You know you’re well on your way to the nuthouse when you’re mixing chocolate pudding while woefully singing “It’s My Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To” at the top of your lungs in an operatic voice.

Another sign is that your husband is not fazed by this – he just joins in on the chorus.

We came back into Lincoln and Lloyd and the boys had Bad Movie Night, but they were going to a movie that I wanted to see (Sherlock Holmes 2), so I snuck in the theater and watched it. I would giggle with glee except I’m actually sniffling with a cold. Yeah, watching a two-hour movie is no fun when you’re blowing your nose with napkins from the concession stand (during the explosions, of course, so I wouldn’t detract from the movie).

Anyway, I came back home on my own and found the octopus that Brad drew in my sketch pad, and he painted it!!! Woo-hooo!! I was super-impressed, as he did such a realistic job and it look so nice:

Then…. I turned the pages. Before I show you what I found, let’s recall what my watercolors are like:

Remember? Kinda ‘stuck in first grade’ mode?

Now here’s Brad’s:

What the what??? What??? I can’t decide if I want to frame it or choke him with it. I know, I know, I know – “Different people have different talents and we can’t all be great at everything; both are good in their own ways; blah, blah, blah.” That’s all well and good, but if we entered these in the county fair, one of us would win first prize, and one of us would get a ‘participant’ ribbon.

Sorry about your ‘participant’ ribbon, Brad.

If I recall correctly, I don’t think I invented this cow. I think it was the brain child of Nanette Esplin, easily the most fun person in high school. I think the cow might have been created during driver’s ed instruction? Whenever it was, it was my ticket to consistent cartooning. Come heck or high water, I could draw that cow at the drop of a hat. I drew that cow in notebooks, yearbooks, window condensation, with my thumbnail on styrofoam cups – that cow was my friend.

And then twenty years went by and I forgot all about it. Until Jill said something.

Here’s the tutorial: Draw a peanut head.

Add eyes, nose and a freakishly large smile.

Ears and a body with an extreme swayback. This cow has some posture issues. It is also missing a back leg because I am out of cow mojo.

The stripe,the udder and the tail and we’re done!

That’s it. That’s the cow. When it came time to try painting with the watercolors, I discovered that I had no idea what color it should be. I googled ‘cows’ and figured that that this is probably a …. dang it, let me check google again – a Holstein. Hereford? I forget.

One last thing: should you decide to draw this cow, it is vitally important that it looks nothing like mine at the end. Art should be different, otherwise it’s a craft, and I am down on crafts.

I haven’t been prepared for anything this week, and as soon as I bumble my way through one thing, there is a whole list of other things that I have to get to. When I look back on what I’ve accomplished, it doesn’t seem like it was all that much, yet I was always busy doing something. I’m currently just focused on getting through the day, with as little wasted motion as possible. *sigh* I hate wasted motion.

Whatever. This too shall pass, right?

I don’t think he expected me to join in and jump around the kitchen singing all the rest of the verses, stomping and flinging muffin batter around.

Three little devils all dressed in red, tried to get to heaven on the end of the thread… (proceed through devils), then

Three little monsters all dressed in green, tried to get to heaven on the end of a string…. (Proceed through monsters)

I have searched YouTube for a link to the song, but none do it justice. I prefer my camp tunes just as I prefer my hymns – way too fast with a driving beat.

Yesterday Eli showed me this cool boy ‘diary’ he got from Scholastic – it had a lock and key, he could write in it with a secret pen that can only be read with the secret blacklight. It was awesome – I wanted one, but I’m not a first grade boy.

One of the sections had a place to write personal records: stuff like how many push-ups and sit-ups you can do. He decided to do the sit ups. I counted.

Um, he did 71!!! Seh-ven-tee-won. My stomach was hurting for him at 30, then I was afraid he’d puke at 50, and at 70 I thought about making him my personal trainer. I’ve never seen such gumption. I was sure to tell his parents what he had done in case he woke in the night screaming with pain and they though it was appendicitis.

