Monday night as we were all loaded into the van trundling down the Babunya’s (a.k.a. “Hubby’s Mom”)  house for dinner, I could have sworn I heard the word “damn” ushering from my darling eight-year old daughter’s lips. Not only that, but it was being pronounced in the same way you would hear it from a sitcom tartlet proclaiming, “damn, that is one fiiiiine looking piece of man-meat there” or some such stupidity designed to elicit an undeserving laugh.

Since no fiiiiiine looking men were around other than her Dad and brothers, she’s all of eight, and this is not a common vocabulary word at our house for people who are under twenty and have not just smashed their thumb with a hammer, I thought I’d just double check to see if I heard correctly.

Me: Trinity, what did you just say?

Trintity: Oh, was that a bad word? I wasn’t sure.

Me: Yes, please delete that from your vocabulary. Do you hear me or Dad saying that?

Trinity: No. {pause…. pause…. pause….} Mom, is “fish paste” a bad word?

Fish paste? Fish paste??? Well, technically she does have a point. Her Dad and I don’t usually say that either, so if you’re a kid I suppose you could make a case that it does fall under the test for swear words. Fish paste! As usual, we have SpongeBob to thank for that.

Actually, all of my favorite expletives come from SpongeBob, and usually I hear them first from Trinity using them in normal conversation. “Oh Barnacles! I can’t find my other shoe!” or “Faithy ate my sucker. Tartar sauce!” Last week I was in the room when the kids were watching that goofy show. I looked up just in time to hear SpongeBob exclaim “Holy Shrimp!” in regards to something or other. Hmm, come to think of it, I wouldn’t really like to hear that coming out of my kids’ mouths; but I thought it was pretty funny. Barnacles!

In other news, my children have discovered a new obsession. Since it doesn’t involve inane television shows, destroying property, making enormous messes, my having to drive them all over creation, or anything expensive, naturally I’m delighted!

Our friend was selling an air soft gun and some ammo at her garage sale this weekend, and the kids wanted to buy it but didn’t have the $10 they needed to do so. So they decided to hold a little fundraiser of their own.

After hiding out in their rooms all morning with a “Keep Out” sign posted on the door, they emerged with their new creation: a box that they had cut to open up into a display case for all the bead necklaced, bracelets, and rings that they had spent the morning stringing. These, they announced, they were going to sell to passersby from a card table in the driveway.

Remembering my own lemonade stand days which involved lots of sitting in the hot sun making no money, I was skeptical. However, they had clearly spent considerable effort on this endeavor and I try not to discourage them from things that would keep them occupied outside for awhile.

Ten minutes later, they had made three dollars! Some guy had bought three bracelets for his three daughters. By the end of the 45 minutes they were out there, they had made six bucks. I was shocked! Now they’re hooked and have been going out every day to do this. They bought the air soft gun (the pellets had sold), and are now saving up “just because.”

Since this year we are doing school in the afternoon instead of morning (which I like wayyyyy better), they have been doing all their homework and chores in the morning diligently and quickly without being reminded so that they can run back out and sell some more. They’ve already figured out what their best sellers are (bracelets), had to change materials a little bit to make them fit better, and figured out that if they post signs on either end of the street or stand out there with a sign they get more customers.

Guess I’m going to have to get them going on alternate selling venues. What a bunch of goofballs!

Rachel

Ahhh, I love fall. Have I mentioned that? Okay, so the weather
outside has been ninety degrees, but I don’t care. As of last week, my fall
decorations are up and I’m ready. My Mother told me today that I needed to take
them down. Dream on! I haven’t gotten sweaters out yet, at least.

George’s 37th birthday was Monday. In honor of that, yesterday
morning we woke up to discover that our charming children had gotten up early
and made a special breakfast for Daddy. They had put on the tablecloth, set the
table, lit a candle, and made….. French toast and hard boiled eggs! Not like
toaster French toast either.

We have one of those Jenn Aire ranges where two of the burners
are removable and can be replaced with a griddle. They had changed that out,
made the batter, dipped in the bread, and fried up the toast. All by themselves
and all without burning anything including themselves or each other!

From what I gather, this was Georgie’s idea and mostly his
project (he’s almost ten) while Trinity (8yrs) and Anika (6yrs) helped.
Everything was delicious! Apparently they couldn’t figure out what temperature
to put the griddle on so they were scrambling around looking in all the
cookbooks and trying to find it on Google (!!). None of that worked, so Georgie
guessed and actually got it right. Miraculous!

Other than the fact that George’s birthday was the day before
the breakfast, George likes neither French toast nor hard boiled eggs (which we
didn’t point out to the children, of course), and we were out of syrup, we had
quite the lovely birthday breakfast. What a bunch of sweeties!

Rachel

George’s youngest brother Jon got married on Saturday. Four of the kids plus George were in the wedding, and George’s brother David and his family were up from Arizona. Their kids are around the same ages as ours, so they had a wonderful time playing together. They regularly ask to go visit or when the cousins are coming up here to visit them.

