The schedule of a five year old is as hectic as my lunch break

My son had a friend over yesterday evening, which is fairly uncommon on a weeknight. Even more uncommon was the fact that his guest stayed until after 10:00PM.

The friend's family was in the process of moving, so the friend came to play while hubby helped them move.

What do two five year olds do for a five hour playdate, you might ask?

1. Make pretend meals while waiting for pizza to arrive
2. Eat pizza. Our guest did not eat apple peels, so his apple wedges all ended up with half circles of fruit missing from them, from the cautious bites he took, attempting to avoid the peel. He also did not eat peels from cucumbers, so I had to cut those off. My son decided that was a good idea, so I cut his off, too.
3. Make Play-Doh cheeseburgers
4. Put on a presentation of Star Wars for me, including integrated pretend karate kicks
5. Play something in the basement (I didn't get a report on that)
6. Take about a mile and a half walk (During which a neighbor asked "When did you get another kid?" I laughed, then realized he was looking at me expectantly for an answer. He's just visiting, yo. Although adopting a child my son's age for a built-in playmate? Brilliant idea.)
7. Play a game of Uno
8. Play upstairs
9. Watch a show
10. Have me read 12 books to them (An hour of reading. wow. It was 9:00 by then, and I think they were happy to be relaxing)
11. Play happy meal video games

All the time I could tell my son was exhausted, but everytime I suggested they go lay down, neither would admit they were tired.

The second the friend's dad arrived? "I'm tired. Can we go home?"

My son was asleep practically before they pulled out of the driveway.

Burger, anyone?

Play-Doh is so much fun. My mom was (probably still is) a no messy toys sort of person. I know I had some Play-Doh growing up, but opportunities to use it were few and far between.

Personally, I don't find it that hard to clean up, and if I find some Play-Doh in the carpet three days later, no big deal.

Growing up I always wanted the haircut Play-Doh set. I don't know if they still make it, but there was a big head, and you cranked "hair" out of the top and cut it. I think there was also a dentist one that looked really cool.

When I was given the opportunity to receive and review the Play-Doh Burger Builder with my son, I was so excited. The box came in a Play-Doh backpack, which we donated to my son's daycare's school supply drive.

We have had so much fun making burgers, fries, chips, and toppings with this.

My son says the best parts are the handles that you crank down to press the burger, tomato, pickle, lettuce and onion shapes. His overall opinion of the toy? "It's awesome!" There is also a little contraption that is used to crank out chips. The chips kind of fly out, so you have to watch where you direct it.

There are two templates full of little shapes that can be used to squirt out fries, spaghetti, carrot shavings...Whatever your imagination comes up with!

We have been trying really hard to keep the colors from getting mixed, so we can continue making realistic looking creations. We plan to get out some of our other Play-Doh that's all mixed up so we can make some really funky looking creations.

My only concern at all with this toy is that the larger handle, used to press out fries, seems like it's made of a fairly thin plastic, and I am interested to see how it withstands lots of the harder pushes needed to crank out the fries.

Overall? We are absolutely thrilled with this toy. My son has plans to use it with a friend who is coming over tonight! He said I can be the person who orders the food. :-)

We interrupt this post for a to do list that keeps growing

Things have been hectic and a little off lately. I've not been motivated to actually formulate a post in the last few days, and based on the way today is shaping up, I think I'm just going to have to give you a list.

1. I went to the nail salon yesterday that wanted to order Avon, but it was the wrong nail salon. However, a customer at that salon asked for a brochure. I went to the correct salon, and the potential customer sat down with me with 10 minutes worth of questions, then had to get back to her customer. I am planning to return today for the rest of her questions.

2. My to do list for lunch time today was as follows:
a. stop home to check on something quick for hubby
b. return to nail salon
c. deliver brochures because campaign ends in 2 days, and unexpected events over the last 2 weeks have put me behind

3. As a result of accidentally leaving my purse in car hubby drove today, my to do list for lunch now also includes:
d. stop at hubby's work to get purse
e. stop at grocery store to buy apples that I couldn't get before work because I didn't have my purse

4. I just got an email saying we have two overdue CDs at the library. They were returned on Thursday. I know this because I am anal about returning library items on time, and I always check them off the receipt.

5.
f. contact library to let them know the CDs have been returned

So maybe tomorrow the list will be smaller, and a less jumbled post will appear.

