The Daddy has been hitting the French section at the Fancy Schmancy Library in the Big City to try and edumacate the kids …And his latest find really brought it home to me that culturally, I am not French at all.

Like, in the least. Because… well …

To be honest, I am not sure what bothers me about this story. I mean, in our family we love the book my kids like to call Poopoo sausage, and that other one about the mole with a turd on his head. This one is also supposedly a genuine folk story which has been handed down the generations, until some very - um - disturbed person saw fit to publish it.

As a childrens story.

Yes, I am very possibly a prude.

But I will let you be the judge. I put it to the popular vote. Am I the only one who finds it extremely difficult to reconcile herself to a childrens book about a deformed rooster who puts things up his bottom?

In case you need it, a little more information to help you in your decision:

(Spoiler alert! I am about to tell the whole story! Stop here if you would rather buy the book. You know, as a Christening present or something. )

This is Moitie de Coq. I am sure that there are more elegant ways to translate his name but to avoid fits of the giggles, I am going to call him Half a Rooster. He is called Half a Rooster because he is exactly that: he has one leg, one wing, one eye and half a beak.

And here is what happens to Moitie de Coq: his mother, who has improbably lent a sack of grain to the King at some point in the distant past (one wonders in return for what kind of favors, ahem) sends her half a son off to the Big Smoke to get it back. On the way through the forest he meets a fox, who will only allow Moitie de Coq to pass if he hides him and takes him along too. Moitie de Coq has to think very hard about where to hide him. Finally he realizes that there is only one place possible.

You know what happens next. Yes, he meets a wolf, who also wants to tag along. He gives strict instructions to the wolf not to eat the fox and hop!

(I have omitted some of the more disturbing images from this story. For example, the ones where the wolf and the fox had to do a run-up before they jumped).

OK, this one is quite surprising. Moitie de Coq needs to cross the river next. Who would have thought that a river would also want to go on an adventure?

Some very strange French peasants in the distant past and their many ancestors who kept this wonderful story alive. That’s who.

But apparently there is still enough room in there for more! Luckily for this giant!

So, Moitie de Coq arrives at the palace and instead of giving Moitie de Coq his sack of grain the King cons him into spending the night in the Royal Henhouse. Along with 50 ferocious hens who promptly attack him. Soon to be ex-hens thanks to Hidden Weapon Number One! Carting that fox along had to be useful for something!

(I mean, what is a children’s book without slaughter?)

You guessed it, next he gets put in the sheep pen and almost gets squashed, until Wolf emerges to help.

(I got a little bored with the pictures by this point).

River comes in useful when the King traps him in an oven, following which the King gives up his sack of grain and Moitie de Coq starts home, no doubt rather lighter, although still not quite himself…

until the King chases him in anger and Giant emerges to finish him off.

Ooof. No doubt a relief for Moitie de Coq.

I was going to say: Martin! Censor this one before your children see it! But on second thoughts, why bother?  Thousands of French children are probably splitting their sides right now.

So, people, vote please! Disturbing or pas du tout?

The T-Bot started public school again yesterday. I planned to take a lovely photo of him with his backpack, on his way joyously out the door, but by the time we left for school I had been lying awake for 4 hours and was in no state to remember the formalities. As it happens, he appears to have had an acceptable day, and the whole experience has rendered him…well… animated. Which was the desired result, so let’s cross fingers and see what tomorrow brings.

We spent Sunday in a whirlwind of artsy! and craftsy! activities designed to take my mind off the fact that I found myself unable to eat. A thing. Although I was downing large quantities of coffee which probably didn’t help the situation much. Deep breaths. Count to three.

When I was little we used to blow eggs before decorating them. I have revived this custom with my own family. Except for Baby Sister, who declared the process “Yucky” and”Urgghh” and promptly vanished. And The Daddy, who asked anxiously about the insides of the eggs. Whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to save them (after we have spat in them? Noooooo). “Look!” I declared, “cheap eggs! $1.59!” He still didn’t look impressed but then he disappeared too. So we carried on.

For those unfamiliar with egg blowing, you make a pinprick hole in the top…

A larger hole in the bottom…

Then blow.The result - empty egg shells which you can then decorate and leave out of the fridge. You know, like actually on display. You don’t have to eat them! You don’t have to scour every market in the vicinity for white organic eggs in large expensive quantities, in order to avoid the derision of friends and neighbors (oh did I learn my lesson last year when I turned up to a communal egg-decorating fest with 24 of Wal-mart’s cheapest).

The T-Bot loved! loved! blowing eggs.Because “it’s just like vomit!”. Nice.

And then the children dyed them different colors.

Here is the Wictor posing with the eggs we dyed - or as he prefers to call them, the “dead eggs”.

