Ooops...

Since the only people that read this already know me, you are aware that I have two children. Both of them are very good children. Sometimes I think people think I am a good mom, when, in actuality, my kids are just good kids. I don't think we do anything that extraordinary. God just blessed us with good girls.

Anyway, I have a specific point to this post. I am a little frightened of my children. Not frightened in an-are-they-going-to-stab-me-with-sharp-implements-when-I'm-not-looking-because-I-wouldn't-let-them-have-juice sort of way. It's really more of a these-kids-are-way-smarter-than-me-and-I-could-really-screw-them-up way. Let me provide you with an example.

A few days ago, Sarahbug was up from nap earlier than BigE. We were sitting on the couch. I was reading email and Facebook. Sarahbug was watching Oprah. Yes, I know. Oprah is not the best show for a almost-two-year-old to be watching, but, I honestly didn't think about it being on. I was paying no attention. She was sitting on my lap, perfectly content. As I was rabidly devouring the status updates of a bunch of people I rarely speak to in real life, I heard her say, "Ewwww! Icky!"

Very few things make my younger child spontaneously say, "Ewww! Icky!" I glanced at her. Her face had a look on it that can only be described as disgust. So, I glanced at the TV. Lo an behold, Oprah was doing an episode on slaughterhouses. Yeah. Lovely. At this point, they were using a chainsaw to slice a cow (minus head, skin, and other body parts) in half. Yum. Sarah turns to me and states, very clearly might I add, "Icky. Cow bad. Cut the cow. Yuck. Sad cow." Hmmm...I didn't expect her to draw the conclusion. I doubt I would have connected the fully alive and happily chewing cow that was at the beginning of the episode, and the currently being sawed in half carcass hanging from a hook. At least not at 21 months old. I changed the channel rapidly. Well, I mistakenly thought, that's over. Alas, it was not.

The next day I decided to read her a bedtime story about farm animals. As soon as we reached the section about cows, sure enough, "Mommy. Man cut cows. Ewww. Icky." Yes, my daughter was remembering the slaughterhouse show from the day before. Great. Now, she sees a cow and remembers a slaughterhouse. Nothing like drawing a good connection. As soon as Sarah figures out that hamburgers come from cows, she'll be vegan.

So, how does this make me frightened of my children? Well, it's actually quite simple. My 21 month old can reach the conclusion that the happy cow at the beginning of the show is the sad cow at the end. Now I have to worry about EVERYTHING she sees. I have been on guard with what BigE sees for awhile now. But not this early. For her, we had to guard what she heard. Now I have to guard what one sees and one hears. How in the world do I do that??? How do I prevent my children from seeing or hearing anything??? I already screw up. Imagine what will happen when they are older and really get it! I have two children that remember everything. Do you know how many things I do during a day that I want them to forget? How is it possible to get them safely to adulthood without majorly screwing them up? I don't think I can do it.

Stream of Consciousness

I am a bad blogger. I do not do a good job of keeping my blog going, which I am sure the two people that read it know without me telling them. I do feel that I would do a better job if I was paid. However, I am not alone in this failing. Lots of people are unable to keep a blog/journal/ diary going. My problem is not procrastination, nor is it lack of ideas. On the contrary, my problem is an overabundance of ideas all pouring into my brain at once. A deluge of random thoughts and tangents that derail any attempt at organized blogging. So, at a suggestion from a very close friend of mine, I decided to write a stream of consciousness blog. I intend to start writing and continue for approximately 10 minutes. Whatever pops into my brain, I will write. Maybe I'll come up with some ideas that I will be able to carry through!

Currently, as I am typing, I have noticed the abysmal number of fingerprints smearing my little laptop. The black shiny plastic is a fingerprint magnet. As is stainless steel. That is the reason I will never have stainless steel appliances in my kitchen. It would be a losing battle to try and keep all the fingerprints and smudges off my appliances. Not that I plan on buying stainless steel appliances anyway. They only seem to be suited to huge kitchens that are featured on HGTV. My little 1974 kitchen is not likely to be featured any time soon. Unless, of course, they decided to come and do a "Save My Tiny Kitchen!" episode. In which case, they have plenty of work ahead of them. Jason and I planned to fix it up a bit, but we had kids and bills instead. So, at the moment our cabinets don't even have handles. We took them off planning on redoing the cabinets and that was as far as we got. We did manage to replace the counter tops. We also want to redo our pantry. Whoever designed it apparently did not think about the amount of dead space that comes when you make shelves almost three feet deep. Hey! The last three words in that sentence all have the "ee" spelling in them. That probably is pretty rare. I mean, think of the number of words people write in a day. How often do three words in a row have the same double-vowel pattern? The letter "e" by itself is fairly common. Actually, I believe it is the most common letter in the English language. Certainly it is not the most used in other languages. I would wager there are some languages that do not use the letter "e" often, or at all. I learned something new the other day. I discovered the origins of the ampersand (&). If you look at it closely, you can see that it looks like a capital "E" and a lower case "t" that are intertwined. Originally, it was easier to see both the letters. Anyway, et is the Latin word for "and." Back in the day (I don't know exactly how long ago) students in one room school houses were busily learning everything without the aid of computers, and in some cases, books. They relied a good deal on oral learning. Teachers, trying to get across the knowledge that "a" and "I" are both letters and words, would have the students recite "A per se A" and "I per se I" which meant "a as the word a." As time went on, they decided added the phrase "& per se &" which meant "and per se and." English speaking students being what they are, began slurring the phrase until it became one word, "ampersand." So, there you have it. You know, saying "So, there you have it" reminds me of My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. Actually, that whole story I just shared would fit in that movie. "Kimono, a robe you wear in the winter. So, there you have it!" That is a pretty good movie. I might need to watch that sometime soon.

