George Bush and Rats

I wish my sister Anne had had the experience I just had tonight. She would be able to describe this in such an perceptive way with deep meaning and thoughtful passages. It would be wonderful. This description I'm about to give may not have any of that. It was just so interesting to me and I wanted to share it.

I was at Target tonight shopping without my kids (which is a rare experience; I almost don't know what to do with myself there). But I was with a lot of other peoples kids. From the looks of it mostly college freshman. They were all filling their carts with stuff for their dorms, getting ready to embark on their college education.

The girl in front of me wasn't buying laundry hampers or lamps or posters, just 2 bottles of nail polish remover and a Birthday Card with George Bush dancing and singing about the "internets" She looked to be about 14 and was laughing and laughing at the card. Opening it over and over again to watch Bush's legs dance around in a jig. She showed me the card and asked if I thought it was funny. I smiled and said, " yeah, whose Birthday is it?"

It was no ones. She just liked the card. Then she looked at me and asked if I thought the man on the card was a good citizen. I said I thought that was a tricky question, that he had probably tried to be a good citizen but he had also done a lot of things that caused problems. I asked her what she thought.

Her Response: "oh I don't even know who this guy is".
ME: Oh come on, you know who that is
HER: Oh yeah, I've seen him before, he's Bill Clinton
ME: NO! That's George Bush
HER: Really, .....huh

I don't think she'd heard of him. HIS NAME WAS ON THE CARD!!!! She hadn't even read it. She just liked the dancing feet of some guy on a card. She didn't even buy the card! She just left it with the magazines. I asked her if she was starting school tomorrow ( most of the schools here start tomorrow). She said she didn't start for a month because her school, which is in downtown Boston, is infested with Rats. RATS! She didn't even seemed phased by the fact that there were rats at her school. Seriously. Anne, there is some meaning here.

Then- as I was walking away from the checkout stand a boy handed a box of granola bars to the checker and asked her if there were peanuts in them. His mom was standing there right with him and I got the feeling that the boy was asking the girl at the checkout counter because neither he nor his mom could read. He was probably allergic to peanuts. I hope the checker gave him the right answer.

Again I'm sure there are some deep themes here I could write about...or at least Anne could but for now I just feel so grateful to have had the education and all the opportunities I had growing up. I'm grateful that I can give those same things to my children. SO glad I didn't go to school with rats. And even though I wish I could take back at least one of my votes for GW, I am at least grateful that I know he was more than just some guy dancing on a Hallmark Birthday card.

How to make your kids think you are the best mom ever without breaking a sweat

Step 1: Throw him a "super hero" birthday party on the night it was your turn to host the babysitting co-op anyway.

Step 2: Have the kids make the decorations and games

Step: 3 Make super simple capes for the whole family

Step 4: Download Micheal Buble's rendition of Spider Man off of You Tube and have the kids play "Super Hero Musical Freeze Tag" Seriously, even after 10 minutes of this the kids BEGGED to play more. They loved it. And let's be honest, I love Michael Buble.

Step 5: Have someone else make an amazing birthday cake!
I won a free custom decorated cake at a fundraiser our church did to help the young women raise money for camp.

Step: 6 Sit back and enjoy the expression of pure joy on your child's face.

Because I am sort of a good mom...

What does a really good mom do when she catches her kids doing something that they shouldn't be doing? Something that reveals her kid's "inner savage" (not that it's so often concealed any way). Well, a really good mom intervenes and stops such behavior.

I'm just sort of good mom. So more often than not, I just document the savagery on video.

At least they used spoons.

Random cuteness from July

Contrary to the picture, she's got him wrapped around HER finger

just so darn cute!

One day Jack decided that he wanted to be a mailman. All on his own he wrote letters to several neighbors on our street, grabbed his "mail-bag" put his hat on backwards (I'm not sure what that was all about), addressed the envelopes, colored stamps, and off he went.

The girls and I came along for support.

One of the lucky mail recipients.

I am constantly amazed at Jack's big heart and his ability to reach out to others. Our neighbors were so touched and thought Jack was so cute. (How could you not?) By the time the delivery route was finished we had delivered 5 letters, made 3 new friends on the street, received a plate of brownies, a garden tour, and were only chased by one dog (named Scout) in the process.

Worth the membership fee

Just in case you thought we always did adventurous and enriching activities for FFF- check out our latest-

Costco- bless you for your cheap processed drinks that make my kids SO happy.

Engh visit follow up

Remember the last post? -the one where everyone fell asleep on the train after one day of touring around with our cousins? Well I thought it was fitting to start this post with the picture I took of Jack and Marian on the way home from dropping our cousins off at the airport!

Jack and Marian were worn out from all the fun!

As always I didn't take enough pictures but of the ones I did take here are some good ones.

How cute are these kids?

Marian LOVE LOVE LOVED being around girls

Seriously, she couldn't get enough!

When it was time for the Engh's to go home we had to pile everyone into the van. Chad was at work and my kids REALLY wanted to come, so here's a question for you. How many people can fit in a mini van? If you guessed 7 or maybe even 8, you'd be wrong. Try 10. I couldn't get the rest of the crew smashed in the second seat- and for leagal purposes it's probably better that I didn't.

We had the best time-Engh's thanks for coming!!!