Charlie

I think I'd said before how Charlie only likes to be called by his real name. But I still call him Charlie. Sometimes nicknames need a variation too. George gets called Jorje from time to time and Charlie sometimes becomes Charlino.

The other day this happened. I think that Charlie must be tired of telling me to call him by his real name because instead he said, "Why Charlino? Why not Charliyes?"

Why, indeed?

The Worst Mom

I did it. I'm the worst Mom. And I hate my oldest daughter, Fred. She said so, so I know it is true. And she's not even 11 yet. (Insert sigh here.)

A couple of weeks ago, Fred let me know that she thought she had too many restrictive chores and not nearly enough freedom to do the things that she wanted. I let her know that I understood how she felt, but I would not be taking away any of her assigned chores. (At this point I did not feel like it would be a good idea to tell her that as she gets older, she gets MORE responsibility, not less.) She was not exactly happy, but there was no major contention.

Fast forward to yesterday. She wanted to skip one of her homework "chores," her multiplication practice, so that she could play with a friend. I let her skip this chore over Spring Break, which now I view as a mistake. We got the full-on pre-teen tantrum.

"Don't you ever think about how your kids feel?!" she hurled at me.

"Of course I do," I responded. "Sometimes I just don't care."

In retrospect, that is probably not the most calming thing for a child to hear. I did try to clarify, telling her that the prophet has asked that we teach our children responsibility and work and that I have chosen to give them chores that they are responsible for as a way to do that, even if it makes them unhappy. She remained unimpressed.

"Most of my friends only have THREE chores!"

"What are they?"

"Cleaning their room, making their bed, and their homework!"

So I took her stack of chore cards. There was Make Bed. Okay, that's the same. There was Reading, Math practice, and Keyboarding. All of those fit under the homework category. There was Clean Room, TV Room and Front Room. So I asked her if she thought that her other friends did not have to pick up their things from around the house. (She said that they probably didn't, but I don't think that even she believed it.) That left Practice Piano and Brush Teeth. I contended that her friends also probably had to brush their teeth, so she started in on piano.

"I don't want to take piano anymore!"

"I would like you to continue until you are at least 12."

"Sometimes what a parent thinks is important is not important to kids!"

"I know. But often, a parent has experience that allows them to see that things are more important than they might seem to children."

"But playing the piano is not important!"

I gave her some of the standard things like "Dad wishes he could play the piano" and "I'm glad I have the ability to play piano when I need to" and even used an analogy about how she might not see the importance now, but how it could be better in the future. Of course, nothing really helped and she was crying and angry, called me the worst mom, the meanest mom and told me that she could just TELL that I hate her.

Thankfully, this did not bother me. It bothered me a lot more when I told her that she could go to her room and she looked me in the eye defiantly and told me NO. Instead of freaking out or hitting her (both of which were pretty tempting to me), I told her that if she made anyone else's life miserable just because she was miserable that I would bodily carry her down to her room. She was welcome to stay upstairs with the family as long as she could be decent.

Another thankfully, she was decent. And, with all of Fred's faults and drama, I am grateful that she lets bygones be bygones most of the time. After reading and cooling off for a while, she was back to treating me like (mostly) nothing had happened, smiling, and bossing her little brothers and sisters around, just like normal.

... I am NOT looking forward to teenage drama.

The Birds and the Bees

A while back Julie gave the girls "The Talk". Let's just say that the girls were shocked and a little more than disgusted by the whole idea. If I remember correctly Fred asked Julie "Grown ups like that?" Julie may be able to expound on that part of the story.

My part came a couple weeks later we had finished our usual Sunday dinner at Grandma Nae's house. Fred and her little cousin were watching "Shrek the Third" on Grandma's bed. I was checking on them and got sucked in.

The scene was where Shrek, Donkey and Puss were sailing off to find some guy. Just as they left Shrek's wife shouted that she was pregnant. Shrek is stunned and starts to panic. He has a dream where little shrek babies are coming from everywhere. Through the doors. Through the windows and through the fireplace. The room was filling up with little shreks. Shrek wakes from the dream and Donkey and Puss are there. He confides with them that he is nervous and says to himself "How did this happen?" Puss trying to be helpful says "Well, when a man loves a woman..." Shrek cuts him off saying "I know how it happens" and he wanders off mumbling to himself. Donkey looks and Puss and says "How does that happen?"