Update: Husband of the year award to be given to hubby, who just brought me my purse, saving me about 10 minutes at lunch time!

So they DO deliver themselves

One thing about my whole Avon endeavor, it keeps me very busy. New brochures go out every two weeks, and I try to deliver them on my lunch break, without eating up my entire lunch break (no pun intended), so it takes several days. Now that I am actually building a customer base, deliveries also have to be made. It's a pretty constant cycle of labeling brochures, delivering brochures, packaging orders, delivering orders. Which is fine, as that is exactly what I signed on to do. I'm definitely making a profit now, which is wonderful.

So, one might say, when I have a pile of brochures waiting to be delivered, "I'd better get those delivered. They won't deliver themselves, you know!"

Or will they?

I had a message on our answering machine from a nail salon that I have never heard of: "You left an Avon brochure here, and some of the people here would like to place an order..."

I looked up the place in the phone book (yes, I still use a phone book from time to time), and I had never left a brochure anywhere in the strip mall where the place is located.

Therefore, assuming that my brochures have not sprouted legs and begun delivering themselves, someone left one there. Maybe someone who found it on their door and decided that while they did not need anything, maybe someone else did? I think that's just awesome...If I found something on my door that I didn't want, it would go in the recycling, not to the nail salon. Then again, I don't go to a nail salon...

I don't know. Whoever did it, that was awfully nice. I'd thank you...But I don't know who you are.

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My son watched The Flintstones via our cable company's on demand service yesterday.

If this statement from Fred doesn't date the show considerably, I don't know what does:

"Wilma! Where's dinner? When I get home, I expect dinner to be on the table!"

Heh. At our house, dinner is rarely on the table when anyone gets home, and hubby probably cooks a couple dinners more a week than I do. Fred would drop me in a heartbeat.

That answers THAT question

I'm not always very patient, so it's not very surprising that I've been eagerly watching for notification of whether my son would be in AM or PM kindergarten, and which teacher he would have, so we could find out if he would be in the same class as one of the two children we know who are going to the same elementary school.

One by one, everyone we knew who would be entering kindergarten in the various local schools found out when their child would be going. One of the supervisors at our daycare informed me on Monday that she had received a bus list, and could tell us his class. She said it didn't indicate AM or PM, but she gave me a teacher name...which was not one of the kindergarten teachers. No big deal, I figured there were some staffing changes...

