Do Kids Still Play "Upset The Fruit Basket"?

I received an extremely disturbing email from Adelaide's teacher last week.

It would appear that at the beginning of the school year- you know, back when I was fresh off summer vacation and believed I could learn to like doing things with large groups of children, aka completely insane- I signed up to help out with the Valentine's Day party in our daughter's class.

Once I got over the shocking message contained within that email, suppressed memories began misting back.  I'm pretty sure I had blocked almost all traces of that fateful Back-to-School-Night to preserve my sanity in the intervening months.  I now recall that by the time we got to Adelaide's classroom and had stocked her desk, met her teacher, etc, all the easy jobs like bringing drinks and napkins and themed-snacks had been fulfilled by parents who had already come and gone, leaving the stinker responsibilities like "games" for all the holiday parties.

Thankfully my friend Anne was also a latecomer that night, and is to be my partner in Valentine fun.  I sent her a rather desperate and not totally coherent (I PANICKED, OKAY?) email right after I read the teacher's message stating I had signed up to coordinate games for 25 third graders for one hour.  Honestly, even now a part of my brain is having trouble believing this, because this is just not like me.  I'm not sure how I ended up this way, but I (usually) have little problem saying, "No, thank you," to people, and am not someone who feels pressure to say "Yes" to everything under the sun.  This likely has less to do with strength of character than my hermit-like tendencies coupled with having strong female role models in my family who were not afraid to say what they thought.  AND YET.  Here I am, searching Pinterest for Valentine's Day party game ideas.

This is probably because I know that if she asked me to, I would organize games on a monthly basis for Adelaide's teacher.  The way I've been carrying on since receiving her email you'd think Adelaide's school was some kind of displaced Gulag camp amid the Iowa cornfields.  Of course it's a fine school, but that teacher is in there for hours upon hours with those little vectors (I just can't seem to shake my mom's pet name for children, no matter how I try), whereas I'm slated to be there for one measly little hour, after which I will stagger out the door and renew my prayers of thanksgiving for teachers, who will still be stuck in there.


Upon finding out he would be coming with me, Caedmon, however, reacted as if he had won the lottery.  He cannot believe his good fortune:  One whole hour?  With Adelaide?  At school?

Hmm.  I put that gif up there to illustrate Caedmon's state of extreme excitement and anticipation, but I feel like it represents how I feel about the party pretty accurately, too, though for admittedly different reasons.

Three Things

• The other day Adelaide said to me, "It seems like a long time ago girls liked Elvis Presley the same way girls like Justin Bieber now.  And that's just not fair!  Elvis Presley is so much better than Justin Bieber!"  This was after we fell down a Youtube wormhole that started with videos of The Shirelles and The Platters and ended with Elvis Presley singing "Hound Dog."   Adelaide has a classmate who is just the tiniest bit obsessive about Justin Bieber, which has flummoxed our daughter since this girl first pontificated on the subject of her idol.  We also watched a 70's-era video of Elvis, and Adelaide was aghast:  "What happened to him?!"  I said, "DRUGS, Adelaide.  Drugs and a reckless lifestyle happened to him.  So just remember:  You can have all the musical talent in the world, but if you do drugs, you'll end up a laughingstock who dies on the toilet."  This seemed to horrify and amuse her in equal measure, which meant my motherly work was done for the day.

I feel like I'd be more likely to read celebrity rags if all the pictures were of celebrities eating sandwiches.

• My friend Paige and her herd of children came for a visit the other day.  The only thing wrong with Paige is that she moved to the other side of the state a couple years ago, and so I only get to see her a few times a year now.  Because of this, there is never enough time to say all the things we need to say.  It always feels like we're racing the clock, trying to cram as many topics into our short space of time as possible:  "Stitchfix-Sherlock-Harry Potter-Parenting-Books-Church-Peeing Boys-Guns-Blogging-Wait!  You can't leave yet!  I STILL HAVEN'T ASKED HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS AND THIS AND ESPECIALLY THIS!"  Caedmon's already asking to go see "the Other Atticus"; he feels the same way I do on this matter.

• Derek and I are almost done with Midsomer Murders, which means we're about to be in need of another television show to watch together.  Suggestions?  Please?  We loved Sherlock and the aforementioned MM and Friends and Frasier and I can't think of what else.  I tend to be the tiniest bit difficult to please with tv, losing interest after only a couple episodes, whereas Derek's a Finisher to the bitter end- but still, we need help!  What program needs to be in our lives?