Skyler and Georgie are six weeks apart and Anika and Olivia were born three months apart. Plus, David and Erica adopted a new little guy, Silas, from Ethiopia in February and this is the first time we’ve met him (if you missed this at the beginning of the year, go back and check the January/February archives). He’s three and a half, and wow is he a cutie!

George said the first thing Silas said to him was, “Hey there, Buddy!” with a big smile on his face. He spoke no English when he got here and now it’s perfect. Well, as perfect as three year old English ever is. He’s so completely charming that you just love him right away. Yep, new nephew. Pretty darn cute!

So the wedding was Saturday and Sunday we went over to one of George’s other brother’s place for one last family get together before David and Erica had to go back home. We had so much fun that we didn’t get home until 11:30. George signed up several months ago to go be a slave driver counselor at our church’s Future Men’s Camp from Monday morning until Wednesday night, so he got home and packed real quick before collapsing into bed. Then he was up at church by 8:45 the next morning to head out to camp.

I don’t sleep too well while he’s gone, but other than that all machinery seems to be functioning normally. The kids cleaned up with me Monday morning and then spent the rest of the day recuperating (i.e. “vegging in front of the idiot box”) and taking naps. I told the big kids they all had to take naps too and not only did they not complain, but they looked rather relieved and all of them slept.

Since George was gone, I decided to make my favorite foods that he hates so I don’t make when he’s here. This involves breakfast for dinner, also known as HURRAY FOR FRENCH TOAST, which was Monday’s dinner, and pasta alfredo with a bunch of chicken and veggies in it with some Artisan bread on Tuesday. Both of these seemed to go over well with the children. Hehe. Anika thinks that French toast would be a good dinner to have every night.

Masha was over for cards Monday night and then dropped some stuff off and hung around for dinner and the evening on Tuesday. My Mom watched the kids while I ran errands on Tuesday and my Dad came over Tuesday night. I conquered Mount Laundry. Enough has been going on that the time has gone by fast. I’m glad George gets home tomorrow.

Oh! I almost gave my poor Hubby a heart attack last week, I think. We’re switching insurance companies and the new one wanted me to go to the doctor for a pregnancy test and then send them a copy of the results so they know for sure that I’m not pregnant. Hello! I’m five months post-partem and nursing full time. Not exactly high risk here. Now if it were two weeks after I had quit nursing, then yes that could possibly be considered the danger zone.

Anyway, last week we sat down to dinner and started discussing our day. I started with, “Well, I have to go take a pregnancy test next week.” This was perhaps not the best phrasing. George bellows, “WHAT!!! Not again! You can’t be pregnant!” Immediately I start backtracking and telling him that it’s for the insurance. He told me that would be grounds for divorce and glared at me for about ten minutes after that. In case you somehow lost track, we now have six kids. Our house is very loud,
everything we own is stained or broken within ten minutes of arriving
on the premises, and 1998 was the last time we talked to each other without it sounding like
this:

Me: HI HONEY, HOW ARE YOU? {we have to yell to hear each
other over the din}. Georgie stop telling your sister that the bee
is on the inside of the window instead of outside.

George: I’M TIRED. HOW WAS YOUR DAY? Kyra, why are you crying?
You smooshed your toe jumping off the couch? Hey. Anika? ANIKA! STOP
JUMPING OFF THE COUCH! What Kyra? Oh yeah, I forgot to kiss you. Sorry.
There. All better.

Me: BUSY. ARE YOU HUNGRY? What Faithy? You have to go potty? Well, come on let’s go.

George: YES. WHAT’S FOR DINNER?

Me: DO YOU SEE A CLEAN SHIRT IN THE LAUNDRY PILE ON THE COUCH FOR FAITH? IT LOOKS LIKE SHE DUMPED MILK ALL OVER THIS ONE. Hey!! Faithy, that is wayyyy too much toilet paper.

George: I DON’T KNOW WHICH SHIRTS ARE HERS. THEY ALL LOOK THE
SAME. WHAT SIZE IS SHE? No Georgie, you can’t play Guitar Hero. Is your
room clean?

Me: I’LL GET IT. Trinity, is that Henry crying upstairs?
George: Hi, Honey. How are you?

Me: I’m tired. Are you hungry?

The weird thing is the kids are all pretty well-behaved kids. They’re just all under ten and outnumber us three to one.

We called Henry “Oops Shubin” for the first several months he was in utero, and when I told George I was pregnant that time, his response was “Oh NO! Not again!” Actually, that was more or less my response as well. We should probably do something about that soon…. At least Henry is a big sweetie-pie now, and he thinks George is pretty hot stuff, which none of the other kids did until they were a year old. At that point they all decided I was completely passe and George was SuperDad. At least I get to be WonderMommy for awhile.

Rachel