sorry

something came up. blogs will return soon when life returns to normal.

Snow and Cookies

We got snow and some more snow over the weekend. We also got to break in the new camera. I uploaded a few pictures to my online photo album. Now you can be jealous that you don't live in Buffalo too.

Click the picture below to view the pictures:

Winter 08-09

Holiday Card

Happy Holidays from us. Here is the card we sent out this week. If you didn't get one in the mail, you have it now.


Here are some of the reject pictures that didn't quite make the cut. The pets are already begging for another fabulous photo session .

Snow Day

We got some snow today and Tom Brady had a snow day from school. A lot of snow piled up outside the back door. Here are videos of us torturing our eskimo dog. She didn't seem much like an eskimo today.

By the way, we treated ourselves to a new camera and it seems to work well.

Go to bed!

Tom Brady has been testing my patience more than usual. One of her new tricks is to tug at my heart strings at bedtime. Little does she know that I have no heart strings. Those heart strings would be attached to feelings and I lack those too. I had some patience until the last couple times I have had to listen to her before bed.

Here is her story:

I am afraid to sleep in my own bed because I think I might die tonight and I don't want to die alone. There is going to be a storm/volcano/earthquake/hurricane (there are several versions) and it is going to come in my window and then come in my bed and I will be sleeping like this (eyes closed, tounge hanging out of mouth). Then the storm will kill me and that will be my last pose (referring to what she looks like when she is sleeping). Can I sleep with you?

Then she starts to cry uncontrollably. I don't buy it. My bed is full of Nick, Leroy, Cheeseburger and Me. There is no room for Tom Brady who has a bad habit of taking up more room than an average adult. Luckily, my ability to ignore her ridiculous stories seems to be working and she went to bed rather easily tonight. I think this irrational fear was completely made up for attention and hopefully she realizes that it didn't work.

Dinner Conversation

Last night at dinner, Tom Brady was trying to tell a story about something her teacher said about "La-Ganza". Previously, she had mentioned Channukah so I assumed she was talking about Kwanzaa. She had no idea what I was talking about. . . we had no idea what she was talking about. . . train wreck at the dinner table.

She tried again to start her "La-Ganza" story. We listened very closely to her story again. She has not yet developed the skill of pronouncing the letter R so we put on our "listening to a 6-year-old ears". She mentioned her teacher, the lunch menu and pizza. Aha! She is trying to tell a story about Lasagna.

Her teacher made a mistake and thought lasagna was the school lunch yesterday, but in fact it was pizza. Great story Tom Brady.

Meeting with Santa

Sure my kid sat on Santa's lap before. It went a little like this. (I don't blame her. Santa is creepy in general and this one in particular was turbo creepy)Her first Christmas she has sat in his lap and was silent. Later, she sat in his lap and screamed bloody murder (above). For a couple years, she didn't see Santa because we are horrible parents. Last year, she bravely stood in front of him, shook his hand and rattled off her list. We got a very nice picture of the back of her head. It appears that Santa cannot understand a word that she was saying and just pretended to listen. This year, she has decided that Santa is "just a guy dressed up in a suit that gives everyone presents for some strange reason". I couldn't have said it better myself. I really don't know what she thought Santa was for the last 6 years. I thought it was pretty clear that he is just a guy in a suit but that's not the point.

After 5 years, Tom Brady sat in the man's lap AND talked to him. Amazing! I had to bribe her to pose for a picture and obviously it worked. Santa was not so cooperative and could not be bothered to look at the camera. No, Santa was very cooperative, it was just the 4th attempt at a picture because Tom Brady does not deal well with flash photography.

This is NOT a donkey or a horse.

The kid brings home "word sorts" every week. This weeks assignment is to cut out a page of small pictures and place them into the appropriate column. Each picture is supposed to start with a B or an M.


My daughter comes yelling that this animal is not a donkey or a horse. It has to start with a B or an M. I assume it is a burro. Burro starts with a B right? Or is it a Mule?

Winter=Cold and Boring

Winter is proving to be very cold and very boring lately. I decided to try my patience at making a gingerbread house with the she-beast child. We used the kit we won at Bingo Night. This act of family togetherness was thwarted by the dumb directions (which I didn't read in advance). Once we opened the kit, made the icing, opened the little bags of candy and erected the walls we find out that we had to wait one hour before attaching the roof and then wait three more hours before proceeding. By the time the walls were up it was almost bedtime and I had to disappoint the child by making her wait almost 24 hours before decorating the house. I promised to assemble the roof while she was sleeping.