I was finally able to get ahold of someone at the school today, and asked them to check. She pulled his file, and asked, with a note of surprise "He's going into kindergarten?" I confirmed that yes, he was. She said "We have him going into first grade." Oops. She then chose a class to place him in, and he will be in the same class as one of his friends, so yay for that.

~~~~~~~

I asked to rearrange my work schedule in the fall so rather than use my 8 cut hours as a day off, I could leave early each day and pick my son up from school. I was given a tentative yes...Not because I might be getting my hours back soon, but with a strong hint that I might be losing more soon. Sigh.

With or without you

My son is going to a birthday party this weekend. He asked if hubby and I would be staying. When I told him no, his response? "I love it when I get to go to parties without you!" Um...thanks. :-) He also said he still likes when he goes to parties with us.

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Just for fun, I sent a quick email to the mom I was talking about yesterday. A friendly little email, mentioning upcoming kindergarten and young fives, and saying that I had heard that her son had tubes put in his ears recently, and hoped that everything was going well. I asked a question about something that would warrant an answer. No reply as yet. I guess if I never get a reply, then I know that there is indeed a problem. Would I attempt to do anything about it? Probably not. What would I say? "I'm sorry that it bothered you that I let you know that your son touched my son's shirt with a stick he had covered with poo?" I'm not having that conversation. If it prevents my son from being able to get together with this boy outside of school, I am sorry for that, but he sees him plenty at school, and has plenty of other friends whose parents don't have issues with such things that we can invite to get-togethers outside of school.

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Three weeks until kindergarten starts. Unbelievable. The next few weeks will be busy. We have a camping trip coming up. As soon as I find out if my son will be in morning or afternoon kindergarten, I will have to rearrange my work schedule again. There is no point in having a "special day off" while my son is at school, so I will probably either go in late or leave early every day instead so I can either pick him up or drop him off at school. That being said, my hours are showing no signs of being put back to 40. Oh well. I can't say I'm shocked.

The first time I ever alienated someone over poo on a stick

One day, over a month ago, my son came home from school, and after dinner, we all went to go in the backyard. I noticed a smell, and there happened to be poo on the bottom of my son's shoe. I asked him if he knew it was there, and he said that he had stepped on some dog poop on the playground at school.

As an aside, people walking their dogs on school playgrounds and neglecting to clean up after them is a whole other post.

For whatever reason, he had not let the teachers know about the poop. Whatever. Five year old boys have different priorities.

Anyway, my husband overheard this conversation and it made him ask another question: "I noticed you have a little dark stain on the back of your shirt."

My son immediately chimed in that was also dog poop, that a particular friend of his had poked the dog poop with a stick, and put it on his shirt.

After throwing up a little in my mind, I asked my son to change his shirt, then we talked about the situation. Apparently the friend had done it, my son asked him not to, he stopped, and no teachers were involved.

We cleaned up the shoes, and we let him know that in the future, he should probably let the teachers know if he even sees poop on the playground, and most certainly let them know if someone is playing with it.

Well, this boy is a close friend of my son's, and we've known the family for a few years, getting the kids together outside of school, etc...

So, I felt comfortable making a very friendly call to the boy's mom, just letting her know what had happened. Because if my son were doing things with poo on a stick? I would want to know.

She was very friendly in return, and said she would talk to him about it.

I put it out of my mind.

Then two weekends ago I left a message inviting them to get together at a park...No return call. Didn't think much of it.

Then this morning I ran into the dad at school, and attempted some small talk, and got surprisingly short responses in return.

So, mark this as the first time I ever alienated someone over poo on a stick. The thing is, I would do the same thing again. I think if you're friendly with a particular set of parents, you should certainly feel comfortable discussing your concerns. And poo on a stick that touches my son's shirt? It's a concern.

Imposter pepper

I know that some of you don't like bell peppers. I like bell peppers, and so do hubby and my son. When we went shopping for plants for our gardens, I wanted bell pepper plants, but the greenhouse didn't have any. Hubby doesn't care for spicy foods, our son is only so-so on them, and I like them. Thus we ended up with Italian Roaster Peppers, which are supposed to be long, red, sweet peppers.

The plants grew and blossomed beautifully, and healthy looking peppers grew. We waited for them to turn red. And waited.

The time to harvest had been exceeded, and hubby suggested we pick one. I sliced from the bottom and took a piece. Tasted just like a bell pepper. Yum. I continued cutting and picked up another piece and popped it in my mouth. A little spicy...hmm...continued chopping, picked one up, took a bite....HOT!!!

Two glasses of water later, it occured to me that someone must have mislabeled the jalapeno peppers as italian roaster peppers. Not cool. Hot, as a matter of fact.

Not quite sure what we'll do with so many jalapenos, considering my family's lack of desire to actually have fresh jalapenos...Wonder if anyone has any bell peppers to trade?

How much is that?

