A Persuasive Letter

"Dear Mom and Dad

I would love a better life because I deserve it. If you give me a better life I will do what you say. We need to take care of some friends. We need to get rid of those friends. If we do that I will get a lot of thinking space. Keep an eye on George. Pleas look for George brining his DSI to bead. If we do that I will be ready and energized in the morning. Allowance should be higher. Could it be at least $10 for chores and babysitting? If we do that you wont have to spend a lot of money on toys for me. Cell phone calling Link's name. Could I pleas have an AT&T back flip? If I get one you can hear more problems more faster. I need some alone time. I would love one hour to my self. If we do that you will not have to deal with a lot of fights. I need a new room to sleep in. Could I sleep in the guest room? I have better sleep in the guest room than my room. Anyone who has a better life I want to join them to.

Sincerely,
Link"

Ooooooooookay............Want the Momdisclaimerexplanation? No really. You do want it. Trust me.
I guess this was an exercise they did for class. They were supposed to write a Persuasion Letter. Wow. He just laid it all out there didn't he?

• I guess the first thing he needs is a better life - and then he'll do what I say?? If I had only known it was that easy.
  
• I do NOT understand the friend thing. I asked him about it and his response made no sense. Just disregard.
  
• The most helpful tip in the entire letter was that George is sneaking his DSI to bed. This is news to me. I'm gonna put the cabosh on that immediately.
  
• Allowance should be higher? Very interesting. Especially since as parents, we are pitiful enough to not even have an established allowance. He should have said that allowance should exist. And why he's telling me that I won't have to spend a lot of money on toys is interesting too. I already don't. So, what's the need for changing now?
• I read the "Cell phone calling Link's name." to him and asked him what that meant. He said that somewhere there is a back flip phone in an AT&T store calling his name. Ahhhh. Ok. He also claims it would be way easier for him to just text me on a Saturday morning than to walk up the stairs to knock on my bedroom door. How can you argue with that air-tight logic?
  
• "I need some alone time." Hello?? I need some alone time. And what are these fights he speaks of? There's some normal sibling bickering that goes on, but there certainly aren't a lot of fights.
• A new room, eh? A new room??? This is what I told him. We started in the room with George and he said he couldn't sleep so we moved him to the guest room and before long he couldn't sleep in there either. So we moved him back to the room with George, but before long, he couldn't sleep again, so we moved him back into the guest room and ... you guesssed it ... before long he couldn't sleep in there again. SO we moved him back to the room with George and now he's asking AGAIN to be moved? Sorry bubba. We just redecorated, painted, new bed, new bedding,. All new. No boys. NO boys will be sleeping in there and boogering up a new room. Tooooooo bad.
  

Tell me, y'all. What are your thoughts?

Mother's Day 2010

Yesterday morning around 3 am, Sassy crawled into bed with me. At first I just moved over, too tired to care very much.
(But my bed and my sleeping time are very, very precious and I do not allow my children to just mozy in and out of my bedroom in the middle of the night. If Sassy shows up after 5:30 or so, I let her stay because she will go back to sleep. If I try to put her back to bed that early in the morning, she won't go back to sleep and be a tired disaster the rest of the day. But yesterday she showed up at 3:00 and that just will not do.)
I laid there wishing Honey would remove her from the bed for me, but he was breathing slow and steady and had no idea she was even there. Then I remembered it was Mother's Day and felt a little pang of dread. "Here we go." I thought. The one day I wish I could just not have to worry about it. So I crawled out of bed and carried Sassy back to her room. I managed to get back to sleep and before I knew it, Honey was kissing me good morning. He wished me a Happy Mother's Day and told me to stay in bed. No problem! A little bit later, he came into the room with homemade waffles, orange juice, bacon and sausage. I ate my breakfast in bed alone, and started watching Notting Hill on the iPad. It was lovely.

Finally, Honey told me that the kids were dying for me to come downstairs. The kids all had their homemade cards waiting. Sassy's was the handprints with the cute little poem that always makes me cry.

"Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And always leave my fingerprints
On furniture and walls.
But everyday I'm growing up
And soon I'll be so tall
That all those little handprints
Will be so hard to recall.
So here's a special handprint
Just so that you can say
This is how my fingers looked
When I placed them here today."

::Collective 'Awwwwwwwww.'::
I gave Sassy a hug and told her that the first time I saw her, she looked at me and stuck her little bottom lip out and started to cry - and I could immediately see her sweet little dimples.

George gave me a big card that says:

"HAPPY
MOTH-
er's daY!"
from: COlin
to: mom

My Mom is Special because:
S-weet
P-erfect Personality
E-nergetic
C-ool
I-n a sweet home
A- fine temper
L-inked to me
I do not NOT know why he said perfect personality or energetic. I can only guess that he saw someone else write those words and copied.
I half-laughed when I read 'A fine temper.' But 'Linked to me' made me melt a little. SO cute.
Inside there were paper flowers with things listed that he'll do for me.