Once we actually got working on the decorations, the child could not help herself from trying to eat each and every part of the house. She licked every particle of frosting off of every surface it didn't belong and I had to threaten her within an inch of her life to keep her from consuming the icicles. I became quite a beast myself by the end of our masterpiece.

Before I found out what a pain in the tush this project was, I had high hopes of getting 2 more kits so we could have a gingerbread house village. We could also vote on who decorated the best house. I doubt that will happen and I wholeheartedly believe that I will try to preserve this house for decoration next year.

Kindergarten Art

And now for some fabulous art from none other but Tom Brady.

First you will see an excellent interpretation of bears living in a cave. "It is a mama bear and a baby bear just about to go to sleep. It is snowing and raining at the same time and the sun is trying to go behind the clouds." I thought it was a spider trying desperately to revive another spider who was just smacked with a newspaper.

Now you see a "clown fish". It is no typical orange and black clown fish. "It is like a clown that you see at the circus". I thought this rainbow fish was a nod to homosexuals everywhere. Instead I find out that my daughter has colored a fish with rainbow afro who yearns to join the circus.

Chirp Chirp! It's Bird Time

Ball State University is my Daughter's favorite college football team. This is thanks to Nick's brother Alex who played for Ball State for most of the kid's life. He is graduated now, but the child is still loyal.

Despite our love for the University at Buffalo, we will be Chirping tonight.

Here is uncle Alex tackling a Buffalo player a few years ago.

Here is Alex (#46) running with his team last year. Tom Brady can't get enough of these pictures so I am posting them for all to enjoy.

Here is Tom Brady sporting her new Ball State Jersey. She was careful NOT to sleep in it last night so she could wear it today. This is the child who will try wear the same socks 3 days in a row because she is too lazy to find clean ones. She also was upset that she dropped toothpaste and oatmeal on the Jersey before school today. Anyone who has seen my child eat knows that forks are optional and staining her clothing is not a concern. This jersey is must be VERY IMPORTANT.

Sarah's Holiday Gift Guide

7 Days

I realize that it has been 7 WHOLE days since my last blog. Now you all can emerge from the deep depression you are suffering due to lack of blogs. Unfortunately this one has no funny anecdotes because my brain is mush.

In the past 7 days we have

-put over 1700 miles on the car (around 33 hours of travel due to evil holiday traffic)
-drove to Cincinnati and back for Thanksgiving
-drove to Toledo and back
-met one new baby
-said goodbye at one funeral
-had 2 vomits in the car
-eaten at McDonalds twice, wendy's, Max and Ermas, Burger King and Quaker Steak and Lube

I bought a new battery for my bathroom scale a couple weeks ago. I presume it is time to actually put it in the scale now. My sexy jeans are getting snug.

I am thankful.

I'm sure you thought I was going to make a heartfelt list of crap I am thankful for. Negative.



I am thankful that my daughter makes me laugh.



Today she saw a news report about Barack Obama and his plans on economic stimuli. During the news story they played the stock video of money going through the money printing machine. My daughter said: "Barack Obama is putting his face on all the dollars".



She also said that "George Bush needs to share his Presidential Spirit with Barack Obama". Whatever the heck that means. Sounds good to me though.

The slush ball in the driveway? (see blog from yesterday) It was just one of those "icy cubes in the shape of dead animals". Classic. I hope we don't encounter any more of those this winter.

Forgive Me

Please forgive me for making fun of my child so much, but she makes it so easy.

This morning I send her out to the bus stop (the end of our driveway) this morning only to find out that she can't make it all the way out there because there is a mysterious looking slushball sitting in the driveway. This slushball fell off of Nick's car on Friday when he got home from driving through "ski country" where they have gotten like 4 feet of snow in the past few weeks. The slushball looked like any other slushball would. Tom Brady (formerly Ding Ding) decided she couldn't walk past it because she thought it was a raccoon. Here is the slushball/raccoon in question.
I am currently reading the 2nd book in the Twilight series. Yes, I know it is intended for the teen crowd, but it is an easy read and entertains me. I enjoyed the Ann Rice Vampire books back when I was a teen and would have loved to read these books back then too. Tom Brady loves to be updated with what is happening in my "zombie books" and recently decided that the "not-vampire girl is going to be academically turned into a vampire at the end". Instead of academically, she meant automatically.

