I’ve not been blogging in a while.  I am pretty busy– if you didn’t know I have added "preschool teacher" to my hat rack.  And so I present to you the knowledge I am gleaning from this experience.

Question:

Dear Miss Stephanie,

My kid scissors keep disappearing.  How can I find them?

-Cutless in Chicago

Dear Cutless,

Put the remaing scissors up high and out of the sight of your children.  The people will soon need to cut things, and the missing scissors will mysteriously reappear.  Put these away promptly until all the lost pairs are found.

Miss Stephanie 

Question:

Dear Miss Stephanie,

I am thinking about starting a preschool, because I already have a million other things going on in my life and totally want to add one more thing.  What is your best advice on this matter?

Kind of Crazy in the Suburbs

Dear You-will-want-to-stab-yourself,

Don’t.

Miss Stephanie 

Got your attention, eh?

Seriously, though.  Yesterday was one of those kind of days that made me understand why living in a commune or something would appeal to a person.  With three kids under 6 and too much house to take care of, I get kind of lonely sometimes.  I don’t really want to drag them places because they are so much work when I do, I’d rather just stay home.  

But it get’s lonely.

It would be nice to have a few other ladies around just kind of all the time to chat with, to share household duties with even spar with just to create some drama.  It would be nice to have extra hands around. Imagine this conversation:

Me: Hey wife number two, and three, can you watch the children so I can go get a pedicure?

Wife #2: There’s a lot of children between the three of us.

Me: And there’s two of you, I am sure you can handle it.  Besides, Joan up the street has like 15 kids and her husband only has one wife, so I know between the two of you 12 kids is like nothing.

Wife #3: I get to go tomorrow, right?

Me: (knowing dinner would be ready and the house would be clean when I get back) Sure.  See ya in a few hours! 

Yeah, that’d be nice. 

P.S. No comments about how in real life polygamy stinks and all the alleged abuse and all of that.  I get that.  I am being totally facetious. 

I have been told that in times of recession, there are three industries that tend to thrive.  There are three feel good items that people continue to buy and these are alcohol, tobacco and cosmetics.  In this time of economic "crisis" I am pretty sure folks are also going to continue to buy the following:

1. Coffee.  I don’t personally drink it, but I’m sure it will continue to be purchased by the general populus.  Especially if customers get a peep show too.

2. Chocolate.  

3. People Magazine.  Because seriously, I don’t have time to stand at the QFC at 9:30 on a Monday night and read all about how Clay Aiken just had a baby with a 50 year old woman friend, who did invitro for him and now he wants the world (including his newborn son) to know that he’s gay.  I can’t read the whole thing at the store, I NEED to read the whole article on my sick bed Tuesday morning.  And if I need constant updates on the beautiful people, I am pretty sure others do too.

So say the people.  We were making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies tonight, and when it came time to blend, both Sugar and Engineer suggested getting a stool so they could watch and also laugh.  And sure enough as soon as I started the mixer, they both spontaneously erupted with canned laughter. 

I never realized that making cookies was so funny.

I guess it’s been a long time since I was 5. 

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It did.  What can I say, I love great music.  And the Moses story is so incredible.  When that opening song came on and the Hebrew slaves sing, "Elohim, God on high, Can you hear your people cry?" I just started sobbing.  It was so moving.

Of course I really lost it when Jochabed starts singing to Moses.  Can you imagine sending your baby down a river on the chance that he might live?  Seriously.  The faith of that woman.  I can only imagine the angst she must have felt as she sent him down the Nile and I would guess she was just pleading with the Lord to let him live.  I know I would have been begging to see him again.  And I am totally touched by the tender mercies of the Lord toward Moses mother.  She sends him down the river and then the Lord, through Miriam and Pharaoh’s daughter, works it out so that she gets to be her son’s wet nurse. Not only does her baby live but she is blessed to be with him for a few more years.  What love!

Anyway.  I was crying.  I just love that song– Deliver Us.  Totally worth the dollar I spent.  

I just have to post some of the wit of Engineer:

He had his first music class on Tuesday and the teacher told me he has a beautiful voice (beam).  As we were getting in the car I told him that I heard he did some wonderful singing.

E: I did NOT sing
Me: Well Miss Singy said you did.
E: (matter of fact) Well, maybe she’s lying. 

              —————–
 

At kindergarten when they don’t finish their snack, the rest of it gets put in their backpack.  Engineer keeps coming home with pretzels in his baggies.  (Yesterday it was even pretzel goldfish.)   

Me: Do you not like pretzels or something?
E: I like pretzels.
Me: Then how come pretzels keep coming home with you in your bag?
E: Because I forgot to throw them away. 

My kids and I are really excited because our chickens have started laying eggs! 

On the downside, they might not lay in the winter unless we turn their lamp on at night, hens need 16-18 hours of light in order for them to lay.  And this little fact got me thinking…

Why do I have to ovulate in the winter if chickens get to be exempt?  I’d like to not have a cycle when there is not enough sun…

Of course, I don’t think I’d like to lay an egg five days a week either, so I guess there’s a trade off there.   

If your four year old requests chewing gum and you know she had some yesterday, I now recommend just giving her a piece no matter how early in the morning it is.  If you don’t, she just might get yesterday’s piece out of the trash and not only re-chew it, she will generously share with her baby sister.

It’s Engineer’s fourth day of kindergarten, his second day of riding the bus and the novelty has officially worn off. 

He told me today that he didn’t want to go back.

My momma-loves-her-little-boy for ten seconds contemplated homeschool and then the real me told him to suck it up.  Okay, well, I didn’t say it like that.

Turns out part of the reason he is so done is that he got in trouble today.  In Engineer’s class you see, when they don’t "make their day" by following the rules they get their frog taken down.  And here the lad is chatting with me about how he took his own frog down because he didn’t want it up there anymore because he doesn’t want to go to school.

So like any suspicious parent, I checked his bag and found the teacher note saying he didn’t make his day.  Why?  What was the issue?  After several requests from the teacher to get him to complete his work he responded by yelling and crying and thus disrupted the students.  This is of course, typical behavior for the boy with large emotions.  The boy with no in between level.

 I sure hope she can do a better job of gettting him to simmer down, because I’ve sure had a heck of a time with it.