Albuquerque Turkeys: May 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Sean's First Lost Teeth

I'm behind. This happened over two weeks ago. But here we go anyway . . .

Sean lost his first tooth the weekend before his last week of school. He was excited to tell his teacher so he could be on the tooth chart in his classroom. His two bottom permanent teeth were growing in behind his baby teeth, and as a result, his bottom teeth didn't get very loose. But Sean was very persistent in wiggling them until this first one popped out.

The funny thing was, the next day in church, Sean was bound and determined to get that second baby tooth out. So right in the middle of sacrament meeting (and with his nice white shirt on) he twisted and pulled on that second tooth until he got that one out too. I had a ziploc bag of bloody tissues in my purse, and his tooth wrapped in a special tissue and stored in a safe place in my zipper pocket.

And Sean went to primary with blood smeared on his shirt, and a big ole smile on his face. He told everyone who would listen to him about his two missing teeth.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Annular Eclipse

On Sunday afternoon, we started to get excited about seeing the Annular Eclipse that evening, whose prime viewing spot would be Albuquerque! We heard there would be four locations for public viewing and where people could obtain solar glasses. We drove to two of the four Albuquerque sites where they would be handing out free solar glasses for viewing the eclipse. Wow! They were packed. And there were lots of out-of-state license plates from people who had driven out to see the bullseye view. (I didn't realize people did that sort of thing . . .)

At the first place, the line to get in was about a mile long. (And as much as I like to exaggerate, that is NOT an exaggeration.) I'll bet not even half of those folks got the promised solar glasses. The second place we went they had given out their 2000 glasses and said that all of Albuquerque was out of the glasses. So we were left to our own devices.

As a side note, this taught us some very useful lessons. 1) don't rely on the government for anything. they'll never get it right. 2) for the next eclipse, buy a whole bunch of solar glasses in bulk online, and go to the places where the city is "giving them out," and sell them to all the disappointed folks who didn't get any. We could probably pay for a brand new Honda Odyssey with all the money we'd make. (now that one might be a bit of an exaggeration . . . )

Luckily, I am married to a very resourceful genius, who made us this special contraption so we could see the eclipse. Sean is pointing to the spot where the sun is reflecting onto some vellum that Arthur found in my scrapbooking supplies. (See, I knew he'd be glad I had all that paper someday . . .)

The Eclipse Projector

Materials: box, binoculars, mirror and vellum paper

Also, when we got home from driving all over Albuquerque trying to find solar glasses, there was a message on our phone from some nice people in our ward who called because Daphne had mentioned at church that she was interested in seeing the eclipse. They had acquired some film through which we could safely view the eclipse and told us we could swing by and pick it up. The black pictures are ones taken through the film, and what we could see with our naked eye.

You can see the eclipse projected onto the side of our house through all the leaves that acted like pinhole projectors. Super cool.

The kids eating watermelon, and cookies, and checking out the eclipse at its peak on Arthur's nifty eclipse-viewing-contraption

awesome.

Maybe you already knew this, but annular means ring-shaped. (I did not know that until Arthur told me to look it up.) And that is why this type of eclipse has its name.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Hayden's Wacky Sense of Style

This crazy kid keeps us laughing. Each of these pictures were taking on a different day.

Sometimes he just appears wearing something silly.

Shorts on his head, and his legs through the arm holes of a shirt.

That is a potty-training seat on his head.

Don't worry, it hasn't been used recently, so I think it was clean . . .

Underwear.

Several pairs of underwear.

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Caught red-handed

It had been quiet for too long, so I went looking for her. As I was walking upstairs, the strong smell of fingernail polish warned me that it was NOT going to be good. She had found a stash of nail polish and painted her toes.

And her feet, and her hands, and face and clothes and the bathroom mats, which had to be thrown out as a result.

Maybe someone else knows how to get fingernail polish off skin, but it isn't soap and water. I was hesitant to use nail polish remover right on her skin, so basically we just waited for it to rub off.

