It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt!

Not all of my children go to their Dad's house every other weekend. Two of them stay home with me. But when their siblings are gone and there is no one to play with but boring old me they get antsy and start harassing each other. It is a known fact that when the regular routine becomes off balance children who normally behave, start acting out. These innocent looking children of mine.....



decide to drive each other, and in turn, drive me crazy. It usually starts out with the oldest most mature, namely Bella taking a quick cheap shot at Bombo. Look closely she is quick. What you don't see in this picture is the aftermath. Bella's paw strikes Bombo soundly on the nose, numerous times. And before her calculated assault he was just minding his own business trying to take a nap.

Bombo's response is one of shock initially. He tries to gain composure and moves over to the other side of the bed to finish his nap. Bella strikes again by biting repeatedly at Bombo's whisker's. This time Bombo lets out a half hearted(in human speak)very whiny protest "STOP!" as you can see in this next picture.
He then turns his head to me as to say, "are you going to do anything about her behavior!"




Bombo the much younger sibling finally snapped and decided to take matters into his own hands pinning his older but much smaller sister to the bed with only his mouth as Bella protests loudly. This reminds me of a time when I realized that I could no longer harass my younger brother because he could take me down faster than a speeding bullet, flat on my back. Live and learn Bella, live and learn. Like they say it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.



After this fiasco Bombo and Bella were sent into time out to think about what they had done and to come up with five ways they could have handled this situation differently. I never received answers from either of them they spent most of their time sulking, as noted in the pictures below.






While in time out I did catch Bombo making faces at Bella, as shown below, so I added an extra five minutes to his confinement. I'll have to talk to him about that later.





For those of you who may think it must be enjoyable for me to have no disciplining, no fighting, no noise, every other weekend. Just remember my other two children. As angelic as they may look....







don't be fooled because the cycle of sibling abuse is about to start again; right in the middle of a nap. It's a rough life, I tell ya!








No animals were harmed (seriously) during this post.

One more reason I love this guy

Adam recently had a retainer put on his top teeth preparing him for braces. (I am taking donations for my ever increasing orthodontists bills:) While having the retainer fitted the dentist decided to pull one of his last remaining front baby teeth out so the retainer would work more effectively. On the way home from this very traumatic experience for Adam he hinted that maybe the tooth fairy should give him double the money, at least FIVE DOLLARS for how brave he had been . My sharpened, very perceptive Mothering Decoding Messages Skill (or MCDS) heard this. "Mom, I have been saving up my money for a new mp3 player and if you pay me at least FIVE DOLLARS I will have reached my goal and be able to jam out on my new mp3 player." I reminded him of the fact that he hasn't believed in the tooth fairy for years but that I think he did a very good job at not biting the dentist this time. I told him I would think about it and then dropped him off at school to finish the day and show off his new mouthful of hardware. Adam came in the house after school very upset and trying not to cry. I asked him if he was OK and he explained to me through his tears that he had left his newly pulled tooth on his lunch tray because he wanted to show it to the lunch lady (apparently him and the lunch lady are pretty tight?). Because he was so hungry he set it on his tray and in his haste to get out to recess to "protect the girls from bullies" he let the poor lonely tooth be dumped into the abyss of unwanted potatoes, gravy and frozen carrots. And because of the good mother that I am I tried my best to console him then sent him outside to play because maybe that would cheer him up. I just barely reached my room when I couldn't control my gut instinct to laugh, no actually it was more like a guffaw. It was the funniest story I had heard all day! (I know, not to empathetic.) Fast forward to bed time. Adam, my very sensitive and emotional fifth grader comes to me again with tears in his eyes wondering what he should do about the tooth fairy dilemma. He had no proof "except for a big hole in his head" and he doesn't think that will be enough to get his FIVE DOLLARS. I came up with an ingenious plan. I told him that the tooth fairy may consider giving him the money if he could write up a short proposal about what happened and why he thinks he should get the money. Maybe even a signed and notarized affidavit from the lunch lady and his best friend Aaron saying they did indeed see the tooth. He seemed less than excited because writing is not his strongest subject math is. With that we all went to bed. Morning time rolls around much to soon in our house and Ashalee has to be out the door by seven to make it to Tuachan. As I am sleeping I here a big bang coming from the stairs and Ashalee moaning. She slowly creeps into my room to tell me she was coming up the stairs and slipped on a piece of paper. She handed it to me and this is what I read.


For those of you that are having a hard time reading it this is what it said exactly the way he wrote it.

Dear Tooth Fairy,
I hope you get this note, because some thing happend to my tooth. OK I'll tell you the story, I wanted to show the lunch lady my tooth so I forgot to tak it off my lunch tray (when I was done) so it kinda ended up in the trash.
Your guy,
Adam Johnson

P.S. Can I have some mony with that?

That wasn't exactly what the tooth fairy was looking for but she couldn't resist. He clenched it when I read "your guy". I wrapped up three dollars worth of quarters(from my Vegas days:) in the note and wrote on it "thanks for clearing that up for me. The books are balanced again. Love, the tooth fairy" Then I put it in his retainer container. Things are now back to normal the drama has subsided for now. But I have to get one thing off my chest. Adam totally could have received his five dollars but apparently we really need to work on spelling and grammar this summer. Also, I had to knock one dollar off without the signed notarized affidavits, they were essential components to his case. He did earn three dollars for shear cuteness. One more reason I love my guy.