This is what halloween looks like now. I think it is classy.

I don't usually blog too much on the weekends, but I wrestled with our regular camera and it has decided to work fairly well lately. This picture is Nick and Tom Brady (formerly known as Ding Ding) headed out the door for soccer. Nick was sporting his Ball State shirt because they are 11-0 this season. Tom Brady is wearing her Buffalo hoodie because Buffalo has somehow won the MAC East and will play in the championship game in a couple weeks. Un Bullelievable.

I was making a shopping list to make Chocolate Chex Mix and dictated a shopping list to Tom Brady to write on the dry erase board. I told her not to worry about spelling and just sound everything out. I thought it was cute.

Powdered Sugar-pouderd shuger
Chocolate Chips-Cocolit Chips
Food & Bread Bags-Food & bred bags
Chex-Chex

And my favorite picture of the day is our American Eskimo dog Sarina admiring the Arctic Tundra of our backyard. She looks so serene and it is nice to see her enjoying the outdoors.

Parent-Teacher Conference

This morning was Ding Ding's parent-teacher conference. I attended in person and Nick came in my pocket via speakerphone. Nothing too bloggable it seemed business as usual crammed into 30 short minutes and I barely got a word in edgewise. Nick also tried to chime in, but it was mostly the teacher chattering on about what the first quarter of Kindergarten is all about: socialization and learning letters.

I was armed with Ding Ding's progress report as well as an online reading assessment that we administered. I hardly got the chance to discuss anything. I don't even believe that "Do you have any questions?" was asked before we were in there over 40 minutes and had to leave.

I specifically brought up the fact that my daughter can identify and put in order all numbers from 1-100 but did not appear so on the progress report. The teacher basically said that the progress report reflected what they are doing in class and was not tailored to my child as much as I assumed. She also said she would have loved to give her an "E" for exceeds in reading but shouldn't. I have no idea what that meant. If my child exceeds the Kindergarten reading benchmarks (which she clearly does) than why can't you say so?

Now I am back to square one and would like to talk to the teacher a little more but was already blown off and told to wait for conferences. I guess I will have to wait until 2nd quarter. Do they even have conferences after 2nd quarter? Hmmmmm (steps away from computer for a moment) Yes! I get to wait until February 9th right before the completely useless Mid-Winter recess where they don't have school for a week from February 16th-20th. I can't wait to be snowed in with my daughter for an entire week.

Please excuse my bitter mood about this whole thing. I will be patient and hope for a less confusing teacher next year.

snow (finally)

We finally got enough snow for a snowball. Ding Ding was so excited she was dressed by 6:45am and we had to rush everything so we could go outside and play before the bus came. We played a game she invented called "snake in the snow" where you are the snake and you hide. Then the polar bear tries to find you. It is basically like hide and seek but you are supposed to hide somewhere where there is snow. I screwed this up royally because I hid next to the garbage can which is under a ledge and there was no snow there.
Elephant in the snow.
Ding Ding loved the "snow apples" which are just the rotting apples in the nuisance tree that we don't dare eat.
The birds are probably getting hungry but I stopped feeding them when it was in the 60's and 70's. I think today calls for a revival of the bird feeding.

Now that it is snowing YOU NEED SNOW TIRES!!!!!!!!!! I know a guy who works for Goodyear and they make the best tires.

Big Winners!

Nick was out of town Monday-Friday last week. He got home only to find out that Ding Ding was interested in going to Family Bingo night at school. It was presented by the PTO at her school and had the potential to be tons of fun. We showed up only to find that the "admission" was one 2-liter of soda, one bag of chips and a bag of cookies. I only brought cash, but they let us in for free. We did buy $5 of raffle tickets for the basket raffle. I was chatting the lady up so much, she mistook my $10 bill for a $20 and gave me $15 in change instead of $5. I returned the extra $10 in hopes that karma would smile on us and we would win one of the gift baskets. The lady was so appreciative, she gave me some extra raffle tickets.

Bingo was a bust, it was really loud and hard to hear the caller lady. We didn't get one bingo and Ding Ding was VERY disappointed. She even spelled the F-Bomb in my ear she was so upset. Nick and I decided to ignore her curse word spelling because we didn't think we could repremand with a straight face.

