Fun quotes

I haven't been keeping up with letting you know what we have been up to this summer, as you know, but I thought I would record this fun conversation that happened when we were on a trip.

We stopped at a place to eat near a lake and I noticed the gas price.  I can't remember how high it was now, but this is what happened after.

Me: "Whoa... look at that price!"
Pro Boxer: "Yeah, let's not fuel up here."
I didn't respond for a moment because I heard: "Yeah, it's not fuel up here," and all I could think was, Why wouldn't it be fuel? What else would it be?  Eventually....
Me: "Oh!! Yeah, let's not do that." (cause I finally realized what he really said.)
He looked at me funny, wondering why it took me that long to respond and after I explained it, we had a good laugh.  ^_^

And a few random quotes from the kids:

Goof Ball:

~"Mom, is this yours?"  He is insanely obsessed with knowing who possesses all the items in the house, and amazingly enough, sticks to leaving the things that are mine alone.  For a four year old, that is pretty surprising.

~"I'm not a silly kid, you a silly kid!" and naturally I respond, "I'm not a silly kid, you're a silly kid!" - this goes on for a long time, and it varies depending on if I first called him a goof ball, silly goose, crazy kid, etc...

~"Mom, I wanna go home."  The silly thing with this sentence is he says it when we are home and he wants to go somewhere else.  Then I have to try to explain to his silly and very stubborn brain that we are home.  He often gets upset and starts crying at this news. :)

~"It's my turn!"  This isn't too odd for someone his age, but the surprising thing about it, is that he lets Bug have his turn on the ipad until the clock chimes (which has turned into a change-who-plays-with-ipad alarm rather than, Shay-get-off-your-butt-and-do-things alarm).  Often I didn't even notice the clock chime when I hear Goof Ball say this, but then I look at the clock and see that it is indeed either :15, :30, :45, or :00.

Bug:

~"I wanna do homework."  This happened after I told him how soon school would start, and he started printing worksheet things off of starfall.com and dutifully showed them to me to correct and put a sticker on them.  Hopefully that enthusiasm will continue.

~"Mom, that hurted my ears."  I corrected him on the right way to say hurt in past tense (really, is there a present or plain tense for hurt???)  The next time he started to say hurted again, but corrected himself and said it the right way.  I just had to smile.  He is growing so much, and loves learning.

~"Mom, I want to do an experiment."  He then proceeds to tell me how solids are solids and liquids are liquids and says he wants to put juice in ice trays and put them in the freezer during the night.  I told him we couldn't do that one, but thank goodness he had a second experiment which is to see how long it would take an ice cube to melt when placed in the sun.  Again, we used the chimes as our time placers and tallied how many times the clock chimed.  Bug guessed 1 chime and it would be melted, I guessed 4.  We were both wrong.  Any guesses?

Truthfully, I would like to write more specific quotes from Bug, but he is just so random and around-the-bushy with the way he talks, that it is hard to really get anything straight from him.  Which obviously makes it hard for me to remember specific quotes.  But sometimes he will just randomly say, "Mom," and I'll say "what," and he'll say, "I love you."  Which is the quote I love best to hear.

Personalities

I feel like I'm finally starting to get a grasp on my kids' personalities.  I may have known before, but I'm finally seeing where they come from, and able to articulate what their personalities are like.

Bug is very serious minded.  I mean, he is a kid like any other and likes to have fun and be silly... but he isn't nearly as silly as his little brother.  I can't tell you the many times when Bug would take a joke of Pro Boxer's seriously and have to be reconciled by me to let him know that Daddy was just joking.  I still have to - many times over.  In this, I think Bug gets it from me.  But then he seems to also have some of Pro Boxer in him with how he likes to have things organized and gets frustrated at Goof Ball for the times when he messes things up.  Don't get me wrong, our house is far from clean - but in certain things, he likes to have it organized and set... even when he was a baby playing with blocks, he lined them up perfectly.  He didn't build things like I thought, but he would make sure everything was in its place.  Someone gave him crayons and a coloring book, and what did he do?  He lined the crayons up on the ground.  :)

As for Goof Ball... I think I had a bit of an understanding of his character and personality for a while.  I'm judging that off of his blog name.  I came up with that when he was probably 6 months or so... and it still hasn't changed.  But on top of his complete goofiness (that he clearly gets from Pro Boxer), he also is really stubborn.  Like me.  We have had many a meal battle, and I often won.  I have 24 more years of stubborn experience than him, so that is to be expected.  But he since has found a way to win in his own sneaky way, and it pisses me off. :)  "Eat or go to bed."  That's the rule I set up.  One time I set a plate in front of him, and he looked up at me and said, "I tired."  Its like he knew he couldn't win, so he just gave up from the get go.  I don't know what to do with him sometimes. :)  Though this knowing that he can't win against my stubbornness helped when we started potty training.  Pro Boxer couldn't do anything to get him to go pee on the toilet.  My school stopped, within a week later, he was peeing on the toilet.  It's like he said to himself, "Well, Mom's at it now, guess I can't win anymore... may as well give in."

