Category: Amy
From the mouths of babes
Amy: "Dad, don’t you have a place where you work?"
Me: "I work in our basement."
Amy: "No, I mean like a place with lots of people."
Me: "I work by myself."
Amy: "Well, that’s how lots of people work. With lots of people."
From the mouths of babes
Dad, puts on jacket and hat to go outside.
Amy: "You look like Phillips Dad."
From the mouths of babes
Amy: "Our house is like a pet store."
Note: We are dog sitting for a few days so we have 3 dogs in the house, an indoor cat, a fish tank full of snails (maybe some fish), an outdoor cat, squirrels, and who knows what else.
This is not the family I wanted!
My five year old has decided she’s had it with this place. Last night she emptied her chest of drawers into a crate and packed many of her toys in bags. All her clean, folded clothes are in one big pile. The room is wrecked. And as livid as Mom has become running away is probably not a bad idea for all of us! This is her second threat of running away. The first was before Christmas and was abated when I asked, "who should get your Christmas presents?"
I don’t understand this behavior. One, I thought threats of running away did not come around until age eight or nine. Two, she does not have a terrible life here. We believe hands are not for hitting so corporal punishment is avoided in this house. I will admit that Amy has received a couple of spankings but it makes Cathy very angry with me. I grew up under the threat of the belt so it is ingrained in my head as a means of behavior modification. No, I do not agree with it and regret the times I have employed corporal punishment.
Her reason for wanting to run away was because she was not allowed to go play with her friends today. It pains me to hear her yell out, "This is not the family I wanted." and talk of no longer liking anyone in the family. I believe strongly she is modeling this behavior from someone but I don’t know if it is a neighbor friend, school friend, or television.
Dad of the year nomination revoked
Bad Dad sent the kindergartener to school today with nothing but Scooby snacks for lunch.
Update: Yesterday Amy came home and admonished me, "You forgot to send me lunch. All I had was Scooby snacks. I was starving!" And man was she ever put out. She was whimpery and whining and crying. She went into the kitchen and fixed herself a feast of a sandwich, fruit, apple sauce, and cookies. Then she laid in bed and boohoo’d that we never feed her. She gave it the royal treatment! Around dinner we talked about things she could do if it ever happened again including talking to the teacher, the cafeteria volunteers, or the cashier at which point she cheerfully responded, "I did! I had mashed potatoes and … and … and … and strawberry milk and … The IOU is in my lunchbox." Boy does she know how to milk guilt!
Today she was sent with more food than she will eat.
From the mouths of babes
Amy: "The thing I love the most is my family."
We’ve lost our motivation
The bus was a very exciting part of school for Amy. As a kindergartener I never expected her to ride the bus but it was such a big deal to her that the first time we missed it she had alligator tears. Now she has grown indifferent. She has friends in the carpool lobby as well as the bus lobby. We miss the bus primarily because I choose to sleep "just another 15 minutes." I think perhaps it is time to start waking everyone 30 minutes earlier.
Our children grow so fast. The conversations. The logic. The sentence structures. The choices made. I am awed that she is only 5! I love watching the children grow!
From the mouths of babes
Amy: "Dad, why does my bus come so early?"
It is funny that the youngest (school age) person in the house has to be the first up.
And what a merry Christmas it was!
To all to whom I have not responded, thank you for your well wishes!
To all to whom we did not send a card, you were not forgotten! There was probably a technical reason like needed your address or my mad cow caused me to fail to get you on Cathy’s master mailing list.
Miracles and angels came through to help pull together our Christmas at the last minute. The children were well gifted and very happy with their presents. 
We had a wonderful visit from both sets of grandparents and Aunt Kelly.Cathy and I promised to be budget minded and agreed to not buy each other anything which is why we are both now the proud owners of new iPod nanos. We both cheated feeling the other was well deserving of a new toy.