The basket raffle was our last hope of having a great Friday night. We ended up winning the first basket. This was ULTRA embarrassing because this was the first time the crowd actually got quiet and I made Nick go up and retrieve our Family Game Night gift basket (complete with gingerbread house).


We sat through all of the basket drawings (20 of them in all) to find out that we won the last basket too! It was a turkey dinner basket. I took advantage of the 39 cent turkeys at the grocery store this week and bought a turbo cheap 12 pounder for us to enjoy a turkey dinner in a couple of months.

We felt like big winners despite not winning any bingo prizes which ended up being (drumroll please) A bottle of soda, a bag of chips and a bag of cookies!!!!! I'm kinda glad that we ended up with something other than a bag of junk food.

I apologize for the crappiness of our photos. I have been using the phone camera more and more since our real camera is dying a slow death and can be more trouble than it's worth.

I also want everyone to know that Ding Ding is really developing a sassy pre-tween attitude! She tried to repond to a direction to complete a chore with "I'm not your slave." but she quickly found out that yes, she is my slave and she will act accordingly.

First Progress Report.

First off I will share a slightly disturbing page from one of Ding Ding's books from school. Every classic piece of childrens literature isn't complete without images of animals vomiting up other animals.

Second, I got Ding Ding's first progress report and was just plain disappointed. Every parent wants to hear that his/her child is a freakin' genius. My daughter's report card did not include any mention of the words genius, MENSA, prodigy or gifted. All I got was "She is excited about learning each day." How generic.

Seriously, I was a bit surprised that my daughter was not graded "secure" in the following skill:
Independently reads appropriate unfamiliar text with adequate comprehension.

She was also graded even lower on Reads any number 100 or less. With my daughter watching sports every single day, I am a thousand percent sure that my child can read every single number to 100 and certainly doesn't require substantial teacher support and direction.

I do recognize that my daughter has been known to feign ignorance in her assessments in the past. I wish I had the motivation to dig up a certain grade card from preschool where she refused to answer any of the questions pertaining to the Bible because she didn't like Bible Time.

I firmly believe that there is always room for improvement and I vow to drill my daughter every day for hours so she can improve her "reading numbers" grade.

Now I will return to my brown-nosing activity of cutting out numerous shapes for a Thanksgiving craft project for her classroom. If anything, this should get her "Secure" or even "Exceeds" in all Kindergarten skills!

Judging another book by it's cover

My daughter brought home another gem today in her Book Baggie. I will comment on it before reading it because it is way more fun that way.

Alternate Titles:

1. Mr. James waits for his Hustler Magazine
2. A letter from the Probation Officer
3. What to do when your prison pen pal stops writing you
4. How to tamper with your neighbors mail (and how NOT to get caught!)
5. Mr. James sends anthrax to his congressman
6. Mr. James mistakes his mailbox for a loaf of bread again
7. How to look 20 years younger by dying your mustache brown
8. Mr. James learns about mail bombs the hard way
9. Mr James finds his glasses on his forehead, not in the mailbox

Life isn't fair

I filled up the gas tank at $2.89/gallon this week. You jerks in Ohio are paying less than $2.

Finally

I have been convinced that either Ding Ding's kindergarten teacher hates me or she is incredibly disorganized/overworked and really isn't communicating like I expected her to. I believe it is the latter. The teacher has always been nice and mentions every time she sends a newsletter home that she needs parent volunteers. I don't actually want to deal with that many children, but I have volunteered to help about 300 times. She says she is compiling a schedule and will contact us. I have never been contacted.

I have talked to the teacher about some issues that make me feel like an over involved parent.

1. Ding Ding complained that the teacher thought she couldn't read. I discussed it with the teacher over an email and the teacher told me that Ding Ding was assessed at a specific reading level which she was reading 2 years ago. It made me laugh and also made me wonder if Ding Ding is actually getting to read anything at school. Soon after, I find out that Ding Ding was moved to a higher reading group and started bringing home great books like "The Ha Ha Powder". It just took a month longer than I expected.

2. Ding Ding had a terrible fear of being trapped in the bathroom if she shuts the door when she uses it. I talked to the teacher face-to-face about this problem and all that happened was that Ding Ding was trapped in the bathroom when the teacher forgot about her. We worked on this problem at home and is not a problem. Ding Ding is still locked in the bathroom occasionally and now waits patiently while the other kids do puzzles.