I heard on the news that half of all Americans are now doing more shopping at dollar stores. I've never been much of a dollar store person,but suddenly in the last few months, I've been there a handful of times.

There's some stuff that seems like total junk, some things that are name brand smaller versions of what you find in the "regular" stores, and some generic knockoffs of things you find in the regular store.

Hubby, my son and I took an excursion there this weekend. While there, I enjoyed driving my family nuts by picking up various items and asking them "How much is this?"

We got a small bottle of Dawn dish soap, which was actually a better deal than the larger ones from the other stores. We got some snacks, some foil, some plastic wrap, some greeting cards...

My son brought $1.06 of his own money so he could choose something to purchase. His choice? An action figure that looked remarkably like a Power Ranger, but was made of thinner plastic and was called "Raptor Storm". My son does not watch the Power Ranger show, but has a couple of the action figures. Before he bought it, I told him that it looked a lot like a Power Ranger, but it was actually called Raptor Storm. He is just about getting to the age where the kids will notice the difference between generic and the real thing. While I have absolutely no issue with him purchasing the knockoff, I also wanted him to be well informed so if some worldly classmate says "That's not really a Power Ranger!", he wouldn't be thrown off.

He said that was fine, and said that it actually was a Power Ranger, that it was a Dino Force Power Ranger SPD. With that many specifics, I really couldn't dispute the authenticity, so I did not mention it again.

He got the toy home, we all played together along with his other Power Rangers. The Raptor Storm was lighter than the others, and a little translucent, but other than that, blended in quite well. At the end of the day, he announced that his new Power Ranger is his favorite one.

He brought it to school the next day, and one of the kids asked "What is that?" He proclaimed it to be a Dino Force Power Ranger SPD, and the kids said "Cool."

On the one hand, Santa could save a lot of money shopping at the dollar store...But on the other hand, the non dollar store ones will probably last longer. I think they can all live together in harmony.

I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me you can call me Al

People usually call me by my full first name (if you don't know it, you can see it here). When I was little, family called me by a cutesy nickname version of my name. When I went to Kindergarten, everyone called me that. By first grade, I was way too mature for such a nickname, and insisted that everyone at school call me by my first name. My dad still calls me the cutesy nickname. My mom calls me a shortened version that might cause someone to confuse me with a boy.

When I started my job back in the 90s, my then-boss announced "My daughter's name is {same name but ending in e instead of a}, and your name is {what it is}. I don't feel like remembering the difference, so I will call you {boy-ish version that my mom calls me}." Believe it or not, he actually is a very nice man...It just took him a few years to warm up to me. Seriously.

Last night my son started to tell me something. He said "Mommy...", and then paused. He said "Do you like to be called Mommy or {first name}?" I asked if he meant what I'd like him to call me, and he said yes. I told him he could keep calling me Mommy. He said "Okay."

I found that super cute. First of all, that he somehow felt that we might be at a point where he should start calling me something else, and that he cared enough to wonder what I'd like to be called. But yes...Please keep calling me Mommy, little guy. :-)

Up All Night, Sleep All Day

The gerbils have arrived. My son is enjoying them. Their food triggers my son's gag reflex, so I get to feed them, but my son is in charge of changing their water and giving them newspaper. They love to shred paper. They're nocturnal, which makes sense, since our ceiling dwelling intruders also seemed to be nocturnal. The gerbils don't do much all day, then around 7:00PM they start shredding paper as though they've got some sort of quota to meet. They are true recyclers.

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My son was invited to a birthday party this weekend which occurs, for the first half, during his final swim lesson. He would have to miss at least half the party. We are also going to the fair that afternoon, so he was given the option of going to the party for only an hour, or just tacking that hour onto time that we would spend at the fair. He opted to skip the party. I sent the mom an email letting her know that unfortunately, my son would miss the party, as we had swimming lessons in the morning and another commitment in the afternoon.

Following was my son's conversation with the birthday boy this morning at school:

Boy: Do you even know where my house is?

Son: No.

Boy: I'll have to give you my phone number. Why does everyone need directions?

Son: Do you know that I'm not coming to your party?

Boy: Yes. You have to go to swimming lessons.

Son: No, I'm not coming because I'm going to the fair.

I reminded my son that he has swimming lessons during the first part of the party, and we're going to the fair during the second part.

Son: Oh, yeah. And I want to spend more time at the fair.

Not going to the party was actually a difficult choice for him (it took him almost 2 weeks to decide), but ultimately he decided he would rather have more time at the fair than show up more than halfway through a birthday party.

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I took my son to Chuck E Cheese for an hour on Saturday afternoon, and someone tried to start an altercation as a result of me saying excuse me in the parking lot.

