Makin his momma proud

So we're sitting around the table at Monte's parents house with his nephew Jordan, who is a senior in high school this year. Last year Jordan went on a mission trip to El Salvador, and the topic under discussion was whether he would go on a second mission trip in the spring.

MONTE: "So, these mission trips . . . where all can ya go?"
JORDAN: "Well, there's El Salvador, Chile, Peru . . . "
MONTE: (with a silly smirk on his face) "Des Moines?"
JORDAN: "No, I don't think we go to Italy."

What makes this funnier is the kid is making reasonably good grades in school. Well, I would guess in everything but geography.

Things get serious

We have a contract on our Missouri house, and another one on an Oklahoma house, and between working out all the details, having inspection after inspection, signing this and paying for that, moving and packing, I'm out of breath.

But if nothing falls through, I'll be out of my in-laws house and in our own digs by November, and that's worth smiling about.

I'm just amazed at how many boxes there are!

Say what?

Mason brought home all A grades at mid-semester recently, and is generally regarded as a smart kid by one and all, but every so often he loses things in translation. In church Wednesday night he leaned over and whispered, "Mom, what does your shirt say?" I whispered back "It says, 'Authentic'." Then he said, "What does that mean?" I said "It means real . . . not a forgery." "Oh," he said. Then he whispered something I couldn't hear to Monte, and Monte started laughing. Then I heard Monte say, "No honey, you're thinking of 'Autistic'."

Not sure what's more disturbing, that my 5th grader didn't know the meaning of the word Authentic, or that he thought I would rock a shirt with the word 'Autistic' on it to church.

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They're Their There

I don't know if it's Oklahoma, Fifth Grade, or what, but I have done more in the way of project homework help in the last two weeks than ever in the past decade of parenthood. Last week, we made an animal cell composed entirely of candy. Ever try to find a sugary treat that looks like mitochondria? I even drove all the way to Michael's (remember, this city is freakin' spread out) to get chocolate fondant for the cell itself, and pretty gel icing for the cell membrane. And it doesn't look like it's going to let up . . . this week Mason had to hand draw an island, complete with geographical, agricultural and industrial features. Big deal you say? No problem, you insist? Then I forgot the best part . . . for these fun projects, we get one to two days notice. Oh yeah, and Stephen has to read to me while I help Mason create these things, because he has homework too . . .

I was a much better parent before I had kids.

A Duck, from a Goose

Stephen drew this for me. I asked for a chicken. He said what I really wanted was a duck. And he's right.

Old puppies, new tricks

The babies started second and fifth grade in Oklahoma today, and both reported they had a pretty decent day except for the turkey corndogs at lunch. That was one new thing they didn't care for. New school, fine. New kids, no problem. New teachers, bring them on, but new corn dogs, hold on just a cotton picking minute. I have always subscribed to the "put enough mustard on a corn dog and the flavor of the corn dog becomes a moot point" rule, but apparently the rule's only exception is a corn dog composed entirely of turkey. And probably soy, but thank heavens we haven't had to deal with that yet.

Stephen said the corn dogs tasted vaguely of mint.

Makes you wonder what these Okies are feeding their poultry.

The Heat Is On

Right now it's 100 degrees at 7 p.m. in Oklahoma City. That means 100 wasn't the high, it's the come down number. I used to love warm. The warmer the better. Bring the heat I would say. I'm so cold natured that at times in my life it has seemed I couldn't make my own body heat, and I had to depend on the sun or Monte to provide some warmth for my otherwise icy skin. Grocery stores, movie theaters, churches,all were places of freezing discomfort. I had to carry a sweater with me year round. No place was ever completely warm.

Until now.

Now I'm cured.

I'm finally aggressively fanning myself with all the other old ladies, with our floppy arm fat moving as fast as the paper fans we are cooling off with. I'm on the other side.

Dang it. Turns out the grass isn't greener over here. It is dry, brown and burnt!

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Core Philosophy

Sometimes the glass is half full. Sometimes it's half empty. Sometimes the stupid thing is all the way empty, has a hole in the bottom and is made of uncoated tissue paper.

