Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Lunch of Champions

Today was THE day.

The long anticipated culinary experience of my third son was about to commence.

After being in school for 15 days, I finally let my kindergartener buy his lunch!  I'd like to profess that I did so because I'm an exceptional mother and wanted to fulfill his dream of bringing $2.35 to school to buy the institution food that had so caught his eye.  But alas, I confess I sent him with his lunch money in a ziploc bag because life got in the way of having a functioning brain and I made a run to my own person hell-on-earth (Wal Mart) and forgot to get more juice boxes.  And on top of losing in the home management game, I also couldn't bring my fingers to make one more peanut butter and jelly sandwich, AND I slept a little bit longer (7:30!!!) than I had anticipated.  Thankfully, the school cafeteria can provide for the dietary needs of my child when I just can't get it together.  

And day of all days!  The lunchroom gods were smiling down on him and it just so happened to be a stuffed crust pizza day in the cafeteria.

The news of that was almost more than his 5 year old heart could manage.

Following a quick warning about remembering to use his napkin to avoid getting greasy cheese stains on his nice school clothes and an empty threat about not being able to buy lunch ever again if he did not heed my warnings, he proclaimed, "This is going to be my best day EVER."

(Well, then.  Maybe I should rethink all those meticulously planned and expensive family vacations!)

After the cream of wheat and homemade bread were consumed and the floor was thoroughly littered with crumbs, teeth were brushed, hair was tamed and bags were waiting by the door......we settled down for our morning moment of calm.  (Ha!!)

Owen opened the Book of Mormon and we worked on our scripture for the week.  After each child did their best to memorize our scripture with minimal amounts of goofiness and mayhem, we were ready for our prayer before the boys rushed out the door for the bus.

Kai was more anxious than normal to be the one to say our family prayer.  After all, he had a big day ahead of him!  Not wanting to squelch the spiritual enthusiasm, I asked him to say the prayer and to be thoughtful about what he said.

This is the basic gist....

"Please bless that while I'm saying this prayer, the bus will not come.  And please bless that while we are at lunch today, grease will not get on our clothes."

Amen to that!!!

 

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Much Ado About a Tooth





*I wrote this in the spring of 2012.  What made me remember this long-ago written post was that Owen lost his third tooth last night.  He failed to seal the plastic bag and now the tooth is somewhere floating around in his sheets or under his bed.  


"Mama!  Maaaaamaaaaa!!!!!!"  Owen screeches as he bounds down the stairs.

Ever accustomed to this type of bellowing I calmly asked, "Who is bleeding, what broke, is the house on fire, is your sister safe?"

"No, no NOOOOOO," he responds (rather exasperatedly, I might add)!
"My tooth is loose!  See?  Can you see? It is wiggly!"

Well, the long awaited event has finally occurred.  'Tis the season of daffodils and tulips popping forth from the earth and a tooth to pop out of the mouth of my child.  And as my rather dramatic red-headed kindergartener becomes fixated on his one tiny little wiggly incisor, I become fixated on tooth-fairy preparedness.  

The Tooth Fairy has failed the eldest Spencer boy on more than one occasion and caused my sweet little innocents (insert a roll of the eyes here) to doubt the abilities of the greedy pixy who comes like a thief in the night to add to her hoarde of exctracted baby teeth.

When my wallet was empty of spare change (and I didn't have the heart to take from the piggy bank of the very child who was expecting greater wealth), Auntie has saved the day and given a dollar or two to the great relief of the ill-prepared Fairy.  Not wishing history to repeat itself, I stuffed away a dollar and a small bit of change in my bathroom cabinet for the day that Owen's little tooth decided to come out.

Weeks passed with many conversations like this,

"Mama, wiggle my tooth.  How wiggly is it?  A little bit wiggly or just medium wiggly?"


"Mama, is it a lot bit wiggly?"

"Mama, I think the Tooth Fairy is going to give me $100 dollars."  (After I nipped that little fairy tale in the bud....)  "Well, maybe $20.  A kid in my class got $20!"  (I'd like to have a word or two with that kid's tooth fairy.)

"Mama, Austin's tooth just fell right out of his mouth while we were singing in music class today.  It just fell RIGHT OUT!"  (And off he skipped to wiggle his as hard as he could in hopes that his might fall out during art.)

A few more weeks passed and his tooth was just getting to be plain stubborn, despite Owen's best efforts.

He was reaching a state of despair waiting for his tooth to come out while other lucky kids had their teeth seemingly dropping out of their heads with no provocation.  And unfortunately, the biggest insult came just when Owen's tooth was advancing to the much anticipated medium-wiggly stage.  His older brother, who already had 8 Tooth Fairy visits to his name, came home from school in a frenzy with a tiny little plastic tooth holder and said, 

"I lost my tooth today!  It just came out in my granola bar.  And see?  There is a piece of granola still stuck to it!"

After appropriate admiration for the disgusting granola adorned dentifrice and Owen's longing looks, off Drew went to play.  And, since nothing in the tooth department goes well around here, Drew lost his tooth sometime between getting home from school and bedtime.  We tore the place apart looking for that thing because I explained that the Tooth Fairy would accept no more notes or shark's teeth.  Only the real deal would do.

As luck would have it, the Tooth Fairy was prepared for the unexpected event (I had no idea Drew's tooth was even loose!).  When the house was finally still, off she crept to her bathroom cabinet to retrieve the reward that was set aside for Owen's tooth.

Poor Owen.

On the precise Spencer Scale of tooth wiggliness, I was sure Owen was going to be stuck at medium-wiggly for a long time.  But noooo...... we had to have another tooth incident!

On our last night of Spring Break, after a wonderful week in Alabama at Grandma and Grandpa's house, I heard a ruckus on the floor above me coming from the area of the house where the boys were SUPPOSED to be sleeping.  We were looking ahead to a long drive the next day and I was NOT in the mood for them to be playing all night.  I stormed up the stairs and demanded to know "what in the world they thought they were doing when they were supposed to be snoozing!"

To my amazement, I saw the boys staring back at me with a frantic look in their eyes and the room torn apart.  

"Mama!!!  Owen FINALLY lost his tooth and now we can't find it!"

Great.  Here we go again.  Another lost, lost tooth.  

Just when we were beginning to think the tooth had disintegrated and Owen wasn't going to get the long-awaited-for visit from Madame Tooth Fairy, Auntie came up and found the tooth.  

When not a creature was stirring and the magic exchange of tooth for money was about to take place, I made a terrible yet not entirely unexpected discovery.

I had no cash.

And, letting history be my guide, I went to my sister/tooth-fairy bank manager and asked to borrow some funds.

Another tooth fairy fail.