Last night Simon had a stomach ache. He was “really, really hungry” at dinner. So I let him have the 2nd and 3rd tacos. How was I to know? He is a growing boy and he’s been sick with not much appetite lately. I figured he had depleted his stores and needed to stock up again. Then he came back for mint ice cream pie. Fifteen minutes later the runs to the bathroom began. And then he curled up on the couch moaning about his stomach – poor little guy. He ended up on the toilet and then the dreaded “Mom – I think I need to puke.” 

And he did.

As he was sitting there breathing heavily into the bucket, I was having horrible visions of the days to come. Surely Miriam would get this too, the stomach flu spreads like wildfire on a dry windy day. We were already struggling with a cough and runny nose, I just couldn’t do this too. 

Then Simon pipes up in completely normal voice. “Hey Mom, I smell mint!”

Weirdo.

The stomach pain gone, he was his chipper old self. The visions of horror faded into the haze of Vicks vapor rub.

Simon was playing with his farm animal math counters at dinner this evening (not doing math by the way, he was making farm pens for them out of crayons). He asked me which animal ham came from, I answered, and that began the protest of Miriam. 

“No, Momma!” she exclaimed. Her expression clearly showing the horror of such a thing. “We don’t eat animals! We can’t eat the animals!”

Now, really how do you answer that? I have found myself leaning in a non-animal eating way myself, but not because I feel bad for the animals. I’m just getting a little concerned about the commercial process, however I am not ready to risk missing the proper protein requirement just yet. I need to some time to figure out how to do things the right way. I have growing children to think of and Simon needs all the help he can get in the height department.

That, however is much too long and wordy of an answer for a three year old. My simple answer was that God gave us the animals to eat, and what would we eat if we couldn’t eat meat?

She answers with no hesitation,”Pizza”

But of course, how could I have overlooked that solution?

I’m not sure that I’ve ever had those words said to me. Granted, it’s a little old-fashioned and I’m not in the habit of regularly attending dances. Yet I have heard my little boy say those words. To his sister. Some days being a Mom is all goodness.

I need to install this feature in my brain. I need a programmed reminder so that the instant I think to go to Lowes, it will kick in and drive me to Home Depot instead. 

Every time I need to go to a hardware store I immediately think Lowes. And Everytime I go there I cannot find what I want. I always know what I need, I know what it looks like, what it does, I remember seeing my Mom&Dad using it when I was little, but I just never know the technical name for it. And apparently the staff at Lowes speaks a different language – Hardwarese or Supplyish or Wrench. Usually I will find the aisle that has everything close to what I’m looking for, but not the actual item in my mind. A kind salesperson will come over to help me look, but since we don’t speak the same language we will stand there staring at the wall of items together with concerned looks on our faces. We make gestures to each other and speak in half sentences – trying to describe the item needed. We pick up random items with a desperate hope, reading labels, but always replacing it while shaking our heads and sighing. At some point I will put the poor person out of their misery by saying ‘thank you’ and walking away.

It happened again last night. Aaron asked me to stop and get wasp killer on the way home from work. “Just swing by Lowes and grab the biggest can they have”. So I did. I stopped at Lowes, thinking I would run in, grab the nearest sales person and be all set and checked out in 5 minutes. But no, it was not to be. I ran in, no salesperson in sight (except for the ones at the checkouts and they can’t leave their posts). But the Pest Killer aisle was right there! Yay! This should be easy! I knew what I needed, I can read, no problem, right? Wrong! Aisle 22 had bottles and bags of pest killer, but it was for ants, ticks, roaches, grubs, spiders, flys, gnats, mosquitos, japanese beetles, and every kind of bug you can think of EXCEPT wasps and hornets. None of those large aerosol spray cans in sight. So I went over and asked at the Service Desk – she told me to look in Aisle 22. And called someone to come help. Which was very nice of her. I gave the help about 20 seconds to show, then went back over to Aisle 22 on the off chance that I overlooked it in my haste. Nope, and on further reading most of the labels said that you were supposed to put all of this stuff on your lawn or the dirt around your house. Not what I wanted at all – you need to be able to shoot these waspies from far away and it’s gotta’ be a dead on spray. Help didn’t show after 2 minutes. I gave up and ran back to my car and drove across the street to Home Depot.

