Stary Wars

Yordanos opted out of book time tonight to write her own story. She had some help from the nerdiest mom on the block, but you know, how else is a kid gonna spell 'Bacta Tank' right? And really, it's pretty amazing considering that last Christmas she told me Yoda was Luke's father.

Clicking on the picture should make it nice and big for ya'll, but I'll warn you, there's a big spoiler in there for the three of you who haven't seen Return of the Jedi yet. If anyone has trouble reading it, I can transcribe it. I'm fluent in Yordese.

Endless Weary Procession

That's how I would describe my days (if 4 hours of daylight can even be CONSIDERED a "day"). I am weary of making lunch... AGAIN... and dinner... AGAIN... ad nauseum...

Since daylight is brief, my body has been craving carbs... so much so that I have been baking vast quantities of bread, pancakes and cookies. A friend asked if I happened to be in training for a marathon. After wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes, I had to admit that, NO, it's just that my butt has been begging to be bigger for such a long time that I finally decided to give it what it wanted.

I know that looks like a lot of pancakes, and it is... I think I did 6 times the recipe. I am not sure what possessed me to make that many in one sitting (well, standing) and I was swearing by the end of it. However, the kids can reheat them for breakfast by themselves.

Also, I baked my mom's bread recipe... the one that she made rolls for every holiday and family gathering in my youth. And at every gathering, someone would invariably ask, "Connie brought the rolls, right?" Because, seriously, people maybe would decide not to stay for Thanksgiving if she hadn't brought these rolls. (By the way, Mom, I'm sorry I scoffed at you when I was a teenager about your bread. You were reminiscing about baking all our bread when I was little, and I snorted and said, "What a waste of time." And you said quietly, "I didn't think it was." You were right and I was just being a little expletive deleted. Thankfully, my children are kinder to me than I was to you and they said, "Mmmm.... tastes like Ethiopia bread.")

You'll notice that the recipe yields 2 dozen rolls. I made one dozen rolls and one loaf and this is all that was left about an hour after they came out of the oven.

Speaking of Ethiopia food, I had a bag of lentils and decided to make Yemiser W'at (Lentil Stew.)
Gratifyingly, both children drifted into the kitchen, sniffing the air and asking, "Are you making Ethiopia food?! Yum!" I wish I could claim responsibility for them liking lentils. Seriously? What kid likes lentils? Mine were eating them right out of the pot, not even needing the stew. But they did like the stew. We didn't have injera (the Ethiopian bread) so we used flour tortillas which were a success. (No, I can't make injera... it takes days by all accounts... I've tried and failed... if anyone has an easy way to make it, I'm all ears.)



One day, I asked the kids to help me put the dishes away. There was such a cacophony of whiny-pantsing that I put my earphones in and sang loudly to some 80's music. For some reason, the children did not think this was funny. It sure made MY work go smoother.

Oh, and Son, Never, ever, take your eyes off the clown.

So there I am, in Wal-Mart with the kids the other day, noodling around the Audio/Video area. I know that doing so just taunts the children, but it's pretty much the only department where we can all amuse ourselves for more than 2 minutes. H went straight for the Playstation, Yordi spent some time pressed in front of the iPod display, and eventually they both converged on the phones. As it's Halloween, the store had all the scary movies discounted and on display out front. We had walked right past them to get to the shiny things on the way in, but as he is so good at doing, on the way out Habtamu grabbed a random movie off the rack and asked if we could get it.

"No." I said in my hurried, irritated father voice, seeing only that he was carrying some black DVD.
"Why not?" He asked.
"Because it's scary," I said instinctively.
"Scary?" He said incredulously.
"Yeah. Scary. Like every other movie in this rack. Put it back. Let's go."
"If it's scary, why is there a little girl on it?"
I finally glanced back and actually looked at the DVD in his hand.


"Uh, yeah. Put it back."
"But she's just watching TV."
"Uh-huh. Trust me. Put it back."

Part of me really, really wants my kids to go through the certain rights of passage, and to have the same reflex to punch clowns in the face, as my generation does. If I do nothing else for my children, shouldn't I leave them with a healthy fear of possessed clown dolls? Everyone I know has some movie that they later confess they were too young to watch. I kind of think that when the time comes for my children, I'd rather it happen in my presence with a movie I'm familiar with, than having them come home sleepless and whimpering after some slumber party.

