Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Oh Yeah....That Valentines Thing....

It has been so long since I have taken the opportunity to sit down and read over the blogs of many friends and since it happens to be the end of February I am noticing many posts about the many ways they all celebrated Valentines Day.  Oh my gosh, everyone, you are hard working and very adorable!  What a lot of work people go to to celebrate their love for their kids and friends.  And I thought back....what did I do for Valentines Day?  Uh, pretty much nothing.  Oh no wait, I totally did something.


There. Heart-shaped pancakes complete with pink food coloring.  See, I did something!  Oh yeah, I also bought several boxes of "fun dip valentines" for the kids to write their names on before handing them out at school.  It was very upper-crust, I'll tell you.

I felt kinda bad, actually. I mean, it some ways it felt good to just let go of staying up until 2am making something homemade, that was fine.  Very liberating. But I did have an idea to write each of my children a love letter about how special they are and have it on their plates in the morning.  Yeah, didn't happen.  (Same week as Teacher Appreciation Week.)  But guess what.  My kids were absolutely delighted with the pancakes.  Thrilled.  They thought it was the coolest thing, hooray for me, and my kids are not allowed to read any of your blog posts about Valentine's Day!

Monday, February 18, 2013

A Long Awaited Long Weekend

Having been living in the great arctic valley of Salt Lake for weeks of inversion and cold and snow, we have been placing all our hopes and dreams of warmth and happiness on this, Presidents Day Weekend.  Pretty much the day we returned from our last trip to St. George we started planning our next visit, seeing as how we spent all of the last one feeling like total crap and letting Peter and Sheri watch our children while we slept. For weeks we have been sitting on our couch, encased completely in blankets and watching the bleak weather forecast.  With each sub-freezing temperature we see we look at each other and say, St. George....we're coming....we're coming....

I'm happy to report that the weather did us right.  And this trip couldn't have come at a more perfect time.  Presidents Day fell at the end of Teacher Appreciation Week, of which I was in charge and which was great but quite stressful and super super busy.  And filled with many many things.  Many. Getting in the car on Friday afternoon and heading off on a long drive has never felt so wonderful.  Thank you, Peter and Sheri, for being happy to have us, and thank you, St. George, for giving us the best possible weather you could in February.  I forgot what sunshine even felt like.  And short sleeve shirts. 

Do I complain this much every winter?  Don't answer that.

Anyway....all the Preslars feel better and feel like we can head back to Salt Lake in good spirits, ready to face a week of snow storms.  Well, almost ready.








Behold her Hulk-like strength as she bends the bar of steel....











Sunday, February 17, 2013

How to disarm a Nuclear Mother

I am going to try to capture this with words but I’m not
sure that I’ll be able to.




Picture this.  I’m in
the kitchen doing dishes while Bundle is playing in the living room with a
friend.  I have given them a bowl of
popcorn as per their request and I am listening to them munching happily away
on it.  I poke my head into the living
room for a quick peek, and see that the munching sounds are not coming from
where I thought they were.  Instead,
Bundle is systematically removing the popcorn from the bowl one kernel at a
time, placing it on the carpet, and soundly squashing it with her water bottle.  I yelp, call out her name and demand she stop
instantly.  I go to fetch the vacuum
cleaner and when I return I find that she has indeed stopped with the popcorn.  Instead she has up-ended her water bottle
which is actually full of milk.  She is
dousing each squashed kernel very carefully, one by one.  I fall to my knees, hollering at her to
stop.  She looks startled for exactly one
second before she puts her hands on her hips and bends towards my furious
face.  She smiles, points her finger at me,
and says with a deliberate cadence, sweetly tapping my nose with each beat, “Well, I won't...do it...a-gain.”





How was I supposed to keep a straight face?  There was no way.  Too funny. 
She knows how to get out of a pinch, I’ll tell ya. And I still really didn't capture it at all, but I tried.





Saturday, February 16, 2013

The CLLLAAAAAWWWWWW.....


(You know, from Toy Story? The Claaawww?)

Stomper has been attending this martial arts class once a week at a local community center.  We started up a few weeks ago, having come to the realization that we are probably done with soccer.  He’s been playing on the same team since 1st grade and just doesn’t love it. He loves his team, he just doesn’t care that much about soccer.  We really want him involved in an activity he cares about and is excited to do – I’ve always known it would be something like this.  It’s going great and you should see him practice at home.   I guess that’s a post for another day.

Someone at the community center thought they had a brilliant idea and installed, right in there with the vending machines, one of those 50 cents-a-shot machines with the dangling silver claw which hovers over a tempting bed of stuffed animals just begging to be won and taken home to a happy family.  My girls spend the entire hour of martial arts running back and forth between me and the machine, asking every 3-4 minutes if they could please please PLEASE try to get an animal because they are just sure sure SURE they can do it and they know exactly which one they want and please please PLEASE!!!  Finally a couple of weeks ago Bitty actually brought her wallet with her in absolute determination.  Well, I thought, I guess it’s time for Bitty to have one of those really tough learning experiences.

I was there with a friend and we both had a serious conversation with her about those tricky machines that are made to look easy but really are trying to trick you into giving them all their money.  She was not to be deterred.  So my friend and the girls and I walk over to the machine.  My friend looks at me and asks me if Bitty is going to cry when she doesn’t get the toy.  I told her of course and said, “Watch this. “ I turned to Bitty and asked, “Hey honey?  Are you going to be okay if you don’t get an animal?”  Bitty instantly began to tear up and very shakily said, “Well, I’m going to try to be okay but I’ll probably be really really sad.” And a tear slid down her cheek.  Great.  She’s crying before we even do this.  Oh well, I’ll be a good mom and let her go for it!



You already know what happened, I know you do.  It was just like the time I was a kid and our family was on vacation, driving through Vegas on our way someplace.  We stopped at a diner for breakfast, and each table had a little mini slot machine sitting on the tabletop.  My dad goes, “Kids, I want you to see how gambling never pays.”  He drops two quarters into the machine, pushes the pulsing little button and….wins ten bucks.  That was funny enough, but the fact that he instantly put another 50 cents in and won another ten bucks did nothing to teach his kids not to try it ourselves.  Yes, Bitty plopped in her two quarters and on the very first try landed herself a little toy.  I could not believe it.  The second that round little plush pig dropped through the hole, my friend and I looked at each other and after one moment of shocked silence started laughing so hard we made a bit of a scene.  We laughed and laughed, and Bitty was absolutely beside herself with joy.  How funny.

Funny, that is, until every kid in the joint heard about it and came running with their own quarters.  Whoever installed that thing really is a genius because kids were plunking their money in faster than I eat popcorn and I saw no other victories.  By this time Stomper was out of his class and was in the hole a dollar and a half to his sister trying to get his own toy.  Bundle was sobbing because I tried to get her a toy too and totally failed – she had spotted a little purple turtle at the very bottom of the pit and had her heart set on in.  In fact, she still does, 10 days later.  She even woke up sobbing in the middle of the night 3 days ago and when I asked her what was wrong she only said that she just really needed the purple turtle. There were crying kids everywhere.  It was mayhem.

So does anyone know what I WAS supposed to do?  What would have been the correct answer in this situation?  Because I don’t.  Someone forgot to give me my parenting manual on this one. 
The pig is actually pretty cute, by the way.  His name is Wilbur.