Free Work?

The same week the boys were at my grandparents, my grandpa was doing some tractor work for a neighbor. He had knocked down a tree branch and scattered pine cones. Anyone that knows my grandpa knows that he would never leave pine cones all over someone's yard. So, he gathered up the boys and took them to pick up pine cones. They had only been working a minute when Charlie looked up at my grandpa and asked, "Now, are you getting paid for this, or are you doing this for free?"

Violent Television

About a month ago the boys went to spend a few days with my grandparents on the farm. The first night my grandma told them to go to bed. An hour later she went to check on them. Henry was almost in tears because Charlie would not allow him to go to sleep. Charlie was laughing and jumping on things having a grand old time. My grandma had Henry move to another room and eventually all was quiet.

The next morning, bright and early, Henry came upstairs. He ate toast and cereal and was ready for the day. An hour or so later, my grandma went to wake Charlie, who was still hung-over from his night of fun. Food was the last thing on his mind, but my grandma made him sit up to the counter and tried to feed him. He said to her, "I don't know why I can't go to sleep. I think it is because at home I watch TV at night and I watch A LOT of violence. It just keeps me awake." I know Mark and I are not the best parents, we are the first to admit we probably don't supervise things as much as we should. In fact I don't think I have been down to the basement this week. I had no idea that is why Charlie will never go to bed (I thought it was that he was thirsty, or had to go the bathroom, or his brothers were asleep and he was bored....) Apparently, he is watching extremely violent television and that is keeping him awake. I guess he had better go find some new parents that actually supervise their children and then maybe he will be able to sleep.

Deep Thoughts by Charlie Wolthuis

"Mom, where does jam come from?"

"This jam comes from raspberries from Grandma's garden."

"Mom, where do raspberries come from?"

A little more impatiently, "From plants."

"Plants come from seeds. Did Jesus invent seeds?"

"Yeah, he invented a few things."

Safety Guy

Mark is safe. Mark is very safe. I tend to be a little more relaxed when it comes to things like crossing the street, water, seatbelts... Maybe it is because Mark grew up on the East Coast and in a bigger city. They had to be safe. I on the other hand grew up in Idaho. I was driving trucks, tractors, and motorcycles (not dirt bikes), by the time I was ten. We are a little more laid back here in the West. All of our kids inherited Mark's tendency towards safety, which is not a bad thing, most of the time.

Our kids are at the family cabin in Utah this week. On Monday night I talked to Mark's mom and she told me about their cabin adventures. Apparently, Charlie had a chance to go down the river on a tube, but he insisted he couldn't do it without a life jacket. Understandable. Charlie is not that great of a swimmer. After the river fun they decided to go down to the zip-line the neighbors put in. A real zip-line. Jack went by himself. Henry went with his uncle. Charlie thought about going, but insisted he must have a parachute.

Derbying

Mark, I mean, Jack, won the stake pinewood derby today. I don't think that many people showed up, but Mark made it his life's work to get someone there, so they would actually hold the thing. He wanted to test out the "modifications" he had made so he would know how to plan for next year, as Jack placed in the top 10 in our ward, but apparently that is not quite good enough. Since we do not own our own track, although I would not be suprised if that is in our future, the only way to test these changes was to enter the stake pinewood derby. They had had little interest, so Mark made calls, e-mailed, and recruited anyone that would take 2 hours out of their Saturday to enter. All his effort was worth it, Jack's car won, but more importantly set a new track record. With tomorrow as a day of rest, I am sure we will begin the engineering process for next year on Monday.

RIP

We went to the cemetery today to visit my dad's grave. As we were walking throught the cemetery the boys were pointing out gravestones they liked and names that were the same as theirs. As we were standing around talking to my mom and my grandparents Henry piped up, "I want to be buried in a creepy graveyard, not a cemetery." Okay, I thought. "I also want to have a white gravestone that looks old and I want it to say RIP in big letters."

Way to plan ahead, I will let your wife know.

