What's the Word?

I suppose everyone has this kind of fun at the expense of their children sometimes, but I just love it when Jude misuses a word or phrase. I like to continue the conversation as though he intended the misuse and really sap every bit of entertainment out of it.

When Jude first started Sunday School he began telling everyone he was going to learn about God and cheeses. I'd ask whether he had a project about Brie or Swiss, to which he would reply with a contorted face. "I'm just wondering if we need to stop at the grocery store on the way to class to get supplies." Sometimes, he'd catch on and try to correct me. "No mom, its God and CHEESES." Oh! I guess he wants to be a chef when he grows up.

During Christmas program practice, Jude learned "Silent Night." When he sings the song at home it starts off, "Silent knife. Oh the knife." And then, of course, my line is "all is calm, everyone's dead." He yells at me that those are not the words, but really his verse didn't use the correct words either so I think we are even.

Jude stills runs for elevators and yells out, "hey mom, can I ride in the elligator?" I tell him it's dangerous because alligators bite. He says they don't, but I wouldn't get on an alligator. I think it would be safer to just walk.

I do miss eating sausakids for besskess. I'm now forced to eat sausages for breakfast. When Jude got sick he sometimes had diadiwa. Now he gets diarrhea just like the rest of us.

Although he carefully thinks out the syllables before he asks, I still get requests for que-diarrheas. The good news is that I don't much care for plain quesadillas anyway. And this is probably why he thinks studying about cheeses is so important.

I know it will all end soon for Jude and I so I will enjoy it while it lasts. Luckily, little Dane's vocabulary is coming along nicely. Oh, and he's a "yes" man, so at least I can ask him slanted questions until then.

Word up!

Me, the Screamer!

Growing up, one of the most annoying things I remember my mother doing was screaming. We were fighting, she'd scream. She was startled, she would scream. Something spilled, more screaming. I would plead for yelling instead. The sound of a scream just grates on my nerves!

Chad has shouted at me a number of times to stop screaming. I have always replied, "you want to hear screaming, go live with my mother for a while and then we'll talk about who's a screamer." Me, a screamer? I'm a yeller. Clearly he hadn't heard the difference.

We were getting ready for my company Christmas party last night. Like anytime we do anything, there were plenty of interruptions to stop fighting kids, put back all my makeup Dane was hiding in his drawers and remind Jude to close the fridge after he got his little butt out of it because he doesn't need to be in there taking the foil off of everything and opening more cheese he won't eat. I finally had the hair done, the dress on and was ready to go. Now everyone knows I am perpetually late despite honorable efforts and this night would be no different. (I'm sure plenty of future blogs will detail further). I go to retrieve Dane in the bathroom and there he stands on the toilet, ring cleaning tub in hand, lid off. It was already too late. I stood there helplessly as our wedding rings and every once of fluid spilled out over the bathroom. Pink splatters were everywhere! I stomped and screamed, screamed and stomped. I couldn't stop screaming. Are you kidding me? Why can't we just have to remember where we put the keys like everyone else?

As I crawled on hands and knees wiping up the bathroom, dress and all, I replayed my reaction in my head. Was I screaming? I was, and a lot. I remembered all three times we had to remove the toilet to retrieve something Jude flushed. I remembered seeing Jude drop toys into the wall through the pipe access door in our bedroom. I recalled near burns, spills, startles, etc and realized that I screamed every time. I'm a screamer, NOT a yeller as I had always thought. Did I change my tactics or was I always in denial? I guess I don't know.

I guess Chad gets to be right about something. I had to tell him that I now realize I am not the yeller I thought I was. To hell with it-just another thing for me to scream about.

Our Little Artist

After dinner tonight Jude got out his project bags and started to draw at the table.  He likes to practice his letters and numbers now.  I sat there next to him complimenting his forms as he explained exactly the necessary stroke for each number or letter.

He was repeating an eight over and over, then decided he needed the green marker so he could draw a Grinch out of his eight.  He explained the very angry eyes and mouth that an angry Grinch should have.  He made him a leg and then another.  And then drew a "u" between his legs.  I asked what it was for.  "Oh mom, that's his penis, because he's a boy Grinch," was his reply.

I probably could have left it at that, but I had to know what a "girl" grinch would look like.  He drew another angry face and two legs, but this time there was a circle drawn on the belly.  I was afraid to ask, but ask I did. "Well that's where the baby is going to grow."  Then he picked up the marker again and finished the baby, angry face and all.  I asked why that momma Grinch was so angry.  "Mom, Grinches hate everything."

I called Chad over to join in my praise of Jude's artwork and asked Jude to explain to daddy how to draw a Grinch.  He gave Chad the same explanation I had received.   Chad was trying as hard as I to stifle a laugh and commented, "well I guess we now know to expect a few calls from his art teacher."

Hey who doesn't like a good nude? He's just ahead of his time, right?

Halloween night-My Favorite

Halloween night is one of my favorite of the year. Every trick-or-treat season, I prepare the house with the fiber optic scarecrow and pumpkins, a lighted witch's hat, paper ghosts in the trees, jack-o-lanterns, hay bails and blacks cats. Each year we have lived on this street with only seven well-spaced houses and gotten six or less costumed children at our door. Chad sighs and reminds me that more decor won't equal more monsters, yet I drag out the bins labeled "Halloween," buy the bigger candy and get my hopes up anyway. This year I added a fog machine.