(I have to insert here, what just happened.  He didn't finish his breakfast this morning, because he is still on the tail end of his food strike.  He came to me complaining about the wii remotes not having batteries.  But then he asked for juice.  I said he needed to finish his food before he got any juice.  He went over and looked at it then said, "I don't need juice."  And I said fine.  ..... little punk.)

Goof Ball gets one more paragraph, because this is one aspect of his character that I just started to realize.  So he is goofy, and stubborn.  But he is also stubborn with his goofiness.  When he wants to be silly, nothing can stop him.  In this, there is no way for me to win over his stubbornness.  I'm trying to get Bug to realize this as well, because sometimes Bug wants to be serious with something or other, but Goof Ball is being completely crazy, and no one can stop him.  My excuse to Bug when this happens is, "He's just four.  He doesn't understand rules or anything like that, so just try to play by his rules."  Which works for now. :)

I have to wonder how these two completely different personalities will continue to grow with each other... :)

Potty story:
So as Goof Ball has been really focused on potty stuff lately, this happened.  I told my mom about it on the phone and she said I should put it on here... I am just getting to it now.

I had a friend over, and she needed to use the bathroom.  So I stayed where I was as she left and Goof Ball followed her.  I heard him lay down in front of the bathroom (like he had many times when I went, I don't even really think about it anymore).  After a moment, he said, "Mom!  She's going pee!" because he could hear it.  My poor friend was so startled, that she stopped instinctively even though she had more to go.  The silence made Goof Ball say, "Mom!  She's going poop!"  Well that earned him an exasperated sigh from me as my palm hit my forehead.  Then he said, "I need to go pee."  So I took him to the downstairs bathroom.  Only to find a text a few moments later from my friend telling me to take him away. :)  I got the text a little late... but anyway, that's the story.

And since I told a story about Goof Ball, here is the latest interesting information from Bug:
Apparently when Goof Ball turns 5 then we are going to have another baby in the house.  This is not an official announcement from me trying to be creative in saying that I'm expecting (I'm not...) this is purely from the Bug's mouth.  But if that is the case, I guess I need to get my IUD out and get busy, because Goof Ball turns 5 in June...  This statement also shows just how calculating and serious Bug is.  He decided this at least a year ago - and he still hasn't wavered or forgot about it.  Let's just say... I have silly kids.

"Mom, let me tell you why I'm crying."

Yesterday, naturally, me and my family went to visit Little Angel.  On the way to a restaurant shortly after this, Bug said, "Mom, let me tell you why I'm crying."

I hadn't heard him crying, but I turned around in the car to see his sad face.  "Why are you crying?"

"I'm crying because of all the people who died."

Sunday night we had watched a video my parents had sent me from their trip in Manila.  The video was about their trip to the WWII Memorial, naturally having many many graves.  Pro Boxer and I talked to Bug about the graves and recounted the numbers that were on the screen.  I think that, in combination with visiting Little Angel made a seven year old make such a profound statement.

The closest I got to crying was kneeling in front of the grave, holding Bug and Goof Ball close to me.  Then insisting that they hold my hands as we walked back to the car.  I didn't cry though.  I'm not sure yet if that is a good thing or not.  Save for bitter angry tears focused at God, I haven't really cried much over Little Angel.  But I suppose... I'm not much of a crier.  Either that or I'm so used to suppressing painful feelings that they just don't come.  Though that would suggest that I'm numb constantly which has been a thought I have pondered recently.

Ah well... another post that was supposed to be short doubled in length again.  I probably use more words than is needed.

I hate making up titles... just so you know.

Though I seem to be a woman of many words, I will try to keep this somewhat short tonight - mainly because it is difficult to type because the underside of my right forearm hurts (either from carpal tunnel and Shorinji Kempo combining together, or because it is bruised from blocking kicks and attacks tonight) and it is somewhat complicated to type right now.

I started taking Japanese in college mainly because I wanted to get a BA.  Truthfully, that was my driving factor.  The reason why it was Japanese instead of Spanish or French or something more "useful" was because by that time, I was fascinated with the country and I didn't have the desire to learn any other language.  An English degree is automatically a BS in my college, and I thought that was silly.  Or maybe because I was a music major before which is BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) that I just wanted an "Arts" attached to my degree.  But really - English isn't a science no matter how you look at it.