If Yordi wasn't already hearing things in her closet, I'd probably seriously consider it, but as it is, the last thing we need is for her to be afraid of her closet, the hall closet, the tree outside her window, and clowns under her bed. There's just no good that could come of that.

So this Halloween, you get a pass my little ones. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go punch a clown and then run and long jump into bed.

*Although not directly stated, the movie was Poltergiest. For us children of the 80's, it goes without saying.

Statistical Probability + Psychological Warfare = Yahtzee!

Habtamu does 'casual math' in his head like I remember doing. He'll sit in the car and divide out how many slices of pizza everyone should get for dinner, or figure out how many more quarters he needs to get to a dollar.

For Yordi however, it is taking more time to solidify some fundamental mathematical connections. For some reason, the fact that my daughter didn't intuitively know that two even numbers added together always equal another even number was really burning me up the other night. We were playing Yahtzee and she couldn't figure out why my voice kept rising every time she guessed at her die count.

"What's 27 plus 1?"
"28."
"Good so what's 28 plus another 1?"
"30...?"
*eye-roll* "Then what is 28 plus 2?"
"Umm, 30."
"Yes! Ok, so what's 30 minus 1?"
"31."
"No, minus. 30 minus 1?"
"32?"
"UGH! No! if you have 5 dice and they are all sixes, how many points do you have?"
"50."
"What? No! Stop guessing."
"Yes! Yahtzee is 50 points."
"Urgh... No! Well,yes but... ok... (Deep breath) I meant how many dots are showing?"
"30!"
"YES! Now, if I make one of those sixes a five, how many points do you have!?"
"twe....nty.... eight?"
"GAH! NO! Do it again! IF YOU HAVE FIVE DICE AND THEY ARE ALL SIXES..."
"IDONTKNOWIDONTKNOWIDONTKNOW!!! Daddy, why are you yelling at me? It's just a game?"
"IT'S NOT A GAME! THIS IS MATH! THIS IS IMPORTANT!"
"I do math in the morning. I don't know it now."
"NO! Math is like English! You NEVER get to turn it off! It's always important!"
(This time I get the eye-roll)
"Look, this is serious. What if you go to buy something at the store and..."
"I don't want to play any more."
"FINE. Add up your score and you can be excused."

My daughter then gets real low to the table and proceeds to add up her full Yahtzee card. For those of you aren't regular players, that's 6 numbers plus another 6 numbers which then have to be combined to get your final score. She then pushed her chair back, dropped her pencil on the table, and made a deliberate exit.

Curious (and petty,) I checked her math. "Wait a minute!" I yelled back at her. "You can add 12 numbers together correctly, but you can't tell me what 28 plus 1 is? You CAN do math at night just fine when you want to! What's going on here?"

"The game is finished," She said. "It's book time."

You know, I'm still not sure exactly which 'game' she's referring to.

Note to self: No Paul Newman movies for the child who is already sharking daddy at Yahtzee.

Just when you think you've got it all figured out

I've been trying to suppress my inner jerk, and it hasn't been easy this week. Habtamu had an awful game this weekend. We drove out to flippin' Lombard, which was 120 miles round trip, just to watch the team lose. H got injured, the extent of which is debatable, some time during the first half and did a whole lot of ball watching the rest of the game. He'd make a half-hearted kick somewhere in the vicinity of the ball, then watch the other team run by. As a soccer dad, so far that makes my blood boil the most. I'm sure he'll find some other way to tick me off, but for now, that's taking the cake.

So, you know, I tried to find something positive to talk about on the way home. His throw-ins were good. He really 'toughed it out' through his injury. Anything but what I was really thinking. We made it home in reasonably good spirits. But it's been in the back of my mind... Why is he just giving up? Why isn't he taking soccer seriously? When is he going to commit? Etc... All those things that sport Dads worry about.

Last night was rough too. Too much sugar and excitement, not enough cooldown time. Yordi got scared a couple times, I dreamt about being chased by Vampires (apparently I had too much candy too) and I didn't ask details, but the toilet upstairs flushed no less than 4 times between 6:30 and 6:45 this morning. So as I was coming home from work, I braced myself for who was going to be the biggest crabby patty when I walked in. And this is what I was met with:


That's right. My son, for the first time, had picked up a book and was reading through chapter one of Junie B Jones just because he wanted to and because he could. He would go a good 8 to 12 words before needing any help. He then read the second chapter after dinner. Chris and I high five'd in the kitchen when nobody was looking.

