I gave Middle Sister and Little Brother each a notebook to take on our upcoming vacation, to write or draw “whatever” while on the trip. She’s been writing in it ever since. At this rate, I’ll need to give her a new one before we leave!
Category: Middle Sister
He’s Being Green!
So there we were, enjoying our lunch in Chick-Fil-A, when I noticed that Little Brother’s face and shirt were liberally adorned with barbecue sauce. “Little Brother,” I scolded, “stop wiping your hands on your shirt! Use a napkin!”
Middle Sister chided me, “But the shirt is reusable!”
Resourceful!
Summer brings out the evil genius creativity in my kids.
Last week Big Brother cleaned out his closet. I use the term “cleaned out” loosely because I think it could use another 3 hours of attention. My idea of “cleaning out a closet” is taking everything out and only putting back what belongs. His idea is more like rummaging around in there and maybe finding something that doesn’t belong, and then leaving it on the floor until he’s tired of tripping over it and moves it back to the closet.
I digress.
He found the “fake fur” that he’d unbuttoned from his winter parka. It comes off so you can wash the jacket, but he’s no fan of the “fake fur” so he just took it off right away.
He and Middle Sister decided that this long strip of “fake fur” looks like a weasel. She offered to hot-glue some googly eyes onto one end, and now Big Brother is the proud owner of The Most Awesome Weasel Ever. How many other kids have a stuffed weasel in their room?
I have the feeling that this thing is going to make its way into a lot of lockers at his school this fall…
Overheard
“God has mercy on rebellious pinecones.”
Thomas will get the pinecone part!
Big Brother and Middle Sister are discussing the meaning of their names. Middle Sister is looking for a Confirmation name. Instead of checking out saints and finding one that inspires her, she’s working backwards and finding names she thinks work well with the name she’s already got, and what it means.
Maybe I should have looked a little further into the meaning of her name when I was choosing it in the first place.
Things I Have to Say to My Kids
“Don’t throw pillows at him while he’s blowing his nose!”
Possessive Much?
Apple Puffs are a popular treat around here. So this morning when Middle Sister found out that the last one in the box had been saved for her, she decided not to take any chances.
I think she’s given up the use of apostrophes for Lent, however.
No Longer Thin?
This afternoon we opened up the box of Thin Mints that we bought from my niece over the weekend.
After dinner, Big Brother found two foil wrappers downstairs where Little Brother had been playing all afternoon.
Empty foil wrappers.
Upon interrogation, we found that Little Brother had eaten nearly an entire box of Thin Mints all by himself.
I explained to TheDad why Little Brother had said he wasn’t hungry at dinnertime: “He ate almost the whole box of Thin Mints this afternoon!”
“That’ll pack on the pounds,” observed Middle Sister.
But her eyesight is 20/20
Tonight I asked Middle Sister to please be careful as she clambered over the back of the front seat after we dropped off her friend from the basketball-game carpool.
“I’m careful, Mom. I always see all those steps that I fall down!”
Those tissues were clean!
Middle Sister has created a new art form: drawing on tissues with Sharpies. It’s delicate work since tissues tear easily. She lays them flat and draws little smileys, stars, dots and other designs. And then she hangs them on the refrigerator for all to admire.
This morning she cornered Big Brother at breakfast. He was unaware of last night’s creativity. “Have you seen my tissue?” she asked him.
“No, and I’m not sure I want to,” he answered cautiously.
Caveat Emptor
I hate to shop on Sundays, but Middle Sister was wandering around here earlier looking for something to do, and hoping we’d let her out of the house to wander aimlessly around town by herself.
Not gonna happen!
I still have a gift card from Barnes & Noble (from Christmas) so I suggested that we go there. I figured I’d buy her a hot chocolate and she could listen to the CDs while I browsed. She didn’t take me up on the offer of cocoa, but she did ask if she could buy a CD by a band she likes. So I let her borrow money from my gift card to buy the album.
About twenty minutes later we left the store and she opened the CD and popped it into the car stereo. That’s when she discovered that this album was recorded live. She’s not a fan of recorded concerts. (She gets that from me.)
Because the CD had been opened, the store refused to take it back. That’s their policy. They’ll only accept returned CDs if they’re defective, and they will replace it with a new copy of the same item in that case. But for Middle Sister, there was no chance at returning the item.
She was disappointed, but gracious about it. All the way home we agreed that the CD should have had a note on the outside that labeled it as a live album. After we got home, I looked closely at the CD case and it did, indeed, in very tiny, very thin red letters on a black background, state that it had been recorded live. Our righteous anger had been misplaced all along–the blame was squarely on us for not reading the album cover carefully.
I’m not going to lecture her. She doesn’t need that. This is a lesson she has learned all on her own, and I’m just grateful that it only cost her $22 to learn to be a more careful shopper.