Consider the last few days. I was with the fam at Silver Dollar City, having a wonderful time. It was hot, sure, but there was plenty of lemonade and water to drink and fine misting fans at periodic intervals. And of course, we had the kids with us, and they have a tendancy to whine if things aren't spot on perfect, but we aren't new at this and so we pursued the policy of hanging in there and identifying lots of "teaching moments" while still enjoying the park. No problem, right? Manageable. Doable. Under control.

Until Friday morning.

Until 11 a.m., Central Standard Time, when I lost Monte's wallet with all our money, credit cards, season passes, IDs and the very first social security card he was ever issued, inside. He and the boys decided to beat the heat by going on a "soak ya through" water ride, so I put the wallet and his cell phone in my stretchy lightweight shallow pocketed workout capris and set off with Peyton for some quality sitting time. The only thing we did was buy a lemonade, locate a shady spot and sit in one place. That's it. I had the wallet when I bought the lemonade, but when I walked up the hill to meet Monte, I didn't have it anymore. I did everything one might do in that kind of stressful situation. I retraced my steps. I looked everywhere I had been. I asked vendors, people in the vicinity and the lost and found ladies if they had seen the wallet. I teared up. I panicked. And then, having no other options, I left the park with my family.

The first thing we did was cancel the credit card and debit card. Then we decided we needed IDs, which led us to drive an hour and a half acorss the Oklahoma border to the nearest tag agent, to get our driver's licenses replaced. Through the marvels of modern technology, the state of Oklahoma can replace your license with no other form of ID because they have your index fingerprints on file, and a scanner in every office. That's the good news. Unfortunately, what they can't do, is reprint the license using the picture you already took.

The picture you took when you were well rested, had on makeup, had your roots freshly done and hadn't just lost your husband's wallet.

The picture that didn't show someone who had been sweating in a theme park and then crying in a mini-van for three hours.

No sir. They take a brand new picture. A current picture. A picture of the right then and now.

So to make matters somewhere between worse and unbearable, I now have a government issued memento of one of the worst days of my life that I am, for the next six years, required to show clerks, ticket agents, policemen, anyone I need to prove my identity to. And I'm sure once they've seen it, they'll look at me and all ask the same thing.

"My goodness, what on earth happened here??!!"

Epilogue: They found the wallet at SDC, with the money in it and everything, the next day. It was Baptist days, so we probably have some nice Baptist to thank for being honest and giving us our life back, not to mention the license with the better picture. Also, one might say we were fortunate to have lost the wallet on a Friday when the tag agent was open, and that we were close enough to their location to get there during business hours and replace our IDs with no other proof of identity than our index fingers. Oh yeah, and cancelling the credit and debit cards were probably a good thing too, because both accounts been open for a long time with the same numbers and were probably more prone to identity theft than the newly issued cards.

Still.

Worst vacation ever.

How's that for how empty the glass is?

Cast off!

Mason got his cast off yesterday. He's still getting used to flexing his wrist and moving his arm, but for the most part he's 100 percent. The doctor said no basketball until the bone, which has healed, "matures" but hey, a little shooting around can't hurt, right?

Right?

Maybe he can climb a fence while he's at it. :-)

New Normal

We've officially been in Oklahoma for a week now, staying with the inlaws until our house sells, and although they've been nothing but nice in welcoming us to their home and making us feel comfortable, there's just so much privacy and control you can exercise while living under someone else's roof. I'm sure it's not a walk in the park for them either, having given up their right to peace and quiet while living with three small boys, but they've been really gracious and accomodating, and we are extremely grateful.

Still, moving is terrible. I had forgotten--mostly because the last time I did it I didn't even change school districts, and now we're in a whole different state. Sure, it's a state we are both familiar with, having visited for holiays and such, but living is a whole different kettle of fish from visiting. The grocery store is laid out all wrong. The streets are in the wrong places. There isn't any shade, or sidewalks, or frozen yogurt stores. July in Oklahoma is like July in Death Valley, without the charming name. There's no Starbucks for like, 8 miles from where we are living. Everything in Oklahoma City is so big and in your face, but at the same time it's all spread out, so you have to drive a long way to get to all the big in your face stuff. Nearby the new (temporary) address we have tag agents and nail salons, neither of which I need at the moment, but no really useful stuff like an Applebees or a Longhorn or a Cold Stone. (They think Braum's counts. It does not. At all.) I guess my old town was small, but it felt right sized. Not so big that you get lost and not so small that you didn't have options. And it had trees. Tall mature ones, with shade. I'm just saying.