Each year it seems one of the children gets a bum deal. This year it was Sarah’s turn. Both Tommy and Sarah received new office chairs for their desks from their grandparents. They were thrilled! I prompted Tommy to hold off on assembly until I could help him. Sarah did not heed my warning and broken open the package of numerous parts in the midst of our unwrapping mess and started assembling without checking the parts list nor understanding the instructions. (She’s going to drive like Cathy! "It felt correct to turn this way. NO! I didn’t take a left turn at Albuquerque this time.") We could not find the screws! 6 screws AWOL. We even pulled the trash back inside and went through every piece of wrapping and package that had been discarded. Tommy learned and quickly went over his parts list only to find a critical piece missing. We quickly discovered his critical piece was already attached to his chair. It wasn’t until a day later that Sarah and I drove to Home Depot and purchased bolts and washers that we realized her bolts were already in their respective holes. 
We figured this out because we could not get the new bolts to go into them! Doh! She also received a Nabaztag but it still isn’t working. Story to follow. which is finally working! After creating an account at Nabaztag, you can send a message to her rabbit over the Internet or with your phone and it will speak the message to Sarah. Oh, I almost forgot. When assembling the chair, Sarah dropped a heavy part on her foot breaking a toe. Poor Sarah!
The children had a fantastic Christmas and so did Cathy and I. Now back to work so I can finish paying off this one and put away for Christmas 2008!
From the mouths of babes
Amy, 5 years old and very excited: "There’s only 3 more boxes on my advent calender then it’s Christmas!"
Dad: *bleeehh nehhhhh*
Too cool for warmth
The morning jacket report:
The kindergartener had tears this morning because she is attired in these cute blue jean pants with a matching shirt and matching hoodie jacket. But it is frigid outside so she was required to layer her winter coat. Dad, having not put coffee in his body yet, did not have the sense to suggest she put the hoodie in her backpack and wear the winter coat to school then switch. So, she cried because she was wearing a shirt, a lightweight jacket, and a winter coat and just knew her classmates were going to laugh at her because she was wearing two coats! Innocence lost at 5 years old?! At 5 we worry about how others perceive us?! I thought at 5 we just lived to play?
Middle schooler. Umm.. He and I were caught up in trying to solve the Rubik’s cube (which was first marketed when I was in the 6th grade! How circular! My best time ever was 25 seconds in math class.) so I’m not sure if he was even wearing clothing.
High school freshman. 1) Next time she tells me she "didn’t have time to brush her teeth" she can just miss the school bus! 2) She wore her jacket! But pranced off to school in short pants… I would have forced the tooth brushing issue but was too embarrassed at the thought of dropping her off in carpool.
The high school senior made guttural noises at me when I demanded he pick his coat up off the ground. I told him to wear it and he grunted and walked out the door carrying it in his hand.
And yes, I remember been too cool for warmth. Doesn’t change the fact that I’d like to seem them dress appropriately.
Parenting – nothing harder
I woke up late this morning. Amy and I would have to leave in 2 minutes to catch the bus. Wasn’t going to happen but getting to school on time in the carpool would be no problem. Well, one would think. Amy and I could not agree on her outfit. Need a tough negotiator? Send in a 5 year old! My patience ended up being tried and lost. I was outwitted by a child and my primordial reaction was to get gruff, raise my voice, and shove her to the car. Bad dad. Of course, she needed clothing so I tossed her anything and declared, "go ahead. Look like a clown." Certainly not a tv dad today! Fortunately, Mom rose from the dead, fighting back her nausea, to save Amy. She gently helped her get attired in clothing Amy liked. She wiped her tears, gave her a hug, scowled at me, and we were on our way. Amy arrived at school 16 minutes late which in the grand scheme of things was not worth one ounce of the stress I caused this morning. Coincidentally, one of her teachers was in the office and cheerfully greeted her. After asking Amy if she was ready for fun gym, she escorted her to class. Please have a great day Amy. I’m going to start mine over.
Oh Deer!
Cathy and I don’t get much adult social time. Between work and the children, we live fairly sequestered. Last night we took a break to have a social gathering with our friends that helped School Matters come be. The home of our host was not too far from our own and was lovely! Unlike the modern bulldoze and prefab on a flat property, this house was built with the contours of the land. Aside from visiting and conversing with adults, the best part was as we unloaded Amy and Evan from the van, two doe passed not 20 meters away from us!
From the mouths of babes
Amy: "Yea! We have a box to play in!"
Mom: "We’ve got to get these kids out of the house more."