At this point Fred looks at her little cousin who was, I think, about 4 at the time and says "I know how it happens and it is disgusting."

Needless to say I made a hasty exit not wanting them to notice the tears building up in my eyes and the fits of laughter that was about to burst my lungs.

I cannot wait for Fred to get married so I can remind her about her feelings on the subject of the birds and the bees.

Labelling

Can someone explain "Labels" to me? Should I bother to use them? What the heck are they for??

Sunday's drawing

I may be posting a fair few of Charlie's pictures. He is pretty prolific and I really like his pictures. And I'm blogging for me, remember? :oP

My favorite part? "Book oov Momon"

A little more input from Charlie: the big "S" stands for South, as in South Pole. The penguin wants to catch the fish, but there's a shark down there. There's a mad face because the shark is mad and there is a sad face because the fish is sad. The hole on the left is for the fish to hide from the shark.

Nicknames

Now that I have a blog, I find myself "writing" blog posts as I fall asleep. Mostly I'm pondering the day and wondering if there was anything post-worthy. It gets my mind going on different topics that might work, sometimes then fusing with dreams as I drift off. Some of those posts would be highly entertaining, I think. Unfortunately, I mostly don't remember them after I've woken up and definitely not by the time I sit down to the computer. This is actually probably better for all parties concerned.

I'm still debating on whether to keep this blog public or make it private and whether it matters if I use my children's real names as I post. So, in the meantime, I think I'll go with their nicknames. I apologize to those who know us, but not well enough to know the nicknames. I hope it is not too confusing.

Oldest child: Fredwina, Fred for short
Second child: Harriet
Third child: George (he hates that nickname)
Fourth child: Charlie (he hates any nickname that is not his own name)
Fifth child: Poor thing does not have one yet. So she'll be Baby.

Sunday, Charlie leans over to me and points out a Sunbeam sitting two rows behind us. "I will marry her when we grow up if she is cute enough," he says to me. I know I should be all concerned that he is basing his decision of a wife solely on looks. But it was so funny. A little more background: he wanted to marry Baby for a long time because she IS the cutest thing ever, but we've convinced him that he cannot marry his sister. So whoever he marries has to be at least as cute as Baby. That's pretty stiff competition.

Monday he wanted to open some mail for me. We got one of those coupon mailers, so I let him open that one. He found the flier that shows different styles of checks on it. He looked at it during breakfast. Later, he showed me the one he had picked. It was Snoopy checks. He particularly liked the checkbook cover because it was shaped like Snoopy's doghouse. You gotta admit, that is pretty cool. Although the cover was cool, I thought I might be able to find checks that he'd actually like better, so I started pointing some out to him. Not Cars, not Mickey Mouse. Okay, there really aren't very many styles of checks that would likely appeal to young boys. Then I found some "Where the Wild Things Are" checks. We'd read that book for a bedtime story a couple of nights ago and he was liking it. He looked at the checks and I could tell he liked them, but the cover was just not as cool as the other. He decided, "When I get married, I will get those for my wife." He's so thoughtful.

The other thing that Charlie seems to be thinking a lot about lately is jail. He asks me about jail. "Do you drive there?" "Do they have toilets there?" "How much money do you have to pay to get out of jail?" It is interesting some of the questions he comes up with. I don't know what started this new curiosity. I wish I did, because then sometimes it makes it easier to understand their concept and why they question certain things. The kicker was his Family Home Evening lesson Monday night. It was short. "If you drive fast, faster than you are supposed to, you can go to jail."

I certainly hope that these two things he has been thinking about lately are not related in any way.

This is a blog post. My first blog post.

Why a blog? I ask myself the same question. I guess I need more reasons to spend time on the computer. I'm certain that I will be able to keep up with this blog at least semi-annually. I have high hopes!

Really, I just wanted a place where I could write the funny things that happen in our household in a place where I did not lose them or forget them. Voila! A blog!

I'm hoping that I learn to use all these fun things like pictures, labels and all that jazz before long. Then my blog can be as cute as yours.

Or probably not.