So, today I was with them again and told all the kids about his feat of strength, and they all wanted to try. Eli outdid them again, though. As he approached one-hundred-thirty five, I said, “Can you do seven more?”

He did. Twice as many as the day before. Good freakin’ grief.

Anyway, the point of this was that I was so inspired, I even tried some push-ups. I did six before another staff checked in and I stopped out of embarrassment. Yeah, that’s it. Not because of my weenie arms. Then when the kids started doing things like backbends, I was inspired to try one, and nearly snapped off my wrist.

Lesson learned. Exercise is for the young.

The very, very young.

Lauren: It’s Wednesday.

Lloyd: ……. Oh.

The first was putting our fingers up by our foreheads and saying, “Ta-tonka” – the iconic moment when the language barrier is broken down between Kevin Bacon and the guy from the ninja movies (don’t bother fact-checking any of this, I am a movie expert). We just thought it was hilarious to say.

The second is when Stands With a Fist (played by Mindy from Mork & Mindy) communicates her name. Now that is an awesome culture – one where you are named for something you have done or some quality about you. We really need to steer toward that again.

Case in point – Lloyd was helping me unload the dishwasher and mocking how the dishes were arranged:

Lloyd: Arrgh… a plate in the bowls!

Lauren: That should be my Native American name – ‘Loads Dishwasher Badly’.

Lloyd: Perfect.

Lauren: You would be called ‘Hair That Defies Gravity and Logic’.

So, what would your name be? What would you name someone else? I think my name might change daily, which would be a pain for my driver’s license.

Sincerely,
‘Has Trouble Spelling License Correctly’ ]]> http://laurenandlloyd.com/2011/10/13/12942/feed/ 15 http://laurenandlloyd.com/2011/09/23/trip-aborted/ http://laurenandlloyd.com/2011/09/23/trip-aborted/#comments Sat, 24 Sep 2011 05:55:09 +0000 Lauren http://lloydandlauren.com/?p=12769 Dang it. I didn’t push ‘schedule’ for this post last night.

Happy Birthday to my Mom! (And a big ‘Hello’ to my brother, Phil, and sister-in-law, Rachel who are out in Colorado visiting my parents for this special weekend!)

When I found out Phil & Rachel were going to be there, I had a hair-brained idea that I could drive out there, show up Saturday afternoon with a cake and a ‘Surprise!’, have dinner, then turn around and come back home. That plan was kinda nixed with pneumonia boy here, so… I’m sorry. (As it turns out, this has been one of the busiest weeks I’ve had in a while, so Lloyd has kind of been fending for himself anyway.)

My mom loves flowers. How ’bout everyone tell us your favorite flower and this can be a ‘bouquet’ for her, since I was too scattered to send a card. *cough* bad daughter *cough*

I’ll start: Daisies

Lloyd: The flower of the Flowering Dogwood Tree, state tree of the great state Missouri. (huh. If he’s well enough to come up with that quote, maybe he’s well enough to travel….)

Lloyd: “Are you sure it’s ironic? Because people misuse that word all the time.”

Lauren (deflatedly): “….. it’s not ironic.”

I remember wanting to get better at it in college. Brad was really good at conversations – he could actually talk to people for long periods of time. He said it was all about the questions – ask people questions. I tried, but I could only come up with one question and no follow up, then it was awkward silence.

Now, I just want the silence, preferably without the people. It sounds awful, but I’m so scatterbrained that sometimes it’s very difficult to hang in there with the current conversations I do have.

‘Teacher’ situations are different – I know how to be ‘on’ and animated and such, but the in-depth part is not really there. Inside, I’m longing for my quiet house.

Phone conversations are troublesome, too, mostly because of the ending. I never know how or when to make it end. Do I stop when I’m tired of talking or keep talking and worry that I’m wearing out the other person’s attention? With Lloyd and Brad I usually just say, “I’m done talking”, and my parents are pretty good about saying, “That’s all from this end”, and I’ve learned that it’s rude to say, “I really have to pee now”, even if it’s true.

There’s probably a self-help group for this, but it probably involves conversation.

