Can you tell by the above picture what happened before I tell you the rest of the story?





Stealing food again. Remember this? and this? and this? and this?  and then there was this.  Yes.  A Wee Swabby stole the cream cheese off the counter, shut himself in the dark bathroom, had the time of his life and then couldn't open the door with his cream cheese covered hand when he was done. Whimper Whimper WAIL. When I realized that the door handle was covered in cream cheese I laughed and laughed.  I just imagined his little slippery paw trying and trying to turn that handle.  All he wanted was a brick of cream cheese and some peace and quiet, poor little fella.




**Welcome to Oliver Week:  Where you get all Oliver olive-the-time.

 and I made them color the plates black to keep them busy while I tore strips of black fabric and tied them together with fishing line.  Elastic around the hands to pull up the spider arms. A strip of fabric (I think) around the neck to keep it all on.  How is that for a TUTORIAL!  ha ha... that is how we do costumes around here.  G-H-E-T-T-O.

Max wanted to be scary. (so scary huh?)



I think I will do more costume day later today.  It's kind of crazy to look back at these pictures and see how unfinished our house was!  We didn't even have couches yet!

**Welcome to Oliver Week:  Where you get all Oliver -- olive-the-time. (and a little bit of max today)

Do you have a Thinker Boy?  I do.
Thinker Boys call you back to their beds quite a while after you've tucked them in to ask things like,"Is there a floor in outer space?" and "Are robbers in real life?".

And they think of all sorts of connections like "this orange chicken tastes like that orange chicken daddy got at the airport". (3 months ago -- and daddy doesn't even remember that orange chicken).

Thinker Boys see a problem and they have to fix it.  You see all of these cups and bowls on the floor?  These aren't a mess.....



They are Thinker Boy ant traps.  Every one of them has an ant prisoner underneath.  Thinker Boy took a while with this one.

Thinker Boy finds a little wad of batting upstairs on the floor and asks if it is Mormor's hair.  He has been thinking about how it fell out of her head.

Thinker Boys think of new ways to do things.

And really good Thinker Boys come to you when you are sad or sick and ask you what you need.  Because they are thinking.  And when they don't know what to do they bring you a glass of cold water -- because they know where the cups and the water are.  And even when they are very little, thinker boys give you their blanket. Like when they are barely three, because you are sad and they know where their blanket is.

I love Thinker Boys.


(I had to laugh when I read and saw the picture at the very end of a post today by a favorite blogger mama.  You can see what her funny Thinker Boy did amongst a house full of sickies to make his mama laugh. love those thinker boys)


**Welcome to Max week-- where you get Max to the Max.

Max balances out his love for chocolate with an incredible love for fresh vegetables.  I am so lucky to have him as the oldest to be  an example to his younger siblings.  He is the kind of kid who ASKS for salad for lunch or snack.  It doesn't come so naturally for Oliver, but he has learned to love it all from Max.

Since the beginning of the school year Max has been intrigued with the idea of being a "buyer" at school.  A "buyer" buys school lunch.  A couple months ago he came home and in tears cried to  me "I just want to be a BUYER :(((( I am tired of being a PACKER!! :(((("  He reassured me that they have healthy choices. And I said the next time a menu came home we would take a look together.  Of course it was how it always is, pizza pizzatas, chicken nibbles, mini corn dogs, uncrustables. I did notice that every day what would have been the fried food side (french fries or tater tots) was replaced with a "garden salad".  Hmmmm...I thought.  Maybe they are trying to make changes.  I told him that I would think about it and maybe I could volunteer a day and come in and see what they were offering.  

Well, life has been busy and I haven't been able to go in.  A couple months passed and David was out of town.  Max had a couple rough days at school.  I knew that being a buyer would cheer him up.  So we looked over the menu carefully together and he chose a day.  Cheeseburger day.  I read him the options and he decided that he would have a cheeseburger, the garden salad and the fresh fruit.  I tucked him into bed.  A half hour later I heard, "Mom??" and went in to check on him.  He asked me, "Mom?  What drink should I choose?  they have chilled milk and chocolate milk and three kinds of juices -- orange pineapple, apple and grape." In my head I am thinking -- this kid has been studying that buyer lunch for a while.  I told him that I knew he knew what was healthy and that he would make the right choice.  He had a huge smile on his face as he drifted off into buyer dreamland.  

You would have thought it was Christmas the way he woke up the next morning, bounding down the stairs asking where his "buyer envelope" was so he could pay for his lunch.  We tucked it into his backpack and finished the morning routine.  I kissed him and he skipped, buyer-style off to the bus.  

When he got home I was anxious to ask him about his lunch. 

"So, tell me about lunch!"

"It was good."

"What did you choose?"

"cheeseburger, garden salad and chilled milk"

"oh, chilled milk!  Were you thinking about healthy options?" (healthy options is a term they have been using in their kindergarten health unit)

"yes."

