Tag Archives: kids

“Stupid” Questions

Ivy was in a great mood today.

She was good.

She was helpful.

She played with Clara.

She listened well at story-time.

She drove me insane.

Here is the problem. When Ivy is extra super happy, she talks extra super much, and it’s not just talking.  It is non-stop question asking.

Now before you think I’m a horrible intolerant mother let me refer you to this post –One Hundred and Seventy Seven.  The short story on that post is that one day Ivy asked me 208 questions in one afternoon, I learned from that experience that counting the number of questions only makes me more insane  and does nothing to stem the flow of asking.  In fact it’s been almost four months since that day and we are still in question land.

Especially when Ivy is in a extra super happy, because that means she is also in an extra super talkative mood.

The problem is that I am happy to answer real questions.  It’s the “stupid” questions I have a problem with. Every time Ivy asks me a “stupid” question I hear countless old teachers’ voices echoing in my head saying “There is no such thing as a stupid question.”

But there are.  There are lots of stupid questions.

Things like “Mom, where is Storm?” – In the same crate she’s been in for the last two months and easy to locate because she is barking.

or “Mom, are you eating?” -While we are all sitting down eating lunch together.

or “Mom, are you peeing?” -That needs no further explanation other than to say I look forward to the days of kid-free bathrooms.

Repeat questions are also stupid questions.  If you have already asked me three times what color my shirt is, time number four is, without a doubt, a stupid question.  Possibly two and three were as well.

The stupid question crowning moment came late this afternoon. Ivy and I had a conversation that almost made my head explode.  It went something like this:

Ivy: “Mom, what you doin?”

Me: “Pulling out weeds.”

Ivy: “Why?”

Me: “So we can plant garlic here.”

Ivy: “Where are you puttin’ those weeds?”

Me: “In a pile over here.”

Ivy: “What are they?”

Me: “What are what?”

Ivy: “Those.”

Me: “These weeds?”

Ivy: “Yeah, those.”

Me: “I don’t know what kind of plants they are.”

Ivy: “Mom, what are they?”

Me: “Ivy, I don’t know.”

Ivy: “No, what are they?”

Me: “I don’t know”

Ivy: “What are they?”

Me: “I don’t know!”

Ivy: “DON’T SAY YOU DON’T KNOW!”

Me: “But I don’t know what they are.”

Ivy: “Mom, they are WEEDS, just say weeds.”

Me: “Why are you asking if you already know?”

Ivy: “I don’t know…”

Just typing that might have made five more hairs go gray…

The problem is I suspect she just wants to have a conversation with me, but all of my strategies to teach her how to start one without asking a question she already knows the answer to are massively failing. The end result is that I end up pulling out my hair on days Ivy is super happy while feeling guilty that her happy question asking makes me insane.

So please if you know how to get a kid to stop asking stupid questions let me know.

If by chance you are one of my old teachers who have accidentally come across this blog – I challenge you to take Ivy for the day and see if there is still no such thing as a “stupid” question.

Walking Piper

Piper is the best dog ever.

I can say this, because she is my dog and everyone knows that their own dog is the best dog ever.

Exhibit number one of Piper as the best dog ever:

Just so you know and can be suitably impressed my calculator and I did some figuring, Piper is approximatley three times bigger than Ivy.

I am extra proud of my big lug of a dog, when I think back on how Piper started out heeling.  While it has been long enough that I’m not exactly sure what the issue was in the beginning  I do vividly remember Piper refusing to walk on a leash.  Refusing to the point that she would lay on her back and while growing and attacking the leash.  Things were so bad that we started over and switched sides (she’s a right sided heeler now) before she would walk next to me without turning into a psycho attack dog.