Presidential Hair

My kids have been bugging Mark to cut their hair for a couple of weeks. If their hair starts to get at all what they think is "long," they start to worry they are going to look like a girl. Their hair could be an inch and a half long and they freak out, "I am going to look like a girl! Cut it!!!" Girl is a bad word in our house.

The other day Charlie and I were in the kitchen together. He looked up at me and out of the blue said, "I need a haircut." I thought he was going to make a comment about looking like a girl, but that was not on his mind that day. "If I don't get these things cut off (he pointed to his sideburns) I am going to look like Abraham Lincoln."

Jack the Trainer

As usual, I was complaining about my weight (I would always like to lose some). I was talking about how I exercise, but nothing seems to change. Jack volunteered, "I could be your personal trainer." I looked at him and wanted to laugh so badly, but he I could see he wasn't quite finished. "But, I can tell you that it isn't going to be easy," he said. "I watch the Biggest Loser."

Rotten Brains

Henry and Charlie have been home sick ALL week! Needless to say they have been playing a lot of video games. I told them to come upstairs so we could go to Redbox and get a movie. Charlie said, "Do you want us to stop playing our video games because if we keep playing we will rot our brains out?" When I asked Charlie where he heard that he said Jack told him. Jack is the last person I would take rotten brain advice from.

"Yeah, you have been playing too many this week," I said.

Henry grumbled, not thinking I could hear, "So we're going to watch a movie instead, like that isn't going to rot our brains out."

Charlie put his hand up on his forehead (they have had fevers, so he continously checks his head) and said, "I think my brain is already rotten."

Goood Food

Our kids have been in Utah visiting Mark's parents for a week! They had a ton of fun (our kids, I can't speak for the grandparents). When Jack got in our car at the site of the "pick up" he proclaimed, "We had gooood food at Grandma's."

"As opposed to what?" I asked.

"It was just really good. I really liked everything we ate. I wasn't picky and Grandma didn't make anything weird."

"What are you implying?" I asked.

He started to get a little nervous, "I am just saying it was really good. It was normal, not weird. It was good. It was really good and I ate all of it. I didn't mean to offend you."

Too late, already offended! I know cooking is not my strong suit, I am much better at mowing the lawn, but I wouldn't say my food is prison fare. I would even say it is usually a notch above cafeteria dining. But, apparently sometimes it is weird and not very good. It is too bad for dinner I made some disgustingly weird roast beef and horrible chocolate cake. I guess I will just have to eat it myself!

Quickly Who Obeys?

As I was asking, then begging, then screaming at my children to do something for me today, the thought came to mind, who wrote that song? "When my mother calls me, quickly I'll obey." Obviously, the person that wrote those words never had any children and skipped straight from infancy to adulthood themselves. I have never witnessed any child quickly obey and if your children do so, please post your methods in the comments section as I could really use some parenting advice. I have found in my experience as both a child and a mother that children will quickly obey for the following 3 reasons:

1. They are sucking up and are hoping to get something from their compliance. In my house that usually entails having a friend over to play and our exchange will sound something like, "Can you do this for me?" "Oh yes mommy, I would love to do that for you. I love helping you so much, in fact I think it is my favorite thing to do." And then almost like the subliminal messages you hear when you play the Beatles records backwards, "Can I have a friend over?" It is so quick, so subversive, that my "Uh-huh" response is usually done without forethought as to what the consequences will be for answering that way. Since I have all boys there is usually mud, fighting, and some sort of bodily fluid involved in those consequences.

2. You are enforcing the secret pinch. My children are not perfect, so I rarely take them out in public because I am smarter than my mother. My mother would cart all 5 of us off to the store with her. Since she was clearly outnumbered to keep us from adding expensive sugar-filled items to the cart or from screaming things out like, "Stop beating me!" she would employ the secret pinch. You all know the secret pinch. It is a pinch so deadly that it will can make any unruly, tantrum-throwing child obey. All a mother has to do is grab the skin on your upper arm and pinch all the while steering the child in the direction she wants him or her to go and voila! instant obedience. The thing about the secret pinch is that no one else can see that you are being tortured and if you scream for help your mother can let go so quickly that everyone will just think you are a bratty child looking for attention. It is the perfect secret weapon used by all mothers, even the ones that pretend they would never do it.

