the girl who has a strange child

This post is dedicated to Ian. He is such a unique child. I mean, you can really see he has his own outlook on how the world should work. One thing I have found holds true when raising children, is that they will always surprise you. Not always in a good way, but at least parents (moms especially) can never say that their life is boring.

How can life be boring when your kids do things such as this?

It’s a lovely diorama/playhouse nicely ensconced in a drawer. It reminds me of when I used to make Barbie furniture out of Kleenex boxes. At least my kids’ imaginations won’t leave me hanging when I have a runny nose.

The other strange thing from Ian I, unfortunately, did not take a picture of. Basically, it creeped me out—although it was done in innocence. Ian enjoys “decorating” the underside of Zachary’s bed (it is the ceiling over his bed after all.) I wandered into their room the other day to find a Beanie Baby hanging from the underside. By his neck. I mean, seriously, it looked like he just couldn’t take the cuteness anymore and decided to off himself! I half expected a “Goodbye Cruel World!” note clenched in his furry little paw. I found this mildly disturbing and morbidly funny at the same time. Of course, Ian wasn’t thinking of lynching that poor bear on purpose. He just wanted him to decorate his space. Lol.

Or how about this?

Ian saw a commercial for a nail salon on tv and decided he wanted his nails painted. I asked him what color he’d like and he requested blue. As luck would have it, I happened to have some blue nail polish. (incredibly old, I haven’t painted my nails in years) So we end up with blue nails for Mother and Son.

We also end up with a slightly miffed Dad. Nail polish, of course, is just for girls. However, it was late at night, I was folding laundry and watching Jon and Kate + 8 and Ian woke up and wanted to join me. We had a silly bonding moment (for the record, he painted my nails after I did his) and it was F-U-N!

At least he didn’t ask for pink nail polish!

And then there was last night.

Ian enjoys dressing up so much that I keep all the Halloween costumes in a drawer for him just for that purpose.

Last night he got into the Christmas Spirit, so allow me to introduce…

Buzz Batman Claus!!!

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Thanks to my friend Jen for the kick in the butt needed to start menu planning. It took a couple hours of thought at the puter, and my shopping trip was longer than usual, but I planned meals for the month and went shopping for the next two weeks this past weekend. Now, she bragged about spending only $250 for the month and I’m not quite there. Of course I have twice the number of people in my fam, so I think spending $285 for two weeks was a good deal. Plus, between store specials and coupons, I saved $50. I put so much in my cart, I actually had to park the cart in a closed lane and put a note on it: “Working on cart #2, please don’t put away!”

And how did I fill up one and a half carts prior to checkout, but walked out with three carts? Some weird grocery physics. I guess it just proves all those hours spent on Tetris weren’t wasted after all.

And here is something to make you feel old. The bagger (little whippersnapper that he is) had never had homemade Rice Krispie treats! He said he didn’t even know you could make them at home, he grew up on the premade stuff!

Ok, Sonny. I’ll make some for you as soon as I get my walker out of the shop and my gout dies down.

Anyway, the trip was great and so far, I’m loving not having to do any thinking about dinner. When I go to make tonight’s dinner, I’ll pull whatever I need to defrost from the freezer and it will be ready for the next night. I’m starting to get a system and I really like it.

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Eli update. Nothing new really with the little guy, but I wanted to show off some pictures!

This outfit on Eli sparked Matthew’s infamous “baseball game” adventure.

And this was taken last night after his bath. Can’t you just smell the “new baby” scent?

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The tree went up last night and I finally allowed the kids to put more than one ornament on the tree this year. Unfortunately, they still wound up all in one spot, so I let them do one box worth of ornaments and then went back and rearranged. Hey, it makes me feel better!

Anyway, we had our first casualty of the Christmas season. R.I.P. Oscar, the Grouch. Zack fumbled him in his excitement and he wound up breaking…although you can’t tell in the picture. The entire back side of this ornament is completely caved in and broken. I am actually expecting more as this is the first year with the concrete floors. Sigh! I miss carpet!


So, again, the past two weeks in a nutshell. Time is flying and I can’t believe that 2007 is almost over! Now all I have to do is panic about Christmas and the year will be done before I know it.