3. I came into the school to help solve my daughter's lunch issues where she seemed to be unable to choose "main lunch" for fear of having to eat cole slaw or green beans. It was embarrassing, but I don't think that I'll ever have to do it again.

4. This weekend, Ding Ding was whining that she wanted me to send a juice for her snack time. I told her NO and I sent a water bottle to school and water is good for her. She said the top to her water bottle fell on the floor by the water fountain and it was lost. I asked if the teacher knew about it. Yes, the teacher was informed of this problem. I asked her if we could get the top back if we looked. YES! I suspected the overworked nature of this teacher previously and I walked over to school, made my way through "security" (the main office) and completely surprised the teacher by finding the top with her help of course. She was very apologetic and explained that Ding Ding refused to drink from the water bottle without the correct top. I apologized that my child is touched in the head and would rather dehydrate than change her routine and drink from a bottle without the top.

During my last trip to the school, the teacher again asked me if I was available to volunteer. I enthusiastically said yes (again) and I was available anytime (as usual). I would even love to cut things out for her if she needs it. Cutting things out is more of what I would rather help with! The teacher got all excited and was really happy to hear that I could do this work at home. Woo Hoo! I might be able to help this teacher become a bit less overworked and may, just may, make that parent vounteer schedule before Christmas.

This is her first year teaching Kindergarten and I don't envy her. I just was not ready for a teacher with not enough time to pester the parents. I hear other parents getting weekly reports about their child's progress and I get a newsletter that says she needs H-E-L-P! Maybe she actually needs help to make the schedule to get the helpers in the class so she can let the little ones out of the bathroom.

Bottom line is that Ding Ding love love loves her teacher. Ding Ding is actually drawing pictures and her handwriting has come so far in the last 2 months. She has made friends and doesn't seem like a social outcast. Her school pictures came out good too! The one in the green shirt is the real school picture, the one in the striped shirt is when I took her to Wal-Mart for their 30 zillion pictures for $5 deal the night before school pictures. I have my 30 zillion ones from Wal-Mart, but should I order more of the other one? Nick really seems to like it more, but in the long run, I don't think he cares that much. Any opinions?

Should I order more copies of the picture on the left?
	Order more. The picture on the left is far superior.
	Indifferent. Both pictures are fine.
	Don't order more. The one on the right is better.
	Your child is ugly and you should burn all photos of her.
pollcode.com free polls

More Questions and Answers

Yesterday was so informative, I made a questionnaire to learn a little bit more about mi hija. Her homework gets really boring sometimes, this was a nice way to spice it up a bit!

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Football Player (surprise surprise!!)

What time do you want to get up in the morning?
6:00 (it keeps getting earlier and earlier. this morning she got me up at 5:52)

Write 3 things you want for your birthday
New england Pats helmet

A webkinz buffalo
Ball State jersy

What is your favorite store?
hallmark (where you can buy Webkinz)

What is the scariest thing ever?
zombes (zombies are scarier than vampires? news to me!)

What is your favorite food?
Popcicle

What is the worst food?
Brokly

What college do you want to go to?
Ball State

What is your favorite part of school?
playgrond

Which is better? Winter or Summer?
both

Why?
i like playing in the snow. i like plaing in the pool.

Interrogation

I admit it, I like to interrogate my daughter. She is 6 and I like to know what she is thinking. She is not a really great conversationalist because she much prefers talking to the Playstation or her mini football helmet collection.

My daily question/answer sessions usually include the following questions:

1. How was school today?
2. Did anyone go to the nurse?
3. Was anyone bad today?
4. Who was absent today?

She hates these questions, but they are now a habit at dinnertime. Today was especially boring so I kept asking and asking and asking.

Q: Are there any bad kids in the class?
A: Yes, ****** (name removed for privacy) but he's gooder now.

Q: Are there any quiet kids in class?
A: Yes ******* she doesn't say anything.

Q: Are there any smarty pants in class that know everything and raise their hand a lot?
A: Yes, that is Me. (Nerd Alert!)

Q: Mrs. ******** told me you were bad, what did you do? (I was lying and trying to get her to confess to anything)
A: No, I didn't do anything.

Now I want to know what she thinks of me. School turned out to be a painfully boring subject.

Q: What is MY favorite thing to do?
A: Clean up.

