First Communion

My nephew and God Son, Austin, is receiving his First Communion Thursday night. I grew up Catholic and the first communion is a really big deal. You wear a veil to show purity to God, you have a special dress and a huge party. I remember sitting with the priest having to confess my sins when I was in first grade and I couldn't think of anything so I LIED and told him I stole. He didn't really yell at me, so I confessed that I was lying about the stealing, and I felt relieved that I had something to confess. I remember him laughing. Even then I was thinking, "Are you kidding me? I am six!! What big sin could I have possibly done that warrants confession?!" That was probably the beginning of my Catholic downfall. I remember telling the monks (who wore sandals year round) during confirmation class that "It's so unfair. Nuns can't talk, but all you guys gotta do is wear sandals all of the time. I can't imagine not talking!! But it'd be fun to wear sandals." To which they replied, "It's also not fair that nuns can fly like in the flying nun, and we can not." That was my second downfall. Growing up Catholic you always feel guilt. I always had this feeling of dread. Psychiatrists call it anxiety, I call it "You're going to hell no matter what you do." Unless I am wrong in my remembering, it doesn't matter what you do or how you lived, unless you were a priest or a saint, you were destined for the place down under. If you lived a very good life, never swore, lied, cheat, steal, or thought of sex in any way unless you are conceiving a child, you might get lucky and go to purgatory and stay there for a million years. In High School, I would try to stay good by going to church every Sunday and teaching Sunday School with a classmate. However, to make my third downfall, all during church I thought about the classmate I taught Sunday School, and maybe made -out with the night before and all of the other Catholic boys. I just couldn't stop. Perhaps that's why I only dated one Lutheran. My fourth downfall is when I try to remember going to church as a Catholic the song, "My God is a Vengeful God!!!" comes to mind. I am not sure if it's a real song, but I can sing the whole thing in my head- parts of it are even in Hebrew. Therefore, it's no wonder I turned Lutheran when I got married. I jumped at the chance to change. Now I have this dilemma. Austin is getting his First Communion. I need to go to the service and probably take communion, but I feel like if I take communion from a non-Catholic church I am signing my one way ticket straight to hell. I have been Lutheran for almost as long as I have been Catholic, but I have only taken communion once- and that was at Ethan's baptism, so I HAD to. I feel like it's one of those mortal sins I promised not to make when I was six years old and lying to the priest about being naughty. I guess I am just going to need to suck it up and do it. Maybe on Easter Monday I can go confess the sin.
On a side note, all day I planned on either walking the dogs after school because it's finally nice out, or working out. Well, it turned out it was too windy to walk the dogs and I was too tired to workout, so I just ate chips instead.

Cleaning With Boys and Dogs; Why Bother?