Yordi has already crossed the 'reading for pleasure' thresh-hold and even wrote a little story straight out of her own imagination the other day. She doesn't fear reading or sounding things out and will fudge unfamiliar words on the fly instead of getting bogged down and frustrated. Some days it's almost as if they are completely different people...

So it may not have been a banner week for soccer, but he certainly made up for it in the life skills department.

Moment of Zen

Murray is the best cat ever. He's not perfect... he's got a penchant for puking on our white bedspread... sometimes while we're in it. But if you want your lap warmed, just sit for 30 seconds, and he's there for you, man. He usually sleeps stretched out along my back, or curled up between Lee's and my heads. Lee and I often joke that "nothing will ever come between us... except Murray."

A friend of mine just had her BFF Cat die this summer, and it got me paranoid about Murray. There's nothing wrong with him that I know of, and I'm sure I'd be sad if something happened to the other cats, BUT... c'mon! It's Murray.


The kids are still campaigning to get rid of Rico, "the mean cat," and bring in Fluffer Nutter, "the nice one from outside." Oh? The one that has fleas and who we've been calling Night of the Living Dead since he got in a fight that ripped half his face off? That one?

Some people claim that there's a woman to blame...

... but I know, it's my own damn fault. (A little Jimmy Buffett for you. Sorry about the "D" word, but it fits.)

So, I've just been little Suzy Homemaker lately, making my own red sauce, making apple sauce, drying red salsa peppers...

I hung the peppers up to dry and they were doing fine, but I wanted to dry them faster. So, I pulled them all down and sliced them lengthwise, spread them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven on low.

In my defense, I usually don't have a cold that requires the blowing of my nose every 5 minutes. I realized something was very wrong when the outer edge of my nose caught on fire. What the? There was then a little mild swearing and vigorous hand washing to get the pepper oil OFF and meanwhile my nose is STILL ON FIRE and did I just RUB MY EYE? Am I a complete moron? It's not like I haven't done this to myself before. Hello? Gloves? I see why pepper spray is so effective... I just about knocked my own self out in my own kitchen. So, my face is on fire and I can't open my left eye. "Mommy? You ok?" "Peppers..." I choke out, and start coughing up a lung because I've just breathed in the pepper from the air.

I won't even show you the teeny tiny bag of dried red pepper flakes I got for all my trouble.

Last night, when Lee came to bed, I was still awake. I rolled over and wiggled my fingers at him and asked, "Are my fingers on fire?" He laughed, confused, and said, "No. Should they be?" I had trouble sleeping they were so hot. And today, "Mommy? Why are you shaking your hands like that?" They laughed at me too.

So, next year! Gloves! Remind me!

This is Your Child

This is Your Child... On Donuts!

English as a Second Language

It has been interesting, to say the least, to hear the children's language develop. We decided to let their language grow more or less organically.

There are still some words that give them trouble. Here are some of the current ones.

Glalola Bal - Granola Bar (They've had trouble with this one since day 1. It has finally started bugging me enough that I make them repeat the syllables after me before they can have one.)

FAMily - FINally (Yordanos uses Family for Finally, using the right inflection, so you ALMOST think she has said the right word.

reclistree - electricity (Yordanos is working on it... it's been a tongue twister for awhile.)

The Coldest Day EVER!

So, I drew the short straw for getting Yordanos to her 7:55 game Saturday morning. They have to be there 45 minutes before the game to warm up, so that makes the wake-up time somewhere in the "For the Love of all that's Holy, this is so early it's still yesterday" category. We didn't really draw straws... Lee was willing to take her, but Y looked up at me and wrinkled her cute little brow and said, "Mommy? I want YOU to take me." It wouldn't have been so bad except somebody's watch kept beeping every hour all night, so I saw 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 5:40, 6:00, 6:18 and finally decided it wasn't going to get any better, and dragged my weary carcass out of bed.

I was so glad I did because look what I got to see...


Does that look cold and slippery? Oh, yes.



She was crying in the car as her hands thawed out. We got more layers ready for the next game. Good thing, too, because it SNOWED during her 2nd game. Seriously? That goes against so many of my personal comfort issues. I didn't take any pictures of the 2nd game. I was too demoralized.