Q: What is Dad's favorite thing to do?
A: Ask him.

Okay, this is going NOWHERE! My kid needs a trip to Toastmasters.

She did tell me they are working on counting backward at school and her friends go 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 and then they all scream BLAST OFF!! And they make sound effects. She says that she hates the "Blast Off" part and covers her ears. She said it "S"-word.

I inquire to what "S"-word she was talking about. The child is really interested in bad words these days. She spelled S-U-C-K-S.

Election Day

Ding Ding clearly favors Barack Obama. She says he "looks good". I am trying my hardest to explain that both candidates are good people and they just have different plans for our country. I want her to know that it is okay to vote for whoever you want. So I show her a friend's MySpace page that has our friend at a Sarah Palin rally. I told her "look here's our friend at a Palin rally because" "SHE'S CRAZY!" Ding Ding interrupts. This might be a losing battle.

I begged her not to argue with her friends at school. Apparently there was an argument at school about whether or not Jesus died on the cross. I have repeated several times that we generally don't discuss politics or religion at school. She knows her school does not have a religious affiliation like pre-school did and she should keep her flippin mouth shut.

This morning I woke up Nick and Ding Ding at 5:30am to hit the polls soon after they opened at 6. Ding Ding was excited but had to race to the computer to cast her vote first on BuildaBearville.com for Bearemy.

We made it to the fire hall and I made a comment about how it was different from Ohio because the polling location was not divided by precinct. It ended up being secretly divided without any signs, because we ended up standing in 3 different lines until we found our names in the book. The poll workers here in New York are just as incompetent and grumpy as they are in Ohio! We finally got in the old fashioned voting booth with the big lever and curtain, Ding Ding and I voted first things went fine. Then Nick and Ding Ding went in and Ding Ding was very vocal in her opinions about Barack Obama. Despite their space aged appearance, those voting booths are not soundproof and Nick was embarrassed.

Halloween

This is Ding Ding doing her "drills" before Trick-Or-Treating.

Halloween was pretty uneventful. Ding Ding only passed on 3 "scary" houses and did not freak out about any costumes. We now know that Ding Ding is not a total nerd at school yet she actually has friends. She got to trick-or-treat with our neighbors down the block for awhile, after they gave up she found a little boy in her class and they finished off the street together. After he went home we found a little girl from her class. That was neat because that girl is waaaay taller than Ding Ding. She also found 2 or 3 other kids from her class to get all excited to see (like she didn't just see them 5 hours ago).

Here are the pictures. Ding Ding posing in her Bills Costume with the Ohio State Pumpkin and then her trick or treating pumpkin.

Here is the candy we collected. No overabundance of yuck candy and we got a full-sized M&M's, Crunch Bar and Twix.

Another tooth bites the dust!

Ding Ding came home from school with yet another hole in her mouth. That is 3 since school started. Unfortunately, the tooth is nowhere to be found. I hope the tooth fairy accepts empty envelopes. Lucky for her, the Tooth Fairy got home from the mall less than an hour ago with a super dee dooper prize in anticipation of this upcoming loss. Now Ding Ding is down to only one loose tooth.

This is what you write on the envelope if the tooth is M.I.A.

The Ha-Ha Powder

My spawn brings home a book baggie weekly with some short books that we are supposed to read over and over and over until it's time to return them on Friday. We read them once and read other books until Friday. These books aren't all that bad. They were written about 20 years ago and sometimes are a bit strange. One of the first books she brought home was Mama's Diet. It was about how mom was too heavy and was trying to lose weight. Also in that same bag of books was a book about a birthday present. Someone gave the advice NOT to give chocolate as a gift because it was too fattening.

I generally don't discuss weight/fat/heavy at home and use politically correct words like healthy/unhealthy. That is one thing that I think is pretty important to instill in my child. She will not make fun of overweight children. I don't remember being picked on in school, but I felt bad for the kids who were bigger than me. Sorry, that was completely off the topic. I will put that in italics.

Back to the point! Ding Ding brought home a book called The Ha-Ha Powder. It has a clown on the front. I'm not one to poo poo clowns without a second thought. I mean, some clowns might actually be funny instead of scary. I generally consider clowns as a creepy group of people with a few funny, lovable exceptions. But this book definitely falls into the creepy category. Especially the back of the book. Not cute, not lovable, very molester, very murderer.