Anyway... to get the BA in English, I needed to have language credits, so I started taking Japanese.  For the longest time on my transcript, under "Current Program" it said "Bachelor of Science."  I was slightly nervous about that but I figured it was because I didn't have all the language credits for it yet.  When all my grades were posted, I got even more nervous about it - even though I had passed all four semesters of Japanese.  So yeah, long story short, the other day I checked and it now says "Bachelor of Arts" and it just made my day.  It also said the graduation date on there, so I feel like I can finally start to believe that yes, I am indeed a college graduate now. ^_^  My jazz band teacher wanted me to go back and get a masters.  I told him that I didn't even need a bachelors degree to write, a masters wouldn't help me much from here on out.  His response: "Oh, I don't care what you would go into... I just want you in my band still."  Sorry Dr. Hipster... not gonna happen.  Thanks for the compliment though. ^_^

In case you were wondering about my once fallen clock - it is still going strong. ^_^

And more pottyness.  About four days ago was the first time I could get Goof Ball to poop in the toilet.  Until then he was pooping in his underpants nearly every day.  Eventually I started remembering around the time when he pooped the day before and then I made him try and go poop, and until he did, I didn't put any pants, under or otherwise, on him.  I was so thrilled when he did it for the first time.  The next day he pooped in his pants again.  But he had done it once, so I knew it was possible and tried to keep the positive energy going.  He didn't poop at all yesterday, but I got him to do it in the toilet again today.  But I still had to do the same thing - have him go around butt naked until he did it... Hopefully we can keep this trend going enough for him to learn when to do it on his own.  And I won't have to clean out anymore nasty underpants. >_<

All in all though - this trying-to-do-things thing is pretty good for me.  I feel pretty good about life in general and feel more secure in life.  Though today was a more lazy day and I didn't really do much from the need to do list, I figured I deserved it from all my hard work from yesterday.

Of dishes and french bread and front teeth

Yesterday was a busy day despite what this:

looks like. The yellow is to do - and notice only three of them have -'s next to them. That said... there were a LOT of dishes to be done and I did 90% of them in about half hour increments breaking it up with the cross-stitch and reading.  There was also lots of tidying up to do, and that also got done for the most part, though that was with the help of Pro Boxer.  And I got up and walked with a friend yesterday, so it was also good that way.  All of that after a day of kenpo yesterday and I'm actually genuinely surprised how much I was able to do.  Though - all that dishes washing really started to put a strain on my arms/hands.  Carpel Tunnel and dishes do NOT go well together.

And recently I have been doing a lot of typing getting the recipes written in a file on the computer so we can have them more organized instead of in multiple different recipe books.  And apparently I have a lot of bread recipes - and typing them all up.... I found that it made me really want to bake something.  So I invited a friend over yesterday and we made

these delicious looking things.  One of them I turned into garlic bread and we still have the other - which also may turn into garlic bread for dinner tonight.  They turned out better than I expected.  Actually I didn't really mean to bake them to that amount of brownness... and I also took them out 9 mins early.  I was just passing by the stove after helping with tidying up downstairs and thought to myself - I should check on the bread to see how it is doing.  And they were dark on top - just like you see them and I was like - That's not golden brown! ... just a little more golden than I was imagining.  So I took them out, worried that they cooked too fast on the top and the inside would still be doughy.  But it wasn't the case - turns out it was actually very well done. (in a good way - not like they were burnt. ^_^)

We sent Bug out to school with a pretty loose tooth because I wasn't willing or we didn't have time to pull it out.  When he came home from school, he had a tissue with him and told how much his tooth was wiggling now... and well - yeah, we ended up pulling it out.  And as usual - he forgot to put the tooth under his pillow the first night, so he'll have to remember tonight, I guess for the tooth fairy to come and give him his dollar.

Personally, I was affronted when I realized Bug was getting a dollar from the tooth fairy.  I only got a quarter for my teeth.  But I decided that it was probably inflation that caused such a thing until Pro Boxer told me that he got a dollar for his teeth - and he is even OLDER than me.  What's with that?  I didn't realize the tooth fairy played favorites.  Ah well... here is a cute Bug who now wishes for his two front teeth for the 4th of July.

Today's report:

If you will notice, these are the same lists as the ones in my previous post - just slimmed down, cause we all know that I talk a lot on here, and add unnecessary things and I decided to take those off for the sake of my sanity. *ahem... the things on the list that have a - next to it are ones that I did today. Note - there are more -'s next to words from the need to do list (I have them color coded... yellow was the least favorite of the colors I could pick from... the next worst color would have been orange, but that wasn't an option... and obviously, I love blue.)  I am thinking I may make the item "housework" into multiple things as I don't mind tidying up nearly as much as I hate dishes... and "housework" is somewhat vague.  I won't get too specific (clear off the coffee table in the front room and wipe it down, and etc....) but just main categories - tidy up, dishes, laundry... from there I'll decide what room I'll tidy up or whatever.

And now... feast your eyes on my newest lovely thing!

