Slow Down, Gym Shoe!

What Passes For Fun At Our House

Sorry for the darkness of this movie... I filmed on my digital camera, so I can't really adjust the lighting. But I think you can still get the jist of how we spent a recent rainy fall evening!

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Don't Drink The Fizzy Flavor-ade!

Diana, Jimmy, Sarah, Monkeyboy, Little Bear, Pufferfish and I went to the mall tonight, because the little girls needed new winter jackets, and Monkeyboy wanted to buy a Sweetest Day gift for his girlfriend. Somehow, out of the deal, Little Bear scored a Tasty Science Chemistry In The Kitchen Set. Later on in the evening, Diana and Jimmy went to drive Monkeyboy to the city, where he's going to spend the weekend with our former foster kids, Marcus and Britni. (Britni is now Monkeyboy's girlfriend, by the way!) While they were gone, Sarah and I agreed to try out the Tasty Science Chemistry In The Kitchen Set with Little Bear.

Little Bear wanted to make the fizzy soda drink first, which was fine with me because I love soda! I was really looking forward to learning how to make my own! The "experiment" involved mixing citric acid, sugar, flavoring, water and baking soda.

Stop right there. Baking soda. That should have tipped us off, don't you think?

We carefully mixed the ingredients together. Little Bear was appropriately amused when the baking soda and citric acid caused the water to get fizzy. She chose grape flavoring. Sarah carefully measured the soda into four cups, so we and the little girls could each have a taste.

I took a sip.

OMG, it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever tasted! Imagine slightly salty grape flavored Dimetapp. As I forced myself to swallow it, all I could think about was spitting it out!

I looked over at Little Bear. She stared blankly at me, as if comatose, and the black liquid began to drool out of her mouth. It was like a scene from The Exorcism or something!

"This is disgusting!" I yelped. Little Bear and I ran frantically to the kitchen. I filled a glass of water from the faucet and pushed it into Little Bear's hands, then filled myself a glass and began frantically rinsing my mouth out. Sarah and Pufferfish ran into the kitchen with their tongues hanging out. I started handing out some of the sugar cookies we'd made that day. We gobbled them down, to get the nightmarish taste out of our mouths.

It. Was. Horrible.

This isn't a product review, dudes. This is a warning. If you buy the Tasty Science Chemistry In The Kitchen Set, do not drink the fizzy flavor-ade!

In other news, Little Bear and Pufferfish are asleep on the couch. Diana and Jimmy left for the city about three hours ago and haven't returned yet. Sarah is lighting her Slurpee lid on fire. Maybe I'd better go.

A Few Pufferfish-isms!

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Pufferfish never fails to amaze me with how well she can talk. She is quite a conversationalist! I've been trying really hard to remember the goofy things she says, although sometimes they slide right out of my mind. Here are a few of my recent favorites, though...

She's totally addicted to candy and she always wants some! One day last week, because our outdoor playdate got cancelled, I took Pufferfish to Monkey Joe's. They have a game room back behind all of the jumpy houses. I tried to keep Pufferfish by the jumpy houses, since we had paid admission to be there and I didn't want to pay extra for arcade games, but of course she spotted the game where you lower a claw to grab as much candy as you can. I bought a buck's worth of tokens and won her a bunch of candy, which I stashed in the pocket. I gave Pufferfish a few pieces, and told her she could have some at home, after lunch.

On the way home from Monkey Joe's I wanted to run a few errands. I stopped at one store, and Pufferfish was fine, but after the second store she was starting to get antsy. So, as we pulled into the parking lot of the second store, I told her, "Just one more store, okay, Pufferfish?"

She replied, dead seriously, "Just one more candy, okay, Nicki?"

LOL! Of course I gave the little negotiator her candy, and she rewarded me with perfect behavior inside the store!

Okay, that was a long one. Here's a few shorter ones!

Pufferfish: (says something unintelligable)

Me: "What, Pufferfish?"

Pufferfish: "I talking to Brother!"

Me: "Oh. Sorry."

Pufferfish: "I still love you, though!"

Pufferfish: (saying something unintelligable)

Me: "What, Pufferfish?"

Pufferfish: "Oh, I say bad word!"

Me: "You did? What bad word did you say?"

Pufferfish: "No, I no tell you!"

Pufferfish: "Pretend you the baby and I the mommy."

Me: "Okay! Hi Mommy!"

Pufferfish: "Hi baby! You want some candy?"

Me: "Yes! I love candy!"

Pufferfish: "What kind you want? You want the kind that burns you? Yeah? The kind that burns you?"

Me: "Uh, no thanks! Do you have any chocolate/"

Pufferfish: "Okay, I get you chocolate... but you no eat till after lunch!"

Are these stories only amusing to me?

