Yes or no??

Any good parenting book would advise you to ask your children open-ended questions. Supposedly, this encourages communication between family members. For example, rather than asking your child "How was school today?" one would ask "What was the most interesting thing you saw at school today?" Instead of getting an answer of "good" or "fine," you would theoretically get an answer that actually gives you a glimpse of what is going on in your kids life.

Any good parent would follow this advice. Not me.

Those kids of mine talk too much. Seriously! I wish they could give me one word answers.

Yesterday, I was flying around the house, trying to get everyone ready to leave for the day. "Maddie!!!" I yell as I'm shooting past her room. "Did you brush your teeth?"

I slow down just enough to hear her answer before I fly upstairs to rescue Beano from CoCo's latest dress-up date.

"Well........something something. Or something something. And, by the way, something something."

WHAT?!! Good grief Charlie Brown!! It was a yes or no question!!!

"Maddie!!! Yes or no?!!" At this point, I'm using the screechy voice that everyone loves. You know the voice - where people start to wonder exactly when mom is going to completely unravel.

"Something, something. Something something!!"

"MADDIE!!!!! It's a yes or no question!!! I just want a yes or no answer!!!! Yes? Or no?" By now it's too late to rescue the cat, and I am wondering what color CoCo will be painting his toenails.

"Not yet!!!" she yells.

Ugh! Seriously? I find myself doing this at least 10 times every day. Once or twice, and I could probably manage my insanity. But, it happens constantly. Every day.

"Owen! Did you let the dog out?"

"Ginger! Did you put your nail polish up where CoCo can't get it?"

"CoCo!! Did you remove all the bows from Beano's tail?"

These are yes or no questions!!! I would love to stop and have a conversation with my children. I really would. There's just no time for that.

And, if I'm being honest, I think that I have yelled "Stop talking!!!" one too many times. Any day now, DSS is going to be knocking at the door.


Will I win Mother of the Year this year??

No.

Will my kids require therapy as adults?

Yes.

Am I going to miss all of this chatter once the teenage years begin?

Yes.


See? Wasn't that simple?



Student of the Month

Ginger was recognized this month by her karate school as Student of the Month! This means that she "maintained exemplary attendance and has demonstrated an outstanding attitude toward fellow students and instructors." We were all very proud of her!


This means that she got to turn in her gold belt (with the green tip) for a red, white and blue belt. She wears this belt to class for the rest of the month. She also got to sit with the black belts during the monthly belt ceremony (she looked very cute up there!!).


Yay Ginger!!



Maddie - Then and Now

Maddie then......





And Maddie now.....




Girls Only Trip Day 3, Continued

While at Idlewild, we HAD to go to Mr. Roger's Neighborhood! Before the trolley came, I taught the girls everything that they would need to know for us to have a successful trip. They needed to practice "Come along, come along, to the castle hug-n-song!" This was very important, but for some reason, the girls didn't want to practice.

I took this picture of mine and Maddie's matching shoes. I was tickled that she is still okay about wearing the same shoes as me. I was not so tickled that I had to buy her an entire size bigger.



Anyway, the girls did not practice their speech, but everything turned out okay.




After Mr. Rogers, we were off to Storybook Forest. Goodness, how I loved this place when I was a kid!! I remember it being completely magical.



It really felt like walking in to a storybook.






I remember seeing a commercial for this sword in the stone when I was a kid. I really thought that I would be the one who could pull it from the stone! I imagined that all sorts of things would happen to me once I released it from it's prison.



I have to admit, even as a child I was a little disappointed by the bolts that visibly hold the sword in place.




We had a few scary moments in Storyland, but we managed to make it out alive.