As we were dipping the eggs in the colors I asked the kids what they knew about Easter. Because Baby Sister’s best friend’s Mom gave me a lecture a short while back, after Baby Sister dared to tell her that Christmas was about Santa Claus and presents, I thought Baby Sister at least should be prepared for when Easter comes around. Sure enough, she loudly proclaimed her joy at the Easter Bunny! Eggs! and Candy!

So. Um. Where to start?

“Kids, do you  know who Jesus was?”

“No”.

“Well, Baby Sister, did you see that painting at [best friends] place of a man with a beard?

At this point the T-Bot chips in.  “You mean Charles Darwin?”

My new years resolution: I will no longer let the king size duvet cover beat me.

But if the king size duvet cover should win, I will not let it make me cry.

If by chance I do cry, I will not let my children see.

Because I know, that if they grow up believing that they can insert a king size duvet into a king size duvet cover then they will totally be able to do it.

And then I can get them onto bed changing duty.

******************************

And now for something completely different:

Here are a few of the things my children have made recently. The kind of triumphs which give me hope and confidence and prevent the whole duvet cover thing from keeping me awake at night:

A Pile of Leaves.

And then a Mess of Leaves.

Yet Another Gingerbread House.

(apologies for the poor quality photo. It was dark that day)

A Ugaglaon Wood (Congratulations Award) - try it with a Texan drawl and it starts to make a little more sense.

But only a little bit.

An Alphabet Crown. Yet another Very Useful Product from T-Bot Industries.

Inspired by Hero of the Rails, this is Niro of the Rails. Constructed of cardboard and what looks like a whole roll of clear parcel tape. Sigh. This is how my children keep me poor.

Oh, and here are some of the projects I didn’t show you. Be thankful. Be very thankful:

Happily, Baby Sister and The Wictor started back at school yesterday, so I will no longer have to virtually live at the office supply store. Although being at school does not prevent Baby Sister from using paper, and I still have to find places to proudly display all she brings home. I presume her liberal and enthusiastic use of A3 sized sheets is the reason behind the local elementary’s renewed fundraising efforts. So, indirectly - I am still paying.

The Wictor is also no longer tracking bucket loads of dead leaves into the house, but only because the trees are bare. Not that we would want to be out there anyhow, given that we have arctic winds and the promise of 4 consecutive nights of frosts. My team of furnaces is having trouble keeping up, although they make a valiant effort. And suck all the moisture out of the air in the process. I wonder if a cicada feels like this just before he sheds his hard dry shell. I am jealous. I want a new skin.

But otherwise fine. You may get more sense out of me when my friend the Sun makes his return.

Happy New Year!

Yes, apparently time does fly, I blinked twice (or maybe twitched my nose, just a little) and it seems two weeks have passed…

We have been occupying ourselves with the usual things. Playdates, pool, a little TV, the occasional outing, ( plus a fair amount of “Mommy is working, why don’t you kids go and play” ) …

And then, one day there was this:

I bow my head in shame. I allowed all three of my children to watch Coraline.

(Although I blame The Daddy - he paid good money for it and I just wasn’t about to let it go to waste. Was I ?)

I wouldn’t recommend you try this at home. I think something is wrong with my kids. Instead of being traumatized (as I was) all they did was clamor to make dolls with button eyes. I was feeling soft, and also as if - on a scale of 1 to 10 of mothers who keep their kids home all 2.5 months of summer vacation and singlehandedly entertain them -  I probably, at that moment, deserved a 0.

So I gave up a (don’t laugh) whole day of my life (well, I have never made a doll before) in an effort to redeem myself. I truly believe that with this project I did just that. And also, I will be reminding them of it until I am 102.

So. Dolls. Of course, the kids weren’t the ones doing the making. I got out my old sewing machine, which I don’t think has had an outing in a couple of years or so, and got down to it. I gave them old pillowcases to draw on:

and then I just sewed vaguely around the shapes:

stuffed them:

and did my childrens’ bidding as they chose eyes, facial features and hair.

I have been surprised. They made these dolls in their own image (except - I hope - The Wictor) and unlike the hundreds of Barbies and action figures littering the place, they seem to be loving these to bits.

Me? I am still exhausted. Somebody send reinforcements!

Ahh yes, that would be Aunty Natty, who arrives Saturday. I think I will leave her to it, and sleep for two weeks

I tried to distract the kids from all the amazing and not-to-be-missed programs on Saturday morning TV by taking them to a garage sale around the corner. The T-Bot got a snorkel. The Wictor got a plastic killer whale. But Baby Sister hit the jackpot. For $3 she came away with a whole box of 1980s and 90s Barbie clothes and furniture. One original owner.

Baby Sister is always asking me to tell the True Story of how when I was little I only had one (1) Barbie, which wasn’t even a Barbie, it was a Daisy doll. But since there was only one Barbie model available and my sister also had to have one… Yes, I was that seriously deprived growing up, so it is no surprise that the moment Baby Sister’s back was turned, I couldn’t help myself:

First I spied a Baywatch outfit and I just had to see what it looked like on.