But I'm coping. I'm finding I can walk indoors at the City Center, which is a membership based work out place, library and swimming pool complex not far from my inlaws house, and half an hour away there's an IMAX theater, so we were able to show the boys Toy Story 3 in really really really big 3D. And there will be other things, special unique things, as time goes on that will endear me to my new home.

It's not a bad place.

It's a very nice place actually.

I guess change is hard on everyone.

Rookie Blue

Monte was upstairs watching "Cops" on the Tivo while giving Peyton and Stephen a bath. He went to get them out of the tub when his cell phone rang. Drying off two little wet boys takes all available focus so Monte let it go to voicemail. After he got the two monkeys dry and in PJs, he decided to check his messages.

The missed call was from the Columbia Police Department.

That got his attention.

It said "We have a message from one of your employees. He fears for your safety. Please call us at . . . " blah blah blah. So Monte calls back and assures the CPD that we are not in danger and are in fact freshly washed and in PJs, and then works with the officer to reconstruct whatever unfolded that got us here.

Apparently, before getting in the bath, Peyton played with Monte's iPhone and inadvertently called one of the IT guys at his work. Because nobody was actually talking to the IT guy, all he heard was "GET DOWN ON THE GROUND! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND" and then several beeping noises. What he thought he was hearing was some sort of terrible home invasion or something. What he didn't know was he was actually listening to Monte watch a policeman from "Cops" chase a perp, followed by the sound of fast forwarding through commercials. After Monte called his friend back, the guy said "I should have recognized the beeps. They're Tivo beeps."

Between my mom last summer and Monte's friend at work, the cops are starting to put a mark by our name that reads, "I know we're supposed to follow up, but somehow I know this is going to end up on somebody's blog."

Teepee Hee Hee

Mason and Stephen went to my parents farm for a few days, because my mom has been wanting to build a teepee with them. Stephen's been pretty excited about it but we've had to wait for one or two days without rain to be able to get to the soggy farmland where the small trees are, to be able to cut the poles.

During the planning stages for the teepee, mom had this conversation with the boys:

GRANDMA: Okay, so all we need to do is go over to the Shepherd place and then Grandpa can use the chain saw to cut the little trees that we'll use for poles, and then we'll bring them back here and we can put the teepee together.
MASON: What is the Shepherd Place? Is it a store?
GRANDMA: (laughing) No, the Shepherd Place isn't a store. The old indians didn't go to the store when they needed to cut poles for their teepees, did they?
MASON: Well, did they use chain saws to cut the poles?

She could almost see him getting smarter than her right before her eyes.

They also used tarps instead of buffalo hides, so the most authentic thing about the whole process was the part where my boys got really muddy and then washed some of the mud off in the creek which probably just made them muddy and wet.

School's (almost) Out

The boys are so ready for school to be out, and oddly enough, I am too. Ready for summer outings and trips to the zoo. (Probably because I've forgotten how much luggage and bother they require.)

Rite of passage

Mason broke his arm Friday. It was the first time we'd been to the ER with one of our kids. Well, that's not technically true. I tried to go one other time when Stephen was have trouble breathing due to croup. I got there and the admission nurse sardonically said, "Yeah, the wait from this point is 4 hours." I said, "But that would be 4 a.m. and I can see my regular doctor at 8 a.m. and he's having trouble breathing NOW," which was the nicest thing I could say given that I was holding my sick baby in my arms. What I was thinking was, "It's not a theme park ride, it's an ER. Help the gasping baby, you complete idiot!!!" She was not swayed by my wheezing kid or the panic in my voice. "Yeah," she said, as if to say "your summary of the situation is accurate, and now I will go back and sit by some large desk filled with papers and files, and drink my extra large coffee and forget all about you." She turned and walked away, and in so doing forced me to see the futility of the situation . . . I figured I could go home and call 911 and get some nice EMT guy to help me, so I went home and crossed my fingers. Luckily, Stephen did okay during the night and we were able to see our regular doctor in her office first thing the next morning. Needless to say, we're not big on ERs.