Ponderances From a Winter Walk

I went for a walk yesterday morning.

This may not sound like something worth sharing if you live in a warmer climate where you can walk around outside at this time of year without taking your life in your hands.  But here?  Here it is cold.  Here it is snowy.  Here everyone I've talked to lately is discussing Seasonal Affective Disorder.

But yesterday morning, after I watched the older two kids climb onto the school bus, I went for a little walk.  Derek is working evenings this week and thus has the mornings off, which means Caedmon is in heaven and I get to do things like go for walks when it gets all the way up into the teens.



Things I thought about on yesterday's walk:

•  How happy I was to be outside breathing fresh air, even when that air took the form of bitterly cold wind that blew the fresh snow currently falling from the sky into my face.  This only happened when I got too close to the edge of town.  This is how desperate I am for fresh air at this time of year.

The view out my kitchen window: pretty, sparkly, white prison bars.

• How much I love my coveralls.  My grandma got them for me years ago, and they keep me so warm I don't care a whit about the fact that they make the mechanic next door and me appear to be twins whose mother insists on dressing us alike.  We're like the Bobbsey Twins Grown Up, although I'm sad to inform you that Freddie became a heavy smoker, but still a perfectly nice neighbor.  

Just add long underwear- both pants and top- beneath these, jeans, thick tall socks, a sweater, a heavy coat, snow boots, scarf, mittens, and stocking cap on top, and you're ready for a pleasant if stiff-legged winter walk.

• How many fitness-ey people I've heard expound on the virtues of  THE CORE; namely how it should more or less constantly be in use and how it's essential to human survival, etc, etc, all of which, despite years in a dance studio, I happily ignored, but I finally tried it while doing yoga, and lo and behold, those annoyingly fit people were all completely right!  Which is irritating! 

Anyway, since discovering The Power of The Core (I believe some refer to them as "abdominals"), I've been discovering all kinds of helpful applications for THE CORE, and yesterday was no different:  On any given surface outside my front door there now exists a substantial layer of ice under around a foot of snow.  You know how, when your boot meets an unexpected sheet of ice and you go into a lock-kneed, off balance skid, even if you don't fall you still end up pulling a weird muscle around your rib cage or right in the middle of your back?  Well.  It turns out keeping THE CORE taut while mincing across the ice helps you both keep your balance and helps to prevent the pulling of heretofore-unnoticed muscle pulls.

I went looking for a "people slipping on ice" gif but instead I found a hydrogen bond gif!  Fitness-ey people will tell you that as those mickey mouse-things slow down you need to engage THE CORE, but excellent Chemistry professors will say things like, "Look, if I ever ask you a question in this class and you have no idea what the answer is, just say, 'Hydrogen Bonds!'  There's a good chance you'll be right." 

• Both how happy I was that football season is over (I know, Husband.  I know.), and that the Vikings weren't in the Super Bowl (I KNOW, OKAY?), because I don't know if our family could survive such an event.  I already have a plan for immediately before and during the game, should the Vikings ever make it that far:  The children and I will vacate the premises, for everyone's protection and well-being.  I don't know where we'll go.  I don't know what we'll do.  I just know we won't be with Derek.  And if the Vikings win, great!  Super!  It will no doubt be the happiest day of my husband's life, and I'm barely speaking hyperbolically, here.  

But if they lose?  Oh.  Ohhh, gracious.  

For whatever reason, this is what occupied my brain for the bulk of my walk:  

Scene:  Our house, outside appearance normal.  Upon opening the front door, however, it's like walking into Great Expectations, complete with Derek in a decaying wedding dress and his insistence on referring to all three of our children as "Pip."

I once had a lit professor who posited you could never take a Dickens reference too far.  I do believe my husband would disagree at this point in time, although the apparent gruesome quality of the above scene with Derek Crisler cast as Miss Havisham entertained me enough on my walk to make me forget the cold for large chunks of time.  




That giant mess of junk and thoughts and thinks up there?  I would have taken it all this morning when I walked the kids to the bus stop and straight back home, as it was several degrees below zero and I could feel the mucous membranes inside my nostrils freezing.  This is a very disconcerting feeling.