We live on a block shaped like a boot that has some lots over an acre, so the circumference in quite large. It mostly faces a park to the South, and Highway 100 to the West, so it makes sense that little candysnatchers would view our nook as too much time for too little reward. I figured I wasn't the only one who was missing out on all the fun every year and I felt a bit guilty about it; I decided to make Halloween worth it for all those houses on the West, back-of-the-boot side of the block that we ourselves had skipped over every year.

We stop at G's house across the street first, who also creates a great display of whirling bats in a blown up ghost globe. He tried to fill Jude and Dane up with lots of candy, but I insisted on only a couple pieces each as "we were going around the whole block this year!" Sh, next door to us was given the same information, then we headed West. The first couple houses were dark, but we pressed on to B at the end. She said we were her first trick-or-treaters of the night, but it was early.

I made the right turn pulling the wagon and passed the first house up for sale and empty, glad we could skip over the super long driveway anyway. The next house would be our first stop on the back of the boot and I ramped the boys up to surprise some people who had surely given up on the dream of Halloween. The driveway was about 30-40 yards long as really are all of them are. J opened the door and introduced himself and his wife, and invited us in. He little dogs were running wild and my boys were chasing them in the foyer with glee. I noticed immediately that there was no candy bowl, so after a short conversation I attempted to exit, trying to be polite enough not to embarass anyone. Joel excused himself briefly and came back with a bowl full of candy. I was wrong, I thought, but as he dropped the treats in their pumpkins I took notice of the Christmas wrapping and knew immediately it was not from this year, probably not even last year.

The next lady also had no candy, but did again have little dogs the boys enjoyed meeting. The man at the next house opened the door with a bowl of gum and said, "you are the first trick-or-treaters we've had in over eight years!" We met his dog also, thanked him for the stale gum and I turned back toward our street a little deflated, giving up on the 'round the block idea. Although I know I'll never make that trip again, I feel a little torn about the decision now. Those poor people will probably actually buy candy next year and no one will come to collect it. :(

We stopped at C and S's, our neighbors to the East who had nice, normal candy and then Jude remembered we hadn't gone yet to M's across the street. He bolted her direction and when she heard us coming, she came out with bags full of toys won from claw machines. Jude and Dane each picked one, then got their treats-soda cans! Last year she gave out juice boxes that expired in February of 2004. The soda expired October 31, 2005 so I guess I didn't feel that bad later when Jude wanted to drink a little. I just had to pretend to spill it and get him a replacement out of our fridge.

After over an hour of trick-or-treating the boys had four edible pieces of candy. I gave the okay to go back to G's and get more-they earned it. I was informed by Chad, who was made to stay home, that we had had exactly zero visiters. I was confounded, I had seen some children on our street! How could they have skipped us! I demanded to know how loud the tv had been on-could he have missed someone? Jude went to porch and yelled out to kids across the park to "come to our house so my mom can give you candy and not be sad anymore!" It didn't help.

I guess I'm a lot like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear. I will scold anyone who tells me the children won't come, and I just can't travel to the neighborboods of our relatives to join in their Halloween adventures for fear that I will miss the year the hordes of goblins, princesses and power rangers are beating down my door.

Chad tried to comfort me, and for a while, I accepted it. But now, I have already begun brainstorming for next year! It's going to be the best Halloween ever, Charlie Brown. Just wait!!

Marathon

Most of you heard this story, but just so I remember that I actually completed a marathon......

It was the hottest, most humid day on record for the Twin Cities marathon. What a lot of fun!

Unfortunately for me, nerves manifest themselves in the form of an upset stomach. I spent much time in the bathroom before the race began. Although I was satisfied that I would not encounter any bouts with runners' diarrhea, I was ill-prepared for the dehydration that I suffered as a result. Also, my watch stopped literally 5 minutes before Chad, Steph and I were dropped at the start and I forgot the cotton for my sensitive ears. My step-dad gave up his watch which helped, but the timer was little and hard to read while I was moving. For the record, the stomach problems subsided after I crossed the start as I knew they would because I didn't have to anticipate the race anymore.

I felt wonderful the first 6-7 miles, then I hit a wall. I was delirious and felt like I was going to collapse and I was dry heaving for about 7 miles before I finally had to vomit. I knew this was dehydration because of the pre-race problem and the heat. I cried multiple times at the thought of having to stop that soon into the race given that on training runs up to 20 miles I felt fabulous. Six miles in seemed pathetic!

I managed to keep about a 10-minute mile pace until I had to stop around mile 13. An EMS person made me take a break for a few, then I picked up as much water and PowerAde as I could hold and sipped it while I walked/jogged about the next mile and a half. I lost a lot of time, but I decided to give up the time I was pushing for in the interest of finishing.

Many people who saw me said I looked much better at mile 23 than I did at mile 11. Well I felt a lot better too. I managed to jog most of the last 4 miles.

I really appreciate everyone who came out to cheer. Everytime I saw Andy, I thought to myself, "thank God for Andy." LaVonne walking a half block with me and Darcie jogging with me all really, really helped as I was just begging my body to keep going. And when I heard Julie screaming "Carrie Yeager" I was so thankful it was someone I knew, because I had been hallucinating every few seconds hearing my name and seeing people that I knew were no where near Minnesota.

My mom asked me at the finish if I was going to do it again and I said, "hell no," but by Sunday night I had already determined my best strategy for fixing the areas I had gone wrong. Even Steph and Chad were feeling optomistic that there might be a round two by last night. We will see.

And my favorite part of the race...... when Jude ran up to us at the finish and happily yelled, "I can't believe it mom, you and dad won the race!!"

Chad finished in 4:30, Steph 4:56 and me in 5:09. I don't think 5146st place is technically a "win" but I did beat more than 3000 other people. :)