I'll go to your favorite resturaunt with the family
I'll do the dishes
I'll make the house peace and quiet (except he wrote the peace sign instead of the word)
I'll seprate the dishes.
I hugged George and told him that when he was a baby I couldn't stop kissing his little lips because they were so pudgy and soft.

Link drew me a picture of some flowers and wrote me a poem.

Mom is awsome for my life.
Mom makes my day marvoles.
Mom made my life posebile.
Mom makes me better at reading.
Mom makes me shine on Mothers Day.
Happy mothers DAY!
My favorite was that when I hugged Link, he really hugged me back tight and didn't try to get away. I told him when he was teeny, he had a patch of dark brown hair on top of his head that stuck straight up and that I LOVED it!

Honey gave me two dozen roses and a pretty card. We got ourselves ready for church and I went running in like a crazy person because I was sub-ing on the organ and got there a little later than I should have. Only had to play 2 1/2 hymns for prelude though. The primary kids sang two little Mother's Day songs, which is always adorable. Especially because my kids were all trying to make eye contact with me and grinning. In Relief Society we got cheesecake. Yum! After church, I had a big diet coke with lime and some popcorn. I laid down to read, but fell asleep and woke up to Brian grilling filets and a plate of fresh watermelon.

Honey told me he felt bad that he didn't get me more for Mother's Day this year, but the man just took me on a fab vacation and got me some very nice things on our trip - so I wasn't disappointed or even concerned about that. My kids were sweet. This was the first year I remember them really 'feeling' Mother's Day, instead of just going through motions because someone told them they should. I think that made all the difference in the world for Mother's Day this year. Mother's Day doesn't have to be perfect. Just the fact that everyone made the effort was so great. I love my kids and I love my husband for making me a mom. He says I had something to do with that too. I agreed. (duh)

Had a 'Moment' with Sassy (She's 4)

The Setting: Sassy's just gotten out of the tub, I'm drying her off and combing out her hair.

The Conversation:

Sassy: "You know what I want to be for our family?"
Me: "What?"
Sassy: "A sister!"
Me: "You are a sister already."
Sassy: "No! A BIG sister. Like Sophie has? Like Sophie has a big sister."
Me: (grinning and shaking my head. [in the other room, Honey says "Uh oh!"]) "Did you hear that?"
Honey: "Yes" (voice is low and apprehensive)
Sassy: "So I'm gonna grow that. Okay?"
Me: "And how are you going to do that?"
Sassy: "I'm going to sleep everyday. I'm gonna eat food everyday and sleep and that will make her appear."
Me: (grabbing a pencil) "Wait...how are you going to do that?"
Sassy: "I'm going to sleep everyday and eat food everyday and let my tummy get big and that will grow a sister." pause "Cause I want one." pause "In the future."
Me: (laughing a little and writing furiously so I can recap on my blog for you.) "So. Let me tell you something about that."
Sassy: "What?"
Me: "You can't grow a baby in your tummy until your big like mommy and you have a husband."
Sassy: "When I'm big like you? But you'll have to live in a different family."
Me: "Yes. I'll live in a different house. But you can't have a baby in your tummy unless you have a husband who can be the daddy."
Sassy: (shrugs, hands down at her sides and turned outwards, head tilted sideways and with a little eye roll...)

"If I find a husband."

Isn't this the cutiest cute thing you've ever heard in your whole life??

Cottonelle Use #3

When your Polly Pocket is grubby,


When your Snow White is tired,


And your Lemon Meringue is sleepy,


And because Strawberry Shortcake can't do anything without Lemon Meringue.


Ariel isn't used to being on legs for so long,


and Cinderella needs a nap.

And this poor Polly is stuck doing what everyone else has to do.

Cottonelle Wipes. Not just for bums. Not just for for the bathroom.

Weak in the Knees

There are things that can take my breath away. Let's start with the non-edible, shall we? I got a catalog in the mail the other day and here are just a few of the things that left me breathless. First because of their beauty, second because of their cost. It has convinced me that I must learn to sew clothing. Oh, and so they receive their proper credit, the catalog is Chasing Fireflies.










I know. It's just sick. SICK, I tell you! Completely impractical. Entirely ridiculous to spend $168 on a pair of ruffled pink culottes. Worse, $288 on that white Meringue dress. Can't we just try them on and twirl in them for a few minutes, take a picture and then walk away? I would be fine with that. Truly, I would. Then, I'm going to learn how to sew and I'm going to make something romantic and twirly and fabulously impractical for my Sassy. Yes I am. And I'll post some photos when I'm done. Only time will tell whether those photos are for bragging purposes or in order to laugh at myself for a freshly sewn disaster.