As we were leaving, there were two women getting into their van after getting the kids in. The woman on the passenger side was talking and laughing while half in and half out of the car with her door preventing me from opening my door. I politely said excuse me. The woman glared at me, got in, and closed the door. The driver opened the passenger's window, and yelled out to me "Could you not see that she was trying to get in?" I was about to say that was why I said excuse me, but I thought better of it and simply closed my door. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the two women glaring at me. Sorry I didn't get into it with you, ladies. I thought it would be pretty darn tacky to get into an argument about me saying excuse me.

Now, had I been rude, and said something like "Hurry up, will you?", I would have totally understood a reaction like that...But for "Excuse me", with no "tone" attached to it? Anger issues, anyone?

To top it off, as I was leaving the parking lot, someone cutting across the aisles going way too fast almost slammed into me. Luckily I wasn't going that fast, and my reflexes were good. Grr.

When the rodents aren't breaking in, we invite them

The mouse situation...meh. We caught several in the basement drop ceiling when it first started, then a couple weeks later one more, then last week one more. Hubby is pondering pulling down parts of the drop ceiling in our finished basement playroom to see if he can find/block the point of entry before it gets colder and an entire colony of them moves in. While I know this is the right thing to do, I'm afraid our basement will never look the same.

A friend of my son's is going on vacation, and my son has been offered the opportunity to gerbil-sit. He is very excited about this, and I'm sure it will be great fun, but they're awfully mouse-y and I just hope a mouse does not enter through the ceiling, smell with his super mouse sense that his cousins are in our house, and figure we are a rodent friendly household.

Growing and shrinking

I figured if I wanted until after my annual obgyn appointment this morning I would have at least some little thing I could blog about.

My obgyn is great. She is so popular, you get put on a waiting list several months long for your annual appointment. She is friendly and takes notes so she can come in the room and ask questions that reference things happening in your life last year, as if you're old friends.

I used to believe I was 5'3". Several years ago at my appointment, they decided I am only 5'2". Today? 5'2¾". For my 35th birthday, apparently I grew three quarters of an inch.

When I got pregnant with my son, I was at the lowest weight of my adult life, in part due to due the fact that I was taking our two dogs on lengthy walks 4 times a day. I gained about 30 pounds during pregnancy, and shortly after his birth, I was back to my "normal" adult weight, about 15 pounds heavier than my prepregnancy weight. Incidentally, the heaviest non-pregnant weight of my adult life and my heaviest pregnant weight are about the same.

Anyway, my obgyn never seemed satisified with that weight, even though it had never been an issue before I was pregnant with my son. But, two years ago, she told me that adults tend to gain 5 pounds a year, and commented that I was a pound heavier than the prior year. Last year, I had put on an additional pound, and she said "at least you're maintaining". Two months before that appointment, I had weighed 5 pounds more, and I ordered pants that didn't fit even though they were the right size and lost the 5 pounds to fit into them just so I wouldn't have to pay shipping to send them back. I was pretty happy to have lost the 5 pounds she never even knew about, because it scared me into believing that I was destined to gain 5 pounds per year as an adult.

So this year, when I weighed in at 2 pounds less than last year (8 pounds more than my pre-pregnancy lowest weight ever), I was relieved that she couldn't say I had put on another pound.

Even better - She walked in the door, and I commented how the ankle length gown they gave me eliminated the need to use a paper drape over my legs. She said "That's just because you've lost so much weight." I laughed and she said "No, I'm serious. You weighed 2 pounds more last year." 2 pounds makes her happy? Wow. I mean, 2 pounds makes me happy, but 2 pounds is the difference between "at least you're maintaining" and "you've lost so much weight"? I'll take it.

Happy Day After Birthday To Me...

Thanks for all the birthday wishes - I had a wonderful birthday. We went out to breakfast, went to play at a park, packed a picnic and brought it to the picnic area at the zoo, and walked around the zoo for a few hours.

Hubby made lasagna for dinner, my favorite. He has never made lasagna before. It was the most delicious lasagna I have ever had. Lasagna is my specialty, but his was seriously better. He said that's just because someone else made it.

We ate dessert before dinner, partly due to the timing of it, but really, why not? :-) Hubby made a double layer french vanilla cake. When it came out of the oven, he melted some chocolate chips between the layers, frosted between also after the chocolate got hard again, and he and my son frosted the rest of it with green frosting (my favorite color) and made a pink frosting heart. I have the sweetest son and hubby. :-) The ice cream was Breyers Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (yum!). Somehow we all had room for dinner after dessert.

Best birthday ever.

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During Saturday morning cartoons, there was a commercial for Bumpits. Have you heard of these things? Hubby, my son and I all laughed at the product, and the really long commercial that showed people making a big bump in the back of their hair. Apologies in advance to those of you who use Bumpits, and who I might have offended. I'm sure it looks great on you, but it's not for me. I have very thick hair, and making it puffier is the last thing I need.

Anyway, while we were at the zoo, hubby whispered "I think that person is using Bumpits." Sure enough, she had that style, which I had never even seen before. Later at the zoo, we saw another person with that same style. It wouldn't shock me to discover that Bumpits really are the latest style, and I had no clue...But it's still not for me.

Are you using them?