So, Friday night mom offers to watch the kids at Brandon and Karen's while all the parents got a date night. We had just made it to the restaurant and gotten food when I decided to call and check on the kids. I dialed the phone and said "Hi, Mom, how are the . . . " and she interruped and said "MASON JUST BROKE HIS ARM IT WAS FINE UNTIL JUST NOW BUT NOW HE'S HURT HOW SOON CAN YOU GET HERE." I told her I'd be there immediately and hung up the phone. Monte didn't even eat. We left the food sitting there and sped off toward Mason's arm. Turns out he was throwing a football around and it went over the fence, and he climbed the fence to get it, lost his balance and crack, standard split fork forearm fracture.

We took one look at the arm and realized it was broken, because arms don't bend that way otherwise. We got him to the ER, and they took one look at the arm and ushered us right in. We filled out paperwork, and got X-rays with super speed. Unfortunately, pain meds took a LOT longer. Mason was sobbing and I was standing over the nurse asking again and again when the doctor would come in and sit in our room long enough for the state legislature to be satisfied that he was being cared for by someone wth a medical degree, so the nurse could finally give him the morphine she knows plenty about, can give in her sleep and had been holding in her hand for half an hour.

We finally got the morphine right around the time we got the bad news. The orthopedic surgeon can't set the arm because Mason had had dinner. (What kid in a family with any kind of positive cash flow doesn't have dinner?) But dinner was the deal breaker because they needed to knock him out in order to set the arm and he had to have an empty stomach. They wrapped the arm up and sent us home, with oral pain medication, and instructions to come back at 7 a.m. to get checked in to have the arm set at 8 a.m. So home we went, with ORAL pain meds. Remember now dear reader, in order for him to get a cast, we can't give him anything to eat or drink after midnight. Did I mention the only way I could manage his pain was with oral medication, because it turns out that counts toward the no eating and drinking. You see where I'm headed with this? Sometime around 2 a.m. he started hurting pretty badly, and by 5 a.m. he was sobbing. I had a pill that would fix it IN MY HAND, but I couldn't give it to him. What an awesome feeling that was. By 5:30 we were back in the ER begging for someone, oh please oh please oh please ANYONE, to give him a shot in his IV (which had stayed in his arm from the night before). Again, we waited and waited for someone with an advanced degree who wasn't the nurse holding the meds, to tell us he could stop hurting.

Ever sat next to a child in pain? Your own child in pain? It does things to your brain, heart and gut that I can't even put into words, and makes you want to recreate that Shirley MacLane scene in Terms of Endearment where she screams at the nurses station for someone to just give her daughter the morphine. Yes, Shirley MacLane nailed it. She might have even been a little held back.

He got his shot, felt better and then he got his splint and eventually once the risk of swelling goes down he'll get his cast. And he will never ever ever jump off a fence to get a football again.

Overheard at lunch

Monte: "Great, thanks, Peyton. Now my pants smell like corn."

I'm betting his pants already smelled like corn, and he's just in denial.

Bye, Bye Bug!

It's the end of an era. We sold the bug car. When we bought it back in ought 4, there were only four of us and Stephen was the same age Peyton is now . . . six years is a long time in the life of a bunch of kids.

We bought it for fun in simpler times, when thoughts like "someday there might be more of us," or "those of us already here might grow to huge porportions" didn't occur.

At first we had fun in the bug on sunny days with the top down driving around town listening to music and singing at the top of our lungs. But later, we had to listen to Stephen and Mason groan as their legs were getting too long to be comfortable in the back seat, or hear one of them whine about it being too windy or too sunny. (I know, right? Aren't wind and sun the point?) Yeah, the poor bug didn't have much of a chance as our family aged, and besides, it would have been a serious drag doing 60 or less all the way to Oklahoma when we do finally sell this house and move. No, bug is a Missouri car, and should stay here in her homeland, with people who love her and will care for her. We bid you a fond farewell, bug. You gave us many a pleasant afternoon on the way to get ice cream.