Monkeyboy is summoning me to help him straighten his hair... I hope I don't burn his head! Anyway, I'll write more tomorrow!

By the way, I took this quiz on Juice Box Jungle. I know I'm not an actual mom, but I do a lot of stuff moms do, and I will be a mom someday, so I thought it would be fun to find out what kind I was. Here is what my result was:

Apparently this means I have tons of energy and love being around the kids.

Well, most of the time, I suppose... but a lot of the time I definitely long to be with the grown-ups!

Stranger At The CVS

Here's a strange story about something that happened... or, rather, something that didn't happen!

Every day at around 2:15 I take Pufferfish and go pick up Rafael from his school, and then go get Little Bear at her school. Today, on the way to get Rafael, Pufferfish and I stopped at CVS to pick up a few things. As I got Pufferfish from her car seat, I saw a lady, all bundled up and with a scarf over her face, standing outside the store. The lady was African American. I watched her stop an African American man who came out of the store, and ask him for a ride to the train depot. The man said "No," and walked to his car. Then the lady stopped an African American woman and asked her for a ride to the train depot. The woman brushed her off, saying she was pressed for time.

I was a little nervous that the lady would ask me for a ride, so I sidled past her as she was still talking to the other woman.

As I walked through the store, I thought about the lady outside. I wondered if I should tell a store employee that the woman was outside, asking for rides and making people uncomfortable. But I decided not to. I have been in that situation before, where I had to depend on strangers like that.

I thought about it more, and decided that, if the lady asked me, maybe I would give her a ride to the train depot! I used to do that kind of thing all of the time. And my brothers and I used to hitchhike a lot ourselves. We depended on people to trust us. We used to go up to people in parking lots and ask them for a ride to the next town, or back to where we were staying, or to a church that would help us with money or food. And, more often than not, we used to get rides! I don't remember ever not getting a ride within an hour of starting to look for one.

When I first got my own car, I used to give people rides myself, as well. I remember going to court for my brother, and being asked by a couple outside the courthouse for a ride to the train depot. I took them. I didn't get killed. I remember staying in a Motel 6 and a lady knocking on my door and asking for a ride to the grocery store. I gave her one. She didn't kill me, and we became good friends for a while after that. I remember when I lived in an apartment complex, people who knew I had a car would come and ask me for a ride to somewhere, and I always agreed to it. I never died. In my experience, if you trusted people and were kind to them, they would behave accordingly, and you would get to meet lots of interesting people and hear great stories in the process. It has been a long time since I have begged for, or given, a ride. It would be nice to help this lady out, wouldn't it?

But when Pufferfish and I walked outside, the lady said nothing to us.

As I helped Pufferfish back into her car seat, I saw two African American women and an African American man walk up to the store. The lady asked them for a ride, and they said no.

It seemed like she was only asking African American people for rides! Was it because she just didn't like white people, or did she assume that, since she was African American, other African Americans would be more likely to trust her and give her a ride?

I thought about going up to the lady and actually offering to give her a ride, but I didn't. I went to pick up Rafael from school.

On the way to pick up Little Bear, we passed the CVS. The lady was still there, looking for a ride. I pointed her out to Rafael. "See that lady? She is asking people for a ride but nobody will give her one!"

"She looks like a ninja," Rafael observed.

"Hmm, she kinda does, with her black scarf over her face," I agreed.

"Its a good thing we didn't give her a ride! She would be nice when you talked to her, but once she got in your car she would try to kill us," said Rafael.

"What makes you think that?" I wondered. It seemed like a pretty dramatic conclusion for a 6-year-old to come up with.

"I saw her on TV," said Rafael. "On the news! They said, `Don't let this lady in your car, because she'll be nice to you when she asks you, but when she's in your car she will try to kill you.' They said she had her face covered like a ninja."

I thought about it and imagined the lady pulling a gun from her heavy winter jacket as she got into the car. So much for trusting people!

The whole escapade could have been a social science experiment, like one of those "What Would You Do" shows on TV where they try to see how many people would ignore a person in need. Did the woman by the CVS ignore me because I was white, and she thought a white person wouldn't give her a ride? Or did she ignore me because I had a baby with me? If I were a better person, would I have gone and offered her a ride? Would I have ended up being carjacked? Is Rafael, at age 6, already jaded by life because he assumes a person asking for a ride is a killer/ Or did he really see that lady on TV? Will these questions follow me for the rest of my life?

What about you? Would you have given the lady a ride?

Breakfast Conversation

Pufferfish: "What's this?"

Me: "Its oatmeal!"

Pufferfish: "No, what's on it?"

Me: "Strawberry syrup."

Pufferfish: "No, right here!

Me: "It's strawberry syrup, Pufferfish!"