Then we hit the stage where she was an extra large puppy, and she sort of knew the rules but still had too much puppy left to follow them all the time. The trouble was that when heeling and seeing something extra fun like a squirrel I started to worry my shoulder would be dislocated before she learned she wasn’t allowed to lunge after them.  We invested in a Gentle Leader and while I’ve heard some people had bad experiences with them it was perfect for Piper and I. Now six years later we were running at the local park and I had the only dog not pulling off it’s owners arm when it went by another dog.

Piper, the Great Dane even a three year old can walk.  Clearly is the best dog ever.

Well, most of the time…

Pumpkins

*Please ignore the date stamps on the photos as almost all of them are wrong!*

Since Ivy’s first fall her Great Gramps has grown her (and now Clara as well) a whole pumpkin patch full of pumpkins.

The first year Ivy was amazed at what she found in the pumpkin patch

The next year pumpkin collecting inspired nose wrinkling, always a sign of true happiness!

Last year Ivy took her pumpkin collection duties a bit more seriously.

Now this year it was Clara’s turn to be amazed at her pumpkin patch finds….

..while Ivy used the pumpkins (and everything else) as a climbing tool!

As you can see the girls and I have loved pumpkin picking time, and it looks to me like Great Gramps loves it all too!

Notes From The Photographer (that’d be me) –

I tried really hard to get a picture of these three  sitting with the pumpkins.

Ten pictures I took and not a one of them has more than one person looking at the camera…

…I tell ya, it’s like herding cats!

One Year Old!

Clara turned one on Thursday.

It just so happened that Thursday was the day I caught the first picture of Clara looking like the little girl she is becoming instead of the baby she was.

So much change in so little time!Happy Birthday Clara!

Insurmountable

Recently talking to my cousin we had a conversation about how small tasks while sleeping become insurmountable. Things like blankets falling on the floor have us huddled under pillows because it is clearly an insurmountable task to reach down and find the blanket.

Last night was our first night visiting Tyler in his new place. Tyler very nicely offered me and Ivy the bedroom and only bed in his barely furnished house so that he didn’t wake us all up early in the morning when he left for work.

Last night I found myself sleeping  on a twin bed between Ivy and Piper.

In case you were curious that is approximately 300 pounds of living things sleeping in a twin bed – not a good idea.

In the middle of the night I knew it was not a good idea.

In the middle of the night getting either dog or kid out of the bed – totally insurmountable.

Tonight I gave Tyler his room back!

When things started to get really crazy was after a minor bed wetting incident. And I use the term minor in regards to urine amount only, everything else about it was a calamity. The chaos was over and I was trying to fall back asleep when Ivy started kicking at Piper because she didn’t have room for her legs,while trying to steal my pillow and Piper who had gotten off the bed when she got kicked at was staring at me waiting to get let back on. Instead of doing something to solve the problem for the night, any number of somethings that make perfect sense while I’m not sleeping, like moving Ivy to the floor and locking Piper out of the room, all I could think about was falling back asleep quickly. So I turned myself into a human wall between the fighting kid and dog and went back to sleep. I’m pretty sure I nodded off just after hearing Ivy say “I can’t fall asleep” Which was a good thing or I would have mentioned that it was likely because she had yet to stop talking or wiggling and I’m certain I would have had trouble phrasing that constructively. Instead I fell asleep and spent an overly cozy night as the filling in an Ivy-Piper sandwich.

Someday I’ll figure out how to get that blanket back off the floor,and if I can’t figure that out defending my space in the bed will surely continue to be an insurmountable task in the middle of the night.

That’s why tonight Ivy is sleeping on the floor by her uncle Tyler and Piper and I have moved to the living room floor.

We are on a queen sized mattress.

We are not concerned with early morning noise.

The only thing that is cutting into our sleep is late night blogging!

Tomato Trouble

It’s been awhile!

Right as we all started recovering from our individual maladies our internet connection came down with some illness of its own. So today the girls and I loaded up in a truck and drove four hours north just so I could finally write another post.  Admittedly there was more to it than that, but one thing at time, I’ve lots of catching up to do!