Oh. Nasty flashbacks to every single time I try on swimwear. Although she looks fairly resigned to having ELEPHANTINE THIGHS.

I am all for the campaign for real bodies for Barbie, but it does raise the problem of what do we do with all those tiny 1970s/80s clothes.

In the end I had to turn to circa 1981 Barbie and her spendiferous figure to model for me. She actually managed to pull it on pull it off.

Wow. Doesn’t she look natural?

And then I spent a blissful 15 minutes picking outfits for these girls. Many are Designer Clothing,  by Ken himself, who was obviously a Fashion Ace for a while before he went back to being a Beach Bum.  Mostly dresses because although some of the pantsuits were rad! and hip! they wouldn’t fit over any of the new Barbies knees.

Ken, you have a lot to answer for.

Now, smile for the camera ladies!

Don’t they look lovely?

The worst part is there is still half a box of clothes left.

And the lime green fluro mini skirts and acid-washed denim jackets are calling to me.

Life has been fairly rollicking along here, with “First!s” coming thick and fast. And yes, most all of them are fairly unimpressive but in our family we are backward and never do the things we are supposed to do in the order we are supposed to do them.

First!: It all kicked off with Baby Sister’s pre-k graduation, which was actually the first in our family. The T-Bot was never in a pre-K class. Because it was very hard to understand much of what he was saying when he was four, we had been advised to place him with children a year younger, who would be closer to his communication level. That totally made sense, and worked out very well. But it did mean no practise at field trips, behavior traffic light charts. … and no pre-K graduation. (It also meant he was subsequently thrown in at the deep end but then hindsight is 20/20).

First!: Not actually a first but the first for such a long time that I had to (ahem) buy a new dress. An actual real to goodness semi-formal party which did not call for the wearing of jeans! And not a costume party, either… I do love the casual style in these parts so I surprised myself with how relieved I was to get a chance to scrub up.

First!: Only a week later, and Baby Sister had her first sleepover. This was a momentous occasion for us, but she took it totally in her stride. Totally. While we were wandering around the quiet house wringing our hands and getting a taste of Empty Nest Syndrome (guess who makes all the noise around here?), she was experiencing something which by all accounts must come close to Disneyland. Her friend’s Mommy was nice and never yelled and also didn’t sit in front of the computer to work all the time! Baby Sister swam! Played with Princesses! Went to the park! Watched a cool movie we don’t have! Requested cereal and ice cream for dinner and they gave it to her! Swam again after dinner!

And was returned to us the next morning, beaming.

First!: That very night we were invited out with childless friends, so it was time for another “First!”. This time? We hired a babysitter who was not a friend or family member. A real babysitter, like in movies! (Although thankfully not like in “When a Stranger Calls“,  which I never saw because just the trailers gave me nightmares).

Actually that’s a lie. Baby Sister hired her. She came home from school one day saying that Miss Angela had agreed to be our babysitter. So it was kind of out of my hands.

Remembering the dismal babysitters of my youth, I had warned the kids that Miss Angela might be one of those people who just sat around making sure they didn’t chop their hands off with the kitchen knife and could reach the door handle if they happened to set the house on fire … but it turned out to be the Disneyland experience all over again. Miss Angela arrived at exactly the appointed time and within two minutes was painting Baby Sister’s nails while giving The Wictor a horsey ride and fixing the T-Bot’s Lego creation. All more or less at the same time. It seems she kept the pace up for four hours straight, and we returned to find her dancing around the house singing just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down reading stories while the kids ate apples. And the house wasn’t a mess. And the children didn’t want her to leave so we had to promise she would come back really soon. So I think that was a success.

First!: While Miss Angela had everything under control, The Daddy and I took his zippy little car to get to the restaurant. No sooner had we sat in it than we realised that in over a year of ownership, we had never been in his car together.  There is no room for three kids in the back, you see. For five glorious minutes we pretended we were young and childless, and then we got to the restaurant and I pulled a muscle in my leg getting out of the car and had to hobble into the restaurant and that was the end of that fantasy.

First!: The T-Bot, encouraged by an older boy, jumped off the diving board at the community pool.

First!: This week was relatively firstless, although you could count not losing any children at the brilliantly redesigned Childrens Museum as a “First!”. Until tonight, when the neighbor’s kid shot our house with a BB gun. Which was the “First!” time we had ever been shot at.

- The day is bright and sunny.

- The children have been watching PBS Kids for an hour and there have been no screams.

- Last night I finally broke the back of my current horror task : Inputting 5 months of business transactions into Quickbooks. (Yes! I am clever! I shift to new software in the middle of the financial year!) I only got 4 hours sleep but it was worth it.