"Great.  What about the rest of the lunch"

"Mom.  They didn't even have lettuce, tomato, ketchup or mustard for the cheeseburger."

"Really?"

"And mom, the salad was not good.  The lettuce tasted funny and there was no broccoli or cucumbers or tomato -- just green and purple lettuce (I am sure red cabbage) and these bendy carrots. You know, they were little and straight and they were bendy and didn't break when I was bending them. And no dressing"

(I am thinking he missed some kind of condiment table, which I am kind of bothered they didn't help him find)

"And what about the fresh fruit?"

"I didn't see it"

"oh.  so you just had the plain cheeseburger, the salad and the chilled milk?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't finish the salad."

"So, what did you think about being a buyer? Do you want to do it again?"

"It was fun but I like our salads and hamburgers better.  Their hamburgers were only medium size. Yeah, I would like to try it again someday"

One point for home food.

Zero for school food.

On Monday I took Mormor to get her haircut at the mall.  Next door was Old Navy.  We went to browse around while Mormor was getting her half inch taken off.  I was so happy to come across this.  A to-go salad container by sistema. We have already been using sistema lunch cubes for a couple years now, but I had not seen the salad containers.  Oh!  My little salad lover would be so happy!  I bought one in blue.  (they had pink too --and I originally bought my lunch cubes at Macy's-so I know that they have options there as well).  

As soon as I showed him he wanted salad, so we did indeed have a trial salad run right then and there -- made sure he could get the lid off the dressing container and put the collapsable utensils together.  It was a gobbled-up rousing success.  

He is planning on taking his first salad to school for lunch today.  Yummy romaine, crunchy carrots, cucumber, olives, cubed cheese, croutons and a homemade vinaigrette (It would have more veggies, but I need to get the store -- I have had strep throat this week).

I hope it's another christmas morning being a "packer".  I am excited to hear the report this afternoon.  

**Welcome to Max Week -- where you get Max to the Max.

I loved hearing your thoughts yesterday on the poor.  I had quite a few comments here and on facebook (both on my page and my sister in law linda's page) that made me realize I need to clarify a few things.

I wanted to let you know a little more background.  When I was studying education, my time as a cohort (the year before my internship) was spent commuting 40 minutes into a low-income area of salt lake city.  I wasn't assigned this, I chose this.   There were about 20 of us that had decided to take on this challenge and not commit to a local utah valley school, but commit to an urban experience.   Although you wouldn't think of SLC as too needy, you would be wrong.  It’s not inner-city Baltimore, but it was most definitely impoverished.  The school I taught at was a high-risk title 1 school -little parental support, unruly kids, broken homes, rough crowd.  There were a lot of ESL kids and a lot from single parent or "live with grandparent" homes. I enjoyed my time with those kids immensely.  I cherished that year-long opportunity.  I learned a great deal.  

I didn't want yesterday's post to somehow reflect that I didn't want to serve those low-income kids in that downtown school.  I did.  When I walked up those stairs and saw their faces I knew I could love them.  But then again, I could love any child.  What bothered me was his line of thinking.  That these kids deserved a good teacher like me and that the other schools were for teachers that didn't care to make a difference - that just wanted the gifts the kids would offer.  I was sent a message on facebook yesterday from my cousin mentioning he didn't think the principal was insinuating that "the poor need a teacher like you, MORE than those other kids do, but that he was just saying that these impoverished kids need positive influences in their lives that they might not have in their homes".    Well, he was saying both.  I didn't get into the details of all that the principal said, but he most definitely had the impression that his students were more worthy of a good teacher than the others were.   And I wasn’t assuming, I knew he thought this way.   I knew him from district meetings and other encounters.  I think there can be a pridefulness in poverty.  I think there can be a sense that serving or teaching "poor children" is more noble than serving or teaching other children.  This was the impression I had of him.

Bottom line is that it wasn't that I didn't want to work for those kids, it was that I didn't want to work for those ideals.  I didn't want to work in an environment where I was thrown on some kind of pedestal just because I worked at a needy school.  I didn't like that idea.  As was mentioned by Linda on facebook - there is a hierarchy of needs.  All basic human rights should come first.  No child (person) deserves to go hungry, naked, homeless.  I do agree that it is our responsibility to help those with these great temporal needs.  My point yesterday was that there is no person not worthy of kindness and love.  Elevating one group of people as more deserving than another is not my answer.  The crack-head homeless lady is just as deserving as the crack-head celebrity.

I loved Serena and Dave’s comments about doing what we can.  Serena mentioned that the poverty of the world is overwhelming.  I am so very grateful for those in positions to travel and serve all over the world.  I have many friends and relatives that have done really amazing things abroad.  I want to do it too!  I really feel a strong desire to travel and do humanitarian work.  Right now is not my season. And although the inability to do so can be a depressing thought when there is so much pain and suffering in the world, I can commit to do something for the humanity that surrounds me.   And that can be just as noble.