I woke up at 8:00 and started mega cleaning. I cleaned the bathroom, started a load of laundry, cleaned off the kitchen cupboards, unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the fridge, microwave, stove, cupboards and sink. I swept and moped the kitchen and bathroom, and let the dogs outside. I cleaned off and polished the kitchen table. I re-arranged the place mats, decided they look like trash, so I dug out a clean tablecloth and decided it needed to be ironed so I ironed it along with three of my shirts and one of Scott's. I put the ironing board away and the tablecloth back on the table and let all three dogs in. I noticed too late that all three had muddy feet. I herded them all into the bathroom, got them in the tub (at once) and ran water to wash their feet. Next, I realized I was cleaning the bathroom, so I had zero towels. I told the dogs sternly, "STAY- NO MOVE!" went and retrieved towels and returned to see all three dogs surprisingly still in the tub. I washed their feet, let them out one by one as I dried them. I mopped the kitchen and bathroom AGAIN , and cleaned the tub for the second time. I went into the kitchen to put the mop bucket away and saw Sam on the other side of the deck door! Asked- not so sweetly, "Who was the genius that put the dog with wet feet outside?" found out it was the biggest genius; the grown-up one. I tried to carry Sam to the bathroom. He thought this was some kind of strange torture, so he got away and ran downstairs to hide from me. I tried to carry him back upstairs, but once again he got away. I finally caught him and put him in the tub. I washed his feet. I mopped the kitchen, bathroom and landing (for the third time), and cleaned the tub. I went into the kitchen and saw Max outside. Max is smaller, so I just picked him up and carried him into the clean tub to wash his feet. While he is in there I hear Sam barking to be let out. I yell, "If anyone lets the dogs out, I will break their legs". This scared Max, so he hopped out of the tub and left muddy footprints everywhere leading to his hiding place in the corner of the living room where he sat. I told him, "Max, I can still see you. You are the worst hider ever," I picked him up and put him back in the tub. I washed his feet, dried them off and mopped up the muddy footprints for the (I lost count) time today. I cleaned the tub AGAIN. I cleaned the rest of the house, including scrubbing mud out of the carpet while the dogs looked at the backyard which was calling their name and barked to be let out. I made a nice lunch and was a little excited to eat on my clean tablecloth. Ethan didn't even sit down before he put ketchup on his hamburger, and WIPED HIS KETCUP FILLED FINGERS ON THE TABLECLOTH!!! I decided I can have a clean house one day when I live alone and I went to take a nap. In the middle of my nap Abby came out from under the bed and barked at the door to be let out. I love my dogs, but they are very close to finding new homes. I couldn't fall back to sleep so I got up and went into the kitchen. I cleaned off the counters because SOMEONE left not only crumbs of food on it, but actual big bits of food on it. I unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher, mopped up the new muddy footprints in the kitchen and searched for the culprit. I found Sam and Max literally covered in mud on their bottom halves curled up sleeping together on the living room chair. I tried to cry a little, thinking it would make me feel better, but it didn't. I picked up Max, put him in the tub, then carried Sam like a baby (THIS he doesn't think is weird), dumped him into the tub and wash them off. I cleaned the tub once again. I looked for, and luckily found, my leather cleaner for the chair. I haven't even started on the downstairs yet. While I cleaned the chair, I told the boys (all of them) to clean downstairs and I'd be so grateful if someone would vacuum. Noah got stuck vacuuming THAT ONE STRIP, then apparently got tired and stopped- leaving the vacuum where he stopped. I shouldn't complain, at least I didn't have to drag out the vacuum again.
Thoughts I think: Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.

Kids are funny

My student's writing has cracked me up lately...
One girl wrote about her Christmas. "My funniest present was a beer box. You will never guess what was in the box. It wasn't beer, but the tiger I really wanted! My sister's favorite gift was a bear that glows. She named it Gloria, which is really dumb if you ask me, but she loves it."

Another wrote, "My mom and dad are my heroes because they keep me safety. If there is ever a broken they called the fire department." At first it made me cringe, then I had to laugh because that is how she talks. One day she said, "I'm gonna getter after school cuz my mom axed me to." The kids asked me if "getter" is a word. I said, "No, GET HER is." I am always after her to stop talking like a hillbilly, so now the kids are tattling on her for not talking right.

I had the kids write a letter to their parents today for their conferences which start tomorrow night. I had them write about what they like about school (me). What their favorite thing about third grade is (everything I do and say). As well as what they are learning about (how to hang on every word Mrs. Fairfield says). Last month when we did letter writing I talked about how you don't want to sign it "Love" unless you know the person well and actually love them. One girl came up to me when she was done with her letter to show me. I read it and she said, "I don't know what to say, like I don't want to say love, because I don't know her that well..." I replied, "Who your mom??" She said, "Oh ya, right," and walked away.

It is conference time and... wait for it.... I AM NOT SICK!!!! It has to be some sort of record!! Actually I am way too busy to be sick right now anyway.

I will leave you with thoughts to think:
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

Mornings...

I am rather proud of myself because I have the kid's morning routine down to a science. They can sleep in until 7:20 and we're still out the door by 7:45. I get their backpacks, snacks, boots, snow pants, everything else ready the night before. All they have to do is take a quick shower (usually together to save time) and throw on their clothes. They eat breakfast at school. However, Ethan has gotten too tall for size 7 jeans. At Christmas time I bought him all new pants in size 8. He keeps putting them in Noah's drawers because he thinks they are too "fat" and too long. I had to buy the 8 slims because he is so scrawny, and I STILL have to cinch in the elastic strip on the jeans or tie on the running pants. The past two mornings I've found him sitting on his floor wearing a shirt, socks and underwear sobbing because "he doesn't have any pants." I tell him the 8s are his pants and the 7s were too short. He continues to cry saying, "But I'm a 7, not a 8. I wear 7." I had a flashback when I did and said the exact same thing on a dressing room floor. He refuses to wear the 8s because they are too big around the waist and I have to roll them up. I refuse to let him wear the 7s because it looks like he's waiting for a flood. Yesterday I ended up bribing him with promises of shopping to find long enough 7s. Today I ended up changing MY pants to show him even cool people (like his mom) can wear pants rolled up and not look like a dork. I am fresh out of ideas for tomorrow. If only he were a girl, then he could hide his short pants with hooker boots!