I Love Her, I Love Her Not

Although I did spend a large part of yesterday believing it was Groundhog Day and taking photos of Derek moving snow hither and thither, I also did other stuff.

I continued in my quest for the title of Woman Most Frugal and made a big ol' jar of hot cocoa mix.

Dear Martha Stewart,

You make it awfully difficult to hate you when you post penny-saving delicious hot cocoa mix recipes on your website.  I do have to wonder how much cocoa you go through every winter, though, when one recipe makes enough to feed the five thousand sans miracles.  I bet it would be a delicious complement to loaves and fishes. 

A firm handshake because I get the feeling hugs make you uncomfortable,

Kristy Crisler

Really, though, that jar up there is one of my giant Ball jars, not the regular canning sized ones, and that's half a recipe minus four servings.  It's also made from three ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.  Find it here.

If you need more convincing, it is Adelaide-approved:

An hour playing outside in the snow gives a girl wild hair, and is the reason I made the cocoa in the first place- first because nothing's better than hot cocoa after cold snow, but second and more importantly because it's winter and we've been spending oodles of time together inside, so when they go outside and leave me in here aaaaaalllll by myself I need to positively reinforce that like the dickens.  Martha understands.

It's also Caedmon-approved,

and Atticus-approved.

I think this means we can give it the Crisler Seal of Approval.  I can't decide if this would please Martha- she seems terribly achievement-oriented- or if she'd meet this announcement with disdain.  She's a tough one to read.

Probably best if I don't mention any of this to her, as I didn't follow her exact instructions (skim milk rather than whole, gasp!), plus I dumped cold milk and mix together in my handy dandy Cocomotion-thingy instead of "warming the milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat, taking care not to let the milk boil..."  This would no doubt be construed as outright defiance in her eyes.  Or maybe it wouldn't.  I don't know.  As you can tell, Martha and I have a complicated relationship.

My Husband is So Selfish

It's Sunday night, Downton Abbey is on, and what is my husband doing?  Watching some football game.

It's also Groundhog Day, so even if we weren't going to watch Downton, it's tradition for us to watch the comedic genius of Bill Murray together, but no.  Instead he's watching football.


Some might say he's earned the right to watch the most important game of the year in one of his favorite sports because he was outside at 5:30 this morning clearing our driveway so we could get out and go to church- but then church was cancelled due to unsafe road conditions.  So I would say a hearty "NO" to those people.

Others might bring up the fact that he was again outside this afternoon clearing away all the additional snow the skies dropped on us throughout the day.  Hey, I had a busy day, too.

I took pictures of our white street.

Derek cleaned off our vehicles.

I took pictures of our trees.

I also took pictures of my sad hydrangea bowed down under the weight of wet, heavy snow.

Then I scurried inside because the temperature was starting to drop from a manageable 16 degrees to God knows what and the wind was starting to blow and I am a delicate flower who was raised in warmer climes; I cannot be expected to deal with this extreme cold stuff.

Instead I go inside and take pictures of my husband doing snow stuff.  He was raised in these parts and thus thinks nothing of the nine or ten or however many inches we got today.

Please do not forget the topic at hand today, though:  My selfish husband.

Here he is struggling to plow a path next to my hydrangeas.  I just knew he was going to complain about how they were in his way and insist I cut them back, even though they've never been a problem before.  I composed a whole mental argument from the cozy innards of our home.  Never mind that he didn't end up saying anything about it; in my head he did.

I also took important photos of the last of my paperwhites.

While Derek did what?  More of the same.

A day of that and he thinks he can just watch whatever he wants for a night with a small boy tucked in beside him.  Yes, I got to pick what we watched last night, but this isn't about last night.  It's about tonight.

Being the gracious person I am, however, I have decided to forgive him this pretty major inconvenience to myself.  Someone in this marriage is really lucky.

Ruuuuun!

Near our house, crouched in a tree, is a large insect nest.

It's been there for months.  I spent weeks mistaking it for a piece litter, believing it to be a plastic grocery sack tangled in the winter branches of the tree.  Then a friend mentioned that she couldn't figure out why the City hadn't done something about that massive beehive, it was in a park, wasn't it, and right next to a school bus stop.

Since then I've ventured right up to the trunk several times, inspecting the hive, as if I'll be able to tell anything by a closer look.  Here is what my expert hive/nest observation skills have netted thus far:

• It's really big.
• It has one circular opening.
• The outside seems to be made of a papery substance.