3. You are screaming, crying, and threatening to tell their dad. You know you've said it, "Just WAIT 'til your dad gets home." I don't know what my husband would do if I did tattle. I would like to think it would be something grand and it would end with my children making their beds and vacuuming the stairs all while singing, "I Love Mother." But, I can't imagine that 5 hours later he would be so upset that his wrath would be worth the threat. We as moms know that it is really code for, "I have tried everything to get you to do what I am asking and since I am out of options, I AM GOING TO TELL YOUR DAD." We really must give our kids more credit, they know we are going to forget, that some much larger crisis (like what to make for dinner) will consume us long before dad really gets home.

I am calling on all Primary music choiristors to ban this song. Because when our children are standing up on the stand on Mother's Day singing wholeheartedly how they will quickly obey, we know they are lying. They cannot possibly keep this promise. Or maybe they could sing,"When my mother calls me, first I will ignore,then I will just scream and cry, curse at her, then scream more."

That "Dam" Thing

A couple of weekends ago we went to Mark's parents' house to visit, to go to our nephew's farewell, and so I could get my fingerprints taken in the state of Utah. Hmm... curious now, huh? My kids told me grandma told them to bring their snow boots, but I figured they were making things up- they weren't. There was a lot of snow! My mother-in-law bought some sleds and Henry and Charlie had a blast sliding down the sidewalk next to the house and the "garden lot" my in-laws own. The sleds were starting to get a little torn up on the bottom, so my in-laws built a wall at the bottom of the hill so they kids wouldn't go flying onto the driveway and cement tearing up their sleds. We were in the house and all of a sudden we hear someone screaming. We ran outside where we found a very upset Charlie. During the course of the day the sled path turned into a luge track- pure ice. Charlie came flying down and hit the wall. He was crying, "I hit that dam(n) thing. I hit that dam(n) thing!" It was all we could do to keep from cracking up and he just kept saying it over and over. The kids had named the wall, the dam, and although we knew he didn't know what he was saying we couldn't help but chuckle.

Later on in the house Charlie was sitting on the counter helping make cookies. He chatters about random things, so I have a hard time concentrating on everything he says. As he was going on about hitting the wall he said with a very sly smile, "Hey Mom, is dam(n) a bad word?" It reminded me of when I used to ride my bike on the canal bank to 7 Eleven. It was very quiet and no one was ever around, so I would say all the swear words I knew (I was probably about 10). I'm sure if anyone saw me they would have assumed I had a mental deficiency, because it is not everyday you see a 10 year old on a pink ten-speed, talking to herself, swearing like a sailor. So, I can relate to Charlie. Sometimes, you just have to get it out!

Wiseman

My friend called me today after church just to tell me about Jack. Apparently he has life figured out. In the children's sunday school an adult asked, "What is the dad's job?" There were several answers, but Jack had it right when he said, "To cater to whatever the mom wants." The adult then asked, "What is the job of the kids?" Again Jack had an answer, "To go to the basement and be quiet." Ahh... so wise. Won't he be a good husband and father? I can just hear it now, "Kids, go to the basement and be quiet so I can do whatever your mom wants me to do!"

Michael What-son?

I got in the car yesterday only to catch the end of a discussion between Henry and Jack.

Henry: "I think he's black."
Jack: "No, he's white."
Henry: "But, he looks kind of black."
Jack: "No, he looks white."
Me: "Who are you talking about?"
Boys: "Michael Jackson."

They wanted to know if he was black or white to which I didn't have a great answer. So, I explained that he was born black, but had surgery so he looks white. To which Charlie, in all his six year old wisdom said, "Like Grandma Mouse Book (Mark's mom). She has gray hair, but she buys this stuff and puts it in a bottle and it makes her hair red."

Yeah, Charlie, kind of like that.