A Good Laugh

Today is a big day for my oldest.  Perhaps for some kids, the travel bug hits sooner, but for our girl, it's when she's 20, and thankfully, she's not going far.  She and a friend are off to Detroit, just a few hours away, but all by themselves, overnight.  Kinda sweet.  They're going to catch a concert and do some shopping.  Even though it isn't far and it isn't long, it still strikes me as another sign that she is not little anymore.  I know this.  But, these events just remind me and make me a little sad, but who am I kidding - I did it to my parents and they survived, so I guess I'll survive, too.  It's good practice for a few weeks from now.  My son will be off to India and I'm sure I'll be the crying mom at the airport.  Poor him!

At least I still have these little guys to keep me grounded.  We've had a few winner quotes lately from them here.  We went to a Safety Village last week and my 7 year old was very disappointed.  He said to me when we left (boy, was he grouchy as we got in the car), "I didn't want to learn about safety!  I wanted to learn about danger!!"  Sorry!  But this same little guy who refuses to get better at reading, also made a fantastic comment as he went to bed last night, "Mom!  I'm so excited about reading!  I can't believe it!  I've never had this feeling before!  I want to read more!"  I had been wanting to give up on him, but knew I had to press on.  We went to the library yesterday and I scoured the shelves for something that might draw him in.  I finally found a new series that I used to read as a kid, Choose Your Own Adventure, but for early readers.   I didn't want a "bubble gum" type of reading, but I knew he would probably like it.  In the older books you could potentially "die" if you chose a certain ending.  I told him this and he almost grabbed the book out of my hand!  I'm telling you, he loves danger, and risking life and limb is what gets him going.  Turns out, these younger books have NOTHING to do with dying of course as they are written for younger kids, so he was a little disappointed in that, but didn't matter.  He was sucked in to the fun idea of choosing different endings for stories.  He couldn't get enough of it.  It may have helped that I did bribe him with a reward of getting to buy his own chocolate bar if he read a whole book.  He has wanted one for weeks and I keep refusing.  So, I now have a kid excited about reading (and eating chocolate!) 

If it isn't funny kids that keep me busy and older kids that keep me praying, I have super bad animals that keep me mad.  Trying to be better at meal planning, I had planned for spaghetti last night.  I had the meat thawing in the sink in the mudroom.  My very smart cats know that I do this now and wait for it to thaw.  How nice of me to think of them, they must think.  They've grabbed it out of the sink and eaten it more than once, but lately, I've outsmarted them and have covered it with a heavy pot lid which they haven't been able to manage to lift.  Yesterday, I did the same thing and looked the cat in the eye and laughed.  I knew I had beat them again.  The cats must have had a meeting while I was out (remember there are 13 of them right now in the house!).  I came home ready to cook the meat and went to get it out of the sink.  No meat.  Just a lid.  There may as well have been a note that said, "Ha!  You lose!"  I screamed at the top of my lungs, "NOOOOOO!!!!!  WHERE IS IT YOU CATS!!!"  I couldn't find it anywhere. Usually I find half of the meat somewhere, but this time it was nowhere to be seen.  Then I found the empty plastic bag it had been in.....and a guilty pregnant dog nearby.  The cats had been nice enough to get it down on the floor and then she made quick work of getting rid of the cats just so she could satisfy her never-empty stomach.  That was the only time I felt not-so-angry.   Oddly enough, I thought, at least the dog got it.  I supplement her diet right now because of her pregnancy giving her extra meat and eggs to keep her in top pregnancy shape!  I couldn't look at the cats though without wanting to kick them out permanently.  They got to live another day just because I ignored them and their clandestine behaviour.  GRRRRRRRR....Oh well, makes for a very funny story at the very least, I guess.

So between kittens running everywhere, naughty kitty mommies, fat doggies (puppies due in less than two weeks now!), funny little kids, adventurous older kids, I sure have a lot to keep me busy, laughing and sometimes pulling my hair out.  My kids said to me yesterday, "Why are we having a second winter?'  GREAT QUESTION!!!!  I would certainly prefer Spring to come.  If it ever does come we will finally be able to fix our trampoline that is so ruined it's embarrassing.  But the new parts just sit there at the front door and may sit there, as the weather reporter said yesterday, "until August"....that's when he said Spring might come!  Ha!  I can see it.  We live in Canada, what do we expect!