Big Purple Annoyance - Act 3

Anna loved Barney back in 1996. Emma had a repeat performance in 1998. And guess who's back in '06?

You got it. How thrilled am I about that? I've even bought a Barney DVD from the Mart of Wal. We've now seen it about 8,709 times. We walk around the house singing the tunes. The Barney Hits that never grow old, right?

John M. sang himself to sleep just now, with his own version, 'I love me, you love me, we a happy family...'. Whenever we ask him, 'You love you?', he says 'Yeah, ME!', as if to say, 'everyone loves ME right, I don't know who this 'you' person is, but he'd better get in the back of the line'.

I'm signing off now to hum Barney tunes to myself . . . joy.

Did I just say that?

This is filed under the 'Things I've Said To my Kids That Just Don't Sound Normal' list.

Last night, as John M. had gotten hold of one of Anna's dry erase markers, while he was eating
his snack of cheese-in-a-bowl:

'JOHN M., do NOT write on that cheese!'

I actually had to repeat it a couple of times too.

Please share some similar phrases of your own.

Y'all, have a great weekend. My boy turns 2 on Sunday.

Highpoints of a Weekend in Southern Louisiana

1.) A fun swimming party hosted by my friend, Alison, that Mark actually attended with us. He's umm ... how should I put it . . not . . uh, social. Most of the time, I think he'd rather be with cows, rather than humans. Then, another party of Laser Tag. No, I didn't get to play, but I'd like to.

2.) Purchase of Febreze Scentsations machine. Do you know what I'm talking about? My house is a stinker usually. I've had enough. So I bought one of these babies and I'm trying it out. So far, I can't tell a big difference but there's always hope. Cross your fingers.

3.) Watching John M. ride one of the horses with Mark. He's been too scared to do it before, and he was finally brave this morning. It was so sweet watching them; I should have captured the moment on film, but I missed it.

4.) Picking the first few pecans of the season.

5.) Reading my niece, Jenna, a book and having her look up at me and say 'I love you'.

6.) Getting my shop on with my two homies (or home-ettes), Anna and Emma. We went to the new Macy's that just opened a couple of weeks ago and actually found some deals.

7.) Some peace and quiet at 9:37 pm Sunday evening. Big sigh . . .

Hope y'all had a good one.

Have y'all seen this on sale at Home Depot yet? I think there's a warning label attached.

Satisfaction (In Expanded Form)

Emma usually doesn't sweat tests. She usually gets everything she needs from her lessons in class. By the time the test rolls around, we just make one quick go-round over the info and that's it. So, I'm spoiled in the homework/studying department.

But then along came third grade math. She loves math, says it's her favorite subject. But last night she was studying for her test on writing numbers in expanded form (ex. 398,701 would be 300000 + 90000 + 8000 + 700 + 1). Useful stuff, eh? She was very confused and frustrated about 30 minutes into studying and broke down and started crying because she didn't understand it. We took a break for about 15 minutes, which I took advantage of and grabbed a quick bath. When I came back, she was just sitting on the couch crying because she couldn't understand her math.

I thought for a while and came up with a different approach to teach it to her and it worked. She got it, took a practice test and made 100%. All of a sudden, she gave me a huge hug. I asked 'what was that for?' and she said 'Cause you helped me, Mom'. I could have hugged her all night. It gave me such satisfaction. Satisfaction that I don't feel often.
I wonder if teachers get to experience that feeling on a daily basis. If they do, I missed my calling.

I (heart) my laptop

Did I mention I finally got a laptop ... actually Mark got me one via E-bay a few weeks back?
That one didn't work, so we got another, strike 2, so we got this one and we finally got a winner.

I bought a router this weekend and now we're connected to the web . . . wireless! Woo-hoo! I know most of you out there have probably had laptops for a while, but this is a whole new world for me and I love it.

Right now, I'm sitting in my dining room chatting with Anna while I post, not secluded in the junk room (where our desktop PC is) as usual. It's great. I may even take it outside one day and break it in with this Louisiana heat. Too much rain this weekend for that though.

So, Anna's bugging me to get this baby to feed her Neopets. Check y'all out later.

Scenes from the life of FroggieMom

This is the lake that sits in front of my house. It was once part of the Mississippi River but oxbowed off many years ago. It sits on one side of my street and the Mississippi River sits off in the distance on the other side, so most people call the area that I live in 'The Island' because it almost is completely surrounded by water. It's a really beautiful area, though I often take it for granted. I'll never forget my Daddy used to say that the two most beautiful sunsets he'd ever seen were in Saucilito, CA and right in our front yard, with the sun setting over the lake.

This is what I found in my backyard a few weeks ago. One of Mark's horses tied to our trampoline while Emma brushed her. As my sister would say, W.T., let's all say it together. . 'White Trash'! That's us. Welcome to our corner of the world. Take a load off.

Here's my cute little face. This is where he eats every meal at home. He'll say 'Hungee, Mama' and go plant himself right in this chair until some food magically appears. Notice his noopie to the right there. Have I mentioned he's gone without said noopie for a whole week and a half! He quit cold turkey.

Last but not least, here's a group of us shooting the bull at Mark's little birthday celebration. That's my sister jabbing at the table, her husband, Hawkeye (yes, that's what we all call him) with his back toward the camera chowing down, and my mom, me and Anna in the corner there. I like this picture because Mark caught us all in action, doing what we do best. . . talking.

Peace out from FroggieLand.

I suck at homework

Okay, I know I'm supposed to be a good example to my kids, when it comes to homework and such. The key word here is 'supposed'. I'm sometimes not.

For example, Anna was studying decimals, fractions, and mixed numbers for math a couple of weeks ago. She was having to place numbers like .000032 on a number line and having to write in word form things like .30226. I had to cheat to be able to help her. I couldn't help but blurt out (more than once, so maybe it wasn't a 'blurt'), 'What??! You will never, ever have to know this in real life!'. Followed quickly by 'Don't tell your teacher I said that, but it's true'. I guess it's just a part of general understanding of mathematical concepts, but it's a waste of time to me.
What do you think, should I keep these things to myself?

Emma, tonight, was working on her predicates. It was almost 9:00, her bedtime ,and I had about had it with schoolwork. The last part of her worksheet asked her to write the predicates for the following sentences:

The moon ___________
The astronauts _______________
I think outer space _____________

She asked me for ideas. I said, 'How about 'The moon sucks. The astronauts suck. I think outer space sucks.?'
She wrote it all down.
Just because she's silly like her mama.
Then she just had to erase it and put in some real answers.
Then she went to bed.

I'm a bad example, not giving a damn about predicates and the word forms for decimals carried out to the millionth place.
Should I pray they don't turn out like me?
Let's get an 'AMEN' to that one.

Say It Ain't So

I've mentioned before that our oldest, Anna, is a carbon-copy superclone of Mark. Looks, personality, taste in food, everything, she's a mini-Mark, only without a penis.

Emma, on the other hand, looks nothing like Mark, but is totally evolving into a clone of my mom.

I was trying to close one eye, stand about a half-mile away and wiggle my nose, and think that maybe John M. looked a little like me. Imagine that, my child actually looking like ME, the one who housed his little body for 9 months and went through the pain of birthing him! But, alas, I found this picture of Mark,
and my hopes went down the drain. Another Mark-clone, only this time, the penis is in tact.

Just so not fair.