorn.  Based on her reaction, the best Mad-lib involved Taylor Swift stealing my fecal matter. Then we took the popcorn, two cans of Shasta Root Beer, two Red Vines licorice straws, and a blanket to the basement where we watched a Harry Potter movie.

We both agreed that everyone else should go to camp more often.

(I had to buy some Reese's peanut butter cups today.  If I only have two left, I won't be sharing, either.  I feel the same way: they are sacred.)

Out of Order Thoughts

1) I'm grateful for Google's new blogging statistics.  I now know how pointless it is for me to blog.

2) Watching one child prepare for girl's camp and another prepare for high adventure camp, I was reminded again of the difference between boys and girls.  One printed a checklist of items, carefully gathered each item two days in advance, made sure everything was labeled, and kept asking questions in the form of declarative statements: see how this shirt matches the scrubs we made.  The other spent time thinking about packing while playing video games, cramming random items into his school backpack, and repeatedly said things like, "uh" or "ugh" to questions like, did you go through the checklist? and don't you think you should use the backpacking pack instead?  We also got an "oh" when asked if he thought about things like a flashlight or toothbrush.  (For those fluent in "grunt," my response to all of this child's camping preparations was "hmmm.")

3) On our last family visit to the library, a stumbled upon a DVD of what I declared to be the Worst Cartoon Ever: Gem and the Holograms.  Julie agreed it was terrible, but thought it was no worse than G.I. Joe.  I responded that while G.I. Joe wasn't great, it wasn't the worst.  I mean the lasers never hit anything, the plots never changed, and knowing was half the battle.  I then conceded that it was a legitimate candidate.  We then discussed the lack of any merit and value to Thunder Cats (Snarf?!), Voltron and several others before Julie struck a nerve:

Julie: "..and then there's G-Force (Battle of the Planets)."

Me: "No, you can't even mention G-Force is this conversation.  It has too much pure awesomeness.  It was one of the first Japanese anime cartoons.  Any friend or relative of any member of G-Force introduced at the beginning of the episode would be dead by the end. Mark, Jason, Princess, Tiny & Kee-ops all had cool vehicles.  There is far to much, muchness and awesomeness for G-Force to even be in this conversation." 

Julie: "I always wanted to be Jason 'cause he had the cool race car." 

Me: "He was the rebel." 

Julie: "Yah.  I always had to be Princess." 

That settled it.  G-Force is not on this list. Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, Calliou - all are worthy contenders, but G-Force is too awesome.

The Truth Comes Out

Child #0 was forced to get his own e-mail address and blog earlier this year as part of his English class (it's called "Language Arts" now, but that's giving them far too much credit). Child #0 now considers himself an expert on blogging and after reviewing my blog posts surmised that I "blog about the problems of evil children" and left out the "problems of evil parents." I told him he could take up that cause in his blog, but that I would be reading it and I still control his access to a computer. (This is not censorship; up until recently this has worked for many despotic regimes in the Middle East.)

This lead to a robust discussion of all of the various things I had blogged about over the past couple of years. To wit: when an assignment is due the next morning and you haven't started it, the most effective strategy is to endure the lectures on responsibility, hard work & video games; make a very poor showing of it with minimal effort; and wait for the irate parent to say "Let me show you how I would do it" or if they are very angry, "Here." Then simply copy exactly what they say as an example.

Child #0 assures me that this is a very effective strategy. He also reminded me of the time earlier this year when he put off a history report until ten minutes before the bus arrived. (He got an A-.) The moral of the story? Give yourself at least fifteen minutes.

Child #0 has requested that I provide a link to his blog, which I will do in the interest of journalistic balance and in keeping with the "fairness" doctrine. I'm not sure that will help. He is my best argument.

Phases of the Moon

You may recall that some time ago, a certain child stayed up very late working on a last minute, stop-motion animation project about Planet X. Apparently the 6th grade science teacher, who Sarah now has, has decided that stop-motion animation is an accepted medium for completing assignments, in no small part to the aforementioned project.

Sarah, of course, opted for the stop-animation project. And not to be outdone by her brother, Sarah asked that her project be posted on this blog. I would like to point out that her assignment had much more planning, preparation, revision, and editing, and it still allowed her to get to bed a couple of hours earlier than her brother without needing to get up early to finish the written portion of the assignment.

Here it is: Phases of the Moon

Another Surprise - With Apologies to Paul Harvey

The rest of concert night:

8:14 - Julie sends the following text: “Waited in line for 1 hour, nearly got crushed, gave up on t-shirts for now...I’ll try to go down during show for girls.”

8:30 - I pick up Jordan from his Robotics club-thing meeting. Only one row of Julie’s zucchini brownies that I frosted are left in the 9x13 pan.

8:35 - Jordan & I sit down for the rest of a movie that we started a few months ago - the last time all of the girls were gone: The Two Towers.