Now, about that tomato trouble…

By now my garden trouble has probably solved itself, the heavy frost we had before I left town most likely took care of any tomatoes that were still around. But just a  few days ago I had discovered something was nibbling on my tomatoes. Even my green tomatoes were under attack Check out this one, attacked while still hanging on the vine!

My mystery was short lived, just on the other side of the tomato plants I found the culprit.

Have I ever mentioned that Clara LOVES tomatoes?

Chatter Box

This was this mornings sunrise:

At the time I took that picture Ivy had already been talking for an hour.

Then we drove to Cabela’s in Indiana, and she talked the whole way…

We met Uncle Jim who gave Storm’s progress so far a thumbs up and John and I new instructions on her care, and Ivy kept talking…

We headed into Cabela’s where it’s impossible to lose her becuase even when she is a bit of a brat and hides, she can’t resist talking, so her hiding place only lasts for about 30 seconds…

We got back in the car for the three hour drive home, and she kept talking…

Clara took her third nap of the day, and Ivy kept talking…

Once we got home we repacked and headed out to enjoy the rest of the day, running for John and I and swing sets and slides for the girls, Ivy kept talking, but this time to other kids… I love other kids!

We drove back home, and Ivy kept talking…

I tried to run away from the chatter by mowing the lawn, (desperate times, call for desperate measures!) Ivy followed me.

Just as I was starting up the lawn mower she and her half eaten apple (thank you Uncle Jim and Callie) climbed up in my lap. So I stuffed my ear muffs on her head and off we went mowing the lawn, and Ivy kept talking. Fortunately for my sanity it was a brief attempt at talking, between the ear protection and the noise of the lawn mower she gave up and just sat on my lap munching away on her apple. Pretty soon I felt her start to slide off my lap, and I realized that when she stopped talking for the first time all day, she had finally let herself fall asleep. There Ivy was, sound asleep in my lap, ear muffs on, apple core clutched tight in one fist that was curled up under her chin like it was her favorite stuffed animal.

Alien Trouble

I had trouble, Clara was screaming, and screaming, and screaming.  My friend was due to show up any minute to babysit, John would be home shortly and we were all set for our belated anniversary date.   As the screaming continued with no signs of stopping I started worrying that not only was my evening was in jeopardy but that something was seriously wrong with my kid. As I tried to figure out what the cause of the screaming was I debated with myself:

Do I stay home?

Do we delay leaving until she’s in bed?

Will I feel horribly guilty for leaving a completely upset girl with my friend?

If I leave will I just be grateful that I can say goodbye and leave all the noise behind?

If I am grateful does that make me a horrible mother?

Did I accidentally feed her dairy products?

Does she have a fever?

Am I actually stabbing hot needles into her and I don’t know it?

Have the ten million falls she has taken in the last week as she started walking damaged her brain and now all she can do is scream?

Then during a good scream I looked in her mouth, there I discovered two gigantic aliens posing as molars pushing through Clara’s gums. They must have been aliens, teeth that large, in such a little mouth that would be pure craziness.  Unfortunately my alien banishing tactics are nonexistent so I thought I’d treat it like teething.

Teething I know how to deal with (thank you Ivy for your super early, super cranky teething).  We froze some teethers (I know frostbite, whatever, fridge temp is not cold enough), dug out some aquarium tubing to chew on, pulled out the ibuprofen,and made a call to John to bring home some teething gel. A half hour later drugs had kicked in, Clara was happily walking around the house with her chunks of tubing and John and I left guilt free on our date.

After a bit of a rough start at sporting clays when John’s gun jammed on his first shot things went great.  John was unable to fix his gun, which forced him to use my gun, which effectively handicapped him enough that I almost beat him. We finished up our date night with dinner out and a trip to the grocery store (wild and crazy I know) and came home to two sleeping girls and one friend that still seems to like both us and our kids.

Thank goodness it was only alien trouble!