Leanna Kay

So I was driving last night with the kids and we were listening to our latest Newsboy album. I was singing really loudly to the song which just so happens to be the first one which plays if you go to their website. It’s here in case you want to check it out. www.newsboys.com If you listen, you can hear it’s kind of a kicky song.  But instead of the harmonious sound of this group, imagine a noise that is much more off key and grating because when I sing, I sing loudly and badly.

I was really getting into this when I hear this little voice from the backseat, “Mom, can you turn that down?”

I reached for the stereo control knob.

“No, Mom. Not the music. The singing.”

Ouch.

I spent two hours at the doctor’s office yesterday without seeing a doctor. For those who missed my ranting, be glad I don’t have your telephone numbers. For those who’ve already endured my tirade, you can pretend your internet access went down and stop reading because I’m not done yet.

I was at the doctor because I’m in need of a new general practitioner. Guess what. Yesterday’s doctor didn’t win the bid to be my new GP. (Yeah, I can hear her wailing and gnashing of teeth. Poor thing).

I want my two hours back. I’ve come up with a list of the things I could have done in that time instead of reading outdated magazines covered with sick people germs.

1) Blogging

2) Curing Cancer

3) Picking my nose

4) Picking my nose while curing cancer

5) Watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island

6) Watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island while curing cancer

7) Working ….. nah!

Curing cancer

9) Organizing my sock drawer

10) Organizing my sock drawer while curing cancer….

Oh the humanity.

I admit it. I sometimes listen to the boys when they’re talking to each other. I know, this is the type of behavior which will make me surely burn in hell (something I blog about often - see post about Sinning in the Name of Child Protection).

Or at the very least, if I continue the eavesdropping when the boys get old enough for internet access, I’m going to have to block Mommy’s blog site like it’s some kind of porn so they won’t be able to see what I write about them. Until then, the twins continue to amuse me.

OVERHEARD LAST NIGHT -

Drew - So what does the tooth fairy DO with all those teeth?

Chris (who recently lost his front tooth) - I dunno. Sells them I guess.

Drew - That’s a lot of teeth.

Chris - Yeah, I know.

Drew - Bet she makes a ton of money.

Chris: Yeah. I only got a dollar. I should hold out for more.

That’s my boys. Always thinking about their fair share!

So why do I sometimes listen in? Because of the penis trading conversation.

OVERHEARD WHEN THEY WERE BATHING TOGETHER AT THE AGE OF ONE

Drew: Hey look at DAT!! (Dat being Chris’s wee wee.)

Chris looking and then saying in awe: WOW! …. Hey look, you got one too!

PAUSE as boys admire their plumbing for the first time.

Chris: Wanna trade?

Drew: Sure.

PAUSE.

DREW: It won’t come off.

CHRIS: Mine stuck too.

Drew looked at me today and said those little words that strike fear in a mother’s heart. “Mom, I have a question.”

Uh oh. My heart started beating faster and my hands were clammy as I pretended to be calm.

“Sure, Drew. You can ask me anything.”

“How old is Santa Claus?”

YIPPEEE! I can bluff my way through this one.

“226,” I said and luckily the bus came before he could ask me more questions like how does a fat man who eats all those cookies live to be two hundred and twenty six.

The Santa Claus one was easy. But the reason I got so bent out of shape with the idea of answering the kid’s questions was because of the whopper he asked just yesterday.

“Mom, what is puberty?”

He’s only seven. I thought I had a few more years to live in naive bliss before I had to talk about hair growth and hormones and God forbid, GIRLS! I took some deep breaths and launched into what I hoped was a calm dissertation on a boy’s changing body. I threw in some technical terms like testosterone so I could sound knowledgeable in case this information ended up being spread around the playground.

By the time I got to the technical terms, the kid’s face had taken on this pale tone and his eyes were wrinkled from information overload. So I paused and asked, “Does that answer your question, honey?” I said it calmly, but my palms were dripping wet.

“Yeah, Mom.”

I could tell he was still disturbed.

“Why did you want to know?” I asked.

“I was just asking because I thought I saw puberty on my globe. I thought it was a country. Like Cuba.”

So I could have answered this question with an Atlas!!! Pardon me while I bang my head repeatedly on my computer monitor until I pass out.

So here’s the Thanksgiving update. Dad managed to burn the turkey but not the house. So my parents aren’t living with me. Yes, there IS a God!

Apparently two hours in the fryer is too long for regular turkey. It’s about right for turkey jerky though.

Who knew?

10. Too bloated from Thanksgiving day turkey to maneuver around the other billion bloated shoppers.

9. No place to park unless you can maneuver vehicle onto grassy median on highway three miles from toy store.

8. There’s still leftover pie you can eat while the others are shopping.

7. You burn three dollars in gas to save ten cents on a roll of wrapping paper.

6. Leftover mashed potatoes and gravy.

5. You’re too sleep deprived at 5 a.m. to realize that no one needs battery powered socks even if they are 50% off.

4. Too sleep deprived to understand that Aunt Ruth can do without the $23 fruit cake even if it was imported from Germany and is only available until 6 a.m.