Lloyd: “See that? ‘El Ranchero’? That’s Spanish for ‘the Ranchero’.”

Lauren: “Thanks for being so bilingual.”

First, we went to his school and I chose a nice shady spot to park. When we left a half-hour later, the car had rolled out into the sun since I forgot to put it in gear. Oops. Luckily there were no other cars in the lot.

Later, we were leaving the Best Buy parking lot and while I was in the middle of telling a gripping story Lloyd made some weird yell. I maintain that he was saying “Ahhhh!” but he says he was yelling, “Honk!”. I did see some sort of movement out of my right eye. I honked and pulled forward – dragging our car across the bumper of the van that had just hit us. (I didn’t hear anything, what with my gripping story and all.) We got out to look at the damage, which was hardly worth interrupting my story. Lloyd and the other guy just looked at each other and shared that each of their cars were over 10 years old, shook hands, and we all drove away.

I forgot what my story was about. Dang. It was pretty gripping.

I would pass them around at school, but tell people not to write on them, because then no one else could try them. But someone always did. In desperation, I covered one with strips of tape. Lots and lots of strips of tape. I showed it to my sister and she said that dad had some wide tape in the basement.

I didn’t know that wide tape even existed. It seemed miraculous. I could cover a whole maze in 4 pieces of tape. I mounted them on pieces of cardboard and people would do them with grease pens and I could just wipe them off when they were done. Looking back on it, I should have found a page protector, but I don’t think I knew that those existed until 5th or 6th grade.

Anyway, a few months ago I thought about those mazes and decided to make a new one. I worked on it off and on for a day or two then it went into a pile of papers. I found it yesterday and finished it. If you click on the image it should take you to a pdf file. If you print the pdf file, please cover it in tape (skinny or wide, it doesn’t matter) and mount it on a piece of cardboard before you solve it. You know, for old time sake.

Start at “help” and end at “me”.

Have you ever done a Plank?

Have you ever done more than one Plank in a row?

Of course you haven’t, because you’re reading this. I know from experience that if you try to do more than one, you will die.

Warning: This exercise is not for those with bad backs (I’m looking at you, Brad) or those with severe weeney-itis (I’m looking at you, Lauren).

3-5 reps? That’s impossible! Who is this trainer? Satan?

Full disclosure: I have always been a weeney. In junior high p.e. class we were given the first ten minutes to run the track. If you ran 4 laps you got an A, 3 = B, 2 =C, etc. My friends and I knew we could walk nearly three laps in nine minutes then hustle for the last minute and almost make it, then beg for the B.

It’s not like that cart has disappeared just because you’re no longer looking at it. Yes, someone will move it – the person behind you. Me.

It’s a bit like littering. I don’t say anything out loud yet, but I can feel my internal muttering getting louder.

He is an ENORMOUS Star Wars fan. He lives and breathes it. Though I don’t allow fighting, or even play fighting, in my room, we enjoy talking about the show (“Real Life”) – minus the battles.

He has brought Star Wars books and has spent weeks just sitting and pouring over the books all day long. It’s great that he loves them and loves reading – but it’s my job to get him to branch out. The compromise was: He could look at the books all he wanted before breakfast and after naptime, but during the morning he needed to choose from what I have planned.

Earlier this week – I angered him.

I angered him mightily.

He had brought a new book. Not one with just Lego Star Wars people – this book had stories. Breakfast ended, and he headed for the book. I asked him to wait until after nap.

He did not want to, and he said so. Many times. In many ways.

Crazed Star Wars Boy: “I really want it now!”

Me: “I know you do, and you can look at it – after nap. Why don’t you come paint? You could paint Yoda.”

Crazed Star Wars Boy: “No. I’m just gonna sit here.”

Me: “Ok. You could play the Star Wars song on the keyboard.” (I taught him that.)

Crazed Star Wars Boy: “No. You’re the meanest teacher ever.” He didn’t really say that last part, but I heard it anyway.