Of course, I hid all the nail polish in a new spot where she will never find it until she grows a few feet. But I missed one, because later that same day, she went to work with a bottle of RED nail polish, and this time was a little more aggressive in her coverage.

Tell you what, it is TOUGH getting nail polish out of grout lines.

But thank goodness, the carpet was spared as the mess was generally contained in the bathroom.

(This girl does NOT take correction well. To be fair, though, it probably doesn't help that I confuse her by telling her "no" and taking pictures at the same time.)

Needless to say, I had to make a special trip to Walgreens that night for more nail polish remover. I got the biggest bottle they had, plus another one for backup. And that night I had a headache from mopping my bathroom floor with nail polish remover. (I hope I didn't kill too many braincells.)

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Not funny yet

I was at the doctors office today with four of my children. (Now if that's not one of my favorite things to do, I don't know what it is.) Sean had been complaining of a sore throat, and since we'd already had one case of strep throat in our family, I figured we ought to get him checked. While we waited to be called back, I did flash cards with Daphne, Sydney colored, Sean sat and gazed longingly at the iPad, which was sitting in my purse, (figured I'd pull it out in the other, smaller, waiting room)and Hayden was being rather loud and obnoxious. He was bouncing all around making funny noises and trying to get a reaction from Sean.

One 13-year-old boy in the waiting area, (I know he was 13 because the nurse asked him how old he was when she called him back,) started snickering at Hayden's behavior. His mom, or maybe his grandma, said in a voice loud enough for me to hear across the room, "Don't laugh at him. He's being disruptive and annoying."

What she said was true. Hayden was being disruptive and annoying. He's very good at it. But what she said made me mad. It was a doctors office after all, not a library. And we'd been waiting a while. And nobody wants to be at a doctor's office anyway.

Besides, I can say those things about my son because I'm his mom. If you're not his mom, keep it to yourself.

Maybe one day, when Hayden is a delightful and non-annoying adult, we might look back and laugh at this. But it's not funny yet.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

April Quotes

I'm not sure how this happened, but I somehow lost most of my April quotes. I type them in here as I hear them, and one day when I went to update it, the post was empty! And, unfortunately, once I write something down, my brain forgets it, so I just don't remember a lot of funny stuff that they said . . . anyway, here are April's meager offerings.

Daphne: Boys, calm down. Mom has a headache and she can't wait until this day is over so she can go back to bed. (I was surprised at how well she summed up how I felt that particular morning.)

On another occasion . . .

Sean: Hayden, stop it! Mom has a head-egg.

(Clearly, I get a lot of those . . . )

Hayden: Mom, Daphne spit at me!

Daphne: Hayden spit at me first!

Hayden: Well you are baptithed, (baptized) tho you know better.

One morning at the kitchen table, we had a conversation that went something like this:

Daphne: Ursula is bad because she tells Ariel to use Potty Language!
Mom: No, she tells her to use body language.
Daphne: What's body language?
Mom: It's when you communicate by just using your body. Like when someone has a frowny face and is folding their arms, it means they are mad at you. Or if somebody is making goo-goo eyes and smiling at you, it means they like you.

I was acting it out so they could see, and when I made the goo-goo eyes, Sean said, "Oh, that's what Jayden does to me at school all the time."

One Sunday night after dinner we had ice cream sundae's for dessert. The next night as I was thinking about what treat to have for Family Home Evening, Hayden said, "I know! Let's have Ice Cream Mondays!" He's got it all figured out.

Each month we pick an Article of Faith that we say each morning before the boys head off to school. We've been memorizing them using the primary songs that go with each Article of Faith. Well, the other night after dinner, a few of us had upset tummies. So I got out a bottle of Tums and passed them around to anyone who needed one. Sean held his up and sang, "We believe in the gift of TUMS!" (see Article of Faith #7).

Albuquerque Turkeys