Kristi

P.S. That car was built in 1978 and marketed as a family friendly car, because four adults were supposed to fit comfortably in it. For long periods. Four adults. I can't even get Monte and the three boys in it anymore. I guess the projected height in 1978 for the average person achiving maturity was 5 foot 3 inches. Either that or we have a serious metric to traditional measuring system conversion snafu here. Good thing Americans have discovered carbohydrates and protein since then or we'd never be able to grow our kids into giants like I'm doing now! I've had near four footers since kindergarten, and Mason is tall enough to ride every ride in every theme park in the US at the tendar age of ten. My two year old is already three feet tall. Those poor late 70s European car manufacturers wouldn't know what hit them! In the end we were like clowns coming out of that car, and I don't mean just in the traditional sense.

Best day ever

Mother's Day rocks. I was taken to Branson for the weekend, rode roller coasters and rides with my boys at Silver Dollar City, ate a ridiculous amount of really good food, and Monte even coached the kids to ask me, at different times of each day, "What would you like to do, Mom? Can we do something with you?" It was amazing. Any whining and eye rolling was down to a bare minimum and most of the time everyone laughed and joked and had a great time together. Tonight at dinner, Stephen said something out of the blue that nobody told him to say. He said, "Mom you're beautiful. I love you a really really lot. I love you, and also I love Jacqueline, but I love you the best."

Isn't he sweet. It's good to be the queen.

Wait . . . what? Jacqueline? Who's Jacqueline?

House selling is like a box of chocolates . . . that somebody bit into and put back.

Selling a house is like the high school dating scene for an average looking girl. You work hard to create your best appearance and then you put yourself out there, advertizing (hopefully) without coming off desparate, which gets some vaguely interested looks but for the most part nobody wants to dance. So you go on feeling blue wondering when someone will notice all your effort while simultaneously looking past the giant zit on your forehead, and give it all a chance, so you don't have to spend your weekends eating six pounds of chocolate while watching Behind the Music marathons on VH1.

Crap.

Now I'm back in high school.

Finding Clarity

Overheard at the lunch table:

Stephen: cough cough
Monte: Stephen, cover your mouth when you cough.
Stephen: cough cough
Monte: Stephen, cover your mouth, EFFECTIVELY, when you cough.

This parenting moment brought to you by allergy season, and my legalistic kids, who need all the loop holes closed.

And around, and around

UPDATE:
You'll think I'm making this up, but the thief logged into the stolen PC again, this time TO PAY HIS CELL PHONE BILL. Now, let's think about this for a second, Zeke (may I call you Zeke? Great. Anyway . . .) You left the STOLEN computer on once before, and for your trouble you were rewarded by suddenly losing massive amounts of data. The sort of "thanks for playing" parting gift that should have been at the very least a cautionary tale, warning you to chunk the darn thing in a nearby ravine (admit it, you're surrounded by ravines) rather than risk being located through it. But Zeke, you believe in the inherant goodness of humanity (we all like that about you) and as such, you probably believed the worst was over. Right? Either that, or you don't understand the concept of the Internet as a vehicle for two way communication. Because, Zeke, when you pay your cell phone bill . . . you know, the one in your real name and with an accurate address on file, then you're just saying, "hey, Monte, here's the stuff you need to have me arrested. I ain't got me no silver platter or nothin' but we'll just consider it implied."

I'm sure when the cops arrived, Zeke was more than a little taken aback. I imagine him being handcuffed by the sherrif's deputy on the porch of his double wide, very near the ravine where he should have thrown the computer, saying, " Well played, Monte Ellis. Well played."

The moral? If you are a flippin' thief, and you steal one of Monte's PCs, for heaven sake, look into the cash only disposable cell phone option! (I like the fact that he pays his bills. You want thieves with senses of personal responsibility and accountability.)

Oh, and my apologies to Georgia. I was misinformed. It was Louisiana. However I'm sure Louisiana jails are just as lovely and accomodating as anything you'd find in Georgia, so no worries there.

Poor Zeke.