He sat in various places around the room, fixing his angry, yet wobegone eyes on me. I encouraged him to do other things – build a Millinium Falcon out of Legos, draw Darth Vader in his journal (I taught him that), write a Star Wars story – but he would have none of it. Only pouting for him.

After a good long time, I looked up at him. He was across the room, standing by the wall, trying to choke me with the Force.

My only regret is that I didn’t clasp futilely at my throat. It would have made his year.

Today we had a pretty severe storm in the afternoon, and another storm was forecast for tonight that could involve hail. I thought about the robin and her eggs getting smashed up, so I started designing nest-covering prototypes in my head. Not a beach umbrella – that would just blow away. A ladder? Anchored down with some sort of board/roof attached? Hmmm…. workable…..

I am aware that I am crazy.

When I got home I looked out the window and saw that maybe I could zip-tie the branches around the nest to make a sort-of-roof, then I went out to investigate in person.

That robin hates me.

I peeked in the nest and there was some kinda giant worm inside! Gah!

Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!

Run inside!

Lean out the window!

Take some photos!

Well, this certainly threw a wrench in the works. Now it wasn’t just a mama and eggs, it was a mama and babies. I didn’t have time to think about it too much, because I had a meeting to attend. Afterward, I thought about calling Lloyd (who was at a state soccer game) for advice, but decided that Brad was the better option.

Lauren: “I need you to talk me down off some crazy.”

Brad: “Again?”

I told him that I needed him to tell me that not interfering would be better than interfering, and that he should throw in some ‘God takes care of the birds’ stuff, too. He did so admirably, and even went so far as to share a story about a robin at his school who built a waist-high nest in a bush right by where eighth-grade boys walk. When he told the science teacher about it, she sighed and said, “Yeah, robins are kinda stupid.”

That was very helpful. So – I pray that these robins make it through the stormy night, and if they don’t, then maybe that stupid mama robin will pick a better spot for her nest next time.

All the same, if it hails tonight – it’s going to be hard for me to sleep.

Update: Life imitates art. We had hail at 8 this evening and I went crazy. As I stood there I thought, “I’ve killed the mother by making her fly out into rocks.”

She’s alright, by the way. I am cold.

One of my favorite personality traits, which is also one of my worst, is that I only think of things when I’m in relevant surroundings. I think about work stuff at work, and when I’m at home it’s as if my brain doesn’t recognize that I even have a job. “There’s no world outside these walls, silly Lauren, just eat some more cookies.” Good ol’ compartmentalized brain.

It usually doesn’t interfere too much, but there are weeks when everyday at work I’ll think, “I really should buy such-and-such in Lincoln on Saturday so I can get that project done.” When the weekend arrives and I drive in without a list, I have no idea what could have been so urgent.

It’s also not so great when I’m in a situation like this morning when I arrived at work and realized that I had left all relevant Mother’s-Day-project-related-stuff sitting on the dining room table. It was a furious drive home, and I had to pep myself up so I wouldn’t fall under the house’s spell when I darted in to get my bag.

Let me also tell you that I have progressed so much in my acceptance that I can even concede that jumping spiders are cute. Go ahead, see for yourself.

Ok, but they’re not cute when a) I am told there is one near but don’t know exactly where it is and b) I am misled regarding its size.

A couple of days ago I came home and Lloyd told me about a spider.

Lloyd: “There’s a really cute jumping spider somewhere by your computer.”

Me: “Where?”

Lloyd: “I don’t know. He was there a couple of minutes ago. I named him Elmo.”

I looked carefully but couldn’t find him. I was kind of wigged out the rest of the evening, but I survived.

Tonight, Lloyd was cleaning the counter and said, “Hey! It’s Elmo!”

I saw a tiny speck on the counter by his towel and grabbed my camera, setting it to macro to photograph this adorable little spider that I could barely see.

I got closer and Lloyd turned over the towel and showed me a freaking tarantula!!!

Ok, maybe it wasn’t that big, but it was at least a hundred times bigger than the speck of cookie crumb that deceived me.

*jibblie jibblie*

I made Lloyd take Elmo outside to be a good citizen. Hope that robin doesn’t get him.