Well, there is my 10 minute mark. Yes, I did time myself. My phone has a lovely, and easy to set, alarm on it. Of course, the sudden vibration just about made me throw my computer on the floor. Luckily I didn't. My husband would not have been too thrilled.

So, I am sorry this was kind of a lousy post. Someday I need to do a real one. However, I think I write that almost every time. Or at least I think it, and now you know how that goes.

Halted Obsessions

Do you have any obsession? Some people are "blessed" with a few more than others. I am one of those few. Someday I will write a blog outlining them all. In no way can I claim that I am severely oppressed by my obsessions, but occasionally they come to the surface with a vengeance.

Just recently, one of my daughters developed some kind of stomach bug. For the second time in my life as a parent my car was christened with the castoffs from my child's stomach. I had no idea/warning/foreshadowing that it was coming. None. Nor was I fully prepared to handle the onslaught. As I frantically drove home, she continued to flow forth with the fury of Mount Vesuvius upon the little town of Pompeii. Nothing in her path was safe. Once I had her home and quarantined, I set out on the unenviable task of cleaning up a carseat/car/toys/clothing/shoes/etc. Talk about a herculean task involving a good deal of bleach.

So, the purpose of that story is to tell you this one. I hate germs. I love bleach and Clorox wipes and Lysol. Try being a parent to two small children with this particular obsession. Generally, I am able to keep it under control. I am able to clean without going crazy. However, the intrusion into my world of something as vile as vomit makes the balance between obsession and normalcy teeter wildly. I basically lost it for an hour or two. I Lysol-ed every surface I could. I stripped down beds and replaced sheets (after Clorox-ing the beds of my two children). I washed stuffed animals that have tags that say specifically, "DO NOT WASH!" (By the way, they all survived.) I even took my husband's pajamas to be washed, completely disregarding the fact that he kind of needs them to sleep in. Sarahbug watched me with round and amazed eyes from a safe vantage point on the couch, (which had already been Lysol-ed) as I rushed around the house trying to wage a one-woman war on the germs invading my household. My house had the delightfully antiseptic smell of the cleaning aisle at Wal-Mart.

In fact, I might still be doing just that if not for an unfortunately timed occurrence that forced me to a standstill. No, I didn't throw up. Instead, I got a migraine. I hate migraines almost as much as I hate germs. Migraines cause me to do a variety of things: lose my sight, get dizzy, lose my ability to read (seriously), and, yes, occasionally they cause me to vomit. So, I did the only thing I could do. I called my mommy to pick up BigE at preschool and keep her away from me, put Sarahbug down for a nap, and curled up on the couch with a pillow on my head and Excedrin in my tummy. Ahhhh.....that's the life.

Buckets

Since I said I would, here it is.

Buckets are mundane everyday objects that are actually quite interesting if you are willing to put some thought into them. Buckets come in a variety of sizes, of course. They come in a variety of materials and colors. The value of a bucket is directly related to the contents of said bucket. For example, I found online a 5-gallon bucket that costs $403. Of course, it is not the bucket itself, but the ATP Re-seal that is included with the purchase of the bucket. Actually, I guess you are really buying the contents and simply getting a bucket as part of the bargain. Which is nice, since buckets can be reused. It is kind of like the free gifts at make-up counters. Spend $35.oo and get a bunch of free samples for, well, free. Spend $403 on some resealing stuff and get a FREE 5-gallon bucket! If you happen to be a person who doesn't want the free gift, you can buy a 5-gallon bucket for under $10 at Wal-Mart.

Another interesting thing about buckets is the number of phrases including the word "bucket". We have all heard "kick the bucket," but what about these others-

• dinner bucket
• drop in the bucket
• bucket along
• bucket seats
• brain bucket
• bucket list
• crud bucket
• bucket baby
• bucket brigade
• bucket biologist
• bucket-load

I am sure there are other "bucket phrases," but those are the ones I found.

In addition, there are apparently lots of buckets that belong to important people, or at least well-known in their hometowns people.

• Bimbles Bucket was an animated cartoon that involved a young male animal (called Foxbits by some fans, as the main character and the other residents of Stiltsville were fox/rabbit hybrids with rabbit ears and fox brushes for tails) named Bimble having a bucket which could grant him wishes.
• Newton's Bucket was an argument by Newton designed to demonstrate that true rotational motion cannot be defined as the relative rotation of the body with respect to the immediately surrounding bodies.
• Bobrinski Bucket is a 12th century bronze bucket originally manufactured for a merchant in 1163. It provides one of the earliest examples of Persian anthropomorphic calligraphy (?). It is named after a former owner, Count Bobrinski and is now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Who knew a bucket could be so important?

