Evolution of Sledding

Keeping a child away from a hill of snow is about as fruitless as keeping a kid away from a big dish of candy. Friday morning the kids bounded outside and enjoyed some sledding. Of course we have no sleds so the kids had to improvise. First this....

Then this......




In case you don't recognize the 'sleds' they are the plastic tops to our recycling bins. Any self respecting Southerner will tell you that you don't need silly old sleds. You can use cardboard, cookie sheets - whatever is flat and handy.

Now the final evolution of sledding (which unfortunately I have neither video or pictures (though it might be better that way for the heart attack Grandma and Nini might have had)) came when Raif came back from Texas because as you can see the kids clearly aren't going fast enough or far enough for my darling husband. He took the bindings off my wakeboard and we used that as a sled. The board was so slick that with a minimum push I was able to careen my children all the way across the yard into our neighbor's yard where Raif was waiting to catch them lest they crash into our neighbor's house or car. Clearly this was the best sledding of the day.

Scenes From a Snow Day

Storytime

Greyson decided he wanted to read Quinn a bedtime story tonight.


Listen to what a great job he is doing reading (you may have to turn up the volume a little).

Oh Just Charge It....

Probably about a year ago I bought the kids a cute little cash register as a gift along with some little wooden coins. It hasn't been played with a lot (not my best purchase apparently) so I was somewhat surprised when Quinn brought it out yesterday and informed me that she wanted to play "Payer". She got out her purse and I gave her some coins and off she went through the house searching for things to buy. After she came back she handed me the items, which I carefully rang up and declared that the total came to $8. I told her to take out her coins and was about to embark on a wonderful math lesson when she told me "Mommy you don't use those. You use this..." And out she pulled a Starbucks gift card that Raif had let them play with several days earlier. She promptly slid the card through the side of the register and proceeded to gather her things and walk away.

It was then that it hit me that I don't think that the kids have ever seen either Raif or I pay for something with anything else but a credit card. The concept of paper and coin money completely escapes them because they have never experienced it. As Quinn trotted off with her purchases in hand I started to think about what she must think of buying things - that everything can be yours with just a swipe of a little plastic card.

What have we, as a society, burdened ourselves with by becoming a community that works on plastic from a child rearing perspective? The obvious math lessons of the cashier says $8 dollars you give him $10 how much do you get back is obsolete. But more abstract than that - by using a credit card you never show them that purchases 'cost something.' When you give that $10 and get back $2 you show kids that you are getting back less than what you gave and thus what you purchased has value. Unless you show the kids your checkbook and your credit card statement every month they are never going to get that lesson.

I don't know why this moment has stirred all these thoughts in me, perhaps it is the CPA in me rearing its ugly head. Now is this going to change how I purchase things (i.e. I NEVER have any cash on me)? I don't know but it has now planted the seed in my mind that when my kids are old enough and have allowances and are given the autonomy to make purchasing decisions that I really need to implant on them the value of money and that the little plastic card is not a magic giveaway.

Look Mommy, No Hands....

Isn't It Ironic....

Don't you think??

Irony, fate, whatever spirits out there that are at work sometimes have a wicked since of humor....

Yesterday, as I posted, was the 10th anniversary of our first date. After sending Raif off with a bigger than normal kiss and shuttling the kids off to school, I came home and spent the majority of the day doing odds and ends around the house - cleaning, riding my bike, taking a shower, making stuff for dinner. At my usual time I got into the car and was halfway to school when I looked down and saw this....

Yes that would be my engagement ring, bent prong, NO diamond. My heart sank into my toes, I almost swerved off the road and got violently nauseous all at the same time. Admittedly I have lost a lot of things but I have never lost anything like this in my life. The rest of the ride to school was done in mass hysteria.

I got to school stood up very carefully hoping to find that it nicely fell into my lap - no luck. Once I realized that it hadn't fallen out of the car at school I rushed in and grabbed my children and rushed back out the door - the teachers must have thought I had had some sort of nervous breakdown (which wasn't far from the truth). I drove home and tried to think of everything I did step by step the whole day to figure out where to look. Once I got to the house, I locked the dogs in the bedroom and tried ever so politely to explain to the kids why as much as I am sure they would have been a valuable help this really was something that I needed to do by myself. I sat them at the table with a ream of paper and their watercolors to keep them out of the way and went to find my needle in a haystack. I tried to systematically fan out from the corner of the house on my hands and knees with flashlight in hand. I meticulously searched every dog hair tumbleweed, every crack and every crevice. Once I had finished an area I moved the furniture there and began somewhere else. Through this the irony of losing my engagement diamond on my 10th anniversary did not escape me. Nor did I forget the ticking clock on the wall signaling Raif's imminent arrival. I had called him from the car and told him so he knew but actually having to face him was something I was dreading.

However after an hour and a half of getting very familiar with the floors of my house, believe it or not I actually found the sucker right next to the basement door. After another good sobbing session of relief I picked myself up, dusted myself off (literally) and put the ring and the diamond in a very large tupperware container.

What a way to spend my anniversary.....

3,653 Days

Ten years ago today I met Raif. Wow - a decade. A lot has changed since these goofy, wide eyed young 'uns fell in love...
Happy Anniversary babe - I love you! Here's to another 10 years....