Life Without Training Wheels

I don't even know what is considered normal about taking the training wheels off, which is pretty crazy considering the amount of time I spend reading parenting articles.

Bobby's training wheel literally broke off last week so the boys helped their dad fix up both bikes, air up the tires, add a little elbow grease and Bobby assured us he was ready for the next step.

I remember when my parents removed the training wheels off my hot pink Barbie bike that had those really cool plastic streamers on the handle bars. I think I was a little older than Bobby and I wobbled up and down the sidewalk, crashing right into our neighbors Buick (?) on the street.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when Bobby tried out his bike. Fear, because Robbie said we should have him try in the backyard which you'll observe has a whole wall of hea- splitting retaining wall rocks. Bobby leaned a lot on his feet and cautiously started circling, crashing a few times into our house (no broken windows, thank goodness), into Shane who thought it was a race that he was miraculously winning for once, and into a bush.

Other than that, the transition was really anticlimactic. He had the riding down in less than ten minutes and my video taping resulted in some boring laps around the grass. Maybe we waited too long to take the training wheels off?

Most likely, I didn't want to see him grow out of them. It's already been a huge year with kindergarten starting and I don't know how much of my boys growing out of certain phases I can take.

Oh, The Horrors

Quite the night of frights in our household last night....

Let me explain. Other than the normal Manic Mondays, I had my niece and nephew over after school until after dinner time. Their oh so lucky parents flew home from New Orleans last night...how I wish we could have traded places.

As the kids played in the back, finished homework and watched the Disney channel, I busied myself in throwing together a kid friendly dinner (Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie anyone?) I shoved the casserole in the oven and started on chopping veggies for a quick salad.

Oh, I cringe even at the memory of this. Hold on while I pull it together here...

Okay. As I chopped away, a little friend darted across the top of my countertop and along the backsplash of the oven. Yes, a member of the mouse family that we've been waging war against the past couple weeks decided to come out and check out the dinner action. So, during this endless battle against the rodents from hell, I've realized that my fear of mice is borderline psychological phobia. What once my family, especially my husband, found endearing. Oh how funny, Kelly almost twisted her ankle when the mouse landed on her foot while taking out the garbage. Oh, chuckle chuckle, Kelly locked herself in the bathroom when the cat caught a mouse and batted it around the hallway while the kids slept unaware.... Now, it's just an annoyance. Now, it's more like, Kelly do something.

Well, my friends, I certainly cannot because the terror of these micro-monsters is really too much to take. Luckily, the very sharp knife I used to chop carrots was not in my hand at the time of my mouse trauma. I shrieked and ran down the hall. The kids came running in. I choked back the tears and took some deep yoga breaths.

And I did have my niece and nephew here to save the evening. (7th grader and sophomore). Clearly, I was worthless to this mouse escapade. But the poor baby mouse was trapped on the counter terrified and hiding behind my fruit bowl and cannister set. (Oh yuck--you better believe the disinfecting that went down later).

The kids (including my very thrilled sons who thought the baby mouse was so adorable and worthy of Pollard pet status) rigged up a box with a slice of cheese. Guiding the thing with a broom handle and trapping it with various kitchen gadgets, they somehow trapped him.

But what next? They wouldn't kill it; I wouldn't go near it. They definitely weren't keeping it no matter how freakin adorable it was to them. So, they released it on the fenceline. Yah, not the greatest solution. I'm sure he'll find his way back to his little mouse clan causing a ruckus in my attic.

And when my darling husband wandered in from work a bit later, his response: I guess we should put out some mouse traps.

Yah think?????

And my bad karma (maybe) for forcing the kids to let the mouse out near the neighbors house....

Shane broke the window in my office less than an our later with one firm swing of his plastic pumpkin.

For the record:

-this is the second major mouse incident this month, not counting the nightly rustling that tortures me while trying to read a book
-this is the second window Shane has broken this year--and lucky (?) us, at least it was the same window.

Rethinking Groceries

Okay, the economy is kinda freaking me out. Add to that, my own writing income has gone way down as I've waded through the new world of grade school and the boys' very opposite school schedules these past weeks. The holidays lurk on the horizon, Halloween being the one I'm most concerned about and the extra money just isn't there this year.

So what do I do?

I sat down and listed all our expenses for a week. I knew this intrinsically, but gee, I drop a lot of dinero for groceries. And when my sis-in-law told me how she is boycotting our normal grocery store in favor of one across town due to way cheaper prices, my ears perked up. (Can ears perk?) I know I can do better and save, diligently clipping coupons and logging on to the various web sites that coordinate weekly coupons with sales...because, you know, I have a ton of free time and my boys just love getting dragged all around town to chase down a discount.

Ha.

On a whim, I dropped into a so-called discount grocery store in town that I usually avoid. This is usually robbed at gunpoint a couple times a year, so no, you won't find me there at night time. But curiosity and the need to live a more frugal life lured me to that side of town with Shane in tow.

First lesson: do not bring the boys.
This should go for all types of grocery trips, but especially this store, where the stock rotates and you must retrace steps and navigate the skinny aisles with eyes peeled for the brands you trust.

And why is it so discounted anyway? Sure, a simple internet search may have the answers, and I could spend even more time on that, but why? Another reason to fly solo was my eagle eye decoding of expiration dates...all good. Shane wasn't so patient by the time we reached aisle three.

All that matters to me (besides the logic of armed robbers holding up a discount grocer of all places), when we walked in, I saw our favorite brand of bread on display for 99 cents. Score!

My razor refills that I've been out of for longer than I'll ever admit, under $2.

Each aisle revealed a new discovery. A bag of softening avocados perfect for a dip; the boys yogurt drink, again, 99 cents. The milk and eggs weren't significantly cheaper, but the canned goods, box dinners and random cereal boxes certainly were.

I left with a full cart under 40 bucks, opposed to over 100 dollars at my 'other' store.

A New Favorite Blog

I stumbled on this one through the YPulse newsletter that pops up in my inbox and distracts me from my writing (and cleaning) five days a week.

What Claudia Wore is really a genius blog topic. The writer plucks out some pretty hideous and hilarious outfits from the Ann Martin series The Babysitters Club. I think I owned over fifty of these books at one point. Kristy annoyed me, I related most to the quiet Mary Ann, Dawn was probably my favorite though it was cooler to like the 'hip' Claudia and boy crazy Stacey. Why did I get rid of these books? Please tell me I didn't dress the same way as these poor characters that I so idolized!

Why I Didn't Write

The ants overtaking the kitchen pantry and waging ant wars inside the dishwasher...

The new routine on the road between schools...

CWC newsletter deadline looming...

Parenting article deadline come and gone...but I made it

The new Wii headache, that is to say, my sorry search for a Wii Fit for my sister's birthday. This game is proving more difficult to find than the Wii game console was last year at Christmas, but this, my friends, is material for another post.

Picking up books to read rather than working on my own (currently on my nightstand: The Historian and The Poet's Companion--both I highly recommend)

Fear of failure, more rejection...general creative doubt.

And remains of Shane's double ear infection that makes him sense the moment I sit at my computer to write and start shrieking for Mama cuddles.

So these are my excuses. I spent more time writing my excuses here than any creative writing time all week. This is troubling.