In the door and straight to the Pest Killer aisle (which oddly enough was in the same position in the store) and there it was! Large cans of Wasp Killer! Three to choose from! Right next to all the lawn spraying every other bug in the world killer stuff. Where it SHOULD have been at Lowes.

My explanation for this? I’m convinced that Home Depot has either women or southerners or both on their store layout committee, someone who speaks my language.

And just so you can be informed, the technical name for wasp killer spray is: SpectracidePRO® Wasp & Hornet Killer.

Aaron and Simon were away at Bears training camp. I’m kinda thinking it was more Bears FAN Training Camp as Simon came home all fired up. He now talks about the players by name and position. I’m convinced that you have to be born and raised in or near Chicago to understand this. And I am glad Aaron has a son to share it all with. I’m sure Miriam will join in soon.

But until then….

We have girl time.

Aaron’s favorite - 

Miriam shared with me and then with Great-Grandpa Ray her reason for loving Great-Grandpa.

“I love Great-Grandpa because he is OLD”

Simon’s first day of school last week. Hmmm…nope, the week before that. Oh well, dates are really just numbers. The important things are the events that happen on them. I was fine about him going to school, not really upset or missing him – he had a very good year in K and this year was the new school, the oh-so-special gifted school. Which really is quite an awesome school, as far as schools go.

But I was unprepared for the bus. Simon was super excited. He wanted to ride the bus last year, but we (thank my lucky stars) lived too close. So it was a non-issue. This year however he and Aaron won out – he got the transportation bus route card a few weeks before school started. Aaron loved riding his bus to school. I hated mine. If there was a word greater than hate, I would use it here. Maybe it was because I was a girl? Maybe because I was on a route that wound around every back road in the county before getting to school? Maybe because we stopped at houses that you thought had been deserted years ago to pick up very dirty (smelly) disagreeable children? Maybe because my bum was pinched day after day as I got off? Maybe because the kids on my bus were so poorly behaved that daily the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road to wait and wait for them to all sit down and be quiet? Maybe because once a month they were SO bad that we drove BACK to the school and then the principle would come in and YELL at us all? I have alot of reasons to despise the bus.  I even wrote a poem about the bus once. I called it a Big Yellow Monster. But Simon loves it.  

So when the bus pulled up I felt that familiar feeling of dread beginning in the pit of my stomach. As Simon kissed me good-bye I felt it creeping up my throat and tightening and as that monster roared away with my little boy on board…oh the sorrow. I wanted to run home and jump in my car, chase it down and demand it to return him to me. But Simon loves the bus. So I didn’t.

With all this talk about green, green living, green cleaning, green eating, green products, green companies. Just about anything you can think of is now green. This must be quite confusing to the young’uns just learning their colors.

So in this new culture of eliminating waste and excess anything, I am amazed at the packaging I am receiving. Every single time. A box within a box. One wasn’t enough? really? Even if it says “Ready to Ship” right on it? (you can’t see that sticker in this pic, but it’s there)

Our Garden has produced…. a single snap pea. 

Aunt Laura’s birthday is coming up this week. Yesterday I asked the kids what they thought we should get for her. Asking my kids to freely brainstorm is one of my favorite things to do, I am always rewarded with something unexpected. Simon wanted to get her this jeweled house that we had just seen in an art gallery, the one that cost $450. It was very cool – the base of it was fan blades – looked like a bird house and was covered in multi-colored jewels and old newpaper clippings. He couldn’t think of anything else.

Miriam started to go along with the jewel theme and decided she could make a necklace. But then she wasn’t sure and tried to think of four things – one from me, one from Daddy, one from Simon, and one from her. So I tried to help by telling them to think about Aunt Laura and what she liked to do, and then I asked “What does Aunt Laura like?”

Miriam – “US! …but we can’t be a present.”