Without reading the book, (Judging the Book By it's Cover) I am making some assumptions:

1. This book will give Ding Ding nightmares.
2. This book is a gateway to cocaine.
3. This book can be attributed to at least 90% of the drop-out rate.
4. The clown must have overindulged in the ha-ha powder by the look on his face on the back of the book.
5. I might try to steal this book from the Kindergarten.

Donkeys and Elephants

My daughter is on the edge of her seat because there are only 8 days until the election. This might be almost as exciting as football. She can name the Presidential Candidates and their running mates. She likes to see the percentages from the polls and holler about who is winning. I have tried to explain the differences between Republicans and Democrats. I have tried to explain the "tax the rich and spread the wealth" concept of Barack Obama. I have tried to explain why the Republicans don't like higher taxes without making them sound incapable of sharing.

So she wants to know why is Barack Obama a Donkey and why is John McCain an Elephant? I explained (more explaining. . . ) that a Donkey is a symbol of the Democratic Party and the Elephant is a symbol of the Republican Party. Kind-of like mascots.

She then rationalized that Elephants must be richer than Donkeys.

Pumpkin Carving

I forgot a pill this morning which contributed to our annual pumpkin carving being a very stressful event. I was nauseated and had a headache. Ding Ding wanted to carve her pumpkin into a NCAA logo. Can I carve a Ball State Cardinal? NO. Can I carve an Iowa Hawkeye? NO. I wanted to strangle her. I had to send her to her room for awhile to cool down after her long list of requests/denials.

After a break, we settled on a big letter O for Ohio State University. She also wanted a buckeye leaf and also a buckeye. This seemed easy until I drew the O on the pumpkin and it would end up being a gaping hole instead of a block letter O. Nick and I decided to improvise and carve half the O and then the other half leaving the inside of the O intact.
The above is what we ended up with. Ding Ding did not like the little lines on the side of the O which held the inside of the O intact. She decided that we needed to take the marker and draw an X on it then proceed to drawing a good O on the other side. We told her NO and she threw a mini fit. She decided that playing with her dollhouse would be more fun.

Nick and I managed to draw and carve the leaf and the buckeye.


They look like crap, but nobody really likes our neighborhood for trick or treating anyway. One block away is a neighborhood where the houses are big and so are the candy bars that they hand out.

I hope the pumpkin seeds turn out better once they are toasted.
I'm glad that's over and Ding Ding is slowly warming up to her Ohio State Pumpkin. She should love it by Friday.

Spoiled Little Ding Ding

Okay, I have no idea how NOT to spoil my daughter. I try! We went to the mall to pick up one specific item. We said NO NO NO to the daughter and we got only what we went for. She barely ate her lunch and we denied request after request for food until dinner (she was warned when she skipped lunch).

Buuuuut I located a doll house for sale. It is the Fisher Price Sweet Sounds Dollhouse. I asked Ding Ding if she would like a doll house and she said "yes!". It came with several sets of furnitre:

Bathroom
Laundry Room
Parents Bedroom
Living Room
Nursery
Family Room
Picnic Hike
Boating Fun
Campsite
Dining Room

It also came with evidence that there other sets, but many pieces have been misplaced (less for ding ding to lose). What a deal. A dollhouse and all the furniture she needs without having to set foot in Toys R Us. So much for not spoiling her. I don't think I would have been so guilty about this darn house if it weren't so huge. I swear it looks much smaller in photos, but it is humongous.

In other news, I installed my very own programmable thermostat. I doubt the real estate company we rent from would appreciate the fact that I removed the brand new one they installed last year, but it was one of those classic round ones that I had to set back every night before bed.
My dad assured me installing a new thermostat would be easy and it was. So now I am the proud owner/operator of a Honeywell RTH230B. It is a beauty. It looks like this one.

I truly was easy to install. You take off the old one and since we only have heat, there were two wires to connect. Red and White. I connected the red and white wires, attached the thermostat to the wall and waited for the device to start working. It was a stressful few minutes when I set it at 85 degrees just to make sure it worked. I had already started searching the Honeywell website for troubleshooting help. What could go wrong? Connect 2 wires and flip the switch on in the electrical box! It finally started working and nothing went wrong. It still hasn't turned on since then, but I guess we have no need for heat yet. Somebody claimed we are in for some snow this week and maybe we can test out the heat again this week.