While on the topic of buckets, what is the difference between a bucket and a pail? Apparently there are a couple.

• the spelling
• Jill didn't fetch a bucket
• the word pail predates the word bucket by 300-1,000 years (depending on the source)
• pails are usually metal
• buckets often have a narrower base and wider top, while pails tend to be pretty cylindrical

In closing, don't overlook mundane everyday items. Who knows what interesting facts you can find about them?

I leave you with this:

There once was a man from Nantucket

Who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,

Ran away with a man

And as for the bucket, Nan took it.

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,

The man and the girl with the bucket;

And he said to the man,

He was welcome to Nan,

But as for the bucket, Pa took it.

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset

Where he still held the cash as an asset,

But Nan and the man

Stole the money and ran,

And as for the bucket, Man has it.

Of this story we hear from Nantucket,

About the mysterious loss of a bucket,

We are sorry for Nan,

As well as the man—

The cash and the bucket, Pa took it.

Limericks

My favorite form of poetry is the limerick. They are short and sweet and to the point. Plus, they rhyme. You can string several together to create a longer poem or story, or leave them alone. Unfortunately, limericks have the propensity for being vulgar. I don't know why. I found this limerick that describes limericks one time. I memorized it, but I have no idea who wrote it.

The limerick packs laughs anatomical

In space that is quite economical,

But the good ones I've seen

So seldom are clean,

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Limericks were made popular by Edward Lear in the 19th century, although he did not use the term. One of his most famous limericks is:

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said 'It is just as I feared! -
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'

I didn't even know what limericks were when I was young, but I loved them. One of the first that I memorized was actually in Matilda by Roald Dahl:

An epicure dining at Crew
Found a rather large mouse in his stew
Said the waiter, "Don't shout,
And wave it about!
Or the others will be wanting one, too!"

I even had the opportunity to write one in middle school for a poetry project. Now, a little background is in order for this limerick to have the semblance of humor. I was supposed to be writing (in addition to the limerick and couplets and diamantes and etc.) an acrostic poem using the letters of my first and last name. Each letter was supposed to begin a line. My name was not easy to do this with, and I was frustrated, so I wrote a limerick about it. My teacher's name really was Bob by the way.

There once was a teacher named Bob,
Who made a student write poems til she sobbed.
He made her write acrostics
Until she went ballistics
Now he is out of his job.

The once was a man in Nantucket
To reach a shelf he stood on a bucket
Sadly for him,
His foot missed the rim
So his foot in the bucket got stuck'it.

So, since I love limericks, I thought I would share a few of my memorized favorites, just in case you have nothing better to do. (I know I don't. I'm in a stupid class right now. That will probably be in a blog later.)

There once was a fellow named Paul
Who fell in a spring in the fall
It would have been a bad thing,
If he had died in the spring,
But instead, he died in the fall.

There once was a fellow named Saul
Who wrestled 9 grizzlies one fall
9 was such a good score
He tried for one more
But he lost, well you can't win 'em all!

An elderly man named Scott Keith,
Lost his set of false teeth
He put them down on a chair
And forgot they were there
He sat down and was bitten beneath

Really?

Do you ever get the feeling that if people knew who you really were, they would all be in shock? I regularly am surprised by people's assessments of me. The person they describe is far removed from the person that I am. Sometimes I feel that the person they perceive me to be is a much more interesting and reliable person than myself. This "other Jennifer" has skills I don't possess. I am not that organized. I am not that clever. I am not confident and self-assured. I am sorely lacking in all housewifely graces. I am not that good of a mom; I am simply blessed with good children. I am not a content person. I am usually wishing something about myself would be different. I do not really know the answers to the questions people think I should know. What am I? I am shy. I am pessimistic. I am easily frustrated. I lack patience in all forms. I know what I should be doing, but I am too lazy to do it. I am often treading water the best I can just to keep my head above the tide.

Does that surprise you? Does it make me less of a person in your eyes?

Lightbulb Moments

I love a good lightbulb moment. You do have those, right? Hopefully. The thought that anyone would not have had a really good lightbulb moment sometime in their life is very sad. Another great word for a lightbulb moment is (wait for it....) EPIPHANY! That is an amazing word. Say it several times. It rolls off the tongue like water off a duck's back. (Sorry, I have always wanted to say that.) Anyway, lightbulb moments, or epiphanies, are one of the greatest things about being human. How many chimpanzees have epiphanies?



How wonderful is it when you have been struggling to understand something, or just written it off as non-understandable, and suddenly BOING! You have had a LIGHTBULB MOMENT! I love the lightbulb moments of children. One of my favorites was when I was teaching my 6th graders. We had been working on writing/grammar/conventions. We were discussing the importance of capital letters. One of my (ahem) precious students looked up suddenly and said (with amazement in his voice), "Hey! Sentences always start with a capital letter! That's how you can tell it's a new sentence!" Gotta love it.