Dear God...

Last night after supper Ethan asked me if I was too old to have a baby. I told him I was not, so he asked, "well, who decides if you get one?" I didn't want to get into the whole birds and bees talk with my seven-year-old, so I said, "God decides." Ethan folded his hands looked at the ceiling and said, "Dear God, please GET my mom pregnant."

SNOW DAY!!

Today, at 6:00am I got a mass phone call to all Fargo School Employees telling us school is canceled for the day! I love snow days. I immediately turned on the TV to watch the scroll and look for Fargo school being canceled, just in case the district office just called me and were waiting with candid cameras to see if I'd fall for their trickery. There it was "All Fargo/Moorhead schools closed today"! YAY!! I even watched it again, so I could get that little anticipation like you did as a kid looking for your school on the list of NO SCHOOL... I know we have to make it up in March, but a snow day is like an unexpected present. A big beautiful unexpected present that gets taken away and we have to return on March 10th.
I slept in until 9:30. I took a nap, read my new novel, and watched TV. I didn't have to clean or do laundry because it was already done. See, that's why a snow day is better than having our "built in snow day" in March off, because it's a free pass to do nothing! If I had March 10th off. I would leave a little laundry or cleaning for that day. Today the possibilities were endless, well except for leaving the house because it's storming. The possibilities while locked up in my house were all mine. I needed to sleep in. I had to get up at 6:30 on both days this weekend because Noah had a basketball tournament starting at 8:00 on Saturday (who starts basketball tournaments at 8am? Sleep haters that's who!) and we became members at church on Sunday.
My kids are so sweet. I usually wake the kids up at 7:15, and they get ready so we can get out the door by 7:40. At 8:15 Noah and Ethan came in and stared at me until I looked at them, and Noah said, "mom. It's 8:15. I think you're late for school." They were all dressed and ready to walk out the door. How sweet is that? If I wasn't so tired I would have played along and pretend we were late. Maybe I'll do that next time.

Ghost Stories

I was one of those kids who LOVED ghost stories. I wasn't good at telling them, but I loved hearing them. However, I grew up to be sort-of a chicken when watching scary movies. I hate horror movies- too much blood, gore, they're not realistic, etc... I prefer the more realistic ghost movies. Last Sunday I watched two ghost movies back to back. One was about a family that moved into a house that was built on an old frontier cemetery, and the second was a family that moved from Chicago to... wait for it... FARGO!! Why Fargo? Well, to farm of course. Fargo wasn't the Fargo I know. In the movie the people supposedly lived "in Fargo", but tey really lived in the middle of no where with fields and dirt roads as far as you can see. Anyway, the house was haunted by little kid ghosts. I think the scariest ghost movies are the ones with little kid ghosts because the ghosts are so creepy. Take the Ring for example. That little girl coming out of your TV to "get you" is so scary. I wanted to turn the TV around so when she tried to climb out, she'd hit her head, get disoriented and go back to where she came from. How about that little boy ghost in Japan who haunts that one apartment? He is so creepy. On Sixth Sense the kid who "sees dead people" sees a little girl ghost hiding under her bed and it is the scariest thing on that movie! In the movie with the family living in Fargo, the little kid ghosts lived in the basement. Growing up I lived in the middle of no where, and I was always scared of the basement. I refused to be down there alone the entire time I lived there. Even now as an adult, if I have to go down there alone, I run really fast back up the steps. I know it's not built on a cemetery, and there were no previous owners who have failed to "leave", so I don't know why it's so creepy. Perhaps it's because it's not very far from the "Fargo" house where the creepy little kids haunt the basement.