Pufferfish: "No, on it!"

Me: "Its strawberry syrup!"

Pufferfish: "No, on it!"

Me: "Ugh! I dunno, Pufferfish!"

Pufferfish: "Maybe its strawberry syrup?"

Me: "Uh... maybe!"

Goodwill Towards All!

I've become totally addicted to Goodwill!

Its kind of weird, because when I lived in Denver as a teenager, I used to buy just about all of my clothes and stuff at Goodwill or Salvation Army. In Denver there were huge Goodwill and Salvation Army stores that seemed to me, at the time, to be just as big as regular stores like K-Mart! When I came back to Illinois I always wished there was a Goodwill or a Salvation Army store near me. All we had were small little thrift shops filled with old people clothes!

So a few years ago they opened one large Goodwill store near where we used to live, and I started going there at least once a month to stock up on used games and other stuff for the kids. I loved going there because it was the one store where I could definitely afford just about anything the kids might want or need! We would also go there for frivolous things... for instance, when we built a scarecrow, we went there to get some clothes for it.

Now, all of the sudden, there are Goodwill stores all over the place where I live! And when I drive by one, it is very hard not to stop just for the fun of it! In the past few weeks I have totally supported Goodwill Industries! Want to hear all the stuff I got?

I found two dry erase boards. I have been wanting to get a dry erase board for a long time, but didn't want to spend fifteen bucks on a large one. But two weeks ago I found the first dry erase board, which I think I mentioned in another post... it stands up, like a small easel, and has a dry erase board on one side and a chalkboard on the other. Then, this past week, I found a large dry erase board that is also magnetic! Now both Little Bear and Pufferfish can play with with the dry erase boards at the same time, and they will draw on them for hours! Even Sarah loves them! Last week she became an elective mute for three hours and communicated only on the dry erase board. Yeah, she's kinda weird. Anyway I also have big plans for the magnetic board. I was thinking of making a felt board for Pufferfish, but now I think I'll just make some magnet games and do felt-board-like games using magnets instead!

I stocked up on a whole bunch of games! We got Hullaballoo, Cranium Cadoo, Chutes And Ladders, Pictionary Junior, Don't Wake Daddy, and the Elmo Birthday Game. I love the games because we can get everyone together to play for a while and focus on something positive and fun! Even Pufferfish is learning how to move a game piece across a board and play by the rules!

Pufferfish loves playing with blocks. She has a set of cardboard blocks that fit inside each other like one of those Russian doll thingies, and she loves to stack them up and knock them down. She says she's building "castles." I've been wanting to get her some of those little wooden alphabet blocks, because she's played with them at other people's houses and loved them, but they're pretty expensive these days too. Well, I found a very nice set of alphabet blocks that fit into a little wagon, for just three dollars! I was so excited about that!

Finally, I still have a cassette player in my car because I'm a loser like that. A few weeks ago we had gotten one of those old Wee Sing tapes from the library, and we'd been listening to it in the car ever since. Pufferfish adores that tape! When we get in the car, she demands, "Put on my baby songs!" and she'll sit there and sing and do the hand motions as we drive! I was getting kind of worried because we were going to have to return the tape soon, and I actually started looking on Amazon.com for copies of the tape. Unfortunately, the Wee Sing tapes are considered antiques now and are pretty expensive... a few of them go for a hundred bucks each! So imagine my delight when I found a copy of the exact Wee Sing tape we got from the library, for one dollar at Goodwill! I also grabbed a few other children's music tapes. It makes our frequent car rides much more fun and tolerable for Pufferfish!

So, yeah... I'm addicted to Goodwill! When you go to a regular store like Target you pretty much know what things you'll find. But at Goodwill, its a completely different store every time!

This is not a sponsored post, by the way. I doubt Goodwill Industries uses sponsored posts! Its just me, being completely addicted to Goodwill and needing to talk about it constantly!

What Time Is It?

Me: "Rafael, get your shoes on! We gotta go to school!"

Rafael: (looking at clock) Already? But its only seventy-fivey-oney!"

Take A Closer Look!

The other day at the grocery store I bought this ABC puzzle for a dollar at the grocery store. I'm thinking of creating an Alphabet Box and filling it with ABC-related toys, and I figured this simple foam puzzle would be perfect for it!

But when I got home, Rafael, who was with me when I bought it, pointed out something a little strange about it.

Lets see if you can spot it!

Get A Clue!

Me: (after Pufferfish has run to show Jimmy her art project) "What did Daddy say?"

Pufferfish: "He said clue!"

Me: "Clue???? Oh, you mean cool?"

Pufferfish: "Yep!"

Pufferfish says...

Me: "Pufferfish, can I do your hair now?"

Pufferfish: "No! You can't! It's impossible!"