8:45 - Julie heads back into the fray in search of concert t-shirts. Still crowded, but no fear of being trampled.

9:25 - Julie gets the last youth t-shirt for Katie and finds an adult small for Sarah.

9:50 - Katie is fading fast, “Mom, it’s just like home when I can’t go to sleep.” Except for the 20,000 females screaming “She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts. She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers, dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you’re looking for has been here the whole time.”

10:00 - Jordan goes to bed. I start doing a few of the things I was suppose to do while the girls were at the concert.

10:37 - I send Julie a text, “Did you survive? Is it over?”

10:38 - “Encores...Katie’s not making it.”

10:57 - Julie calls, “We are finally in the car. Katie was fully awake for the final encore, ‘Love Story,’ [her favorite song]. I don’t think Sarah sat down at all during the whole show. Actually, I don’t know that anyone sat down the entire concert.”

11:45 - Girls finally get home. Sarah talks for at least five minutes straight without breathing.

11:55 - Sarah and Katie are in bed. Julie tries a brownie.

11:56 - “What recipe did you use for this frosting” The one you told me to use. “How much cocoa did you put in?” 1 cup. “What?! The recipe calls for 1/3 cup” Oh. I must have been distracted. “How much sugar did you put in?” 1 cup.

11:57 - Julie is speechless and goes to bed. I re-read the recipe: 1 cube butter, 2/3 cup cocoa, 3 cups powdered sugar, 1/3 cup milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Huh, two for five: I didn’t put in any of the vanilla either. None of the flatulent bunnies seemed to mind.

Apparently, next time, I get to go to the concert. And that, with apologies to Paul Harvey, is the rest of the story.

Surprise! Surprise!

Several months ago, Julie & I decided to surprise our girls and purchase tickets to the Taylor Swift concert in Salt Lake City. As our non-girl child had heard enough Taylor Swift to create various mash-up parodies, to both express his desire to never hear a Taylor Swift song again and to annoy his sisters (mostly annoy his sisters), we decided not to buy him a ticket. That meant only one parent would "get" to go to the concert.

Fast forward to tonight, concert night.

6:30 - Julie leaves to pick-up Katie from her drama class and Sarah from a birthday party, neither of which are suppose to end until 7pm. I start making frosting for the brownies that Jordan must take to his Robotics club-thing meeting. (It's some sort of competition. The team name is "The Flying Flatulent Bunnies." The parent-coach didn't know what flatulent meant, but assumed it was better than the Flying Farting Bunnies. Jordan suggested the change.)

6:45 - Julie and the girls are on the freeway. Sarah believes that she is going to her drama class. She has not noticed that they are going in the opposite direction of the drama class. I am trying to decide whether I can use margarin instead of butter in the frosting recipe (I learned last time that you can't always do that). If I have to use butter, I will need to go back downstairs and get some out of the freezer. I decide that would be too much work, besides, what do a bunch of Flying Flatulent Bunnies care if the frosting is made from butter or margarin?

6:55 - Julie is looking for parking. Katie and Sarah trying to figure out why it is taking so long to get to drama class. I drop Jordan off at his club-thing. I ask if it is customary for adults to stay for the whole thing or just drop off their FF Bunny and leave. Jordan shrugs his shoulders. I leave.

7:00 - The concert is suppose to start at 7. I call Julie. She has parked. Katie has taken off her shoes. Julie tells her to hurry. Sarah asks what kind of errand requires them to hurry.

7:10 - Sarah and Katie see Energy Solutions Arena (f.k.a the Delta Center) and are upset. "You're taking us to a BASKETBALL GAME!"

7:15 - Sarah and Katie see large trailers with super-sized pictures of certain pop-star. Euphoric pandemonium erupts.

7:16 - Sarah calls me. "Dad, Dad, WE ARE GOIN TO TAYLOR SWIFT!! Ican'twaittotellallofmyfreinds." Has the concert started? "No, the ticket guy said we didn't have to hurry because it’s just cover bands until Taylor Swift starts at 8:30 and she will play for TWO WHOLE HOURS! Are you coming too?" No, no I'm not. "Oh, that’s too bad." Yes, yes it is. "Isn't Mom lucky?" Yes, very lucky.

7:45 - I start blogging. I have another thirty minutes until I have to go pick up a Flying Flatulent Bunny.

The World Has Gone Crazy

It snowed today. I drove to work in a blizzard. It’s May 24th. I was sustained as the second counselor in our ward Bishopric yesterday. Related? I think so.

Sarah's first words to me after sacrament meeting were, "Dad, does this mean you're old now?"

I asked who had put her up to this and she looked at me funny. "Dad you're the one who always said that people go up on the stand when they are old enough to sleep through meetings."

I'm sure those weren't my exact words.

After a long day yesterday, I was chatting with Jordan and talking a little bit about the changes my new assignment will mean for our family. I asked him if he had any questions.

“Why didn’t we have dessert?”

At least some things never change.