That's right.  I took pictures for you.

I'm not actually convinced it is a beehive; couldn't it just as likely be a wasp's nest?  If it's a beehive, I hope the City can get some kind of bee expert, um, person, in there to relocate it.  Shouldn't they be doing that now, while it's cold?  Do bees experience a season of dormancy in the winter?  Are you beginning to see I should never have gone near this thing?  If it is a wasp's nest, I say kill them all, although a quick google search tells me that some people want to Save The Wasps.  I'm not convinced; just thinking about the way they drone around with those creepy legs dangling underneath them makes me shudder.  And besides, according to this Arizona Extension agent (and apparent wasp lover):

"The benefits of wasps usually outweigh potential for harm unless a nest is in a high traffic area such as a doorway or outdoor living area. When approached, paper wasps leave the nest and dive bomb intruders occasionally inflicting painful stings. Both wasps and yellow jackets can sting multiple times."

Our kids are at that bus stop twice a day, five days a week, and as much fun as fleeing dive-bombing wasps sounds, I think I'll be stopping into city hall tomorrow to have a word with whomever is unfortunate enough to have to deal with this kind of thing.

Okay, so I can't just stop there, because the more I google about wasps, the weirder/funnier it gets.  Michigan State University Extension says,

"The larger nests of yellowjackets and baldfaced hornets that are protected by a paper mache envelope are more challenging and best left to pest control professionals. But, if you are bound and determined to try yourself, then in addition to nest location, your speed and agility should be honestly evaluated. [!!!!] The slow and clumsy should seriously reconsider hiring a pest control company. [!!!!!] No attempt should be made to kill a nest that is located high in the upper branches of a tree if you think a ladder will be required to reach the nest. For reasons that should be obvious, a nest full of angry wasps and a fool on a ladder is a potentially dangerous and life-threatening combination.[!!!!!] If the nest is located close to the ground in a tree, shrub or on a building, then you may have a fighting chance to survive the experience. [!!!!!]"    

[Bracketed exclamation points added by yours truly to denote every time I laughed/gasped in horror while reading this.]

I'm thinking I'm going to ask to be alerted if they do try and remove that nest- Cade and I will have to round up our binoculars and go watch, from a suitable distance, with 911 ready on my phone.  I've seen My Girl, and I know how slow and clumsy I can be.   

No good can come of this.

A List

• My sister Steph sent me a text yesterday that read "A movie for Atticus."

I can only assume this horror movie is being made by people who have been stalking Derek and me for the past few years, as I'm pretty sure the above is exactly what I look like after a night of our Atticus's night terrors.  I bet this whole movie is a dramatization of what would happen if the parents of night terror-stricken children acted on the irrational and murderous thoughts that run through our brains after years of sleep deprivation.  I'm expecting a new source of income from these film-makers and will use it to invest in a set of fancy ear plugs.  

• It's warm outside today.  So warm that, when Caedmon and I dared to venture out back, he declared it to be "super hot out here!"  He then asked if he could play with play dough (not Play-Doh, because I make our own play dough for pennies as opposed to spending whole dollars on the store-bought stuff), because I am a mean, mean mother who will only let her children near play dough when they are safely outside the confines of her house.  We busted out the play dough I made a couple years ago, but it's starting to get a little overly sticky, so he asked that I make a new batch.  I did, and am now "the best mom ever!"  One of the best parts of having small children is the ability to impress with a little flour, salt, and cream of tartar.  

Amazing how you go from this:

To this just five minutes later:

My aunt Sherry has said that you can use a packet of Kool-Aid instead of food coloring if you also want scented play dough, but I never think to buy Kool-Aid when I'm at the store.  Do people still drink that stuff?  Do they still make that stuff?

A bonus to fresh-out-of-the-pot play dough is that you can use it to warm your hands outside, because what Caedmon and I thought was "super hot" outside turned out to be about 35 degrees.  Warmth is relative, friends.

Sure, I had to clean bits of ice off the table before he could play, and no, he didn't really have a chair to sit in because those go in our basement during the winter, but that still beats digging dough out of our rugs.  

• Caedmon has a bit of a cold.  Nothing too bad (as long as I don't catch it), but enough for him to occasionally run to Adelaide for a bit of comfort.

This is pretty much the cutest thing ever, and yet another benefit to having a four-year-old.