- Yesterday the T-Bot said to me “I like spelling! I didn’t know spelling could be fun!”

(yeah, me neither, but I’ll take it! I’ll take it!)

- Miraculously, I am having a good hair day. In summer. Of course I haven’t been outside yet, but it’s a start.

- My cat is proving to be a good roacher. Is that TMI?

- The T-Bot could hardly swim three months ago and now he can do all the strokes. He can now also jump off the diving board. That one may be more relief than celebration.

- We are in the week between school groups and camp groups. At least I hope none of the schools are going on field trips in the last week of school. Because today I am taking my three children to the Childrens’ Museum, where I haven’t dared set foot since I lost the T-Bot there three times in an hour in 2007. I expect it to be quiet. I am celebrating in advance on this one. Positive thinking and all that.

- After weeks of failure I managed to post a comment to Jessica Bern’s blog. Her blog does not like my comments. Today it even said something mean about my data, but I tricked it. Ha! I was on the verge of emailing her last week to ask if she was blocking me except I was too scared because what if she emailed back “Yes! It’s because I don’t like you!” ? Now that I don’t have to read those words from her, I can celebrate.

What are you celebrating today?

I am a little worried that this post came off a little negative. Like I was gritting my teeth while homeschooling or something.

The truth is, while other commitments mean I really do not have the time to homeschool and keep my sanity, home schooling itself has turned out to be a pleasure.

I enjoy the T-Bot’s company and we have fun doing what we do. If I was a SAHM whose only other major pulls were Target and the laundry this would be a snap.

Now, for another one of my why-do-I-do-this-promoting-people-who-aren’t-paying-me-a-dime things:

I have mentioned that spelling is not a strong point. Although the T-Bot is slowly “getting it” he didn’t seem too convinced for a long time when I explained that half the time putting words together is just like his beloved Lego* . You join bits to build something that works.

We tried taping phonograms onto duplo blocks, which was OK except for the unbelievable amount of work it took cutting up those itty bitty bits of paper and sticking them on. Then The Wictor started crying because he wanted his Duplos back. So when someone recommended Reading Rods so I decided to give them a try.

Reading Rods are from the same company who make cuisinaire rods, which have always perplexed me. It was always difficult enough remembering addition and multiplication tables without also having to memorize what the pink rod or the blue rod was worth. But these are cool.

We ordered a Phonics Pack , which was about $20 including a folder with a tiny whiteboard and a cheapo whiteboard marker which I soon discovered to be a permanent marker but not before we had scribbled everywhere and couldn’t erase it. Also some cheap and nasty workbooks and a crayon. But that’s not why I bought them. I wanted them for the Reading Rods, which are awesome. There are single letters and phonograms (vowels and consonants are color coded as are groups of vowels) which should allow you to build just about any word you choose.

They snap together, like building toys. Even The Wictor has grasped that you can make words with them, and if his “words” are a little long and fanciful and quite frankly rubbish, we can build on that (geddit? geddit?). Baby Sister got as far as making her own name by herself, which is also a start.

We have incorporated Reading Rods into our daily spelling now, and while I can’t say they have made the whole ordeal easier, they have made it more fun. And it’s something we can do when the younger kids are home too.

Here’s a little exercise we did last week, when Baby Sister and the Wictor were home and wanted to have some fun too:

1. Everybody gets an ending and has to find additional blocks to make words.

2. Once we have made a word we write it on a piece of paper.

3. Then draw a picture to go with the word!

4. It was so much fun, the T-Bot wanted to do it again by himself the next day. This time I gave him the camera to take a photo of each word.

Then I printed out each photo and he drew a picture next to it on the paper.

Why yes, we are using the same words, because he didn’t remember how to spell them from the day before. *Sigh*.

Still - Reading Rods. Colorful. Cute. More fun than rote learning.

*(and it is at these times that I wish we spoke Spanish so that phonics rules would make sense all of the time. Who invented English anyway? Don’t answer that.)

This morning we are tracking Santa on Google Earth!

We celebrate the Hallmark Santa. He is a jolly, fat man living at the North Pole with his Magic Elves, who just loves to give out toys to children. He is not affiliated with any religion, which is why he is happy to come down our chimney 

Although I wish The Daddy had told me before last night that at our house Santa only brings the presents. For the last 2 weeks I have been telling my kids that Santa’s Magic Elves make the presents. They make them exactly the same as in the store. Because they are magic Elves.

I know, I know. Hopefully they will forget by next year and then we can get our stories straight.

(or: Obviously the Evil Mommy, Destroyer of Simple Pleasures like Playing With Fire, was Not Home)

(or: Please Don’t Call CPS, They were Sort of Supervised)

(or: It All Turned Out Fine In the End)

The Daddy: “I left them alone for about 20 seconds. And when I got back, there was a flaming marshmallow in the middle of the lounge.”

Oh, really?