3. You wait outside for three hours in the sleet for the advertised Elmo toy, only to have the person in line in front of you grab the last one.

2. Even if you are second in line, the person in front of you will grab the last Elmo because the store only stocked ONE!

1. You don’t need Elmo anyway because child will only play with it for ten seconds before deciding Elmo’s laugh is SCARY. Child will run shrieking from room and Christmas will be ruined. ALL BECAUSE YOU WENT SHOPPING ON BLACK FRIDAY!!

Don’t risk ruining Christmas.

Today is Thanksgiving day. I have much to be thankful for, but I’m also approaching the holiday with a bit of trepidation. My dad intends to fry a turkey this year. This is his first attempt at turkey frying, but not his first attempt at something involving flames and highly flammable material. His thinking - if the flame isn’t high enough, throw some gasoline on it.

May God save us all.

I fear my parents may be parked in our spare bedroom tonight unless the firemen are able to contain the flames before my parent’s entire house is engulfed.

So we’re sitting at the dinner table and Lauren compliments me on my mashed potatoes. But here’s the thing. They’re not really ‘mine’. I got a box of frozen Ore Ida potatoes out of the freezer and heated them. Can I really take credit that they taste good? The dog could have cooked these potatoes if she had opposable thumbs.

This got me to thinking (yeah, I know - a dangerous trend, but bear with me). We are the generation of Betty Crocker cakes, Pillsbury rolls, Sara Lee cream puffs and Kraft macaroni. When Lauren reminisces someday on her childhood, will she say something like “these potatoes are good, but they aren’t as good as what my mom used to make.” Only her mom made Ore Ida. From a box.

When I was a little girl, I remember fondly sitting on a tall step stool in my grandmother’s kitchen learning how to make pie crust. I still have the recipe for the pie crust and it was really good, but I find myself reaching for the frozen Pillsbury crust instead of the old recipe card. Because when it comes down to it, the crust isn’t so much better than Pillsbury’s to justify the time it takes to make. (Sorry, Grandma).

Will Lauren’s recipe box hold any time honored recipes passed down from generation to generation? Or when she opens that box, will there just be a note from her mom? - “Buy the Ore Ida’s.  Now go play Candyland with your daughter.”

When it comes right down to it, it wasn’t the homemade pie crust that was important to me. It was spending the time with my Grandmother. So hopefully if Lauren doesn’t remember the time cooking with her mother, she’ll remember the hours we spent dancing in the living room while the frozen Ore Idas cooked. And that’s just as good, right?

Drew has this card game which I like to call ‘Mess’. It involves throwing playing cards all over the living room floor until you can no longer see the carpeting. Last night I was invited to join in on the fun. So I started spreading the cards out in what I thought was a nice chaotic way, only to be told I was doing it wrong.

“Mom, that’s not right. They’re supposed to connect.”

Connect? Connect with all the other clutter in the house?

Apparently the cards were race tracks. Who knew? They were supposed to connect so the cars could drive around in an organized fashion.  So all the time I thought Drew was playing “Mess”, he was really forming an array of highly evolved race tracks.

Silly Mom.

So we were driving to church yesterday and we pulled in behind a brown truck. Sounds normal, until I add that there was a dead deer strapped to a trailer behind this brown truck. And to put it delicately, just in case any animal activists are reading, let’s just say Bambi had lost her life force and was now frolicking in heaven with her animal friends.

It’s deer hunting season and dead deer are a common scene in rural Indiana. That said, Lauren is a bit sensitive about these things so I felt the need to protect the child. I tried to direct her attention to the rusty car dump on the side of the road. “Look at all those pretty brown cars.”

But she was not to be distracted. “Mom, why is that deer laying behind the truck?”

“Because it’s sleeping,” I lied. I often lie to my children when it involves dead things.  In case they ask, Nemo’s mom moved to Miami to sell coral reef jewelry to the tourists and the Mom in Ice Age is back at camp fixing S’mores.  Harmless white lies.  Or so I thought until I  later learned in church that white lies are sins as horrible as murder. So I’m going straight to hell, but at least Lauren still thought Bambi was alive. For a minute.

“Duh, Mom.” This is coming from one of the boys in the back seat. “It’s not sleeping. It’s dripping blood so it must be dead.” Apparently this child knew that lying was a horrible sin.

“Cool.” This came from the other boy. Cool?! Is there psychotherapy in this child’s future?

“Hey kids.” Now I’m pointing to the sky. “I think I see Santa Claus.”

I am so surely going to burn in hell.