Category: Yikes

Murphy’s Law Morning

franciscanmom6 Comments

I have been awake for less than 5 hours today. And already, the following “glitches” have taken place:

  • Little Brother was most ungracious (not to mention greedy) upon finding out that the Tooth Fairy had left her usual $1 instead of the $5 that some of his classmates get.
  • TheDad informed me that his car HAD to go to the mechanic TODAY because some “your car will explode if you don’t go to the mechanic” indicator light had lit up on his dashboard.
  • That meant that I had to commandeer Middle Sister’s car and take her to school and force her to (indignity of indignities) ride the bus home today.
  • Little Brother came thisclose to missing HIS bus because he hadn’t packed his schoolbag last night, like I’d asked him to.
  • Middle Sister had a pretty empty gas tank.
  • I had to follow TheDad to the car dealership and then he had to take me back home. ALL of this was before I even got a cup of coffee, not to mention breakfast.
  • I thought maybe there would be a diner run on the way back from Hyundai City, but no…(and poor Hubs is first of all not a mind-reader and second of all WAY too busy at work right now so I know there was no time for a diner run. But a girl can dream. Especially when she needs coffee.)
  • Middle Sister started sending me angry texts because the discombobulation of HER morning meant that she’d forgotten some important papers on the coffee table.
  • A piece of the splashguard of my stand mixer detached itself when I was making cookies for Big Brother, who’s coming home for dinner tonight.
  • Little Brother’s coach emailed the date and time of the CYO basketball playoff game:  smack in the middle of a Tech Week rehearsal for Annie Jr. (I’m dealing with that by praying for snow.)
  • I found a broken zipper pull in the dryer’s lint filter. Inspecting the laundry, I discovered that it had come off the Notre Dame hoodie that I JUST got for Christmas.

None of this is “big stuff” but it’s the little stuff that really gets to me.

I could really use a reboot here, especially since in just a couple of hours, I have a Secular Franciscans meeting and there will be guests, so I am WAY outside my comfort zone on this one (introvert problems). It’s not that the guests aren’t welcome–I’m glad they’ll be there. But I find it tough enough to conduct a meeting when it’s “just us,” never mind up to 10 extra people, some of whom are strangers.

And I have to make sure I’m out of that meeting on time to pick up Little Brother and his friend at Chess Club after school.

At the moment, I’m kind of afraid to touch anything or go anywhere! I could really use a double dose of Grace and Dignity right about now.

He’s On To Me

franciscanmom3 Comments

Little Brother has made some new friends. They are brothers who live down the street; one is a third-grader like Little Brother, and the younger one is in first grade.

I don’t know these kids very well yet, so my M.O. is to allow everyone to play here, where I can keep an eye on things.

One recent day the whole neighborhood gang (5 third-graders and one first-grader) were in here fighting over a video game. I loudly declared a time limit on the game and let them know that they could play with other toys inside after that time, or go outside to play. They had fair warning, and then a five-minute warning, but when the game was over they were disappointed. So First-Grader wheedled, “You can come to my house…Resident Eeeevil!”

I’m not one to keep up on video games. So I checked in with Big Brother, who’s proved to be a good judge of what games, movies and songs are appropriate for someone Little Brother’s age. He told me that the game is so violent, TheDad wouldn’t let him buy it at all. (Normally, the rule for our 18-year-old is: you can buy the game or movie, but you can’t use it when Little Brother is awake.) So this one’s got to be pretty bad.

I figured, at that point, that Little Brother won’t be at that house playing games. If they’re going to ride bikes and kick soccer balls outside, that’s fine. So today, First-Grader came up the street looking for Little Brother (who was still in his school uniform.) While Little Brother changed his clothes, I asked First-Grader what they planned to do. “We’re going to my house to play video games,” he replied, and before I could say any more, he continued, “my violent games are all for PlayStation, and that’s broken. But I have one game for my DS. It’s rated M. We can play my DS. All my other games are rated T.”

“Little Brother isn’t allowed to play games that are rated T or M,” I told him. “You guys are going to have to find something else to do.”

How scary–this child knows that he has violent video games. And he tried to play me by telling me that those aren’t available. Scarier still, he tried to get me to let Little Brother play at his house where the adults permit six-year-olds to play games rated M.

Like that’ll happen.

Strangest Snack EVER

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Little Brother is attending Vacation Bible School this week. Our parish participates in a multi-church VBS–Catholic, Lutheran, Moravian, Methodist, and possibly more. The program they’re using this year is Crocodile Dock, which focuses mostly on Exodus events.

If you haven’t send your child to VBS, you might not know that often the snacks are “themed.” They are a craft project in themselves, and after the children build their own portion of the snack, listening to the Bible lesson at the same time, they get to eat their snack.

So today they learned all about the plagues that God sent on the Egyptians when they wouldn’t release the Israelites from slavery. Little Brother came home and reported on the contents of today’s snack and what each food represented:

Popcorn and mini-marshmallows for the plague of hailstones
Raisins for the plague of locusts
Chocolate chips for the plague of flies
And (I am not making this up) Gushers for the plague of boils.

Tasty!

Slow Down!

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This is what I get for doing too much rushing.

My mom is afraid to do any “cyber shopping” but she knows I have no such fears. So I get frequent calls: “Can you find one of these, and get it shipped to me?” Then she waits on the phone while I place the order and writes out a check and mails it.

Last week I ordered something from a certain store so she could give it to one of my nieces.

This week I ordered something from the same store as a gift to one of my kids.

Yesterday I got a tracking number in an email and when I checked on the package, it was set to arrive at Mom’s house on Tuesday. I assumed it was my niece’s gift. So I emailed Mom that the package was on the way.

I got an email back that she had already received that package on Thursday!

Sure enough, the gift I ordered is also on its way to Mom’s house. 125 miles from here. I need it here for Christmas. The site had “helpfully” remembered Mom’s shipping address, and I never thought to check on that when I made the second order.

Sigh.

There’s going to be a lot of gas and turnpike tolls expended to correct this mistake.

Table Manners

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Hope has this nice post with a list of table manners that she intends to concentrate on with her children.

After tonight’s dinner-table debacle in which 4 out of 5 family members lost their appetites midway through one of our favorite meals, I feel compelled to add the following to Hope’s list:

* Do not use your straw to chase chicken grease around on your plate.

* Do not load your straw with bits of chicken and use it as a blowgun.

YES, this really happened here tonight. It’s going to be a long summer–I can just tell.