Spring

The Coral Pink Sand Dunes are about 12 miles away from the ranch. I took Ash, Andrew, Cole(cousin) and the dogs out there and was reminded how beautiful it is. I was actually happy to see the red dirt in my washer, it took me back to a really good time. There is still residual of this adventure in my van and I am not sure if I want to clean it out quite yet. Yes, a van full of beautiful red dirt that could never be duplicated by photoshop can and is nostalgic to me. Call me weird,(not to my face) but I even think the stuff smells good.

Who says?

There are many spoken and unspoken rules put out in the universe by well meaning but misguided people that seem to be extremely ludicrous and go against the very nature of how human beings are made. I am about to debunk one of these strange rules that has never made sense to me. And that is...who says girls aren't supposed to get dirty? We were at the ranch two weekends ago and without any prompting, this is what transpired. With no plans as to what we were going to do this is what all the girls were spontaneously and naturally drawn to.


Could you imagine what joy these (my nieces) girls would be missing out on if someone had told them to get out of the dirt because girls don't get dirty. They know nothing else but feeling the cool sand between their fingers and toes. Digging in the earth for treasures untold. Building, working on something so individually spectacular. I hope no one will ever tell them that girls shouldn't play in the dirt, but if someone ever does? I hope all of these girls remember this great dirt filled day and know that it isn't true.

Sibling Rivalry

At work today the family of our program director came in to say goodbye. They had been visiting her during spring break and were going back home. One of her cutest grandchildren who is about ten and has a older brother who is 16, asked what the office was for and what we did exactly. My co-worker responded that we provide housing for Women and Children when they don't have any other place to go because someone at their house is beating them up. He looked around at all the toys in the waiting room in amazement and really seemed to be pondering what this meant. After much internal dialogue that I saw spinning around in his head he excitedly said, "Do you have a place for kids who get beat up by their big brothers?, because I could use a place like that!" For the record this boy had no visible bruises and the family seemed very capable of protecting their child from really getting beat up. Also, having two boys that are continually getting physical in a "it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt" kind of way. So this made me laugh so hard. This ten year old deciphered the message told to him of what we do, by using his own background knowledge of his brother beating him up and deciding maybe he could be in need of our housing services. I loved it! I can see it now. We could rewrite our mission statement to include not only women and children coming out of domestic violence into our long term housing; but also children who have older siblings that cause normal sibling anguish in their lives. I think we would be inundated by applications from all over the world of children who want to get the hell out their house because their siblings drive them crazy. Having six siblings I would have been one of the applicants applying for my own private, quiet home with no annoying brothers and sisters ruining my stuff, blaming me for random things and most of all beating me up. I can only say to this little boy seeking refuge from a bigger brother, that hopefully in twenty years he will have an awesome relationship with his brother and wish that he could spend more time with him. I know that is how I feel about all three of my brothers.

Laundry Detergent

1 bar of soap preferably ivory or zote (I found zote at a Hispanic store it is a bar of soap made for cleaning clothes.)
1/2C washing soda (I found this at my local grocery store) If you can't find it you can replace it with the cheap version of oxyclean.
1/2C Borax

Cut the bar of soap into smaller pieces then put it in your food processor and mix it until fine. If you don't have a food processor you can grate it with a grater. Add washing soda and borax. Mix completely. It will have a laundry soap consistency when you are all done. Store in a airtight container. Use one to two tablespoons per load depending on how big and how dirty the load is, I use two. It works great. This is really fun to make with the kids. Make sure you wear some kind of mask when making, it is pretty potent.
Last week we made liquid hand soap, it was like a really cool science project and after some tweaking, it turned out really good and it smells yummy. And best of all it is 30 cents for two gallons.

Now What!

Look what happened about a month ago. I thought that if I didn't mention IT or blog about IT, IT wouldn't really be happening.


Yes, that is Ashalee in the drivers seat, and yes she is actually driving.
We went down the the DMV to get her learners permit about a month ago and I honestly must say it was the first test she has taken that I prayed she would fail. But, she came through and passed with flying colors. What I want to know is how did she go from this...


To this....



Then like one of those magic sponge things that grow when you add water, to this....


This is one of Ashy's typical 15 year old "take your own picture to put on my space" but it's what we agreed on and sadly she said no to any embarrassing bathtub pictures(when she was young of course). So what happened? I love every stage of her life but I can't figure out what stage I missed to get to this point so quickly. Did I miss something? I don't think I did, but it doesn't feel like it's been fifteen years! Ash is really happy about this new turn of events and I am genuinely happy for her. I am just sad for me. Selfish as it may be five turns into ten, ten turns into twelve, twelve turns into fifteen, fifteen turns into adult...and the very unforgiving clock continues forward, never leaving time for us to breathe. I've done the math a hundred times their is no equation to stop or turn back time. It just keeps marching forward like a out of control, speeding mack truck with no brakes to give us rest. Maybe it's a almost mid life crisis, but as I am sitting here thinking of how much I miss the three month, one year, five year, twelve year, fourteen year old Ashalee, I am so thrilled to be able to hang out with the fifteen year old Ash. And coming sooner than later the twenty year, thirty and forty year old Ashalee. I have the kindest, bravest, and the most beautifully bold daughter, and any way she allows me to share her life no matter the age, I will consider it a privilege. And while I am at it, how did these cute children.....


So quickly morph into these most awesome kids in the world?