Ahhhh..... it looks almost prettier in the picture than real life.  But it dongs.  And it ticks (and on battery power no less - I don't have to remember to always make sure it is wound), and the pendulum swings (note in the pic, it is even a little blurry).  And even after it fell off my wall around 1:00 am and the top wood work fell off.  There are some other parts of wood that may have gotten damaged... but I was astonished that the mechanics of it still worked.  It made me start feeling bad for antique stores 10 or 20 years from now.  What from our generation would actually survive that long?  Whatever happened to making quality things instead of worrying about quantity and how much profit there could be by using less quality products to make the item?

Well anyway - now it is posted on a nail instead of a command strip (*ahem... I learned my lesson... heavy beautiful clocks should not be put on command strips - they just don't have the capacity to hold lots of weight....) and hopefully it will be able to survive much longer in my house, because I have always wanted a clock like this.

Future

So as of late, I have been thinking of the future.  Naturally, I can fully be a mom now that my schooling life is over, and I eased into that easier than I thought I would.  I feared that I would be a grump and get too "You're in my space!!" like, or get overly upset that they are constantly whining or whatever.  But ... I guess I have just been blessed with really good kids (or their school year isn't over so I'm not spending ALL my time with them yet).

More than that though - I have WAY too many hobbies.  Shall I list them?

• Knitting
• Trumpet
• Drawing/sketching/coloring (yes coloring)
• Writing
• Reading
• Cross stitch
• Plants
• Embroidery
• Japanese (including anime watching and manga reading)
• Piano
• Blogging
• Yoga
• (add random various extras that I'm sure I forgot)

Then the list of need to do things (since we are making lists already).

• Housework
• Work work (Mary Kay)
• Writing groups (which also may contribute to work work if things actually start getting published)
• Make meals
• Buy things for said meals
• Organize recipe books into one complete recipe book filled with recipes that we actually use
• Organize other random piles and finally decide where the things in miscellaneous piles should go in the house.
• Exercise - which entails crunching to a song and walking around the block til my legs want to give way every morning, and kempo (a Japanese martial art that I recently started trying out - still not sure if I want to fully pursue it) on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

That is of course not including kid interruptions - which can be on either or both lists.  It is also not including any "me" time, though any of the hobbies can help contribute to that, especially reading and knitting.  And then the fears come in.

• What if my writing isn't good enough to make it?  Am I just wasting time?
• What if my writing IS good enough and I actually publish something and get somewhat well known by people I don't know?  Where would my anonymity go?  Would I be able to handle people knowing my name, or gasp of all gasps, I got so well known and idolized so much I became a guest at a writing convention...?  Will my face be on a website not my own, and when my name is googled, will my face or things I published come up in google images??
• Should I try to get a job at a yarn store instead, and teach people how to knit?
• Will I be able to conquer my fears surrounding what needs to be done to get my Mary Kay business really running?

I know, I'm thinking into this really deep.  But when I go into things, I don't go into them half-heartedly.  I strive to do them as perfectly as I possibly can.  And if I do it as perfectly as I possibly can, the end results are the most extravagant that I can imagine.  And it makes me think... maybe I have too much on my plate.

But yet, at the same time... I still feel like I have all the free time in the world.  I'm considering other things that would take up even more of my time despite that with those lists - I can't really take on more.  I am finding the severe need to prioritize.

The lazy me doesn't want to do any of that - just wants to sit back with a good book, or good anime and knit, or just... not do anything truly worthwhile.  The knowledgeable me knows that I wouldn't like myself very much if I were to do that.  I did it for nearly four years of my life, and truthfully - I can't remember much from those years.  So as I was driving home from martial arts today I decided.  That I needed to make two lists (hey, look at that... how convenient I just made two lists!!) and switch from one to the other every half hour or so, doing different things from each list depending on what I want to do most on the hobby one, and probably the one I want to do least (or the one that needs it the most) on the need to do one.  Hopefully I will switch what things I do on each list to give me time to do all of my hobbies and not slack on the talents I have been given.  This will hopefully boost my productivity   If anything, I know how to waste time.  Last summer there were many times when me and Pro Boxer would sit at our computers after breakfast doing our individual slacker things, and suddenly the kids would come upstairs and would complain about needing food and when I looked at the clock I would realize that oh! it is already 8:30 pm!

Tomorrow maybe I am going to go searching for a clock that will dong every hour.  It may be annoying or distracting at first - but I am sure it will help me.  That will be my timer for this new and improved, Shay-get-off-your-butt-and-worrying-about-the-future plan.  And no matter how actively or procrastinatingly I do things, it will force me to switch gears, and that I had found during this last semester of homework, very useful for me when forced to do unpleasant things.  If I had a break every half hour, my mind didn't turn to mush nearly as easily.

So here's to trying to battle my future fears, and just get up and do things.  I will keep you updated on how it goes.